In this Japanese name, the surname is Yoshimichi.
| Birth | October 23rd, 1546 |
| Death | February 26th, 2562 |
| Home | Earth |
| Position | Shōgun (former) |
Yoshimichi Saito (善道 斎藤) was born in 1546 during the middle of the Sengoku ‘Warring States’ period in feudal Japan. Born into the Oda clan, he would begin serving under Oda Nobunaga shortly before the surprise attack by the Imagawa clan was repelled. He would then join the march to the capital, Kyoto, with the rest of the Oda clan to aid in the efforts of Japanese reunification. That came to a halt in 1582 after Nobunaga was betrayed and cornered by his retainer, Akechi Mitsuhide, leading to the Oda clan leader’s ritual suicide. Known as the Honnō-ji Incident, this would shake Saitō to his core. Unwilling to follow his master’s example, he defied the code he was bound by and instead fled the country on a Portuguese merchant ship. Serving as a mercenary in their employ for a time, he would continue to do so throughout southern Europe until he ended up on a Spanish ship headed for the Americas. He would end up regretting this a thousand years later. During the voyage, he was roped into a group of explorers who believed northwest Florida held the secret to eternal life. At this point, the Spanish had already colonized much of the region, but there were still many areas left undiscovered. Once they made it to port, the group wandered into the jungle and all but Saitō would never be seen again. The root of these disappearances was the result of a failure to plan- the excursion required far more supplies than the explorers had expected, and so one by one, many of them starved to death. Even when they found the cave suspected to contain the spring, there were only three of them left, and Saitō was the only one fit to continue in and crawl towards the sounds of flowing water. He crawled for hours, squeezing through the tight passages with the last of his strength. A thick mist streamed in from the end of the passage- it burned to breathe, but he found it strangely invigorating. Exiting the passage, he found a cavern with some evidence of human habitation- carvings were left in the rock around the steaming pools. He laid in the pool, believing it to be a final comfort before he would finally starve. He fell asleep in the gentle waters, with his head slipping below the surface shortly after. He would end up drowning in the waters he spent so much time searching for; only to awaken weeks later in the same cave, without any of the healing waters he had come in search of. He easily crawled out of the darkness and exited the cave, only to find his accomplices’ skeletons picked clean by animals. It was only at this point that he realized something was very wrong. He returned to the nearest colony and attempted to inform them in Spanish that none of the others survived the expedition- it took several hours but he believed he finally got his point across. He was then thrown in the local jail and set to be hung the next morning for the murder of the eight Spaniards he travelled with. Saito resigned to his fate- out of his cowardice alone, he outlived everyone he treated as family and thus believed he had earned a death like this. But when the time came, he simply would not die, even after hanging for an hour. He was cut down from the gallows as it was believed he was pardoned by God. He accepted this seeming miracle and used this chance to return to Europe, continuing his mercenary work but with renewed vigor. He gained a reputation for performing far better than any man half his age, and he continued to work throughout the continent for another fifty years, still appearing to be in his forties by then. Because he never stayed in one place, nobody could recognize him as a 90-year old man in a 40 year old’s body. It was 1636, and Saitō decided he wished to return to Japan- he once again boarded a Portuguese merchant ship and attempted to travel there; only to learn that the Tokugawa shogunate had recently created an edict that would seclude them from most of the world, with small exclusions made for trade with the Portuguese and the Dutch. This edict included a passage about Japanese natives returning to Japan from abroad after it was created- anyone who did return would be put to death. Unwilling to face certain death a second time, Saitō remained on the Portuguese ship and returned to Europe once again. Now knowing he cannot return home, he instead continued doing what he was good at for over 200 years- although it was becoming evident some were catching onto his strangely consistent appearance. In 1849, he would travel to America again, now the United States, after their revolution in the 1770s. He decided to leave for the US because news of the California gold rush had been heard around the world, and he knew offering security to prospectors would itself be a metaphorical gold mine. He found this business to be extremely lucrative, and so he continued offering support to miners throughout California, eventually settling down near San Francisco. He set aside a large amount of gold on his property and laid low, coasting off the money he had made throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s. He managed to avoid the draft for the Great War because he wasn’t a naturalized citizen, and his fortune insulated him from the effects of the Depression. However, no one, even including him, was quite prepared for the forties. On December 7th, 1941, the Empire of Japan declared war on the United States in a surprise strike on the Pearl Harbor base in Oahu, Hawaii. After this, he would join the ~120,000 Japanese-Americans who were held against their will in internment camps throughout the United States in the belief that Imperial Japanese loyalists hid within the group. This was despite the fact that a significant amount of them had either fled Japan or had only lived in the United States their entire lives. Saitō was held at the Manzanar camp on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains between early 1942 and late 1945. There were multiple times he considered fighting back against the guards, but even though he knew he would survive, he did not wish for anyone to be caught in the crossfire. Once he was released, the WRA (War Relocation Authority) gave him a one-way train ticket back up to San Francisco. He would never end up speaking of what happened there, even to his most trusted confidants. After the war, Saitō returned to the land he held in Northern California, fortunately having set aside enough gold previously to rebuild his life with. However, rather than continuing to live in the country that had wronged him, he decided to return to his homeland once again, devastated by the destruction the war had caused. Although he had not been there in over 364 years, he wished to assist in rebuilding the country in whatever way he could, still feeling a deep kinship with its people; especially after being held with so many Issei and Nisei Japanese-Americans in Manzanar. Despite all that he had learned of the country in his absence, he was surprised just how much had changed. Stepping off the ship into Yokohama, he would find work at Keihin Construction, a company focused on working with the American occupation to rebuild after the war. His role would be primarily to escort trucks transporting materials with the help of occupying forces. He had reservations working with Americans, of course, but he was uniquely suited for the role as he had spent his life in security work and he could speak both Japanese and English fluently. It was quite the shock to hear that Emperor Hirohito renounced his divinity in early 1946, and to learn of all that happened during the Meiji Restoration a century before- the dissolution of the daimyo and then the samurai, and the Haitō Edict that banned swords entirely. He particularly disliked that he could not carry a sword of his own anymore, especially when the soldiers he worked with carried rifles at all times. Riding in an American truck, he watched Mt. Fuji from afar… appearing not to have aged a single day since he last saw it. He would continue this work for several years, becoming a familiar sight on the Yokohama-Tokyo corridor.