Summary

Tetsuo had a ordinary early life and upbringing. Born and raised in Chiba, he was a steady, self-assured young man with average grades, noted for his ability to stay calm under pressure. He cared less for school than his younger sister, marginally more for the martial arts classes he'd been going to from early childhood, and far more for his blossoming magical potential. He had a notably more devout relationship with his faith than the rest of his family–all Shingon Buddhist–stemming from his status as a Shaman chosen by the mentor spirit Wolf. His family weren't well off, but his sister showed enough potential with technology to have multiple corporate talent scouts eyeing her. Tetsuo was content to coast. Whatever was meant for him, life would bring. He saw the future as one of unpredictable, and limitless potential. Japan was still shaking off the venomous rust of its recently imperial past, and Metahumanity was beginning to blossom. Tetsuo, unlike his more conservative family, was excited to see what this brought.

This changed on the way back home from a graduation party. Yui, the most sober of the three, was driving. Their best friend, Toshirō, was riding shotgun, and Tetsuo was content to listen to the two jeer at one another back and forth. He was half between dozing and wakefullness when the car veered suddenly, violently, he found himself flung violently in his seat, and then...

Tetsuo's memories of the crash remain spotty. Snapshot. He remembered Toshirō laughing--Yui's insistance that it's perfectly normal to not care about jewelry, or want any from a boy--then screeching tires.
Screams.
Pain.

Mercifully, he was in and out of consciousness from the pain of the accident. His memories blank, black... until he found himself in a hospital room, and his medical bills paid. Unlike the siblings, Toshirō's family had money. He had already been accepted in to a prestigious school run by Renraku before graduation, and the Yamabe family had been born in to Renraku citizenship for two generations.

"I can pay for it. My family can vouch for him."
"Do whatever it takes to save him."
"Please. It's my fault."

Toshirō spoke more than Yui. Tetsuo was all but comatose when the surgeries began. Eyes. Limbs. Organs. Renraku repaired the damage, but in exchange, despite the Yamabe family's pull, and Toshirō's pleading, Tetsuo became corporate property. That much money and hardware is not invested lightly, and certainly not in to someone the corporation cannot use.

He was a changed man before the wounds healed. Before the vat baths. Before the limbs were upgraded to more dangerous, weapons grade technology. Before the training began. Mages losing their magic from severe trauma is not uncommon. Whispers of the dangers of essence loss and avoiding cybernetic enhancement are not entirely unfounded. One night was all it took to strip Tetsuo of the one thing he had always excelled at, and the one gift he had seen any future in. His magic was gone before the first scalpel cut in to him.

He resolved himself to remain strong for Yui. She clung closely to him, haunted by survivor's guilt from the crash and blaming herself. She successfully pleaded her case all the way in to the same Renraku funded university as Toshirō, and then in to the same training program Tetsuo found himself in. Emotionally, he was dead. "Low essence," he was told. Flat affect. A risk for cyberpsychosis, he'd read in his case file when the physician thought he wasn't looking.

He excelled in the training Renraku provided. They saw potential in their new weapon. His martial arts upbringing was a fantastic foundation for training a corporate soldier. He ascended quickly through the ranks, Toshirō and Yui still by his side. The life of a red samurai brought with it both new privilage, and far, far more restrictions than he had ever had before. Yui and Tetsuo were making more money than they had ever dreamed of, but life as a corporate soldier, especially as a corporate elite meant constant overwatch. Rules. Regulations.

It was Toshirō that first floated the idea of raiding an aztechnology storage facility he knew of once they were relocated to the Kansai region for a few months on assignment. He knew little about magic--certainly Yui didn't know much, either--but he had heard whispers of strange blood magic that could create crystals capable of restoring lost magic. While intensely protective of Tetsuo, he missed the affable young man he had grown up with, and saw this as a possible way to repay his debt. If they could get one of these strange crystals, if they could use it on Tetsuo, would it return his magic? If his magic returned, would the old Tetsuo?

Tetsuo was quick to agree to their plan at the barest whisper of having his magic back. It felt like a distant memory, now--it was hard to look back at memories of his adolescence and identify with the young man in them--but now, there was a faint glimmer of hope.

The storage facility wasn't particularly well guarded, and three Red Samurai with covert training were more than capable of slipping in, and out unnoticed. None of them knew how to use the crystal, but their success was a cause for celebration. Toshirō knew a nice, quiet bar at the outskirts of Osaka's sprawl, and better yet, had intellignce that the monks at Katsuō-ji might be able to advise them on how to use the crystal in the morning.

Yui was two drinks in, and drunkenly boasting about how stupid the Kawaruhito guards were, how easy it was to slip past such dim-sighted Orks, when Tetsuo became aware of.. heavy footsteps headed their direction. He had tried to quiet Yui down; certainly he had never agreed with her views on Metahumanity, was continuously shocked when she slipped in to their parents--their father's, really--backwards views and blanket statements. He turned to find himself staring at the largest oni he had ever seen. The man was angry, drunk, belligerent, and quick to swing one massive fist toward Yui's shocked face.

Tetsuo tried to calm him down. Moved to block, to intercept--he quicky felt the blunt pain of a large fist meant for Yui colliding with his jaw and knocking him sideways, out of his chair. Drinks were knocked asunder, bottles clattered to the ground, and the behemoth made his escape through the plated glass of the front of the bar still screaming about Yomi before Toshirō could even draw his pistol.

It was only in the aftermath of spitting out blood and teeth that Tetsuo realized the blood crystal was gone...and so was Yui's sword.

The ride back to their temporary Kansai headquarters was somber for Tetsuo; Yui's face was a tight, barely contained mask of rage. She ignored Tetsuo's insistance that perhaps this was simply fate, karma rebalancing--ignored that this was the most he had sounded like his old self in years--and she planned. She would not forgive this slight to her honor. A red blade was forged for its samurai only once. She would never be given another blade. This utterly transformed her; Tetsuo watched his sister obsessively research the blue oni for months. When she found whispers of a similar man in Seattle, Toshirō was quick to pull strings to have them transferred. There weren't many Reds in Seattle after what had become of the old arcology, but there was still enough presence to find a team desperate to leave the disgraced position. They left swiftly.

Far from Renraku's primary headquarters, and watchful eye, Tetsuo found himself going through the barest motions of his job. He half-heartedly helped Yui search for the blue oni that had taken her sword, until mounting stress and an accident with his hardware lead to a psychotic break that left him hospitalized.

Yui had never been good with hospitals, and had been worse since the crash. Tetsuo found himself alone, surrounded by unfamiliar faces all speaking a language he could not understand with his nonessential cyberware disabled or disconnected.
Until he appeared.

The Japanese elf's normal appearance melted away once the watchful eye of the attending nurse wasn't upon them, but Tetsuo had already known who the man was. He closed his eyes, and braced for the oni's hand to end it all...

Instead..
"You did not deserve this."
"I cannot fix everything. But I have...come to repay what was stolen."

He held up a small red crystal, and quietly slipped it in to Tetsuo's belongings. Though the large man vowed this would be the last Tetsuo saw of him, he returned the next day.
And then again.
And again.