Sumitori

Cursed with power.

My name is Yoshihiro Yamashita, and I was born in northern Japan, on the island of Hokkaido. My father was a fisherman, of the people that the Japanese call ‘Ainu,’ known for our large size and reddish hair (I got the size, if not the hair). We were not a wealthy family by any means, and until I was a teen, I had never seen a city like Sapporo, at the southern end of the island, which seemed a place of wonders to me. My father had brought me there because of my freakish size, as he was at wits end of what to make of me. I ate more than he could provide, and could not sit in his fishing boat, nor sleep in a normal bed, nor stand up straight in our own home. There he found the recruiters for the Sumitori, hoping that they would find my size an advantage in their sport, and so I sat and listened while he all-but sold me to strangers in this enormous city. They argued often that I was too old to gain the necessary weight, and to begin the training, but they trained me nonetheless, and in a few years time, I had been all over the isles of Japan, seen cities more magnificent than Sapporo, and watched sums of money pass hands in wagers on my bouts that were larger than every single yen my father had ever seen, or ever would.

I wasn’t a champion, not yet, anyway, but I was moving my way slowly up the standings, and a victory that I took no special pride in was against a Hawaiian newcomer who stumbled backwards during a match and stepped foot outside of the ring, so losing the match. He threatened me, saying that I tripped him. He threatened the officials, saying that they were prejudiced against islanders competing in our traditional sport. He even threatened his own trainer, who attempted to calm him down, that he might preserve his dignity in defeat.

I did not know until later what depths his anger would reach. Months went by, and still I competed, doing well and advancing my standing with good speed. It was my final match of the year, and would determine my final ranking for the coming season, and the number of product endorsements I would receive in the off-season, for such things are now the way of the warrior, when I felt a strange dizziness during the match, and for a second, it seemed that fire burned in my veins. And yet, despite my moments hesitation, my opponent, thinking to grapple me while I was off-balance, bounced off of me like spring rain. Not even looking up, my arm flailed out to find purchase and I knocked him bodily from the ring! The judges cried foul, and after testing it was found that my blood coursed with Superadine, an illegal drug that allowed superhuman strength and toughness, but had dangerous side-effects. Needless to say, it was many times more dishonorable than to have simple been found guilty of steroid use.

I could think of no incidence that would explain my ingestion of this drug, no meals I had eaten prepared by any save myself or my trainer, but the evidence of my blood was enough to bar me from ever competing in the art of the Sumitori again. I was disgraced, and only a mystic who took interest in the sport offered me a cryptic hint that he had seen the work of black sorcery as the match began, thinking at first that I may have through dark art arranged myself to have the drug enter my body after the pre-testing as the match began. He believed me when I explained that I had no awareness of this, and that it had destroyed my career, making it hardly the sort of thing that I would have done to myself willingly. And so he pointed me to a seer named Azuria, in Paragon City, saying that she was far more knowledgeable in such things than he, and that research into the nature of Superadine was quite advanced there as well.

Unable to pursue the only life I had known, I ‘retired’ at the tender age of 26 to Paragon City, my career ended in shame and dishonor. I met with Azuria, and with her assistance found out that I had been cursed, that my near-forgotten rival had called upon a dark spirit to bring the drug into my body, not just a little bit, but a dose that might have killed a smaller man, less able to metabolize the toxin. My own natural strength and toughness were enhanced many times, more than many users of Superadine can boast, and I found myself wracked with the pains of addiction for many months, although I had never willingly taken the drug. Again, the mystics of M.A.G.I. saw me through this time, and I owe Azuria a debt. She suggested that I abandon my dreams of clearing my name, that my blood would forever carry the taint, and my body would forever carry this cursed strength, barring me from the competitions that had become my only ambition. She offered me an honorable path to walk, to defend those weaker than myself and to oppose the gangs that peddle Superadine on the streets of Paragon City.

I wished only to be an entertainer, a sportsman, considered by some more traditional members of my people to be among the lowest of social rankings, no matter our popularity with the youth, or our financial successes. Instead I find myself a hero.

It is an honorable path.