Gōsuto, Hadezu

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Foolish. Delusional. Avaricious. Due to being raised in the streets of one of Japan's most dangerous slums, Hadezu's intentions are rarely anything but criminal, since he's lived a life of complete anarchy and recklessness. The shadowy lawbreaker is quite selfish, his personality borderline childish at heart. Hadezu's affiliation with gangs and nefarious organizations has made his appearance seem rather intimidating and someone to be feared, while he even sports a threatening performance to boot... however, underneath the visage is an easily-startled and gullible teenager, who is merely a puppet in the grand scheme of things. Nonetheless, Hadezu is equipped with seventeen years of street-smarts, with one of his few positive traits being his understanding of Japan's urban secrets, and his ability to navigate the metropolises with ease. However, this has caused his academic knowledge to suffer greatly, making him appear to be quite moronic, even in the presence of normal citizens. Ever since his youth, the dark tamer has suffered from a mental illness that sporadically distorts his perception of reality. His psychotic, schizophrenic tendencies became frighteningly life-changing when he began to speak of a "death god" that plagued his dreams, which gave birth to his obsession with deleting Digimon in the name of the mysterious phantom once his equally-malevolent digital partner came into the picture. Labeling himself a "reaper of digital souls", his lack of empathy and simple-minded rationality makes it extremely difficult for him to step out of the darkness. Despite only preferring small-time acts of crime, Hadezu believes that his murderous ambitions are justified by his own deranged acceptance of the "destroy or be destroyed" concept; either he listens to the dark voices in his head, or he faces an unfathomable, painful death. Determined to achieve his life of freedom and endless luxuries, Hadezu's scrambled moral compass makes him out to be one unpredictable and terrifying villain.

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Hadezu Gōsuto's unfortunate journey began eleven years ago, when a seemingly normal life took a turn for the unexpected. Born in Osaka, Japan, the son of a man and woman with faces that he'll never forget, the night he lost them would become forever cauterized into his memory. On that fateful night, his parents met their untimely end when their home became engulfed in massive flames. Though his recollection of what truly happened that night is fragmented and uncertain, Hadezu remembers a demonic silhouette appearing suddenly from the midst of his burning home, it's pitch-black substance enveloping around Hadezu's small frame, replacing his view of the luminescent wildfire with a malleable darkness. There is a blank in his memory at this point, where the next thing he remembers is somehow appearing miles away in the alleyway of the Kamagasaki slums.[break][break]

Due to his home being disintegrated to cinders, Hadezu was pronounced deceased along with his parents, and left to fend for himself in the forgotten district. However, such a fragile and out-of-place child couldn't go unnoticed for too long, one of the local swarms of homeless citizens taking him under their supervision. With nothing and no one to return to, the streets became his new residence, the dangerous slums proving to be quite unforgiving. During the early stages of his initiation into poverty, Hadezu began to experience recurring hallucinations of "the demon", which instilled a constant sense of paranoia and fear into his everyday life. The fellow homeless folk that took him under their tutelage became aware of his weakling constitution, some trying their best to strengthen his courage while others condemned him as a lost cause. Though he was capable of stepping up to the plate and doing what needed to be done for his survival, the schizophrenic episodes kept him randomly unstable.[break][break]

"Fake it until you make it" became his lifestyle when he grew older and joined a small-time criminal gang that dabbled in thievery and mercenary work, requiring him to don a mask of fierceness and intimidation to blend into the ruthless environment. Highly influenced by the spoils of the gang's achievements, Hadezu's profession became an obsession, dreams of a luxurious life where he no longer needed to fight everyday for his life breeding pure avarice into his heart. The greed and selfishness turned into malice and bloodlust; he almost had no boundaries when it came to doing what was necessary to sate his ambitions, which became psychotic justification for beating and taking whatever he wanted from anyone he declared his prey. This newfound darkness gave him leagues of adrenaline, which certainly helped to bolster his physical capabilities, and somehow managed to keep his delusions in check. The closer he crept towards true malevolence, the further he distanced himself from his true fears.[break][break]

The lionhearted euphoria was short-lived, however. At the age of sixteen, a friendly scuffle broken out between Hadezu and one of his fellow gang members, which was quite common for a pack of delinquents, but things turned extremely bad when his adrenaline kicked into gear and sent him into a relentless beatdown that nearly resulted in killing his comrade, several other members having to step in and forcefully detain him. Once he had calmed down from his excitement, Hadezu saw what he had done and the expressions of the people that he once called friends, and immediately felt like he had become a monster. Equating himself with the same "demonic" creature from that night who had also haunted him through his own imagination, the guilt and hysteria drove him to make a drastic decision, believing he no longer deserved their companionship anymore, despite knowing them for a such a long time. Unable to forgive his own behavior, Hadezu secretly gathered his belongings and left for Tokyo, Japan.[break][break]

Secluded in an abandoned building where light barely pierced the exterior shell, Hadezu sat in the darkness for days on end as he continued to sink into depression. He refused to eat or even move an inch from his position, and would've died of starvation if he hadn't awoken to find something rather shiny gleaming from the corner of the room. Intrigued that he hadn't noticed it before, Hadezu steadily crawled over towards it, finding a black, red, and white gadget that would eventually be known as his D-Power. He couldn't help his curiosity, and after pressing the power button and activating a radiant light that nearly burned his eyes, a strange voice suddenly called forth from behind him, nearly startling him to death. Though it was quite somber in the room, Hadezu's vision was adjusted enough to observe the ghost-like spectre that floated in the distance, and he called himself Ryuk, a Digimon.[break][break]

Questioning if the apparition was "the demon" coming to take his soul, Ryuk laughed and assured Hadezu that he was nothing more than a soldier to be utilized as a weapon. Ryuk informed him that they were bound together by destiny, and that it was fate for them to become a powerful team. Originally, Hadezu failed to accept the idea, fearing "the demon" was coming for him no matter what... until Ryuk became fed up and decided to spin the paranoia to his advantage, claiming the truth was that he was sent directly from the Dark Area of the digital world to assist Hadezu with serving "the demon". Threatening the manic teenager that he'd face the wrath of "the demon" if he failed to take the mantle of the "demon's reaper", Hadezu finally came to terms with being a Dark Tamer, driven entirely on the prospect of avoiding death. From that day forth, Hadezu and Ryuk re-entered society and joined the infamous Nightmare faction, where they'd begin their quest toward a dark ascension.