[ HEADCANON COMPILATION. ]

[ironsights]

before battle royale ; Other than being stupidly, impractically tall, Kazama was always a completely unextraordinary teenager. Kazama grew up with his mother, father and younger brother. His younger brother was always rather sickly and unwell, and thus occupied a lot of his parents' attention. As a result, Kazama grew up a fairly independent and self-sufficient kid. He never resented his younger brother or his parents for this arrangement, though, as he was happy enough to have some time to himself. All in all, his family was completely average, but happy enough. At school, Kazama was the inconspicuous, nice-enough sort. Though somewhat quiet and awkward, never that good at talking to people, he was mild-mannered and earnest. He stuck to a small group of close friends that he knew well, and otherwise kept to himself, speaking when spoken to and minding his own business. Though he was good-natured and friendly enough when other people spoke to him first, he never really sought to have a large circle of acquaintances. And of course, he was terrible at dealing with girls, too. There was one girl in his class that he sort of fancied, but never actually spoke to, since he wouldn't have known what to say. Though never particularly good at schoolwork -- a straight-B student -- Kazama was hard-working, and never slacked off on his schoolwork. Sometime in fifth or sixth grade, he hit puberty and went through a ridiculous growth spurt, resulting in his unusually lanky build. He'd always had good reflexes, and between his willingness to train hard and his hardy dispostion, Kazama was a pretty good athelete and participated in club activities; he started off in soccer before entering his school's archery club in middle school. Though not the club's ace, he was a consistently excellent performer, and was quite proud of what he could do. In terms of dreams or aspirations, Kazama never really hoped for much. His father was a normal office worker, and Kazama always assumed that he'd sort of follow along in that path. Although he enjoyed sports and was good at archery, he knew he wasn't good enough to go professional, and he also knew he wasn't smart enough to find himself any sort of prestigious job. He actually considered not going to college and instead finding a job straight away, maybe something to do with construction or a mechanic's garage, given he was very resilient with high stamina. Even by the time he was fifteen, Kazama hadn't given too much thought about what he'd do with his future, other than that he wanted to make sure he could find a job and support himself, and possibly help with his younger brother. But of course, when he was fifteen, almost sixteen, Battle Royale happened. battle royale ; Kazama attended a school in Yamagata prefecture, pretty far up north, where winters grew wicked cold. His class' round of BR took place in late autumn, when the winds had started to grow biting and chilly -- a few students expired from the cold, which made the entire round slightly less valid for research purposes. The class was loaded on a bus under the excuse of an autumn field trip, knocked unconscious with sleeping gas, then taken to an isolated area in the woods, due to the lack of a convenient, empty island. There were no deaths during the orientation and explanation video. Their homeroom teacher also survived, having put up only a cursory resistance against the soldiers who took the class away. Kazama was about middle of the pack, in terms of the order that students were released out into the woods. His bag contained the basic survival, as well as having a bolt-action rifle crammed into it diagonally, with a simple instruction manual taped to the stock. Though he was incredibly lucky in terms of having been given a good weapon, Kazama spent a good portion of the first day of the game in hiding, avoiding people and trying to come to some decision about what to do. Late on the first day, Kazama moved locations to avoid a danger zone and spotted one of his friends past a thicket of bushes. However, when he approached his friend in order to ask if they should stick together, his friend misinterpreted this as an attempt to kill him. The fact that Kazama was hefting around his rifle -- complete unused, but loaded and ready -- didn't help. His friend attacked with a kitchen knife, and Kazama had to fight back. In the ensuing scuffle, Kazama was slashed sharply across the leg, but ended up shooting and killing his friend. This was the turning point where Kazama realized that a diplomatic solution to the situation did not exist and that, in order to survive, he'd have to be 1) silent, 2) solitary and 3) deadly. From that point onward, Kazama moved from place to place in silence, hiding amidst the trees or in bushes and sniping down any others he spotted. Though he didn't explicitly seek out other students, he immediately went on the offensive as soon as he heard or spotted another student in his area. Between the changing danger zones and the fact that his rifle's crack would often give him away, he had to keep moving around and switching hiding spots, and was almost killed two or three times, as a result. In one incident, another student found his hiding spot while he was dozing, exhausted, and in the following scuffle, Kazama ended up throwing that student down a nearby rock ledge. That student died from his injuries an hour later. All in all, Kazama racked up eight kills. However, he wasn't the one who made the final kill of the game. When there were just three students left, the other two students found each other and got into a fight. Though Kazama immediately headed towards the source of all the commotion in order to finish off the game, the fight was already over by the time he arrived -- one student was dead, and the other expired within minutes from injuries. He was still standing there, dumbly staring at the two dead bodies when the PA broadcast went out declaring him the winner, and a battalion of soldiers swooped in to pull him out of the area. Though Kazama almost reflexively fought back against them, he was subdued pretty easily and wrestled onto one of the army's trucks. The moment the procession of trucks exited the forests, they were mobbed by a number of reporters and television crews. Kazama was too shell-shocked, and the huge number of flashing camera-bulbs and reporters shouting at him almost knocked him out. In the television broadcast declaring him the winner, Kazama just stared glassily into the camera, still scraped up and covered in blood. He passed out from a combination of exhaustion and shock shortly afterwards, as he was being carted off to the hospital. after battle royale ; Kazama spent three days in the hospital, getting his injuries fixed and being cleaned up to a presentable state. As soon as he was well enough to stand and no longer looked like death, he was brought to meet the Great Dictator, who presented him with a certificate of congratulations and the promise of life-long government-granted pension, and shook his hand. Afterward, Kazama was relocated to a different prefecture. His family had been wiped out shortly before his victory, and Kazama was moved to a small apartment to live on his own; his government pension wasn't lavish, but would allow him to live decently as long as he was reasonable about his spending. He was also enrolled to a new school, which he barely attended; though he showed up when absolutely required to so as to avoid drawing any more attention from the government, he skipped almost all his classes and avoided interacting with anyone. For the first week or two after this forced relocation, Kazama barely slept, taking very poor care of himself. The nightmares were worst during this time, which resulted in an odd, stilted, almost-noctural sleep schedule; he took to sleeping for only two or three hours at a time when he was too exhausted to stay awake any longer, and otherwise spent a lot of time to himself, walking outside in quiet areas during lonely hours of the night or reading whatever he could find. At school, he sat at the very back of the classroom and stared outside, recoiling if anyone tried to talk to him; everyone thought he was a creepy transfer student and avoiding him, and he was satisfied enough by this arrangement. The teachers had all been told by the government of his 'condition' and allowed him to pass their classes, treating his school attendence as more of a formality than anything else. About half a year after his victory, Kazama had a visitor -- someone from an anti-governmental terrorist group. Though Kazama at first refused to speak to this stranger, they insisted until Kazama eventually, grudgingly let the man into his apartment; the whole time they spoke, Kazama held onto the biggest kitchen knife he had, making it obvious that he was on guard. The man only told Kazama that his skills from Battle Royale would make him a valuable asset to the anti-government effort, and that he would be able to avenge his friends from Battle Royale if he also joined the terrorist group. After a few more weeks of consideration, Kazama decided that joining the group would be a far better use of his time than wasting away in his apartment by himself, living off the government pension. He withdrew from school stating 'medical problems' as an excuse and then vanished into the underground terrorist network. For the first few months of his time in the terrorist network, Kazama went through a lot of training -- though he had good reflexes, a solid build, a natural knack of marksmanship, he lacked refinement. Under the guidance of older, more experienced agents, Kazama learned the basics of sniping, tracking, hand-to-hand combat and hacking. He was also taught to drive during this time. Though he was never particularly smart or clever, Kazama was a hard worker and very observant; if he couldn't pick up a new skill immediately, he would force himself to learn through constant repetition. About four months after his entry into the group, Kazama was sent to assist in a group mission to kill some high-ranking police officers who were known for brutality against civilians; he was responsible for providing backup fire and sniping off any police who tried to flee. Another two months later -- a full year after Battle Royale -- he was sent on his first solo assasination mission. It went precisely as planned and was pulled off without a hitch; Kazama stalked down a medium-ranked politician, set up a sniper spot to aim for their lavish apartment, killed them, then disappeared. The success of this mission earned him the respect of the other members of his terrorist group, as well as more missions. From that point onward, Kazama was assigned missions with increasing frequency. It was also at this time that Kazama started growing infamous in the underground network as a dangerous anti-BR activist; though he never meant for it to happen, Kazama earned quite a name for himself. However, as the years went by, Kazama came to realize that the group he was part of was not exactly kindly towards its members. Any members who were injured too badly during a mission to resume activity almost immediately would often disappear; similarly, members who weren't able to pull their weight efficiently enough would also be executed quietly in the background. To openly leave the organization would mean certain death. However, trying to leave without being seen would be difficult -- the group was so often clustered together for safety, with the only time Kazama was apart being during missions, when trying to flee without being seen would surely lead to the group simply handing him over to the government. Thus, Kazama was grudgingly stuck in the group for a total of five years -- half of that time spent in constant paranoia, worried about when he'd be taken out to a back alley and shot. This time contributed a great deal to his cautious personality, as it counted as something of a betrayal; Kazama came to realize that even with a shared interest in taking down the government, these people would still kill him if there was any need for it. In the year 2000, when Kazama was starting to feel that his window of escape was coming dangerously to closing, two more people joined the terrorist group. Shinjo Yoshiaki, a former teacher, and Sakurai Saki, the winner of a recent round of Battle Royale. Kazama was put in charge of training Saki, a winner of Battle Royale through marksmanship, as another sniper for the organization. This was the chance Kazama took to begin his escape.