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It was two o'clock in the morning in Tokyo when a white tiger walked into the Blue Note nightclub. Ryo Zanza began to walk into the club and look around the room as soft jazz was playing on the speakers around him. There are so many places to hide away, Ryo thought as he wandered over to the bar and order a few drinks.

All he wanted was a few shots of hard liquor; any liquor will do. I will drink and everything will disappear, he thought. I will drink until I forget everything. Why was this rugged, handsome feline so depressed? He pulled out his iPhone from his pocket while he sat at the bar and leaned over the counter. He browsed through photos on his phone. Some of the photos showed Ryo in a black shotokan karate uniform, posing alongside his master and fellow students. He sighed and looked at his right paw, which he quickly clenched into a fist.

He wondered why he didn't have an element of his own. Everyone on the planet had an element that was incorporated in their DNA. Strong creatures were able to externally manifest their elemental powers while the weak could not. But not having an element at all was unheard of, he thought with a disappointing groan. He was told that he could not advance in his elemental training if he had no element. Not now. Not ever. So he left the dojo. What's the point in staying? He was forced to abandon any hopes of mastering ninjitsu, a goal he's had since he was a young cub. He wanted to be an assassin.

He hated the taste of Japanese whisky. The bartender gave him a pair of Single Malt Yoichi shots. He drank them down quickly, but at the cost of his throat. A wickedly sharp jolt of whisky nearly choked him. The alcohol snapped him into sitting upright. He was in the midst of getting himself into a drunken stupor, but he couldn't even do that. The tired gray wolf bartender that served Ryo looked at the tiger as he slowly and painfully consumed his drinks.

"You don't have to drink if you don't want to," said the bartender.

"You don't get it. I need to. Do you think I am enjoying myself because I ordered a few shots? A couple of bottles of sake? Beer? Do you think people come here because they 'want' to be here? Sure, some do, but others come to a place like this to drink away pain. I want to drink enough to wipe away the memories reminding me that I'm not fit for this fucking world," said Ryo.

"I'm sorry," the bartender said.

"No you're not. Another shot."

About a hundred feet from the bar, a group of men in sharply dressed black suits walked in. The leader of the group, Saito, was head of a local yazuka gang in Kawanishi. They were in Tokyo for official business and decided to visit the club for a few drinks. Saito mentioned to the group that a tiger was sitting in his seat at the bar.

It was warm inside the bar and Ryo breaking into a sweat. As he continued consuming his drinks, Ryo thought about the path he once chose to lead. Being an assassin meant that he had to kill those who he was contracted to kill. Sounded fair. The one thing he particularly enjoyed about assassins was their bloodlust and the constant improvement of skill. He wanted power. He wanted to be an unstoppable force. But since he was unable to channel an element through extensive training, he felt weak, vulnerable and inadequate. He didn't see a viable path to claw his way to power.

The big and broad-shouldered twenty two-year-old feline looked down at half a dozen empty shot glasses and held his head with his paws. He heard someone approaching him from behind. He declined to turn around. It was Saito, the cackling hyena, waiting to knock the drunken tiger off his stool.

"Excuse me," said Saito. "The gang and I would like to sit at the bar."

"Do whatever you want," said Ryo.

"Oh, you don't understand. See, I want to sit where you're sitting right now."

"There are other seats here." Suddenly, Ryo heard the click of a gun and felt it being pressed against his back.

"Turn around, cat. I want to see your face."

"That's funny. I don't want to see yours."

The red-faced hyena pressed the gun further into Ryo's back. "It's not honorable to shoot someone in the back, especially a low-life, mouthy drunk like you."

"Fuck your honor."

Ryo hit Saito with a backfist. Saito let out a gasp as he was hit with a punch that he couldn't see. He lost consciousness temporarily as he stumbled, but regained his footing once rage started to build up inside him. Ryo turned around and faced the sharply dressed yazuka that were charging toward him with swords.

"You're taking too long to kill me," Ryo shouted as he swung to his side and delivered a sweeping kick, which tripped the group all at once. Clubgoers noticed what was happening and started to run outside. Saito's free paw rubbed his chin as he chuckled. After a brief moment of chaos, Saito took out his gun and fired into the air. It was a loud bang that rattled loudly inside the tightly packed club. Saito felt fire burning inside him.

When Ryo saw Saito's body covered in flames, he felt fear. He seriously felt like he was about to vomit. He could feel the heat of Saito's flames.

"I decided I want you to die slowly!" Saito shouted.

There was a loud pop and crackling noise. Saito's clothes dissolved. He was completely naked, covered in a shield of fire: his element. It was the first time Ryo saw someone fully enshrouded in an element. When he looked at Saito directly in the eyes, he could only see fire where his pupils were; it was tinted with a subtle, orange glow.

This isn't good, Ryo thought. How could the hyena's body remain unscathed despite the flames? Ryo gritted his teeth and got into fighting position.

"Where's your element, boy? I want to see it! I know it's there!" shouted Saito.

"I don't have one, but I don't need one to take care of a freak like you," Ryo shot back.

Saito charged Ryo with the group. It was five against one -- one of the guys being a yazuka completely surrounded in flames. He felt like he was in a nightmare. He felt tired, weary, useless and suicidal yet he wanted to survive. He couldn't think straight because of the alcohol. All he knew was that they were gunning for him. Defend, defend, defend.

Because of the fire, the emergency sprinklers were activated. Water jetted from the sprinklers like heavy rain, dousing everyone underneath. Ryo's body began to shiver almost as violently as a seizure. He felt a chill run down his spine before he felt a strange warmth. He briefly looked at the sprinklers above him as he felt what appeared to be hail raining down. Why hail? Why was it suddenly discharging blocks of ice around him and nowhere else?

"There it is, boys," said Saito. "He's an ice element."

"Ice?"

Ryo opened his mouth, trying to say something. Then he was punched by Saito with a flaming fist. Ryo was hit in the face, but something blocked the impact. A sheet of ice formed around Ryo's face. Ryo thought the thin, but durable sheet of ice was merely a fragment of his imagination. He didn't know how he created an external manifestation of ice. He didn't know he had an element. Suddenly, Ryo was unable to contain his excitement -- that is, before the ice broke. He couldn't control it. Not yet.

Saito smiled. "Oh, you had a trump card?"

Knowing he had something to live for, Ryo threw a sharp jab at Saito. The liver blow connected, but Ryo burned his fist in the flames. He felt a cooling sensation around his injured paw. As a trained martial artist, Ryo knew that he wouldn't be able to use his right paw for a while, though the cooling he was experiencing was his element trying to compensate for the burning feeling. He was beginning to feel the element flow through his body like ki. Only when he experienced pain did he notice how his element flowed within his body.

Instead of using his left paw, Ryo focused on kicks. Saito dodged the higher kicks, which forced the hyena to defend his upper-body. Ryo rushed into Saito with a diagonal-low kick. After the initial snap of the kick, Ryo used the same leg to kick high and connect with Saito's chin. The attack was successful. The kick left a trail of ice, increasing the impact's intensity. Ryo was figuring out how his element works.

But he was not confident enough with his newly acquired abilities to defend himself from the bullets that flew past him. The yazuka wanted to take the tiger down. No matter how much he wanted to flex his abilities in combat, Ryo's common sense prevailed over adrenaline. He dashed out of the club and moved past Saito, who laid unconscious on the floor. The bizarre sensation of ice covering his body was distracting for Ryo, but not distracting enough for him to escape.

The police surrounded the club, but Ryo managed to get away. He snuck through an alleyway and looked at his right paw. It was healed! The ice had settled in and eliminated the burning feeling. What was Ryo going to do now? He wanted to head back to his apartment, but figured that the yazuka could track him down there. He certainly didn't know of any places he could stay temporarily, especially at that hour.

He wasn't going to worry too much. He was alive. He wanted to be alive. Because of the realization that he had an element all along, Ryo knew that he had a purpose to exist. His dreams of being a cold-blooded assassin were about to be realized. All he could think about was power. He was surrounded with energy that flowed throughout his body. He was preoccupied with the possibilities.

He took out his iPhone and noted the scope of his powers and what he did to bring them out. He compared the notes he texted to himself with the elemental training he received just a day earlier. He wanted to be able to summon his element again without hesitation.

When Ryo fought at the Blue Note, he created ice initially as a defense mechanism. Pain was the stimuli. In his training, his master Jin told him that an element can only be drawn out once it's forced from the center of his body to an actively used limb. The pain effectively forced the element to manifest where the injury was. When he kicked Saito, however, the element was focused around his feet. Knowing that he was unable to use his stronger arm to deliver blows, Ryo inadvertently reallocated his energy to bring out their elements. Why was he having so much trouble?

Then Ryo received a news alert on his phone, which left him breathless. The news made him put his phone away and run as fast as he could.

TOKYO NEWS AGENCY: NIGHTCLUB ATTACKED BY YAZUKA AND MALE WHITE TIGER, SOURCES SAY; 22 INJURED