Hiro Nakamura

Portrayed By	Masi Oka
Sex	Male
Status	Unregistered Evolved
Ability	Spacetime Manipulation
Date of Birth	Sometime in 1982 (~26 years old)
Date of Death	N/A
Occupation	"Terrorist"
Family	Kaito Nakamura (father); Ishi Nakamura (mother, deceased); Kimiko Nakamura (sister)
Significant Other(s)	Charlie Andrews (deceased), Yaeko (deceased)
First Appearance	The Eclipse
Last Appearance

Hiro Nakamura, a name unknown to most. To those that do know him, he has either been a nuissance or an enigma. Perhaps the enigma part is most true because one can sometimes never really tell just which time the Hiro they're talking to comes from.

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Character History

Hiro Nakamura was once just another apparent corporate drone, a deceptively innocuous cog in the workings of Yamagato Industries. Though his father Kaito was the CEO, he had Hiro start out at the bottom rung of the ladder for strictly character-building purposes.

Apparently Kaito Nakamura's ability to build his son's character was quite successful.

Hiro was, as boys go, rather unremarkable in his tastes. He loved videogames, comic books, and fantasy. He dreamed of heroics and taking valiant stands against villainous threats. What probably set Hiro apart more than most was that he carried an almost childlike devotion to those values well into his 20's.

It's difficult to pinpoint at which point Hiro became convinced that he was special, but some of his earliest clues came about from randomly (and without much trying) slowing down regular events, such as the trains in Tokyo. His efforts at controlling the ability to manipulate spacetime resulted in an adventure that would change his, and his best friend Ando's, life forever.

Almost by accident Hiro teleported himself to New York city and discovered the art of Isaac Mendez, a man who was seemingly illustrating Hiro's life. It wasn't until Hiro discovered the brainless corpse of Mister Isaac that he also discovered the fact that this was a New York five weeks in his future. Bearing witness to the now-infamous Bomb that destroyed a great portion of New York City, he teleported back to his home timeline (give or take) and proceeded to tell Ando Masahashi all about what he'd seen and gone through.

Ando, like any rational adult, though Hiro was nuts. Time travel? Teleportation? It didn't help that Hiro's explanations sometimes included the X-Men as references for how the process worked. It took Hiro's persistence and the demonstrated saving of a young girl from a predicted bus collision to convince Ando that this was all real. From there the odyssey began.

Hiro and Ando travelled to America, beginning their journey in Las Vegas. The journey very nearly ended there as well between Ando convincing Hiro to help him cheat at poker and Ando's persistent (but secretive) obsession with Niki Sanders, the internet stripper. After getting beaten up by a high roller they stiffed, and after Hiro met Nathan Petrelli (whom he SAW fly with his very own eyes thank you), the two friends hit the road. Little did they know that a man they met and briefly helped on the road was D.L. Hawkins, the husband of Niki Sanders. It would seem to outside eyes that Fate was guiding the two of them quite firmly without their knowledge.

All this time Hiro would try to call Mister Isaac to tell him about the future. Unfortunately it never occurred to Hiro that Isaac Mendez did not speak Japanese, so the excited babbling of Hiro Nakamura in Japanese finally began to wear on Isaac's nerves, he stopped even answering the phone. It was not until Peter Petrelli finally picked up the phone that Hiro learned about his future self and the cryptic message, "save the cheerleader, save the world".

('True Believers.')

Also, future Hiro had a sword. And that, True-Believers, was sweet.

Hiro and Ando followed their road to Midland, Texas, where they met a gifted diner waitress named Charlie. No sooner did they just get to know Charlie than she was murdered just around the corner from them, her brainpan left conspicuously empty by Sylar. Hiro took it upon himself to travel back in time to try to save Charlie's life, but ended up overshooting his mark. When he initially meant to go back just one day, he ended up taking a jump six months into the past instead.

Ultimately Hiro failed to save Charlie's life, and this fact was made sadder by the fact that he fell in love with her. What would have been Hiro and Charlie's first kiss was interrupted by Hiro unintentionally teleporting back to the Yamagato building in Tokyo. By the time he made it back via bus to the diner in Midland to reunite with Ando, Hiro was a slightly wiser and sadder man.

Hiro and Ando were too late to save the cheerleader, or so they were convinced, since they arrived at the high school Peter told them about only after a cheerleader was murdered there. They pressed on to New York and there finally met Isaac Mendez, where they beheld one of Isaac's prophetic paintings that portrayed Hiro with a sword facing down a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Just when you thought having a sword couldn't get any cooler!

At that point, Hiro's powers had been flagging and eventually failed to respond to his will at all. He managed to identify the sword as the sword of Takezo Kensei and came to the conclusion that having that sword would allow him to focus his ability once again. Hiro and Ando stole the sword right out of the Natural History Museum in New York only to find that it was merely a replica made by the Linderman Group. One thing inevitably leads to another, it seems.

Concluding that the real sword of Takezo Kensei was owned by the Linderman Group, Hiro and Ando asked Nathan Petrelli and Simone Deveaux (who by happenstance were in Isaac's loft at the same time as Hiro and Ando) for help in acquiring the sword. That help didn't really pan out, and Hiro and Ando found themselves abducted by men working for Hiro's father, Kaito.

Kaito was displeased to find his son gallivanting about the United States on some fool errand to try to find the sword of a Samurai hero he used to read stories about. Kaito was even less amused to find that painting of Hiro and this sword facing down a T-Rex. He offered (in the vein of 'one you can't refuse') Hiro the opportunity to come back to Yamagato Industries as an executive vice-president. However, Hiro's sister Kimiko became an obvious better choice after Hiro managed to trick her into admitting how much she thought and actually did merit the position herself.

After the narrow escape from Kaito, Hiro and Ando once again found themselves on the road to Las Vegas to collect the sword of Takezo Kensei from the Linderman Group. Thanks largely to Ando they got mixed up with a criminal named Hope, who got Ando shot in a gunfight that almost killed the two friends. Hiro decided at that point to go his own way, telling Ando to return to Tokyo because he could not bear the thought of losing his best friend. As it turned out it was with Ando's help that Hiro managed to get the sword he sought from the Corinthian Casino.

The two friends then travelled to the future where they met Hiro's future self. Hiro found himself captured by a future version of Matt Parkman and interrogated, only to be saved by a future version of Mohinder Suresh. Finally Hiro and Ando returned to their proper timeline only to make it to Isaac's loft and find themselves too late to save the painter from Sylar.

Hiro and Ando escaped Sylar, but then followed him and spied on him, learning something about what made him tick. In a confrontation Hiro very nearly killed Sylar only to have his sword broken by the villain.

It was Ando who found Jittetsu Arms, the repair shop that Hiro took the Kensei sword to in order to have it repaired. It was also there that Kaito reappeared, having apparently not returned to Japan himself but stayed behind in the United States to keep an eye on his son. As it turned out, Kaito knew about Hiro's abilities and decided that Hiro was ready to learn more about being a warrior and a hero. So it was that Kaito trained Hiro in the usage of the sword, and Hiro earned his father's praise for being an apt pupil.

Ever impulsive, Ando had his own sword made and decided to face Sylar himself. Hiro had no choice but to rush out to save his friend. At a great confrontation in the city of New York, Hiro was unable to save Ando's life and the Bomb that was actually Peter Petrelli ended up exploding, all in spite of the quest to stop it from being so.

Hiro found himself thrown into pre-Restoration Otsu, Japan, aware that his best friend Ando was gone and stuck between two sides of a battle. That battle happened to be between Takezo Kensei himself and a warlord known as Whitebeard. Hiro used his abilities to teleport himself and Takezo Kensei away from the battle until he could get a handle on what was going on. He learned then that the man he thought was Kensei was not, and encountered the real Kensei who surprisingly was a white Englishman that in later years would be known to some as Adam Monroe.

There was undeniably some part of Hiro that found himself in awe of meeting this living legend, but there was also a part of him that found the legend less than impressive. Taking it upon himself to try to keep History intact, Hiro decided to help Kensei fulfill his legend.

It was there and in that time that Hiro found Yaeko, the brave daughter of a swordsmith who Hiro came to admire and who grew to love him in turn, but with a complicated twist. Although Yaeko loved Hiro while he was disguised in Kensei's armor and mask, she also came to have something of an attraction for Hiro himself, not realizing the two were one and the same. Were this another Hiro in another universe he might've let himself love Yaeko back, but there was a distance between them of his making. It might have been that his apparent sadness only served to draw Yaeko to him.

The temptation to just stop time and lop Whitebeard's head off for Kensei was terrible, but it wouldn't have made Takezo Kensei the legend he was known to be, at least not without the proper build-up.

The opportunity for a showdown finally presented itself when Kensei discovered that Whitebeard had an arsenal of guns with which to take over Japan, at that time unfamiliar with and unequipped to resist an army wielding firearms. Hiro of course recognized this, and disguised as Kensei staged a public duel with Whitebeard where he used his ability to handily defeat the warlord, beheading him in front of his own army. Hiro-as-Kensei then offered Whitebeard's men the opportunity to serve him. A majority of them agreed, with a third of Whitebeard's men leaving under the leadership of one of his lieutenants.

Believing that he was just handed the means to conquer Japan with these newfound guns, the real Takezo Kensei was shocked to discover that they all mysteriously disappeared along with Hiro Nakamura. Hiro was determined not to let the weapons fall into Kensei's hands either.

Kensei's greatness in History seemed secure, so Hiro teleported himself through time again, eventually coming back to his home timeline to discover a world in the first stages of recovery from the dreadful incident of New York City. Nathan Petrelli, the "Flying Man", has somehow become President of the United States. Evolved people are being put in secret incarceration by the American government, and the rest of the world seems to be eyeing that idea with great interest.

Where Hiro has been in the months since the showdown with Sylar and the explosion in midtown New York City is only partially accounted for by his trip into Japan's past. Somewhere along the way he has become a more serious and capable man than his friends knew him to be. As of yet, no one has actually asked him exactly what all he's been up to, but then again most people don't know him or know to ask.

But most of all, Hiro misses his best friend.

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Personality

Hiro lives up to his name in many ways in that he is a hero at heart. His idealism gained from a fervent belief in the values of the superheroes of his childhood (and adult) comics and video games, not to mention the integrity instilled in him from his father Kaito have served to make him a genuinely good person. He is selfless to a great extent, willing to sacrifice for the good of others and place the welfare of those around him above his own. Generous and caring, Hiro could aptly be described as anyone's best friend, assuming they weren't bad people.

His courage could once have been described as cartoonish in its seeming, since it appeared to be coming from a wimpy little office drone with no actual awareness of just what he faced. Since Hiro has become so much more, his courage now seems like the virtue it truly is.

Devoted and true, Hiro seems to be quite the determined soul when he puts his mind to something. Not even his father Kaito has been able to talk him out of a course of action he is truly dedicated to seeing through. While Hiro has a natural tendency to be approachable and warm, that has quieted to a more subdued tone as he's grown. There is a perhaps understandable distance that he places between himself and most other people, allowing them only so close but no closer. In part this comes from a desire to protect others from himself and those who would harm him through his associates, but a secret place in Hiro's heart does it because he just doesn't want to go through the profound loss he has experienced in the past.

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Skills

('Computers,' 'English,' 'Otaku,' 'Driving,' 'Kenjutsu,' 'Spacetime,' 'Business,' and 'Jujitsu')

Computers
Hiro is a computer programmer by trade. More than the casual user, he can sit down and use a computer to a potential more optimal than someone used to point, click, drag. Hiro's able to write and compile his own programs as well as read what others make and tinker with it, but he's only ever done much work in C++. While he probably could accomplish some okay hacker feats, Hiro was never really the type to use computers in abusive or illegal ways. That sort of world view has shifted a little, but he isn't really reliant upon computers to do what he does either.

English
Hiro's first language is Japanese, and while like most Japanese children he grew up being schooled in English, he never really became proficient in it until he spent a lot of time in America among English-speakers. His command of English is now approaching fluency, and he's able to converse with native speakers while showing only hints of his original accent.

Otaku
Put simply, Hiro is a fanboy. Or was. While his interests have matured past the zeal he used to hold for comics, anime, and video games, he still knows Wolverine's real name, could go on at length about Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy, and has at least heard of every major title a fan of anime or manga is likely to name.

Driving
Ando did most of the driving on those long road trips, but Ando had to sleep too. That said, you try driving across the United States from Las Vegas to Midland to Odessa to New York City and back to Las Vegas, then see if you don't know your way around a stick shift. Go ahead. Try it.

Kenjutsu
Trained by Kaito and also from practical experience during his time in feudal Japan, Hiro can be considered an intermediate-level swordsman with a katana. He took to the sword very quickly and is quite comfortable with it as a weapon, and seeks to hone his skills further the more experience he has. Fortunately for him, there are so few practicing swordsmen of this kind as to make Hiro almost unique in the world. How many 21st Century wandering samurai are there with an honest-to-Kensei katana going around actually USING it on people?

Spacetime
Being able to manipulate time and space has given Hiro a unique first-hand perspective into some of its strange properties. For one thing, the question of paradox has been answered for him in one sense. As far as Hiro can tell, while it is possible to meet (and perhaps even harm) yourself in spacetime, no paradox seems to occur. However sometimes, according to a future version of himself, spacetime rifts are possible. Also, and perhaps most strangely, there seems to actually be an awareness or force of conciousness working in spacetime that for lack of a better term could be called Fate, or Destiny. Either that or there is someone else out there that can do what Hiro can do, only far better. Chew on that thought for a while. When it comes to how time and space works, Hiro knows a lot of what is possible and some of what is not.

Business
Hiro knows more than he lets on about how to run a multinational supercorporation successfully. His sister Kimiko may be better, and his father Kaito is THE CEO, but Hiro couldn't help but learn necessary facts on the subject through exposure alone if by no other means.

Jujitsu
Hiro had been taught by Kaito how to put the smackdown on people, but that training was a little too brief to explain what he's capable of now. While no master of jujitsu, somewhere along the way (very likely in his time spent in Japan's past with Takezo Kensei) Hiro has developed a very strong working knowledge of the art. The art of jujitsu primarily focuses on joint locks, holds, and throws, not concentrating too much on unarmed strikes.

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Relationships

Allies

Peter Petrelli is Hiro's best friend, at least since the death of Ando. Understanding that, it's important to get that they're not exactly pals that hang out every day. Peter is a chronic emotional wreck who repeatedly beats himself up over all the things he's done wrong and failed to do right. Hiro gets that, having at least as big a sense of responsibility himself. It's just that Hiro's found a way to channel his failures into a strength of sorts, and he takes every opportunity to help Peter do the same.

Right…what's this guy doing here? The President of the United States? One of the most crucial supporters of the fascist Linderman Act? A dirty bottom-feeding lawyer and politician? But Hiro, in spite of knowing that many things have changed, still thinks he's seen into this man's core. Not only was he the incredible Flying Man (!!!\o/!!!) but Hiro knows as an article of faith that way far deep down, in places Nathan Petrelli doesn't like to admit exist, he is truly a good man.

Kaito Nakamura is incredibly wealthy, incredibly powerful, and when it comes to his own sense of ethics, nearly incorruptible. For most of his life Hiro knew his father as a distant but very respectable man who placed a high importance on building character and teaching morality. For most of his life Hiro was a disappointment. All that changed when Hiro began his great quest to try to stop the Bomb and inherited the sword of Takezo Kensei. In all the world there is no one whose counsel Hiro values more than his father's.

	Kimiko Nakamura just couldn't be happy staying at home and running Yamagato. Nooooo. She had to come and get involved in Hiro's adventures! She couldn't be the stable, smart one. Well, truth to tell the fact that she IS the smart one really makes a lot of difference. Of course Hiro loves her. She is the person that Hiro trusts more than anyone else on the planet.

	This woman is definitely NOT anything like Charlie. Except that she's kinda redheaded and has the same general ability. Well, maybe she's more like what Charlie would have become had she lived and suffered the same trials. As Hiro's primary contact with Phoenix, Cat has earned his respect and friendship.

Assorted Gaijin

	Until he spoke to her, Hiro had never met a prostitute before. That he knew of. She tipped her hand to being something more when she drugged him and botched her own setup to get away with it. Now Hiro knows she is a Company agent and believes she lied to him otherwise, which shouldn't be any surprise. But he will have nothing more to do with this woman willingly.

	Believing that he knew this guy somehow, Hiro let himself get arrested by Matt. It was more an effort to learn the man's name and to get a guage of his person, and as soon as that worked Hiro vanished from the back seat of his car. Curious man, who bothers to put handcuffs on someone he knows can bend time and space…

	A bossy police officer who knows Cat and works with Evolved, and obviously has an ability involving the manipulation of sound. Simply because of what he's seen of her Hiro considers her approachable, which is saying more than one can for 99% of the rest of everyone in the world.

	Zoe got Hiro's attention for real when she called him Carp. He isn't sure exactly what it is she does, but she works for Linderman. That doesn't make her evil, but it does warrant caution. Especially since she's also Linderman's neice.

	……………………………………………………………………..Holy crap, what has Hiro done?

	Hiro's contact with this young woman has been limited but significant. She is, after all, The Cheerleader. There is something hard about her that he regrets and is ashamed of, because he sees it in himself as well. But she, like the man he knows to be her father, is a good person on the inside who is not what she seems on the outside.

Enemies

	Linderman is the puppet master pulling so many strings, causing so much hardship for so many people. Even Hiro, who knows more than most do about what's going on, does not know half the things Linderman has planned. He just knows that somehow when something is shady or wrong, Linderman's name seems to come up in relation to it.

If only Hiro had cut him. News of Sylar's survival beyond the events of the Bomb is enough to tell Hiro that he didn't do his job well enough when he failed to kill Sylar and then failed to save his best friend from this monster. Hiro has lost not one but two people he loved to this Thing masquerading as a person. Quite simply put, if Hiro ever has the opportunity he will slaughter Sylar like a rabid animal. For Charlie, and for Ando.

Quite to Hiro's consternation, this man cannot die of old age. To Hiro's disadvantage he doesn't even know that the man he knew as Takezo Kensei now goes by the name of Adam Monroe. When they met Hiro became something of an inspiration to this man, and although Kensei was Hiro's childhood hero their relationship developed into something much more like true friendship. But Kensei was greedy, and the success that Hiro delivered to him in feudal Japan went to the man's head. In the end Hiro saved Japan (and History as he knew it) by ensuring Kensei could never become the shogun he wanted to be. To Kensei, Hiro was a betrayer who stabbed him in the back at the last second. Inevitably there will be a reckoning between them, the Immortal and the Time Traveller.

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Timeline

December

December	Title	Summary
17th	Angry and Disillusioned	Hiro Nakamura is clearly on crack.
	I Want In	Hiro Nakamura is told where to find Peter Petrelli.
	Godsend Bargain	Hiro's search for the Brill paintings starts at the source: the Linderman archive.

Before

Before	Title	Summary
August 2007	The Eclipse	Hiro travels through time to find Peter Petrelli, and impart to him a sense of hope in a future that could be, not necessarily the one that is.

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Memorable Quotes

• "Fu-rying man! Whoosh."

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Media

Gallery

Gallery

Theme Songs

Music

Sorry, no match for the embedded content.

Dream Theater, "Pull Me Under"

Lost in the sky
Clouds roll by and I roll with them
Arrows fly
Seas increase and then fall again

This world is spinning around me
This world is spinning without me
Every day sends future to past
Every breath leaves one less to my last

Watch the sparrow falling
Gives new meaning to it all
If not today nor yet tomorrow then some other day

I'll take seven lives for one
And then my only father's son
As sure as I ever did love him
I am not afraid

This world is spinning around me
The whole world keeps spinning around me
All life is future to past
Every breath leaves me one less to my last

Pull me under pull me under
Pull me under Im not afraid
All that I feel in honor and spite
All I can do is set it right

Dust fills my eyes
Clouds roll by and I roll with them
Centuries cry
Orders fly and I fall again

This world is spinning inside me
The whole world is spinning inside of me
Every day sends future to past
Every step brings me closer to my last

Pull me under pull me under
Pull me under Im not afraid
Living my life too much in in the sun
Only until your will is done

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Trivia and Notes

• The player is capable of thorough evilness. Be glad he is playing Victor and Hiro, two characters that aren't capable of real evil. :)

• I played Conrad. He died. I was not bored with the character, but rather really enjoyed having a well-loved character die spectacularly right when he was going strongest. That's just how I am.

• Because I am a mean bastard and just MIGHT use real Japanese ICly to screw with people: http://babelfish.yahoo.com/ (Hudson's Note: Babelfish is not real Japanese, thank you.) (Hiro's Note: Hiro Nakamura is not real either, thank you!)

• Kaito loves sweaty basketball players: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AScqvJb9UsQ