It was a fishing village, where everybody had a quiet, pleasant but boring life.
However, there was a man who didn't content himself with this peaceful lifestyle.
Maxi was 28 and he had an adventurous spirit which couldn't be satisfied in a place like that.
So he decided to put to sea looking for emotions, along with his brother Kyam and a little crew of men who also wanted to bring some excitement to their lives.
Money was a problem, so he was forced to become a pirate.
But Maxi, who would soon become known as "The pirate from Ryukyu", wasn't an ordinary pirate.
Maxi was a peaceful pirate, who only used violence in order to plunder the ships which came into his way, but he never sank them or killed the people aboard.
Maxi was an expert fighting with nunchakus, a Japanese traditional weapon consisting of two short and heavy sticks linked by a chain. As if this wasn't enough, he moved with ease in four different styles of martial arts.
...
A rumour began to circulate around Ryukyu.
It was about a giant human-like monster, who held an enormous axe and destroyed whole cities. He was known as Astaroth, and he was said to have been created by an evil priest, using the power of Soul Edge. The creepiest stories talked about a group of creatures which looked half lizard-half man and travelled along with Astaroth, and they didn't leave a single person alive where they walked by.
Maxi, anyway, didn't believe in monsters, giants or "lizardmen". He had always thought that all the rumours had been made up by someone in an attempt to put an end to the boredom of the village.
At least, that was what he believed until that night…
...
Maxi and his crew had just come back from their last journey. In the early morning, their ship arrived at Ryukyu's docks. The crew began to unload the cargo and take it to their secret basement, while the whole village was asleep.
Meanwhile, as they used to do, Maxi and Kyam sat on the beach looking at the sea.
They had been relaxing there for a few minutes when they heard a terrifying scream coming from inside the village.
They ran towards it and arrived in time to see a few men covered in armors setting fire to the shabby houses of Ryukyu. They were sacking the village.
Maxi and Kyam reacted quickly and ordered their men to stop unloading the ship so they could help them to protect the village from the invaders.
During the following hours, Ryukyu became a chaos.
Houses in fire, people running…
Ryukyu didn't have any army, so it was all up to Maxi, Kyam and their crew.
At a certain moment during the battle, one of the invaders found the secret basement where Maxi's crew had hidden their booty.
Kyam saw how some of them went into it, so he decided to follow them and prevent them from stealing the treasures he and his crew had in there.
After hours battling, Ryukyu's forces managed to get rid of the invaders.
The remaining of them ended up running away taking anything with them. Some of the inhabitants of the village had died in the battle, but now it was over.
Maxi approached the body of one of the invaders and took his helmet off. On doing so, he saw something that made him to jump back.
The head of the corpse resembled that of a lizard.
So the rumour was true. Those invaders should be part of Astaroth's group.
Maxi remembered that the rumour said that the "lizardmen" didn't leave any survivors, but that was probably an exaggeration.
Maxi was thinking about all this when he noticed he hadn't seen Kyam since the beginning of the battle.
He looked for him among the remains of the battle. Finally, one of the crew members told Maxi that he had seen Kyam getting into their secret basement.
Maxi ran towards there, terrified, fearing the worst had happened.
His feelings that something awful had happened became stronger when he arrived there and found out that the entrance to the basement was open. Kyam wouldn't have let it that way.
Maxi entered the place and what he saw inside was more painful than all the blows he had suffered during the battle.
There, among scattered treasures and dead invaders, Kyam's body lay lifeless.
Maxi tried to reanimate him but it was too late. Crying, Maxi hugged what it was left of his brother. Now he knew what he was going todo. He should go after Astaroth and Soul Edge and destroy both of them. Previously, he had thought about it as a challenge. But now, it was a matter of revenge. Now, it had become something personal.