Nico Honma

Honma Kaito was born in Sapporo, Japan. Early in his childhood, his mother became terminally ill with lung cancer. After her death, Nico's father moved the family to San Diego, California. In the United States, Kaito legally took on the English name Nicholas when he was naturalized as a citizen after his father's remarriage.

Young Nicholas dived into American culture in an effort to fit in at school, becoming fond of classic American action movies such as Top Gun and Pacific Rim. This, in addition to his family home's proximity to Fort Coronado, inspired Nico to want to pursue a military career.

Upon graduation from high school, he enrolled in West Point Academy, which he attended for a few years before receiving an invitation to enroll in then newly established Milizia Academy. He excelled in his studies there and was promoted to a student officer before his graduation.

Milizia Academy was where he met future Mockingbird agent Zenith To.

After graduating from Milizia Academy, he enlisted with the US NAVY, and after completing the SEAL training in his hometown of Coronado, he was assigned to Seal Team 7.

His first deployment was to the Middle East. Though he had a taste of active combat during his time at Milizia, active military duty was a far cry from the idealised heroic adventures he had envisioned as a teenager. Nico was quickly disillusioned with the brutality of war and had a difficult time adjusting to life as a soldier.

Fortunately for Nico, his second long assignment placed him on the Korean border, where he was reunited with Zenith To. With his friend as support, he was able to return to his cavalier, cheerful self.

Some time during their service in Korea, the pair's friendship became a romantic affair. Due to them both being active servicemen, they kept their relationship mostly a secret. Despite this, their relationship became serious enough to the point where Nico had begun to plan to ask Zenith to become engaged to marry.

Near the end of his deployment at the Korean border, Nico suffered a sniper GSW injury. The bullet lodged into his spine, severely damaging his spinal column. During emergency transport back to base, he lost consciousness and never regained it. At this time, Nico had yet to make known his relationship with Zenith, and Machiko, his surviving next of kin, was given authority over what to do with his body.

Official records state that he was taken off life support and died of wounds at the Seoul Military Hospital. However, Machiko had him transported to a secret private facility where her husband's secret research commission Project:GHOST was based. Project: GHOST's mission was to create a series of synthetic super soldiers that Xiao Jin (Canary) could deploy as a secret paramilitary force. This project was highly classified, and kept secret even to Birdcage. Nico becamse Project: GHOST's first project, codenamed Revenant-1 (REV-1).

Over the next few years, the research team developed several prototypes for a cybernetic spinal replacement. The initial prototype was able to restore cognitive function but Nico's memories were deemed a liability by Jin, who forced Machiko to medically induce amnesia in REV-1. REV-1 was then instead conditioned to believe that he was not in fact human but an AI housed in the cybernetic spine.

Though the initial prototypes were successful in restoring cognitive and motor function, the team struggled to find a sustainable and mobile power source for the considerable cybernetics implanted in Nico. It wasn't until Mockingbird researcher Maria Guiffre published her documentation with Zenith To's cybernetic eye replacement that they were able to use her technology as inspiration to successfully develop a synthetic ferrofluid "blood" to act as a pseudo-biological power source.

P:G neurotechnician researcher Jasper Shi, who was in fact a double agent for Valerie, convinced Jin to implement failsafes in the event that they ever lost control of REV-1. With his new design, the ferrofluid must be replaced in a set time period, as opposed to being indefinite. Should REV-1's ferrofluid expire, this would trigger a total mechanical failure of the cybernetic, and destroy all accrued memory.

When Valerie was ready to challenge Jin, Jasper revealed to Machiko (who was acting under a pseudonym) that he knew both her identity as well as REV-1's, and that REV-1's former partner was now affliated with Birdcage. He used Jin's panic of discovery to suggest that Jin should deploy REV-1 to assassinate Zenith To.

Though REV-1 overpowered Zenith in their skirmish, he was ultimate unable to land the finishing blow on Zenith, and had to be hastily recalled. It seems reasonably certain that Jasper had either calculated that REV-1 would be unable to fulfill the mission, or else had planned some other sabotage. Due to his failure and the severe information breach, REV-1 was grounded. He began to question why he had been unable to execute Zenith despite having previously run other missions without issue. He became obsessed with knowing who Zenith was, and previous conditioning began to fail as he became increasingly convinced that he was perhaps human after all.

As REV-1 became increasingly difficult to control, Oriole used this time of turmoil to blitz Jin and take over his assets, including Project: GHOST. After Valerie was enrolled into the Birdcage roster, she reassigned Project: GHOST to the Birdcage, where REV-1 was reintroduced to Zenith officially.

Oriole rarely sends REV-1 out on missions. REV-1 spends most of his down time with Zenith, trying to remember who he is. He has since reclaimed the name Nico.