Intro: Character Profile - Oki Azara

Good Afternoon. I have shared excerpts from my novel 'Death Match', starting with chapter one. A main protagonist was introduced preceding that chapter. It seems logical for a reader to know what our lead character is being trained to do and the challenge he will accept by facing a massive assassin intent on mauling, maiming, and murder.

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Born and bred a killer, Oki Azara relished dealing death. His father and father’s father had been modern-day ninjas, assassins for hire, and he had learned the lethal trade at an early age. Ten years old when he first went along on a contract killing, he had witnessed his father’s expertise at murder seven times before he was twelve. Following an especially notorious killing in Japan, the elder Azara had taken Oki with him to Hawaii to wait for the furor in their homeland to wane. Late one night, a drunken American marine wandered into an alley off Prostitute Lane in the Japanese sector of Honolulu. Oki Azara beat the man to death on a whim and savored the power he felt holding life and death over another human being in his hands. He was thirteen years old at the time. Now, twenty years later, he had killed many times, and women and children who had gotten in the way had also known his fatal brutality. At four inches over six feet in height, he was uncommonly tall for a Japanese male. He weighed three hundred and thirty pounds and because he carried no fat on his heavily muscled body, his extraordinary bulk was unmatched anywhere in Japan. He could run at three-quarters speed for a mile, half-speed for ten, and walk for thirty-six hours with no rest. He was expert at karate, kung fu, judo, kick boxing, wrestling, brawling, garrote, sword, knife and firearm, and very few men in the world could stand up to him one-on-one. He worked as a Japanese professional wrestler, but had no interest in the vocation as a career. It was merely a cover—his true-life work was murder. Like his forebears, he was an assassin for hire and had honed his skills until he was a killing machine. Infamous for the death of Japan’s greatest professional wrestler in a match with him a decade earlier, Oki Azara now kept his lethal abilities well hidden when he was in the ring. Avoiding the limelight, he wrestled at odd intervals and spent most of his time serving as front man, enforcer and assassin for the top criminal boss in Japan.

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Oki Azara is not my kind of guy. My name is Mick Michaels, and until a few days ago, I spent most of my time helping youngsters become better athletes. I also taught them to respect themselves and one another, to demonstrate fair play and good citizenship, and to do their best at all times. Under normal circumstances, my path would not cross that of a monster like Azara in three lifetimes, but these weren’t normal times. A vicious criminal conspiracy menacing our country made it essential for me to become a professional wrestler and placed me directly in the killer’s sights. A little more than twenty-four hours after I began my new career, in only my third professional match, I was facing my own assassin in a wrestling ring. The Yakuza mob boss sent Oki Azara to kill me!

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If you're here with me, thank you for reading my work. I'll post some history and more detail soon. Warmest regards, please stay safe and well, best from Bob