[ Background ]

	Once upon a time, in Southtown...
	The beginning of Soma's life has none of the ring of the tragedy 
that would mark his adolesence. The only son of a Canadian businessman 
and his Japanese-American wife, he was actually born in Vancouver into a 
good, warm home with loving parents and all the things he could have ever 
asked for. His father Allen worked in supply chain development for a 
major shipping company. His mother Rina was a celebrated concert pianist 
who played with the Seattle Symphony before marrying her husband and 
moving to Canada. They named their son Soma after the god of the same 
name in Vedic myth: a diety said to bring inspiration and bravery to men, 
particularly warriors and poets. What they didn't know was the entire 
story; that Soma was also a drink of the gods that drove men mad as well 
as to heights of ecstacy.
	But inspired certainly characterizes the boy's youth; he was 
genial, friendly, and most of all insatiably curious. His mother, who 
worked as a recital player and accompianist now that she no longer lived 
in Seattle, instilled a love of music in him at an early age. He was 
especially fond of the sound of strings; he liked the richness of the 
sound of the cello, but he also learned to play the harp and the guitar, 
often playing duets with his mother.
	In truth, however, he was very attuned to all sorts of 
expressive arts: he loved to write as soon as he learned how, or to 
paint. He was the type of child who filled his parents' refridgerator 
door with countless, incomprehensible blobs of color they called art. He 
did well enough in other subjects in school, but it was obvious that he 
took after his mother and was destined for the art world. As a child the 
lack of physical activity made him turn to pudginess; his doctor 
recommended finding an outlet for physical exercise that allowed for his 
creativity to factor in. They decided on gymnastics, which Soma took to 
fairly readily. Between schoolwork, his music, and showing some serious 
competence at acrobatics, he had a full life.
	Things were not fated to remain perfect, however. Allen's 
shipping company was acquired by a Japanese firm, and the family was 
uprooted, moving from Vancouver to Southtown just before Soma was to 
enter middle school. He didn't have an easy time adjusting, nor did his 
father; Rika, at least, had a shared cultural history that allowed her to 
adapt more quickly. Soma was placed in a private school much 
like the one he had attended in Vancouver, but didn't adjust well. His 
classmates were for the most part sons and daughters of big business 
employees or socioeconomically upward-mobile people, and their dedication 
to success and lack of expressive talent made him feel isolated from 
others. His hair -- naturally white-silver, with black tips, ever since 
his first haircut -- made him stand out and was a constant source of 
trouble for him in terms of other students, who would often call him 'old 
man'. The only answer he saw was to hurl himself totally and utterly into 
his art, which he did. His technique in music, painting, and acrobatics 
improved to remarkable levels for his young age, but he became taciturn 
and quiet, not speaking to others as a way to protect himself from their 
barbs.
	His father was too busy at work to really notice the change, 
obsessed as he was with proving his worth to the new company in order to 
keep from having to uproot his family a second time. Rika, on the other 
hand, didn't find many opportunities as a musician in Southtown, and 
began to draw in on herself, putting around the house all day and not 
doing much of anything else. Thus Soma's isolation continued from home to 
school, with nobody noticing any of the problems that the onset of 
puberty was causing him, both emotionally...
	...and otherwise. It started at the beginning of his middle 
school years. He was wildly emotional, even compared to the normal 
pendulum swing of moods that was appropriate both for his age and his 
personality type. He found himself moved to anger and despair with 
lightning swiftness whenever something would trigger those emotions... 
though in his own way, his joys were just as exuberant. He got a 
reputation as a crybaby thanks to his unpopularity with other students; 
the slightest insult was enough to drain the color from his face, and 
protracted troublemaking usually reduced him to tears in no time flat. It 
got to be a bit of a game for the other boys, who tried to find the most 
inventive ways to get him to crack. Only a few of the female students in 
any way disliked the practice; he had a friend named Kimiko who 
frequently stood up to his tormentors and comforted Soma, though in truth 
she felt he was strange as much as they did. He found her presence 
soothing, at the very least, but they didn't become close.
	The reason for this was the early expression of his latent 
psychic power: empathy, a very powerful empathic sense that not only let 
him sense the emotions of others, but also heightened his response to 
those emotions and in some cases even imprinted other peoples' feelings 
onto his own. The common saying that children are the cruelest of all 
beings was being played out before his very eyes. The rage, confusion, 
and cynicism washing off his tormentors wasn't enough to overcome his own 
powerful feelings of rejection at knowing how they 'truly' felt, though 
he'd be hard pressed to put that in words. Thus the sensitivity and 
crying. Kimiko's genuine concern despite her misgivings instinctively 
calmed that storm. Puberty is a time of weak self-identity as it is; 
Soma's major problem was in separating himself from the emotions of 
others and determining whose feelings were 'real' or not. The only other 
way he found to calm himself was through his activities. Practice became 
catharsis; rage and hurt found their way out through his playing, or 
maneuvers in the gym.
	But they weren't enough. Dammed behind his temporary measures was 
a roiling sea of emotion, barely stoppered up. All that was required to 
set it off was some sort of traumatic event, which came shortly before 
Soma was to enter high school. His mother, feeling increasingly 
despondent over her lack of a real life and her loss of connection to her 
husband and son, took her own life. Soma's grief became an almost 
palpable thing; he fainted and spent four days in the hospital from the 
physical effects of it. Sadly, Rika's death did nothing to help him, nor 
to get his father more involved in his home life. He went back to school 
a week later, a mess.
	His fellow students, however, didn't know enough to leave him 
alone. A pack of unlucky boys decided to corner him after school to play 
the 'make Soma cry' game and got considerably more than they bargained 
for: instead of lapsing into tears, the boy lashed out at them with their 
own anger, psycho power subtly giving him just enough strength to do some 
damage in his empathically-induced frenzy.
	The problem wasn't that he got in trouble. In fact, he got away 
with it scot free; none of the kids was willing to come forward and admit 
that Soma was the one who'd beat up not just one, but three of them. The 
major issue was that he LIKED it. Internalizing their anger and dislike 
just made it all the more potent when he gave it free reign, as they did. 
This set up a powerful internal conflict, between the sensitive artist 
and the individual who just found that ramming your fist into someone's 
face can have marvelously cathartic effects that no amount of painting 
would ever produce.
	Thus began Soma's 'double life' toward the end of his middle 
school career. He vascillated either between incredible rage, which he 
took out on fellow students who dared to cross him, or feeling intense 
guilt over what he was doing, locking himself away in studios and 
practice rooms. It wasn't necessarily a dual personality -- the core Soma 
was the same and he was aware of everything he did -- but he constantly 
seesawed between the two extremes. It didn't go without notice, however. 
Eventually the students he tormented struck back, and without any record 
of their actions toward Soma he was painted as the aggressor. Thus it was 
decided that he would move into Gedo High School the following year with 
all the other problem children. His father, having lost touch long ago 
with his family life, said yes without giving it much of a second 
thought.
	At Gedo, it was a whole different story. In his old school Soma 
had been, thanks to his power-infused mania, the biggest and the baddest. 
In Gedo, that feeling quickly was washed away by the sheer tide of malice 
among the student body. The boys at his old school were merely gnats 
compared to the aggressive kids at Gedo. He learned this the hard way by 
fighting back against an upperclassman who demanded his bread at lunch in 
the very first week. Soma lashed out with an inexpert punch to shut him 
up; with not rage, but *amusement*, the much better equipped student 
grabbed his fist out of midair and rammed Soma's face into the table, 
before taking the bread and wandering off.
	Although sobering, the incident did little to relieve his anger, 
or resentment, or fear. It did, however, make him much more choosy about 
his battles. Instead of letting his anger have free rein he decided to 
isolate himself from other people once again. Not, as before, to stay 
away from their vicissitudes, but to protect himself from being 
overwhelmed by their casual disdain for others, in a literal and 
metaphoric sense. Gedo was not a school that had a lot of structure; 
indeed, it was barely a school at all. Thus Soma had all the time in the 
world to throw himself back into his studies of music and acrobatics, 
usually by finding some lone unoccupied classroom and locking the door. 
He also began to teach himself how to fight, mostly by incorporating what 
he knew about acrobatics into a sort of personal style made mostly on 
instinct, combined with what he knew from watching fights at Gedo. What 
he also did, on an entirely unconscious level, was begin to use his 
psychic powers to enhance his movements. During practice, if emotions 
were running high, his attacks would have a faint silvery aura, limned in 
black. He put it down to his imagination, for the most part, but it stuck 
in his mind.
	It was too good to last, however. For the most part Soma was left 
alone; although he wasn't a fighter like most of the school, there was 
something unnerving about him to other people. His Psycho Power acted a 
bit like protective coloration on flowers or jungle frogs; his aura made 
it clear to others that while they COULD bother or attack him, there was 
a distinct possibility that, beyond expectation, he would make them 
regret it. 

To come:

- Puts kid in coma who picks on him at Gedo (or kills him?)
- Noticed by Shadaloo, who ship him off to the US and a private school
- Shadaloo mentors him in his powers, teaches him to fight
  -> But, memories wiped of what happened
- Goes back to Southtown as a senior
- Shadaloo trying to get him to investigate situation
  -> Is observed in secret
  -> Seeing if they can switch him to the 'dark side' through anger
  -> Want to see if his duplication power extends beyond psi
- Currently trying to live out normal life again, find out what happened
  to his memories

[ Personality ]



[ Physical Characteristics ]

	None remarkable save his hair, which is naturally silver with 
black ends and resists being dyed (the dye fades out within a few hours 
if he tries). Soma looks American for the most part, though there is a 
very faint hint of his (distant) Asian ancestry, mostly in the structure 
of his face and his lean rather than square frame. He also wears glasses 
most of the time, though he tends to wear contacts when he knows he is 
going to be fighting.