Bushido Brown, the Afro Samurai

Birth name unknown, the as of yet unnamed child washed up as debris from a trading vessel on a small, uncharted island. Given the name "Kuro" meaning "Black" by his adoptive family, he ironically spent his youth growing up as a literal black sheep, on an island of light-skinned natives.

He was an angry child, who felt as isolated as the island itself. Kuro was often bullied, teased, got his ass kicked, the full nine yards. And it really shaped him as an individual, forming a tough, hell you could even say stone-like exterior. He never let any of those emotions out, just bottling it all up, taking his whips in stride. Up to the point that one day, he just snapped.

It was more of the usual that day, just getting the groceries for his mama. All it took was one foot stuck out to trip him, and a round of laughter, before the ass-whooping circus had come to town. Kuro beat the hell out of that child, left hook, right hook, bam, bam, bam, over and over. He wasn't trained or nothing, just vicious. And he probably would have won that fight too, if the rest of the kids didn't show up to return the favor.

And so he laid there, not exactly broken, but busted up and pissed off. It felt good to let it all out after all this time, but not so much the bleeding lip and cracked rib. Right about then he noticed something, he was being watched. Right across the street, the old man running "Bushido Noodles" was watching him the entire time.

I suppose that's right about the time his life really started. He got a free bowl of noodles to help ignore the pain, and they began talking. And it led into a really important question "If you had been strong fend off all those kids, what would you have done to them?" To Kuro the answer to that was obvious, he would have busted each of their lips and gave 'em a nasty kick in the ribs.

That wasn't the answer the old man was looking for, and he shook his head in distant disapproval. But Kuro and the old man, they met again the next night. And it was then gramps handed Kuro a stick of bamboo. "I'm going to teach you about justice." Is what he told the boy, as he taught him how to sword fight.

Every night he went behind the noodle shop, and most nights they would train. Kuro not only grew in skill, but grew into a young man as his lessons continued. Not once did he pry into gramps business or history, because sometimes you didn't need to. Sometimes it's written in how they look, a missing eye, the calloused hands, the way they move.

The lessons continued until his boyhood years were gone. He was seventeen by the time they arrived, and the old man sat him down for one last lesson. "Justice is in the hands of who rules. Sometimes it isn't fair, I know that, god, I know that, but we are no more than animals without it." That was the last time they spoke, before war overcame the island as it fell to the Marines.

A couple years passed, and his home had changed. The law had left the hands of the Shogunate and his Samurai, and now was in the firm grip of the Naval Superpower that is the Marines. But among them, Kuro noticed men like him, dark-skinned and friendly with their comrades. Perhaps this was a place he could belong, he thought to himself.

And that's how it happened. The name "Kuro" had been lost to time, as he took up the last name "Brown." I mean how silly would "Black Brown" sound? Nah, he had a whole new one now, Bushido Brown, the Afro Samurai.