Matthias Yakusho

Matthias Yakusho is a skillful thief and part-time investigator of no particular affiliation who operates in Hamilton. He is friends with Ezra Pax and John Smiths, much to his chagrin.

Personal History
Matthias was born to a system that wasn't working. As a second generation immigrant who's parents were brilliant in their respective fields but struggled to find work or assistance due to their poor grasp of English and their apparent foreigness, who saw two people who should have lived easy, glamorous lives facing nearly insurmountable trials trying to grow up. When you're taught that the system doesn't work every day of your life, what do you do? You learn to avert the system. In Matthias' case, that was in the form of crime. Falling in with a bad crowd from the early days, he found a natural gift for planning enacting theft.

For the next decade, Matthias became Hamilton's least well known criminal. He never gained a criminasl record, he never engaged is moronic high-scale heists, he simply and quietly operated theft after theft with skill and precision, building up skills and contacts along the way. Then, during one job, he stumbled upon a series of documents and figured they could be sold as part of a corporate espionage case, picked them up. It was upon reading them that he read over them and found himself learning about a massive cover-up of a toxic chemical spill by the company he had stolen from. Uncharacteristically outraged, he was furious and sought out someone he could give them information to.

That was how he met Ezra Pax. It was a rocky relationship at first as Ezra's morals required him to learn not to ask too many questions about Matthias, but gradually they became good friends, Ezra's idealism meshing with Matthias pragmatism, and the two of them joined a bowling team together. Now, he's dealing with the reemergence of a conscience he thought he had left pushing daisies. He's living off a comfortable 30% of his earnings and donating the rest to charity. He's trying to make it work.

Personality
Matthias is a stoic, reserved, and pragatmic individual. His first thought in any situation is "what's the best way to approach it", and his brain is hard-wired to follow that through to the very end. Growing up under parents who were stricted and focused on rapid advancement, he learned to approoach this methodoically, carefully, and patiently, and as a result he commonly keeps his opinions very quietly to himself and is unwilling ot act until he has the perfect approach.

Matthias would like to be nothing more than a cynical, self-serving thief, but underneath it all he has a hidden heart of silver, if not exactly gold. He sitll enjoys doing the right thing from time to time and avoids hurting people who he doesn't think can spare it, or who don't deserve it. Recently, he's formed more personal connections and is working to maintain a few friendships without 'going soft'.

Description
An middle-aged Japanese-American gentleman, Matthias' heritage is rather obvious, with lightly tanned skin and straight black hair. He comes across as handsome and unassuming, not the sort of person you'd usually notice in a crowd. He is rather than, if a bit taller than average. His bearing is more reserved than most people, but not so much so you'd look at him and wonder 'what has that guy got going on'. He usually dresses in functional, comfortable clothing that leaves him ready to go in case of danger.

At the drop of a hat, he has several other outfits he can slip into, mostly for other identities that he has set up for surveillance and infiltration. One thing that's common among all of them, however, is that he does not stick out from the crowd. He works hard to keep it that way.

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