Maximus Ariya sood beneath a heavy light as two figures flanked him, broad smiles on their faces. He held his katana in his hand, his garb that of a simple civilian. They slowly stepped around him, chuckling as they moved, they held katana of their own. Maximus winked at the first, the man seeming annoyed and coming at him from the left. He pushed himself up, laughing as he did so and the opposite man came at him as well. Maximus soared across the street as the two came to where he'd been.
His land was perfectly executed and the annoyed look on their faces simply amused him, their voices deep and threatening.
"Stupid Ariya Yakuza, are you a coward, incapable of fighting face to face as a man should?" spoke the lead of the two, he then spit on the ground, "I guess its true your Yakuza has no honor."
"We have honor, but our honor is won through promises and victory, not how they are achieved or completed," replied Max reciting his father's own words.
"That is no way to earn honor, fool," spat the man, in the next instant Max was across the road, his sword striking out at the man. The man's blade came up in a weak defense from the sudden advance and Max snickered.
"Useless," Max said as a sudden slash appeared on the man's shoulder, blood flowing from it like a fountain. The man's eyes danced around, puzzled and frozen in shock. The second man didn't even know what to do, and his hesitation cost his friend his life.
Maximus' hidden dagger-like blade that released from the bottom of his main katana slashed outwards, shattering the poorly-made reshi katana of the foe. He then cut the man's head from his shoulder and as the blood became a crimson rain upon Maximus, the other man turned to run, but something struck his leg, disabling it and leaving him on the ground, crawling from the slowly approaching foe.
"Please, I beg you, do not kill me!" screamed the man in cowardice, a trickle running down his leg as his bowls voided.
"And you speak of honor," replied Max, a smiled upon his lips which cast a hellish look to his features, "Take solace that you die to the Ariya Yakuza's demon, Max the Demon!" With that, Max carved the man up, a bloody mess laying in the streets of rukongai... And thats when he awoke.
Max had been having dreams of his horrific life as a Yakuza assassin since he'd join the Shinigami Academy, the weight of his sins meaning something more by the passing day. He'd killed so many for the sake of a Yakuza which was killed off by another Yakuza, which in time would die to the hand of another Yakuza. It didn't suprise him though, that was the way of rukongai, but it still unsettled him to know he had done so much killing in vain...
As the memories came to him though, he remembered the underhanded tactics of his brethren and the teachings of his father and master, and the more he remembered, the more well founded his style became...
