Backstory

Seiko Arakawa is from the extremely wealthy Arakawa family, who gained their extreme wealth through the ownership of multiple massive corporations. Seiko was never going to be the next head of the family, but she was definitely one of the older children when compared to the others. Primarily she lived on a large estate along with many extended family members, being homeschooled and rarely being allowed outside the property. She was never particularly bothered by this until her relationship with her family went downhill. Study would be intense, even if she wasn’t intended to be the next family head, it was important that she wouldn’t be considered “shameful” when compared to the rest of the family. Extreme levels of etiquette regarding just about all interactions with other people (as a number of them were very powerful and important individuals) were standard, and Seiko abided by this, with the politeness even becoming a habit later on.

She would read a lot of books as part of her study, and had preferences towards mystery type novels featuring phantom thieves. Naturally she kept this interest in phantom thieves a secret from the rest of her family, as it would’ve been regarded as inappropriate for someone in the Arakawa family.

This is where the origins of her stealth tactics began, as she would sneak the books into the house on the few occasions where she was outdoors, using the money she had to purchase them in secret. She was caught numerous times of course, but she adapted and changed her strategies. Over time, the rate at which she would be caught for doing this (as well as similar things like sneaking candy into her room) was reduced as her strategies improved.

Life progresses as normal, with study and the extreme etiquette continuing to go on. This was until more details of how the family works were explained when she got older. She was told by family members around the age of 13 that she was to marry someone powerful and eligible, not out of love but out of a need to expand the family’s reach. Anything else would be considered shameful.

With Gambit having idealistic views of love and relationships based on the fiction that she had read, this displeased her immensely, but she claimed that she would agree to it. In reality, this prompted her to get ready to run away from the family to achieve a greater degree of freedom. This event also intensified her strange interest in relationships more so than the fiction, she places such things on a pedestal nowadays.

At the age of 14, she discovered the dark side of the family through overhearing conversations, looking at secret documents that the family stores and being directly told by other members of the family. The Arakawa family was breaking several laws regarding treatment of workers within their companies and the like, crushing any resistance with the threat of their wealth and access to the best lawyers. Bribery was also a common offence on the part of the family.

At the age of 15, Seiko finally ran away, not knowing what exactly to do with herself for a while until she decided upon becoming a real life version of what she idolised in the books she read. A phantom thief. Although a more accurate description would be a vigilante phantom thief, since she began by stealing from petty criminals such as thieves, often returning the goods that she was capable of getting and taking enough extra to keep herself fed and safe.

After beginning the thievery, she decided upon leaving “calling cards” to her targets, as if taunting them. There was a particular incident where she was in a bit of a pinch, with a few members of a minor gang were chasing her down. She decided to go for a risky maneuver that if performed wrong she would get severely injured, but it would get her away from them.

She scaled a nearby building, climbing onto balconies and small ledges to ascend. This incident was how Seiko chose her phantom thief name, Gambit. She decided that it was fitting as she was likely to gain a reputation for doing risky and dangerous things to gain the necessary advantages to defeat her opponents.

She would continue like this, gradually going for bigger, riskier and more challenging targets while simultaneously building up new skills required to take on what could be called a real heist. One year after running away, she performed her first real heist on an individual renowned in the criminal underworld. Stealing an extremely high value gemstone, this was the beginning of her almost insane accumulation of wealth. Unfortunately, this also began her arrogance problem as none of her targets managed to catch her.

To find these criminals, she would launch her own investigations to find potential targets, making sure to find irrefutable evidence of their crimes before targeting them. She has a number of shady contacts that she has both gained over time and knew before she ran away from home.

These contacts were generally related to the criminal underworld in some way, and would point her towards mafia bosses or criminal CEOs to rob. Information brokers that are part of the criminal underworld are typically a good start (they generally don’t get robbed because they’re rarely violent, typically just selling information on criminals rather than being an extremely bad criminal themselves).

In cases where the criminals keep prisoners of some kind, Gambit would free them as well. This led to Seiko gaining experience with what trauma actually does to people. Seeing all of the negative effects, it increased her desire to deal out “true justice” towards the ones responsible.

She would try to check on the rescued prisoners every so often, none of them know her true identity though as when someone sees her as Gambit she will not show herself to them as Seiko. Some of them had killed themselves, others have moved onto productive lives, even more are battling the thoughts that come with the trauma, making attempts to manage it through psychologists and other treatments (a lot of which has worked fairly well). Seiko with her vast sums of money would fund help where it was needed, just to help with the sudden change that she caused.

In terms of how she uses her wealth, she has her own property hidden in a fairly obscure location. This is often where she will keep the items she steals in a collection of hers at the assumption that she didn’t sell it (typically she’ll keep items with meaning or some kind of special value, things like gold bars don’t fall under this).

When it comes to the high-class furnishing she uses, she makes a point to buy from individual artisans rather than big companies. Why? Well two main reasons, firstly she feels like it has more meaning that way, it’s one of a kind and secondly she can give the money to someone who is more deserving of it. She takes great care to make sure they won’t be caught for possession of stolen goods, and so far has succeeded in that.

She gained her almost urban legend-esque status through rumours and word of mouth. The only real clue pointing towards Seiko was the calling cards left behind at every scene, usually having something taunting her targets on them. Things along the lines of “You should improve your security and your morals, this was painfully easy - Gambit, Phantom Thief” were quite common. This was exacerbated by the fact that nobody could really confirm what “Gambit” looked like, there were glimpses and the like, but nobody who had seen her fully came forward.

Criminals gradually lost their challenge more and more as Seiko gained experience, as this happened, her desire for a rival became more and more intense. She wanted a counterpart that was just as skilled as she was in their respective field, preferably something along the lines of being a detective or police officer.

One night, she was resting after a successful heist on the rooftop of a building, little did she know something major was going to transpire. Shigeki Yoemon, a young detective, happened to come up to the rooftop as well. They talked, and eventually formed a rivalry as a result of the conversation, largely due to Seiko’s taunting and teasing. This compounded with Shigeki’s strong sense of justice, compelling him to apprehend her.

Their bond got stronger over time, eventually becoming something far more mutually respectful than it was in the beginning, and it would later become explicitly romantic. (although the feelings are there).
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Relationships

The Arakawa family [ Relatives ]

Seiko has had no contact with her family for an extended period of time, but the way they treated Seiko when their relationship was going downhill was the inciting incident that made her become a phantom thief. While it didn’t traumatise her, the situation pushed her to take action much sooner than initially anticipated.

The children in the family are largely the ones that stop Seiko from reporting large swathes of the family to the police for their criminal acts. She doesn’t want the children to be removed from their parents because while their morals are ambiguous, they are far from abusive. She has plans to deal with her family herself, but if that becomes impossible, reporting them to the police becomes her only option.