Age: 30
Affiliation: Famine
Rank: Angel
Pronouns: she/her
Gender: cis woman
FC: Sonoya Mizuno
Status: Played by Kafka.
You’ve made you home in the shadows, so much so, it has been said that you may have become one yourself. Quiet, unsuspecting Nana, there was no wonder you had been overlooked, rarely even seen in the first place. But no matter, that was their own mistake, lacking the nerve or eye for details to grant you with visibility. But it wasn’t long before you realised your subtlety to be the ultimate blessing, toying around with the potential it had gifted you with, after all being the only invisible person in the room had it’s benefits.
There’s perks to being the wallflower, and skills to build around your own elusivity. Famine knew it well, the first time you land your way into their business, admittedly it was a ‘wrong place at the wrong time’ scenario. Now, you are recruited as one of their Angels, scouted by Belladonna and forced headfirst into the life of a criminal. Strange, you think to yourself as you were assigned as their own personal spy, how fitting this world was for you. How you had finally found your true home, your momentum in the darkest of places.
trigger warnings: baby illness, corporeal punishment, death mention
Or in other words, ‘the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.’ It was a popular proverb in Japan. One that defined Uchida Nana.
Nana, as she was, wasn’t born until she was five years old on July 23, 1995. It wasn’t a coincidence it was Kenta’s birthday. The day of her brother’s birth was the first memory Nana had of, in hindsight, feeling neglected. They had found a heart murmur in his heart. Memories of her brother getting tests, like EKGS, were foiled by Nana getting handed off from one person to the next. After the initial few days, her parents hadn’t wanted her at the hospital, so her maternal grandparents picked her up. Comfort and care were not their forte. They were a traditional sort who didn’t tolerate nonsense. Her grandfather was even a shinshoku, or a Shinto priest, so much of her time there was spent helping them do chores around the shrine.
Eventually her brother got the clearance and she returned to Tokyo with her family. But having a new baby didn’t make anything easier. Her father had already been in the works of starting up his electronic commerce company, Mirai Ichiba, and the launch, which was pushed back due to Kenta, required his full attention. At the same time, her mother had to constantly take care of her sickly brother, so with Nana of age to start school, she was decidedly old enough to make good decisions. And if she didn’t, well, her parents had always been partial to corporal punishment. For the most part, it stopped being necessary as she grew older because Nana was acutely self-aware and she knew her family didn’t need another problem. So she kept to herself, excelled in school, and did not trouble her parents with more work.
In a short five years, Mirai Ichiba had grown sizable enough that almost everyone in Japan used the website and her father’s company decided to expand on their services. Though the Uchida’s finances soared, the relationship between her parents had found itself in a precarious position. Arguing all the time affected the home even when one of her parents weren’t there, as Nana had experienced more than once, a bad mood her father put her mother in. She learned to read microscopic details to avoid getting snapped at. The tipping point of their relationship, however, was when her mom caught her father in an affair. It took no more than a day for her mom, Kenta, and her to move to her grandparents.
Kyoto was different from Tokyo. The fast paced city life was behind them and since her grandparents didn’t believe in lazing about, after she would finish school, Nana was expected to help out around the shrine, eventually becoming a miko, or shrine maiden, in her mid-teens.
Of course, her younger brother was treated vastly different from her own upbringing. Instead of ever being punished, he’d had no discipline whatsoever. Her mother had claimed it was her father who did that and Kenta would only listen to him, but it wasn’t like their dad was around anymore so there was nothing she could do. With age, the freedom Kenta had made him uninhibited in the worst way. He had no regard for anyone but himself; there was no respect for the family or the shrine and no one would tell him anything. So Nana did. All the time. Wasn’t it infuriating to see someone treat your mother and elderly grandparents with contempt? It wasn’t any different, in Nana’s opinion, that it was her own brother who was doing so.
And yet, any and all attempts of putting her brother in his place had Nana be on the receiving end of her mother’s scorn. Nana shouldn’t say anything after all, as her mother would scold. Not when Kenta had lost his dad at a young age. She should feel bad for him. Nana was the older sister, she was supposed to set an example. Why was she setting a bad example? Was Nana trying to say she was a bad mother? She was a single mother, it was hard enough.
Those were her mother’s genuine feelings, so how could Nana press? Instead, Nana shut her mouth and quit bothering to try and say anything. What good was it to get upset? So whenever her brother acted out, throwing tantrums, Nana left, shutting herself up tight as her mother enabled him. It was the only way she got along with her family.
University was when her father, CEO to global success Mirai Ichiba, stepped back in her life. There would have been more resistance on her end if he had tried to reestablish their relationship, but it didn’t feel very emotional. He wanted to put some input on her future. Maybe it felt obligatory for him, but beyond talking business and giving her money to support herself comfortably onwards, he’d been fine to keep them on cordial terms. That was probably the best possible outcome, Nana felt.
With the privilege of not having to worry about money, Nana pursued photography. That was something she knew. She didn’t know how to be a part of life, but she knew how to observe it and this felt comfortable to her. Her portfolios had all differed as she went through phases of subjects in her photography. For a while it was strictly jobs that paid her like press and media, photoshoots, then food, weddings, then sceneries. Eventually, Nana knew she wanted to relocate. She hadn’t seen very much of the world.
Around twenty-three, Nana moved to London, England. Besides the culture shock, it was more…Lonely than she expected. The language barrier wasn’t hard—There was none, people often thought she was American—But making friends wasn’t easy. She’d never really known how. So she just stuck to her pictures. The excitement of change had worn down and everything just felt routine and monotonous.
Until Nana snapped a picture of something she wasn’t supposed to.
She ran. She made copies. She needed leverage in case something happened. In case they found her and wanted to kill her too. Maybe she should have called the cops or told anyone, but to speak out about something felt wrong. That’d been the lesson she’d been taught over and over again. If Nana said nothing, didn’t acknowledge anything, it didn’t happen. She could avoid it.
Of course, it did happen and strangers busted into her apartment ready to take her out. This was where the leverage had worked out for her and, strangely enough, they were impressed. Eventually a deal was made and Nana found herself recruited for Famine.
Perhaps she should have fought against it more, but by default Nana usually understood things with apathy and a lack of bias. Thinking logically, the benefits of this new position she found herself outweighed the cons. Namely, to simply have a purpose was enough. Being an Angel wasn’t a particularly high position in the syndicate, but Nana was content with it. Straddling the line of crime and normalcy felt like right. It was easy to sweep away wrongdoing with the same distance she had between herself and life in general. It was just observing. That’s what they wanted her to do. That’s what she’d always done. She was good at it and she preferred sticking to what she knew.
Wren. You and Wren enter Famine at the same time, meaning that you spent a lot of time together in the initiation process. They’re one of the few people that you genuinely like, that you click with with no ulterior motives. It’s the closest thing to a normal friendship you’ve ever known and you welcome it with open arms.
Zacharias. They catch you snooping in War’s business one time, and from the goodness of their heart they let you walk free. Turn a blind eye to your eavesdropping for reasons unknown. But lately, you can feel it, the pair of eyes that burn into the back of your head. They’re keeping tabs on you, waiting to collect information on you so that one day they can impress their superiors by presenting them your head on a silver platter.
Belladonna. They’re the reason you’re here, the voice that whispered in your ear ever so tempting and corrupted you into the person you are today. They’re somewhat of a mentor to you, an older sibling you never had to offer sound and thoughtful advice.
