Fate: Hammer Time

Chapter 7: Who was Thor?

Kurata Shojiro was grinding his teeth in anger and frustration. His hands were balled into fists, his face was red and veiny, and the only thing preventing him from raging out loud, screaming his head off in fury, was the knowledge that he would be severely punished for producing any kind of audible noise, though it was a close thing nonetheless. That was how angry he was, how furious he felt towards those who treated him so unfairly.

This anger didn't come from nowhere. Most of it stemmed from the fact that he felt absolutely miserable at the moment, and was completely unable to do something about it. The resulting feeling of powerlessness easily changed into rage, and as his unfortunate situation continued, that rage only grew in size and intensity.

Kurata was standing in a back-alley in a deserted part of Fuyuki-City's outskirts, near a decrepit, seemingly abandoned apartment-complex, which he was supposed to guard from intruders. Safe to say, it was a horrible situation for a man to be in.

After all, it was winter, and not one of those weak winters with temperatures above ten degrees Celsius either. The weather was terrible! It was freezing cold, it rained, and the wind was the kind of wind that easily cut through even the thickest of coats.

It didn't help either that it was the dead of night, without a single ray of sunshine to provide some warmth or light to poor Kurata, who almost felt like an ice-statue at this point. The only source of light was the lamp he had brought with him, and the only means of staying warm was the coat he was wearing. A downright hell.

And to make matters even worse, this was the fourth night in a row he had been put on guard duty, and that he would likely be selected again the next day, and the one after that, and so on, without an end in sight.

Now, a normal, law-abiding citizen might wonder why he was standing guard in that back-alley, in the middle of the night, when he could just as well guard the apartment-complex from the inside, from where he'd be able to chase off intruders every bit as easily as from outside.

The answer to that was quite simple. Kurata Shojiro was a crook. A criminal. A member of one of the numerous small gangs that called Fuyuki-City their home. He stood outside because he was on the lookout for cops, not for petty thieves, and if you only noticed the police when they had already found you and entered your base, you were far too late.

As such, he had been posted outside and away from the base itself, at a position from where he had a reasonably good view of the main roads leading to the inner city, so he could spot police cars coming from kilometres away.

Kurata had always been destined for that line of work.

Being a criminal that is, not guarding. He was never meant for guarding things, only taking them.

Already from a young age he had been rebellious, troublesome, and lazy. Despite growing up in a fairly well-off family who had tried to keep him on the right path, he had never bothered to put any effort into his studies. He had much preferred hanging around with his similarly criminal buddies, doing all kinds of things that were much more fun than going to school, such as using drugs, extorting shop owners, and harassing prostitutes.

Eventually, his family had realised that he was not redeemable, no matter what they tried, and had subsequently cut ties with him, threatening to call the police if he ever showed up anywhere near them again. It had left him homeless and penniless, but not out of possibilities.

He and his friends had started a real criminal gang, doing much the same as before, only now full-time. Within months, they were the terror of the neighbourhood, and the absence of a strong police-presence and of strong rival-gangs meant they were free to continue growing even more.