Backstory

Mika Toimi Waltari was born on the 19th of September in the Capital of Finland, Helsinki. His history when he was little is not really known to be honest. As he was taken into an orphanage in a village that’s near Oulu for as long as he could remember. His life in the orphanage, or training camp rather, was a bit dreadful to be honest. It was more akin to a place where Gifted’s are trained to fight as kids, as he learned how to fight. And it isn’t uncommon for the people running the place to have the kids fight, eachother. He occasionally got food, which came in the form of a bland porridge, but on days, he didn’t get to eat at all. The dilapidated walls of the place, and the winter that often surrounded him and the people there were the only things that were consistent. With even the lighting of the place only coming with a candle light that was placed in the corners of the room. It was always like that, day in and day out. He woke up, trained, sometimes got food, trained more with his ability, and slept. It was dreadful, and he grew to hate it, even though his ability, which he had discovered at an earlier time compared to the other kids, was a desirable one for combat. Making him a very effective fighter even when he was in the orphanage. Though, as Mika’s still a kid, he coped with the whole situation by making friends with the other orphaned kids over bedtime and befriending them when they had free time. And, with the help of his friends, it was manageable at best for the young Mika. His first 9 years were spent in the orphanage outside of Oulu, before he woke up on a truck one day…

He didn't really know where he was when he woke up in that truck with some of the other kids in the orphanage under a blue tarp. But an adult told him to stay calm. So, he did. Mika was an obedient kid in the orphanage, even if he resented the place. So, he didn’t see any reason to not be obedient when he was told by that person, as staying put was the best thing Mika could do in that situation. So, he did, and watched from the back of the opening of the truck as the vehicle weaved through the backroads. Various nights passed by of them in the truck, and Mika didn’t even remember the last time he ate. But, before he even processed what happened, he was shoved out of a truck, and given a rifle before being shooed off to the front lines. The buildings were all crumbled, there was a remnant of what used to be a city in where he stood. Though, the place was now reduced to crumbles as a slow, but steady firefight encroached on them. The only thing that Mika was taught before he was dropped into the battlefield, was how to pull the trigger, and how to reload the gun. Besides that, he was not told anything. Just, to get to the front lines and shoot whatever foreign looking army person he saw. And, even that isn’t clear for him, as the person spoke in Bosnian. He wasn’t even given a decent gun. It was a Mosin-Nagant, a surplus Russian Military rifle from the 1800’s. The gun was almost the size of Mika himself, which made it very, very difficult for him to lug. But, thrown into a fight or flight situation in a country he doesn’t know, and with people he has no clue who they are.

In the early days of his fighting, he often fought between the rubble of buildings. Using his ability to the best of his ability and dispatching any person which looked foreign to him. Though he also used his gun, finding rounds that would fit the gun was hard too, as Mika didn’t know a whole lot about guns. But, in a situation like that, he’s forced to know what would fit and what wouldn’t. And, he scraped by with whatever ammunition he could find, and if he couldn’t find any, he fought them fist and elbow with his ability. At first, he didn’t get any kills. But once he managed to bring down his first person, it slowly grew into five. Then ten, and that number became as high as sixty three in the three year span he fought in the war. Which was quite high for someone that was the age of 13 when he got his final kill, which he kept track to report back to the group he was with for rewards. He slowly learned Bosnian through just being near the fighters and trying to understand them, and he became someone that’s quite respected in the group that he was in, getting the kills he did within the age he was.

Though, it was not through his fair share of pain and sorrow. As most of the male children in the orphanage were also brought to fight with him in the front lines, he sometimes saw his friends that lay dead in the rubble, and he knew more than he didn't know what their fates were. Even if he managed to rack up a respectable kill count for just being a kid, sometimes he wished death upon himself, as nothing would be worse than to be thrown into a battlefield like this. Though, Mika didn’t have to wait for long to achieve his release. His release didn’t come in the form of death. Rather, it came in the form of a surrender. As after his group had split after a raid, he was left a lone wolf. Left without a person to fight for, he often leaves his gun strapped to his back. Trudging the tattered outskirts and countryside of the place, with no intent to harm anyone. But, his toils that were removed from the battlefield didn’t continue for long, as his surrender came soon after as he was caught by a different NATO troop. Though this time, a photojournalist happened to be nearby.

With the film camera he had in his hand, The face of despair that the then 13 year old had in his ghostly eyes when he surrendered with the rifle strapped to his back was forever frozen in time in that roll of film. It made for a picture that captured the full extent of the child soldiers that were caught in the crossfire, just like he was. And though the picture was then praised and was given awards for the conveyance of emotions that was captured in it. It was a picture that haunted him for the rest of his life afterwards. A reminder which came to follow him when he grew older as he came to learn of what he had done fully, and what had happened there. Though feeling a deep guilt after seeing him in such a state, the photojournalist took him into his house. At first, Mika didn’t know what to do. He doesn’t even speak English, only being able to talk Bosnian and Finnish. He was also very shy and shut out any other person that tried to approach him. He didn’t know who to talk to, or who to even trust. And as a result, he mostly remained shut in his house alongside the rifle he had brought from the battlefield. As, the sounds of the bullets buzzing above him and hitting the chipped walls that he sought shelter in were still very audible to him. But, after some bit of persuasion from the journalist, he finally opened up to them. His name was Ron Haviv, and, even though there were other things happening in the world, the journalist stayed with Mika when he had started to open up.

He slowly but surely took his time to catch up in the two years he was homeschooled. Besides homeschooling, Haviv also taught him life skills such as cooking, riding a bike, buying groceries and such. Which may seem a bit minuscule in the scope of things, but it helped Waltari a lot in trying to assimilate in his nearby community. And, after Mika finally finished his homeschooling and caught up to his age group. It was then that Waltari finally went to his nearby public High school. Admittedly, his first day in school was rough. But, the journalist helped him there, too. As he always talked to him about school when they got home. Which helped Mika in coping with the struggles of his high school years.

He was still shy to other people. But, he could work with people when he needed to. Which was good, as it wasn’t three years before that Waltari was shooting his rifle at anyone that moved. As a result of this, the journalist felt it was a fitting time for him to leave Mika to his own accord. Which, in between the first time he arrived in the US and when he left, he had grown to call his own dad. He can cook, shop, and do the things he taught him previously. And so, as it was his duty to be a journalist and capture photos, he parted ways with Mika, for what he’d hoped to be a short time. Although Waltari understood why he left, he still struggled to cope with it initially. But, it was eased slightly as he kept frequent contact with the journalist with the phone he was left with. He kept a bit of discipline and a routine as he lived by himself. He also remained a bit of a loner in school, though. As he struggled to find friends to talk to day by day It was then that Mika started to attend after school activities. In which, he chose archery.

It was his senior-ish year for Mika. Everything felt complete in a way. He could live on his own, have some friends to talk to and have a hobby he could enjoy as archery turned out to be something he liked. His past started to fall behind him, until something happened in his life. It was a few weeks after his graduation. His caretaker had failed to return the calls he had made to him. He was ecstatic to tell him about how he graduated high school with flying colours. But, his excitement was ground to a halt as he learned of what happened to him. An army official came to his home. He thought he was about to get a letter handwritten from the journalist. But, it was the opposite, as he came to inform that the journalist, was killed in action. As was apparent with the army general carrying a dog tag that had "Ron Haviv" inscripted on it. This, of course, hit Waltari hard. This came out of nowhere, and happened in one of his happiest moments in his previously bleak life. Out of all the people God could take, and out of all the times he could go. Why him, and why now?

He attended his funeral with a heavy heart. And he remained silent like the first time he set foot on his new home as his caretaker’s casket was lowered and given full honors. Waltari was given a chance to talk about him, too. Waltari reminisced about how Haviv was, the best person that he could have ended up with. Even if he wasn’t there a lot of the times he needed him in his latter years. He helped him with whatever he needed help with as much as he could from afar. Frequently calling Mika, asking if he's okay and sparing whatever time he had for him. And, after the funeral processions were over, he locked himself in his house for a couple of days, trying to cope with what had happened as the full gravity of his past tumbled down.

He didn’t know how much he cried, how much his life had ground to a halt as he mourned his passing in silence. It was all a blur as his tears blinded him in a few days of endless despair. It was really hard for him, if that wasn’t clear enough. So much so that he contemplated other things to catch up with the person who had left him. But, the few friends he gained from his after-school activities started to worry about him after a few weeks of unreturned calls. And, after a few knocks on his door and a forced entry, they found Mika, who was broken and torn into pieces after his caretaker’s death. And, it was then too where they found out about bits of his complicated past, as he found the rifle that Mika had hugged to cope with his passing. Although it did look like he was trying to take his own life. He was just so torn that he latched onto the weapon that he carried in his past days as a child soldier, inadvertently opening a past he had tried so much to hide in his old High school days. But, as much as they wanted to talk to Mika about it, he wouldn’t answer. And, fearing any other thing that could happen with him if the gun was loaded. They called further help for Mika to secure him.

What happened afterwards was a blur. But, his old Mosin was seized by the police after he was found with it. And he was taken into custody by the police, though he was soon redirected to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with post traumatic stress disorder. Though the police confirmed that the gun was not loaded and was disabled properly, they made the decision to not hand the gun back to Waltari before he’s in more of a sound state. And, for now, he was assigned a therapist to help him return to a less volatile psyche. It took him weeks to open up, once more. His mind was basically reset to his old do or die state that he was in when he first arrived here. But, after he talked and was calmed by the therapist. He started to make amends with his past instead of putting it behind him. He started to accept, and not forget about the old years that he was in. And generally return to his old state, but more collected and accepting of his past rather than putting it behind him after the year he spent on rehabilitation.

It was still a few years before Waltari got his gun back. But, he started to finally enroll in community college nearby where he lived. He pursued his education there, before he managed to score a scholarship into a University in the place he resided in. Where he majored, and graduated in Photojournalism, which he took partly because of his caretaker. With him also furthering his hobby of archery in his university, he became a bit known for it as he participated in a few events. After his graduation, he then finally got a gun licence and was handed back his old rifle, the final piece of his bitter past that he kept to fully make amends with it, and to help ease the wound of the past that he was in. Though, after he graduated in photojournalism, he immediately set a path to honoring his father’s legacy. As, he immediately dropped into the field, getting into the same battlefields which his caretaker used to step on all those years ago at the ripe age of 24. There, Mika did his best to capture the good, bad, and ugly of the war there. Though, he also did his part in helping the people around him. Whether it was carrying a bag of candy for the kids displaced in the war, or even standing up for himself and the people around him through his ability with the fighting skills he accrued all those years ago in his bleak years. He did whatever his body could in those 10 years.

Though it was rough, sleeping in the barracks with little to no communication to the outside world was something he wasn’t used to in a long time. Sometimes, the brief moments of humanity he saw and his undying pursuit to help the people that were in his position in the battlefield was worth all the pain and anguish he saw there. It was a hard 10 years. He had seen things as bad, or even worse than his early years. But, while he was there, he helped as many, if not more people than his father did in little, and major ways. And, once 10 years was up, and he finished becoming a photojournalist. He decided that he wanted to live a sleepier life in the city of Yokohama in Japan after those years in war. But, his main goal is still firm, even after a year out of the heat of battle. He wants to live his life to his fullest, and help other people realize that dream too while he pursues it.