Furya had a tumultuous childhood. His mother’s ambitions as an artist often pawned Furyo off on friends of the famous and honorary aunts. One caregiver while his mother had overdosed, was an old blind woman who read fortunes in Chinatown. She was kind and always waiting for Furyo to come home from playing with warm food, games and cheerful songs. The old woman’s name was Oga Bakeneko. She read horoscopes, gave blessings to the dead and operated a sanctuary for friendly Yurei and Yokai lost among the desolation of North America. Far from her stall in Chinatown, she had made a home in the sewers of the Financial District, accessed through Muni tunnels that cross crossed under the city.

In a place that should have been dark and dismal, Furyo had some of his best memories. Half remembered meetings with famous ghosts of martial artists masters, mythical Kirin and even a gambling dragon that swam deep under the bay to collect treasure from sunken ships. Mrs Oga had many other children under her care, runaways, orphans and spirits of murdered children unable to cross to the other side. Her little house build of scrapped lumber and ancient pieces of temples was from a bygone era, before the 1906 earth quake… whole streets were built over. Creating a labyrinth of tunnels and lost city streets 20 feet below modern street level. This is where lepers, albinos, singing hobos and fugitive criminals created an underground society. An Grandma Oga was seen as the honorary mayor.

The home they made was beneath a large metal grate that allowed in rain and light, allowing Mrs Oga to create a garden with a koi pond, cherry blossom trees and shrines to the ancient kami. She would tell Furyo stories about his father fighting off sea monsters and his mothers pedigree as a famous singer in the 60’s. Furyo felt so proud of these stories but always wondered why he was abandoned to live in the shadow of his family. This was a dreamworld where Furyo would leave every day to attend public school, wandering around the city mixing with the eclectic artists and Bohemians who made San Francisco well known for its murals, music and political scene.

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When Furyo was small he would go fishing with Umibōzu, Kappa and Funa Yurei. Collecting not just fish but lost souls and collectables from centuries past. Furyo would bring Grandma Oga old gold bars, belt buckles and suit cases from robbers thrown over the sides of boats. It was a good life but soon Oga was too old, passing a spell of forgetfulness over him so that his occult world would not cause him to say any thing crazy to school officials. When Mrs Oga died, Furyo and the living children were taken away to foster homes. This is when Furyo was on the edge of his teen age years and ended up running with a rougher crowd. He met the Murder Society in China Town, it was a group of young hoodlums and martial arts school drop outs shaking up the established order of China Town.

When Furyo was 16 he got caught up in a drug robbery where a man was left paralyzed and Furyo was charged as an adult. All his life he spent his days alone and cold, his fiends mostly evil spirits and friendly ghosts. When he became a man it was in the Youth Authority and Level 4 prison yards of old Folsom, Corcoran and San Quentin’s Death Row, where they did a scared straight program for young gang members and real assholes. All this time all he wanted was to see his parents again, little did he know when both of them faced death, they bargained for his soul. Junkie parents saw no value to his eternal soul, causing him spiritual misfortune so they could have a few more good years running in the underworld.