Takashi Nakamura was Shogun Musashi’s most brutal lieutenant and part of his inner circle. He took more heads for the Shogun than any other solider in the Shogun’s mighty army. Whilst samurai often ride horses, Takashi is the only person to ever tame a bull. Some say the bull bowed to Hatake’s raging energy, others say he wrestled the bull by the horns to submission, accepting him as his master. Takashi’s presence on the battlefield is more menacing than death himself, an unbridled force of nature, followed by lightning, thunder and death.
In recent years, the Shogun noticed Takashi’s mind slowly creeping towards madness. He was becoming unpredictable and many saw him as a liability. The Shogun, no longer able to keep him in line, was forced to make a hard decision… Takashi’s blatant disrespect for the political class and social etiquette was becoming more and more of a hindrance in court. Many in the Shogun’s inner circle were ready to take Takashi’s head for his disrespect, but the Shogun took mercy on his old friend by offering him an opportunity to perform a ritual suicide called ‘Harakiri’. This ancient practice is performed by driving a blade across the lower abdomen in order to show that your guts are clean and you are of pure intention. The practice absolves the samurai of all past sins and is considered an honor.
Normally a warrior would not turn down the opportunity for Harakiri, but Takashi was extremely hurt by the Shogun not siding with him. In his mind he has always been loyal to the Shogun. So he escapes in the night before his fellow lieutenants get an opportunity to surround and slaughter him.
In some twisted way, Takashi is nurtured by carnage, for him the blood of his enemies is the elixir of life itself. It fuels him. There is no place for a man like Takashi in the civil courts that his master the Shogun strives for. He should have been born 1000 years ago during the Great 5 wars, where blood rained freely and savagery was king.
He comes to the realization that these ways of now will create soft men incapable of doing what is necessary. He vows to bring down his old master and assume the role of Shogun himself, if only to amass the power to continue the old ways of conquest.