The Awakening of the World and Japan in Shadowrun. Part 1.
Before the Awakening in the world, the only sapient beings on the earth were simply human beings. Earth belonged to Mankind and they had nothing to compete with or anything to truly share the world with. The awakening, or as some call it “The year of Chaos” took place in 2011 on modern day earth, the exact date the Mayan calendar ended. In a mundane Earth where there was only technology birthed a reality shattering change in mankind’s way of life. The Awakening signified the return of magic and creatures from cultural mythology. In an instant, almost as if a solar flare had rendered the entire world blind, it took only a second for the dust to clear. There were less people and more, what people would call monsters.
Many people had transformed, others had simply blinked into existence, but creatures of folklore started to return. Pixies, Sasquatches, Centaurs, Satyrs, Trolls, Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Nagas, Shapeshifters. Many different types of people and magical creatures bled into reality as a melting pot leading straight to earth. There were many different subspecies birthed into the world as well. The most Applicable one in this woman’s story is the return of the Oni in Japan. Oni were considered a subspecies of Orcs native to the Japanese Archipelago as well as many other countries along the Asian mainland that were historically occupied by Japanese Empires.
Early after the Awakening, Oni were viewed as deceptive, sneaky, hostile and evil creatures. This led the Oni people to be ostracized and targeted for hostilities by mankind and some of the more acceptable species of metahumans. The Oni were forcefully exiled onto Yomi Island. During the exile, the Oni resurrected the code of Bushido and began to band together as modern samurai to serve under the Korobokuru lords of the island. After decades of prejudice and hostilities. The public view of Oni began to turn around after the Emperor Yasuhito, promoted several of the Oni samurai to serve in the Imperial Household Guard. Though the Oni began to rise in status, many of them stayed on Yomi Island, changing the old concentration camps into homes and neighborhoods that they could be proud to raise families in.
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The Cancer of Shiawase Biotechology. Part 2
Though despite this, things were still not always good for the Oni people Though the Emperor of Japan accepted many of them there were others in Japan that saw more malicious opportunities with the opening of Yomi Island once more. The largest threat who saw this was none other than Shiawase Biotechnology, the eight largest and most powerful corporations in the world. In the world of shadowrun, the countries may have their “governments” but the corporations own and rule the world. This left Shiawase, nearly unfettered access to an island of people that they would send extraction teams to acquire for experimentations.
This was the beginning of the Prototype Transhuman experiments conducted by Shiawase and where Homura Tanaka’s story begins. Initially, Shiawase would kidnap fully grown men and women as subjects for their experimental bioware technology. Their goal was to find a way to further enhance the body beyond its natural limits, without causing the decay of the overall body as a whole. Cyberware was powerful, but with too much it would cause people to decay mentally and eventually turn into cyberzombies. Bioware was significantly better, but would still decay the essence of the body. They wanted a way to install powerful bioware technology rapidly in order to create a corporate detachment of super soldiers, infiltrators and assassins for use against their competitors.
The initial experiments failed terribly, oftentimes leading to full body rejection over the severity and intensity of the bioware they were trying to install within fully developed adults. Most of the time, the fully developed bodies reject the implant and lead to the death of the subject. They learned that if they wanted to succeed, they would need to find subjects that were more capable of adapting to the bioware. They started to use young teenagers and children. Those who were still developing and would likely find easier times to introduce foreign implants without total body rejection. The new subjects were not rejecting the implants but they were still suffering from significant loss and degradation of essence as they grew older. They would work, but only for a time. This wasn’t good enough, they wanted subjects that they could invest in for a lifetime instead of a matter of just a few years.
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The Breakthrough of Project Prototype Transhuman. Part 3.
A doctor by the name of Etsu Powicke, who later became the head manager for the Biotechnical Division after their breakthrough in the experiment had elected to try and use subjects who haven’t been born yet. They couldn't use clones or lab grown subjects due to restrictions of technology and research leading to poor results of these subjects. They needed real, living subjects and began to kidnap pregnant mothers. Experimenting on their unborn children while they are still in the womb. After lab tests of the subjects, they began to test the best possible implants for their development and installed the appropriate bioware organs to grow and develop in their bodies while their mothers birthed them.
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The Birth and Childhood of Homura. Part 4.
The decision to take pregnant mothers and implant their unborn children was where Homura Tanaka was born. She was one of these experiments, forever lost and forgotten in an underground Shiawase research facility underneath Yomi island. She was born with hundreds of other Oni children who were part of these same experiments. Not all of them survived due to natural birth complications and unnatural complications from implants. Ultimately, Homura ended up growing up with only a few dozen other children who ended up surviving the experiments. These children never met their parents as Shiawase did not leave loose ends and killed the mothers and kept the children.
Homura grew up within the lab for most of her entire life. Their bioware implants were starting to develop as well with their bodies as they grew. Their potential began to manifest in accordance with their implants. Some became incredibly intelligent, others becoming unnaturally charismatic and others becoming powerful conduits of magic. Homura discovered her body growing exponentially in strength and speed. During her experiments, Shiawase had discovered that she had an astounding compatibility with bioware and her body was able to sustain far more potent implants than others. There was only one other child who shared a similar compatibility as Homura. It was a boy named Tanaka Tadashi.
His bioware granted him incredible willpower and charisma. This drastically increased his potency as a tool when he awoke as a mage in his early teen years. It was almost as if he was made just for the experiment and to become one of the most powerful mages in Japan. Homura experienced something altogether different. She also faced an awakening experience. The mages and Tanaka were able to detect magic within Homura but she was not able to cast spells or summon spirits as Tanaka could. It took years for them to find out why she didn’t awaken as a mage. She awoke as an adept. Whereas Tanaka’s magic radiated out of his body to manipulate the world around him through spells, Homura’s honed inward to manipulate her own body. She couldn’t cast spells because her own magic was constantly improving her own body, strength, speed and implants.
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The Beginning of Homura's Resentment. Part 5
The experiment made her strong and fast but her awakening made her superhuman. Even as a young teen, she grew to be far stronger than any adult and eventually required special care and security in order to contain her in the result of emotional outbursts. Tanaka was learning magic and how to manipulate minds and fool people and Homura was given a sensei to learn how to fight and use many different types of weapons. She was trained by stealth specialists and weightlifters to hone her abilities. Her best friend even tried to train her in the use of controlling the magical energy in her body and try to exert it outwardly.
It was a struggle and initially they thought it was impossible, though through years of study and training they yielded some results. Homura found a way to cast a spell, but it was nothing like the way Tanaka could. With him it was a multitude of spells he learned rapidly and exerted upward control. With Homura it was only a single spell that hardened her mind to powerful levels. Though it was incredibly taxing and she could only hold the spell temporarily. Tanaka could hold the same spell almost indefinitely. Though they rejoiced in the possibility for her to grow and adapt. Though it wasn’t really a spell, it was more an adept power capable of mimicking a very specific aspect of a specific spell. Whereas Tanaka could strengthen his body, speed, strength, mind, intuition and charisma, she could only strengthen her willpower.
She excelled at her physical studies but grew to resent her treatment. Given her far more physically threatening nature, the security around her was often vicious to her. It was needed in order to restrain her, but any time she grew tired of training, studying and being held inside of an underground facility it was often met with incredibly brutal and violent force. She was powerful, but she wasn’t bullet, taser or magic proof. She grew to resent her life and the people who were enslaving her while her now closest friend Tanaka had begun to relish his life. Though their lives were so very different. He never fought and he was never beaten or attacked. He did as he was told and his life was made better for it. This had led them to fight many times, leading Tanaka to tell her that she simply needs to just accept they are trying to help them become better than mortal beings.
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The Decay of Homura and Tanaka. Part 6.
She started to see the psychological warp of her lifelong best friend Tanaka who started to see himself as better than everyone around him. It made sense. He could talk his way out of any situation and when his words failed, his magic did not. They bumped heads and fought many times but always tried to find themselves back in their company, seeing each other as their only true family. There were the other subjects too, but due to their success, the other subjects grew resentful of the two and often kept separated from them. Homura still couldn’t shake the feeling that she did not belong cramped in such a desolate grave and that her friend was changing into something she could not accept.
She found her solace in an unlikely source. It was her sensei, who taught her to fight and kill with her bare hands. Her Sensei, Takimura Hiyase, used to be a team leader for one of Shiawase’s corporate special security teams. He was one of their most deadly martial artists and one of their most decorated security specialists before he retired. The corporation had actually pulled him out of retirement in order to teach Homura and the other fighter focused subjects. He found that it was not a request he could refuse and took the job.
He became her confidant and her mentor. Taking his time, not only to teach her how to fight and kill but how to live wisely and with honor. He taught her the code of bushido that her own people revived after the awakening and taught her the importance of honor in fighting meaningful battles. This was where Homura learned that her master hated his security job and regretted his long life of killing and fighting for a horrific corporation. He was disgusted by the actions taking place in the facility and wished he could stop it but he doubted many of the children wanted to leave. Some did, but many others didn’t. They were completely bought into the daily indoctrination and education they received.
He cited Tanaka as the most prominent example. Though when Homura expressed her undying desire to leave and her unwillingness to kill at the behest of a corporation, this seemed to change the nature of their conversation. What began as confiding personal concerns and wishes for better worlds eventually became planning. Takimura also longed to finally be left alone and out of the sphere of influence of Shiawase Biotechnology. They hatched a plan to escape, Takimura planned to set out a job for a team of shadowrunners to infiltrate the complex in order to “capture or kidnap” the two of them in order to get out of there and to isolate the two of them from the escape attempt so it couldn’t be tracked back to them.
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The Price of Freedom. Part 7.
It took months of preparation and careful action, finding ways to reach the outside world and set up the job and payment. Takimura staked everything he had on the job and Homura trained and prepared herself for the escape. She took months practicing her adept power that allowed her to cast a spell, hardening her body and her constant adept powers that strengthened her. The wait took months before everything was ready and prepared. There was no set day their “rescue” was scheduled to come but Takimura expected the team to come within the next few weeks. The days they waited turned into weeks until one morning, Homura was shocked awake by the blaring emergency sirens. The facility was on lock down, the lights were off and the deep, dark red emergency lights were strobing through her small dormitory.
She immediately jumped up off of bed and rapidly dressed into her training outfit which, despite her and her master learning Jiu Jitsu, didn’t look anything like a Jui Jitsu gi. It looked like a tight Chinese Kung Fu gi without sleeves. She put on gold metallic bracers and a gold metallic belt along with kung fu shoes. Then she sprinted towards the metal sliding door, finding that the lockdown had sealed all of the metal doors. Homura shrugged and simply ran back and sprinted at the door before leaping into a horrific spinning roundhouse kick that caved the door out and busted the sliding armored metal door out of the wall slot like a missile. This had an unintended side effect, given that there were corporate security teams patrolling the hallway. The door had slammed into one of the guards and had splattered them on the far wall.
This led the other guards to spin around, crying out in pure panic and horror. Despite Homura being taught the importance of honor and self control, she too was changed by the research facility. The detonation of the man’s body only served to plaster a gleefully wicked smile on her face that seemed to be permanently set on her face. The human guards breaking under the sheer ferocity of her initial attack and the shockwave of the door blasting out and the sight of what they viewed as the vengeance of the Oni of old, they dropped their weapons and ran.
This only led Homura to chase after them. Try as they might, Homura was impossibly fast and strong. They didn’t have entire security details with plans and preparations to stop her now. She saw her first target as she immediately caught up with them and repeated her last attack, jumping and spinning into a roundhouse kick straight into the back of the first man she reached. His torso detonated almost like a bomb went off inside of his body. The other two men screamed, all manner of discipline gone. Homura bolted forward and punched out with her fist, impaling the second man on her arm as she swung it to the side. Slamming the impaled man onto the last fleeing man. The last fleeing man slammed into the wall, resounding with the audible snap of his spine as he cried out in agony and fear.
The man writhing with her arm impaled through him growned, kicking his legs and desperately grabbing her wrist jutting out through his stomach while she swung him back to the opposite wall. Smacking him against it like a bag of meat as the man practically exploded against the wall. The paralyzed man tried to crawl away, begging for Homura to spare him but then he froze. She said absolutely nothing but showed the toothy grin of absolute joy.Her blazing red eyes a stark contrast to her long, dark, gray hair. She reached down and picked the man up by the neck, choking him before pulling him into her in an embrace. The man, shocked, didn't know what was happening until he felt her arms wrap around his waist and tighten.
He struggled and pushed away from her, punching and scratching at her face and kicking at her legs while she tightened her grip more and more, bending the man's spine and cracking it as he started to scream in agony. It was like a toddler trying to fight off a polar bear. The man's back shattered even more than it already was , renewing his agonized screams before she pulled her arms out, ripping the man cleanly in half and splattering him on either side of the walls. For a long moment, she stood alone in the hallway around the deformed and destroyed corpses of the security team she grew up with. The men who guarded her and beat and tortured her through her teen years. The men who taught her to read and played with her when she was a child. The men who snuck her candy and treats when researchers were not looking. The men who were ultimately responsible for killing her if she ever turned into the very thing she was now.
The alarms faded off in her head as her heartbeat started to pound in her ears and ring. She stood there, the horrific delight in her face never budging as she smiled a passionate toothy grin. Suddenly the silence was broken. “Homura!” It was the voice of an older man behind her. Homura turned around and saw her sensei standing by the door she had kicked down. He looked in shock at the destroyed bodies of the guards she massacred and looked up at her covered in the destroyed organs and gray matter of her victims. He didn’t seem horrified at the death. He was already used to it. He recovered quickly and ran up to her. “Kami’s balls. You fight with the wrath of the Sun. It was like Amaterasu herself descended into your body to destroy these men. But…remember Homura, resolve yourself. Keep your mind and don’t lose yourself in it.” This seemed to snap Homura out of her unending grin as her face finally relaxed as she shook herself out of the strange numb fugue-like state. She still had a smile on her face, but it wasn’t the toothy grin of sadistic glee she had before. She regained her mind enough to speak “Right, lets get out of here.”
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The "Death" of Homura and and the Death of Tanaka. Part 8.
Then they continued running down the halls, back the way they came past the gore and the doors down to the area that Takimura had led her to. The trip was relatively uneventful. Most of the hallways were locked down and unguarded. Takimura informed Homura that most of the guards were dealing with the distraction that the shadowrunner team had placed. Some Giant screaming his own name and hammer. Shrugging the story off, they continued to run to the rendezvous point. Homura only kicks down a few locked doors before Takimura unlocks them. Eventually they reach the meet up point near the exit of the facility before the apparent leader who was an older man who looked like he stepped out of a western movie pulled up his commlink and recalled their giant. The shadowrunner team Homura, and Takimura began their final escape. Sprinting towards the door to the exit before finding a physical barrier springs up blocking their escape. The mad giant charges at the barrier and finds himself crashing into it and falling back, more damage to his bloody nose than to the magical barrier.
A pixie flying up to him wearing a combat medic outfit and small swords hanging from her hip going to his aid. Homura shrugged at the odd bunch and left it at that, considering that she was odd herself. Though she looked at the barrier. Mages were powerful, but that Giant was an adept like herself and he looked more than powerful enough to break barriers. The familiar voice of her lifelong best friend ringing out in the air. “Homura!!!” Homura turned to face her friend as they stared each other down. Her friend Tanaka led a contingent of security personnel. Her lifelong friend’s voice filled with hate, betrayal and anger. “You will not abandon us! You will not cower from your duties!” The accusations only served to anger Homura more. “This was never my duty! This was my prison! They kidnapped our mothers, stole us and killed our parents! We owe them nothing!” Tanaka only shook his head at her anger. “You aren’t going to leave us. Capture her alive…Kill the rest.”
There was only a single instant of silent intensity as safeties switched to full auto and semi auto fire. The pixie began chanting a spell and erected a barrier wall of her own infront of everyone. The Giant got up, running fingers through his beard and picking up a massive swat riot shield covered in Norwegian words and he took out a black Osmium mace. A glowing orb dangling from the haft of his mace began to glow and Homura recognized it. It was a weapon focus as the mace charged up with magical power. The giant bellowed “Asmunds Hamaar!” and the enraged giant sprinted past the Pixies barrier and into the firing line of security.
They tried to mow the giant down but very few of the bullents managed to even put a dent in his armor. Some bullets made it through but he was an adept and one of terrible durability and frightening strength though he was very slow. Eventually he slammed into the firing line and began to wreak havoc on the security team. The old wild west man simply walked out from behind the barrier and opened his jacket, revealing several revolvers as he began to fire his pistols. This immediately revealed him to also be an adept.
Though Asmund was all strength and rage, this man was all speed and precision. He fired faster than most of the security forces' fully automatic weapons.The man rolled, cartwheeled and leaped out of the way of bullets. Occasionally jumping back behind the barrier when some bullets started to his and punch past his armor hurting him or whenever he needed to take more time to reload. Occasionally one of the weapons would short out and explode, security guards with grenades would find their grenades detonating and others with cyberware would find electric shocks wrecking through their systems. Homura looked at this spectacle with confusion before the pixie answered for her.
“We also have a hacker. Don’t worry, we didn’t come without a plan B.” The whole initial exchange only took a few seconds before massive balls of flame and acid started hurtling towards the group of shadowrunners, smashing against the barrier the pixie created. Her sensei taking up a small personal side arm and returning fire, the barrage of magical artillery coming from Tanaka began to break the barrier down. The pixie had to stop and focus on maintaining the barrier and recasting it. Though the strain of magic began to cause her nose to bleed. Homura knew she needed to stop this before their entire escape failed and their whole group died.
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The Wrath of Amaterasu. Part 9.
Homura didn’t want to lose herself in the purifying fire of hatred and rage that backed her soul after an entire lifetime of experiments, torture and slavery. Though she feared that she had no choice and bolted forward past the barrier. Her target was her life long friend Tanaka. She sprinted at him faster than most people could track. It was almost like a car at top speed trying to ram someone. She leapt forward, pulling her knees all the way up to her chest before launching both of her legs out forward in a catastrophic missile kick. It would likely turn her friend into pink mist though just as she was about to connect, suddenly a massive being made from pure earth appeared. Her kick launched into the torso of the summoned earth spirit. The pixie cursed from behind, calling out for Asmund to kill the spirit with his magical weapon. The earth spirit spiked her down into the ground as if she was a small animal. The force of her striking the concrete floor cracked the stone underneath her. The attack would have killed and splattered most people. Homura cried out before choking and spitting up blood from the force of the strike.
Spirits could not be harmed by mundane means and Homura did not channel magic through her kick. Tanaka laughed, walking around the spirit while changing illusion magic, attempting to warp her mind and leave her writhing in pure illusory agony. Though, she took the time to activate and cast the very spell he taught her. Empowering her willpower and shielding her mind from his illusions. She propped up on her hands and feet like an animal before dashing and rolling to the side before the earth spirit slammed its rocky fists down and flattened her. The force of the blow left a crater where she was laying before.
It turned to face her when Asmund charged through the fleeing security detail and crushed the spirits head with a downward arc of its enchanted Osmium mace. This caused the spirit to stagger as Homura channeled her adept magic into her hands as she sprinted forward The focus of her killing hands and the pure berserker's rage of her magic ignited. It was pure adept magical energy, empowering her hands to destroy the spirits physical form but it took the flame of Homura's hands and arms bursting to flame as she rammed her fist into its stomach with the full Wrath of the Sun Goddess. Shattering the body of the spirit, sending rocks flying back into Tanaka and knocking him flat onto his back before it dissipates back into the astral plane to repair itself. Homura took the advantage of her friend's loss of concentration sprinted towards Tanaka before he could get off another spell. Unfortunately she tripped towards him, falling at his feet as he kicked away at her face while she desperately grasped at him, clawing her way up to him before she pulled herself ontop of him and mounted his torso. Before she knew it, she found her hands wrapping around his neck. He struggled and kicked at her while she mounted on top of him and put her weight down on his neck, tightening her hands slowly.
His eyes began to bulge as he scratched and clawed at her hands and then her face. Though now the same twisted and horrific grin slowly started to return to her face. She tightened down her grip sadistically slowly as she watched him struggle against her overwhelming strength while his eyes bulged out as she put more and more pressure on his neck. Tears began to run down his face and despite her twisted smile, found that the same was happening to her. Tears falling off of her cheek and onto her only friend’s face as she strangled the life out of him. She regained only just enough of her sanity long enough to twist her wrist and end his suffering, breaking his neck. She sat there breathing for a moment, watching the life drain from his eyes before the giant crouched down beside her. “We. Have. To. Go.”
She shook her face and stood up, her wicked and toothy grin plastered on her face in a semi permanent state. She turned away from her friend Tanaka and ran out of the facility with the team. They took them out of the facility and off Yomi island. They all decided it was best to leave Japan in order to escape Shiawase now that they had made an enemy of one of the most powerful corporations in the world. They needed to get fake identities and new names. Homura kept her first name, but seeing as she didn’t have a last name elected to honor her lifelong friend by making her last name Tanaka.
So Homura Tanaka, her sensei and the shadowrun team that fled Japan with them with the new fortune for that job all fled from Japan, stowed away on a cargo ship and found themselves in Seattle, Washington. Here, they all made new lives and Takimura and Homura decided to start up a Dojo to make some money. Though it didn’t make great money, Homura eventually joined up with the shadowrun team under the Handle of Amaterasu and became a shadowrunner and professional criminal. Now, she tried to make enough money to give her sensei a comfortable life, maintain the dojo and to keep out from the sights of Shiawase.
