History

The Human

Teddy cannot remember much about his human life, only that it was filled with a mother, a father, and a lot of war. Generations of men in his human life had gone to combat and trained with the highest honor. Most days, it was him and his mother, her face a mere shadow to memory and loss of time. Though if anything, he does remember her laugh. It's the one sound that still haunts him and taunts him of days when he used to be a better man. A sense of morality was traced through his human veins, wanting to follow in the footsteps of men before him, to honor his family in many different ways. It wasn’t until their land had received a new lord, running most of the land around his home and taxing beyond belief, that he thought anything but honor. The evil slipped in at night, making him want revenge, if only to help his mother. He watched daily as the difficulty of raising several sons and still trying to take care of the home and finances weighed on her. Their father was around; he remembered that much, but like any good soldier, he always went away, and for longer and longer periods until he eventually perished.

The samurai

As his human mind grew older, his fate became clearer. An elderly shamaness at their village temple warned him of an ill mind and of a disgrace he could never go back on. Her only words of reprieve? Follow the road north and work under a slowly rising lord, where he may remove his mind from the depths of sin and help his family make their land their own again.

So he went out, trained hard, and lived hard, and eventually rose in ranks to work side by side with the new lord. What the shamaness failed to tell him was that he would not save his soul with this alone. He had to make a choice. There was a feud between the two lords—the one his family lived under in their village and the one Teddy had moved out to work under. The newer lord had it in his mind that the only way to get back at the old lord was to tear down village after village, plow through the old, and get ready for the new. He was cunning, had a way with words, and managed to ensnare Teddy in his vision. So Teddy, as his ever faithful and well-trained warrior, went out and did his bidding, murdering women, men, and children. Forsaking everything he had learned about his ways, all because a master had promised to cherish him.

It wasn’t until he remembered seeing the blood on his hands and the scream of his youngest brother that he even realized he had reached his village. His own home.

Teddy committed Seppuku the very next day.

Upon Death

It is safe to say Teddy did not wind up in a virtuous land. No, his soul went straight to damnation. The sins of turning his back on kin, family, and everything else he had sworn to code completely tarnished the very thing that made him human. There was no turning back, no fixing what he had done. And for his sins, he was to work for the king—the king of hell.

Fire and brimstone, screams and anguish, he was forced to torment souls for eternity. In turn, his soul got tormented and tortured, his mind going crazy as the screams etched into his fabric of self. He did not sleep, he did not eat. All he knew was torture.

Rebirth

A few hundred years later, the story of a samurai gone rogue, forgetting his ways and murdering for an evil master, still lingered. Mothers told their children in hopes of scaring them into acting right, and soldiers told one another to try to hold on to their dignity. Regardless of why or how, these stories lingered, manifested, and grew. Teddy was given a new life, his soul pulling up through the depths of hell all because mortals viewed his tale as cautionary, his name breathed out in warning. And then came the shrine, gifts left to appease his crazed spirit, things people said would protect their village from his wrath. That was fine, he liked the gifts, and it wasn’t the good souls he was after.

Having been set free to roam the living once again, he had a new mission. To punish the guilty, to drag their souls straight to hell. Though they didn’t go right away, no, Teddy liked to torture them while they still lived. Strip the flesh from their bones and make their death slow and painful.

Destruction

Teddy stayed at his temple for quiet some time in what some assumed was protecting the good and damning the evil, but really he was just quite content getting gifts and gaining power from the locals. The few people he could damn helped too, and their human vessels became a favorite snack of his. Though as years went by, empires changed. The Meiji restoration saw a complete change in the way his society worshiped, in the things they feared and the stories they told.

One year, when he was out hunting a particularly nasty soul, his temple had been destroyed. Upon returning and realizing he had no home, Teddy unleashed on everything in sight. He killed the people of that village day and night, by sword, by teeth, any way he knew how. The Meiji restoration promised progress and modernization, but it also meant that his home of several hundred years had vanished and been completely disgraced. Teddy hated the way modernization affected his home. For several more years, he went wild until he realized the restoration would not end with his actions alone.

Never

Having concluded that he alone could not change an entire empire, Teddy moved out. Found a ship and traveled as far as he could. Where was the boat going? America. Having very little money to his name, Teddy found a ship meant for the lower class, which meant it was packed with people. Ripe souls for his picking. It also meant illness was rampant. Rats filled the bottom levels, fear hung heavy in the air, people screamed, and people died. It was a terrible time to be human, but a lovely time to be a demon. Rats were a sign of prosperity and good fortune, they could find the best out of any shitty situation. Here, he made new friends on his journey.

America was different; people did things with a certain brevity that befell even the damndest souls of hell. It was wild and untamed, and Teddy was basking in all its glory, just as he had done so on the ship there. He traveled several states with different people who had their faces plastered, making deals to get them riches, only for them to die and their souls his for the taking.

Somewhere along the way, he stumbled into town, finding it a place ripe with all sorts of supernatural tendencies. For once in all his travels and years after his shrine's destruction, he felt at home. It helped that he had also fallen into a camaraderie of other bandits and the likes, but that would be a story for another time, after all he still has a lot more mischief to get up to.