Nageki was always sickly as a kid back in Japan. Out of desperation, he submitted himself to a medical experiment. It worked, but there were side effects, the most visible of which were Nageki's hair and eyes changing to unnatural colors, and the most important of which being incredibly heightened Guide powers. It made certain unfortunate elements interested in him, and he needed to leave. The Yakuza got him out discreetly and brought him to New York, and now they had him over a barrel.
They kept him with four different bodyguards, mainly to keep him from running than to actually keep him from harm. They kept him on the docks and trotted him out when they needed an all-purpose Guide to ground all of the Sentinels in their ranks (a literal headache for a single Guide, but he was able to do it without dying of exhaustion, so he had to), but they didn't know how far his empathy stretched. He could feel the Sentinels beyond the docks, churning with their feelings and wants meshing together in a clamor that split his head until he couldn't stand to move or see any kind of light. Even if the Yakuza left him without any kind of guards or locks, he wouldn't have the strength to escape alone.
But in the tangle of Sentinels, there was a tug. People had talked about the Connection, of course, but he didn't know if this was that or just another side effect. He held onto it anyway, because it was his one point of consistency in this whole city. He never pulled because he doubted that the Sentinel had the power to take on the Yakuza, but he clung nonetheless.
That night, Nageki was marched outside again and sat down on a stool by the water, guarded by four people as he waited for the Yakuza Sentinels to return. He kept his head bowed and his eyes closed to shut out as much of the outside world as possible, his temples pounding already before he had even started.
But something was wrong with the tug. Its source was much closer than it every was. Nageki tried to push against it, to drive it away from the docks. Yakuza weren't known for being kind to intruders.
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They kept him with four different bodyguards, mainly to keep him from running than to actually keep him from harm. They kept him on the docks and trotted him out when they needed an all-purpose Guide to ground all of the Sentinels in their ranks (a literal headache for a single Guide, but he was able to do it without dying of exhaustion, so he had to), but they didn't know how far his empathy stretched. He could feel the Sentinels beyond the docks, churning with their feelings and wants meshing together in a clamor that split his head until he couldn't stand to move or see any kind of light. Even if the Yakuza left him without any kind of guards or locks, he wouldn't have the strength to escape alone.
But in the tangle of Sentinels, there was a tug. People had talked about the Connection, of course, but he didn't know if this was that or just another side effect. He held onto it anyway, because it was his one point of consistency in this whole city. He never pulled because he doubted that the Sentinel had the power to take on the Yakuza, but he clung nonetheless.
That night, Nageki was marched outside again and sat down on a stool by the water, guarded by four people as he waited for the Yakuza Sentinels to return. He kept his head bowed and his eyes closed to shut out as much of the outside world as possible, his temples pounding already before he had even started.
But something was wrong with the tug. Its source was much closer than it every was. Nageki tried to push against it, to drive it away from the docks. Yakuza weren't known for being kind to intruders.