Chapter Text
Prologue : The Living Weapon and the History of Woodoak
He was 20 years old when he was quickly promoted to Second in Command. Since the age of 5, Shiva remembered how rough it was being raised in Woodoak City's Chinatown District. He was born in Hong Kong, but grew up across seas with his father's brother Wai Liang. At the age of 20, he worked hard nights as a Bodyguard in the Red Light District smashing the faces of scum into the worn brick walls outside who would dare grope the women working at the Le Femme Strip Club. Though the job paid well, Shiva despised his Boss Mr Framton and the Red Light District in general. Mr. Framton was a relic of the days of Chinatown being suppressed by the cruel late Old Man Arcana.
Much like most of the dinosaurs from that era, Framton hated the citizens of Chinatown and Shiva was no different. In accordance to his family roots dating back to the era Post Civil War, Framton's old friend Old Man Arcana was the grandson of a Confederate General who became the leader of Woodoak Town before it was known as Woodoak City.
Three years after the Emancipation of African slaves, General Arcana, with what was left of his Platoon, left the South and secretly established Woodoak Town as a base of operations to try to appeal to children of the Confederacy to rebuild and launch an attack on the Capital up North to finally give the Confederacy the victory over the Union.
Unfortunately, due to the effects of the Civil War, resources were scarce and the Confederate Dollar was nothing more than a glorified outhouse wipe. Fearing that Woodoak was finished, many of General Arcana's men and their families departed North to find jobs. Those who wished for the town to thrive would work odd jobs in other towns to bring in resources to the struggling settlement. It wouldn't be until 30 years later that what was left of Arcana's precious town finally received unexpected help that changed Woodoak forever.
Mr. Alpha, the Grandfather of Mr. X, had come to Woodoak to hide from the law after being persuade for Tax Fraud. He, his family, and his loyal men arrived to Woodoak promising to revive the town and take it to higher heights. Arcana, rejoicing over his prayers being answered, had no idea that the in following decades his family would lose control of Woodoak. This became the start of what would later be known as the rise of the Syndicate. Replacing many of Arcana's loyal men for Alpha's men, Woodoak Town would soon evolve out of what its original purpose was with the monuments of the South being destroyed and its Confederate roots being almost erased.
What was left of Woodoak Town later would transform into Woodoak Chinatown; grieving the Arcana clan in the process as Woodoak was suppose to be the start of the revival of the Confederacy. The last monument of General Arcana's legacy would be the mansion on the large hill in Chinatown known as Arcana Mansion, the symbol of pain to the citizens living in Chinatown. As much as the citizens hated the Estate, the mansion would later be bought, renovated with all the last remaining Confederate themes removed, and turned into the Woodoak Orphanage with its own school campus to aid children in growing up in a loving and caring environment unlike Arcana's Mansion. It wouldn't be revealed until years later that the Mansion was purchased by the Second in Command of the Central People's Army.
Now that Woodoak had been reduced to another city abiding to the laws of the North, Old Man Arcana, grandson of General Arcana, vowed to wipe out the descendants of Mr. Alpha and return Woodoak back into the hands of the Arcana Clan.
Though vengeance would not be enough to take Woodoak back from Mr. Alpha. For when Mr. Alpha passed away, a power struggle would follow. The city would later be divided into four sectors: Mr. X controlled 75% of the Western Districts including the Factory District containing his Ammunitions' Factory, Mr. Zeta who was Mr. Alpha's son controlled the Eastern Districts including the Red Light District, the Arcana Clan would control the Arcana District which was redrawn to include Chinatown, and the neutral grounds known as Central Woodoak, which would later become the secret base of the Woodoak City Central People's Army, or CPA for short, a resistance group formed to drive out the Syndicate.
This era would be known by those growing up in Woodoak at the time as the Romance of the Three Sectors. Mr. X, thanks to his charm and ability to gravitate many in similar interest to his side, would over take the Eastern District and take power from his Elderly father in the span of five years. The Arcana District would fall five years after Mr. Zeta's untimely end, due to the Arcana's folly in trying to get Extremist groups to join with him in controlling Woodoak using his daughter Bianca to woe these criminal groups into assisting him.
It wasn't until Bianca's sudden death occurred via poisoning that Mr. X would out Arcana and his family in trying to woe the Extremist with the false promise of marrying a daughter that would, by Arcana's control, remain single. At her funeral, Mr. X revealed to the men in attendance that Bianca was not the perfect woman as they thought, but the product of an affair Arcana carried out with a Chinese maid. Because the girl passed as white, no one would have suspected something was wrong. Mr. X, however, knew the truth by secret agents planting bugs in Arcana's mansion. It was through this that he discovered that Bianca would never marry and would later die via poisoning by her father's hands when she realized she would never be allowed to start a family.
The Arcana Clan, now excommunicated and forever pariahs, imploded with Old Man Arcana demanding his remaining children from his many affairs in the household to slaughter each other until only one remained. Whoever survived would be his sole heir to the mansion and the Arcana district. Though this would prove meaningless in the end of Arcana's lifetime, as the Arcana District and Chinatown were buried in loads of debt owed back to the banks.
This would be the last time the Arcana clan's influence on Chinatown would be present. The last survivors to the pathetic old man would be Catherine, his temperamental daughter and later the Ex-wife to Mr. X who would surrogate the Y Twins that were biologically Bianca's kids via in vitro fertilization, and a son with a Puerto Rican maid who Arcana ran out of the district while opening fire on them both before realizing he had no white male heirs and turning the gun on himself.
Though Old Man Arcana was gone and his family's dream extinguished, the effects of his cultured bigotry could still be felt years after his death. Shiva, after getting off his shift from the Club, was always reminded by Framton in a condescending manner to never date any of the women or look at them, lest his salary gets cut. In Framton's own words: We don't need another Bianca on our hands. So keep in your yard and we'll keep in ours. We good boy?
Tired of the treatment by the remnants of Arcana, Shiva later applied to work for Mr. X in being the eyes of the Ruby Arch Casino. After getting the job, Shiva quit his current job by writing at letter to Framton that he would not return to the Club.
In an unrelated note, a night later, Framton would go missing for three days and wouldn't be found until a bike group training for the Triathlon would find his body washed up on the Bloomcaster Point Beach. His murder to this day remains unsolved.
Though the pay was the same as before, Shiva saw a chance to become the Grandmaster of Chinatown as it was up for grabs. The previous Grandmaster, a white Martial Arts Champion known as Godhand, would retire soon to seek Cancer Treatment. Only in truth, this was a front to hide the fact that he was heading to Hollywood to become a Stunt Coordinator booked under the new name Cishu. His reason for the change would stem from dealing with Old Man Arcana not paying his coworkers the same amount as him and later being Blackballed from ever attending anymore City Council Meetings.
With his trust in the Syndicate snuffed out and the end of the era at hand, Godhand wrote his farewell letter to Mr. X and asked him to give Chinatown back to the citizens living there. That would be his last communication to the Syndicate. He was never seen nor heard from ever again.
After being hired, Shiva was tasked in catching a stealthy thief who was using the Counting Cards Method in Mr. X's Casino's to abscond with $2.5 Million worth in cash. Since the beginning of the year, many of X's men had struggled to catch this thief. However, Shiva was quick to notice the thief's method of madness: The thief always had an inside man helping the group the thief was with escape. By removing the spies involved, scheming and offing VIP members by framing them for being spies for the CPA, and getting information connected to the Resistance from them, Shiva brought the information to Mr. X as well as the identifying the thief's egress route. The men were to be on the look out for a woman with Dark Colored skin with Indigo Blue eyes working with four other accomplices with ties to the CPA.
Seeing Shiva's dedication in figuring out the thief's schemes and the connection with the CPA, as well as VIP members being offed for treachery, Mr. X promoted the 20 year old to be his second in command. Before taking the position, Shiva requested for control over Chinatown as well as monitoring the citizens who bought Real Estate from Mr. X. As of recently, an unknown Real Estate agent had come to Woodoak to buy up property and setting up the buildings to hide members of People's Army. Without hesitation, though frustrated that a rival Real Estate Agent is helping the CPA, Mr. X gave Shiva full control of Chinatown as well as investigating the bank account and true identity of the Phantom Agent known only as Mariana Trenches.
The next two years would be a game of cat and mouse with a total of $100 Million being stolen from Mr. X's 10 casinos. Shiva would come close to catching the elusive woman with Indigo blue eyes, but would always loose her due to spies planted from the Army to help the thief escape each time.
His spare time spent training his men and winning Martial Art Tournaments for the Pride of Woodoak would grant him the title The Living Weapon. Though despite the respect he got from Mr. X, the Syndicate, and the citizens of Chinatown, Shiva's obsession would grow to where his men worried if he had become smitten with this mysterious Cat burglar. Though it didn't matter if the one caught spreading rumors or gossiping was a man or woman. Anyone who was caught discussing about Shiva wanting to elope with said thief were swiftly rewarded with a circle kick to the face and having to clean up their own blood after they regained consciousness.
After many investigations in catching the thief with his men secretly being the eyes of the Syndicate, he caught a break. By planting spies from the Syndicate in the People's Army, Shiva managed to memorize her routine and find out her true identity as well as her ties with two of the Most Valuable members in the Army: A famed wrestler in Woodoak named Max Thunder and the head of the CPA who Mr. X called "The Carpet Bagger from Florida" running for Woodoak City Mayor named Milan Cortes.
Despite this new information, what was important to Shiva was that the thief wasn't an average Cat burglar committing random robberies for riches nor the Pride of the People's Army. It was a reserved but compassionate Storyteller named Asteria Mary Re, an outsider who recently came to Woodoak four years prior who helped aid the CPA in slowly taking back Woodoak from the Syndicate.
Upon visiting The Central Woodoak City Library, he saw her reciting a story in the children's section of the Library reading a book she had recently published called The Search for Puni-Puni.
As Shiva watched from afar for three weeks, he waits for his opportunity to catch the great elusive Asteria Re and take her back with him to his beautifully cultured abode in the upscale neighborhood in Chinatown. Unknown to him though, she would recite the greatest story to him from a friend she met during her travels... Nozomi.
MissAkaiTsuki presents...
THE LIVING WEAPON AND THE STORYTELLER
Ihoujin (Foreigner) by Acid Black Cherry
kodomotachi ga sora ni mukai morote wo hiroge
tori ya kumo ya yume made mo tsuka mou to shiteiru
Sono sugata wa kinou made no nani mo shiranai watashi
Anata ni kono yubi ga todoku to shinjiteita
Sora to daichi ga furiau kanata
kako kara tabibito wo yonderu michi
anata ni totte watashi tada no toorisugari
chotto furimuite mita dake no ihoujin
(The children look toward the sky, spreading both hands wide
As if to reach for the birds, the clouds, and even dreams themselves
That image was myself, who before yesterday knew nothing at all
I believed that those fingers would reach you
On the other side of earth and sky
The way to call to a traveler from the past
When it comes to you, I'm just a passerby
A foreigner who just tried to look back, just a little)
ichiba e yuku hito no nami ni karada wo azuke
ishidatami no machikado wo yurayura to samayou
Inori no koe hizume no oto utau you na zawameki
watashi wo okizari ni sugite yuku shiroi asa
(In the waves of people off to market, I leave my body behind
Wandering in the slow swaying of the paved street corners
Voices of prayer, a distorted sound, a clamor like someone's singing
The innocent mornings I spend in my being left behind)
Jikan no ryokou ga kokoro no kizu wo
nazekashira uzumete yuku fushigi na michi
[SAYONARA] dake no tegami mayoi tsuzukete kaki
ato wa kanashimi wo moteamasu ihoujin
ato wa kanashimi wo moteamasu ihoujin
(The journey through time is a mysterious road
That somehow buries the wounds of the heart
A letter with just the word "Goodbye" that I hesitantly keep writing
After which, I'm just a foreigner, too overwrought with grief
After which, I'm just a foreigner, too overwrought with grief)
PRESENTED BY SEGA