JOJI SHIMADA
Born: 2070 AD, Tokyo, Japan, Earth
First Death: 2097; suicide
Teacher: Yoshimoto Ito
Born just seventeen years after the end of Earth's Third World War, in a time when the planet was still not fully recovered from what later historians termed the "Post-Atomic Horror", Joji was adopted into a strong family during the time when the nation of Japan was dominated by the Second Shogunate, when the samurai and Bushido law were again being honoured in a world struggling to survive into the next century. In this dark age, Joji was raised to respect the old ways of honour and courage.
And yet, one by one, his adoptive family perished in blood feuds. The day came when, no longer able to bear the shame, Joji commited ritual sucicide in the manner of his ancestors, only to swiftly resurrect and discover that he was Immortal. He was soon found by the older older Immortal named Yoshimoto Ito, who became his first mentor.
Joji eventually embraced the Christian faith. By the early decades of the twenty-third century AD he lived on the Federation colony world of Ganjitsu, where he befriended the young boy Hikaru Sulu, teaching him the European art of fencing, and introducing him to such ancient Earth works of literature as The Three Musketeers. In the year 2381 AD, Joji was serving as a minister on the non-Federation planet of Nausicaa when one night he was challenged, away from holy ground, by Nonus Flavius Commodus, an Immortal of Magna Roma, who consequently took his head.