Once, the Empire had hope for peace. Under the reign of Emperor Toturi, the lands of Rokugan were reborn. The clans thrived, and the and was renewed. But no more.
Toturi's disappearance threw the Empire into chaos, destroying tentative bonds between clans and flinging the Great Clans into full-scale war. When the Emperor returned to claim his throne in the golden city of Otosan Uchi, it was thought that all would heal itself. Instead, the Emperor's strange commands continue to encourage anarchy and destruction - he turns one clan against the next and encourages vicious combat of those who would gain his favor.
But there are those who believe that the man who was found in the ruined castles of the Isawa is not the Emperor. They meet secretly at night, whispering tales of ninja and of the Scorpion betrayers who hide in plain sight...and they may not be far from the truth. Great armies rise, preparing to make their mark on a weakened Empire. And there are still others with strong claims to the Emperor's throne, willing to claim their right to rule, enforced through blood and war.
One man leads the Empire. So it has been from the beginning of history. And from the shadows of a thousand years past, a silent enemy has found its time to strike...
* * *
The news came to Doji Shizue as she sat by her window, a comb pulling the strand of her long, white hair into order. For a moment, she let the letter rest where the servant had placed it, her pale eyes searching every wrinkle and touch of a foreign hand. As she raised the mahogany pins that held her cloak of hair, she noticed a mark upon the seal - a faint scratch, but a meaningful one.
"Hiroru...," she breathed. Swiftly, she reached for the letter and tore apart the seal. Within moments, she had discerned the letter's true purpose - a request for a meeting. Gathering her kimono and coverlet, she threw the letter into the fire. With a swift motion, she turned toward the door, but then her eye fell on her father's tanto, resting on its stand by the mirror. Shizue paused, trust warring with instinct, then reached for the dagger. It's deer-horn handle felt smooth under the ornate wrappings, and some recognition stirred in her mind.
The dagger had a purpose...
Shizue stared at it for only a second longer, closing her eyes and clearing her mind of its sudden, strange malaise. With a careless hand, she set the tanto down. "I won't be needing this," she whispered to herself, then turned with a smile toward the door.
As it closed behind her, the stand stood empty on the table, and a shadow stretched a covetous hand toward the moon.
* * *
Two men stood in the darkened barn, surrounded by the sound of horses faintly rustling in their stalls. Restless, Ginawa glared at Hiroru over a tall pile of hay.
"We're waiting for a woman," Ginawa snorted with contempt.
Hiroru's eyes narrowed. "She'll come."
"And then what?" Ginawa's voice was harsh, angry.
"It's better than returning to the court, isn't it?" Hiroru's voice was soft, but the sharp tones of his words hung like knives in the air.
Ginawa's face reddened. "That's exactly what we should be doing. The creature on the throne...that thing..."
"That 'thing' might still be Toturi. Do you want to take that risk?"
"It's not Toturi. You've seen it, looked into its eyes. How can you still believe it is the Emperor? I saw..."
"Hss!" The white ninja faded into the wooden wall of the barn, his gi molding itself to the wall's wooden tone.
A Cloaked figure stepped lightly into the moonlit barn, her white hair trailing beneath a lowered shawl. With a glance through the portal, she closed the heavy oaken door and placed the bar across the opening.
"Hiroru-san?" Whispered words in the dark, a loving glance, and a faint sign of movement at the maiden's side showed that the ninja had heard her call.
Ginawa snorted his disapproval and fingered his saya impatiently.
"Someone followed me, Hiroru." Shizue began, her face filled with fear. "I saw them as I entered the barn."
As she spoke, two dark figures stepped from the shadows of the barn's walls into the light of the moon. "No, my dear," Kage whispered. "You were not followed. You were led."
"Master!" Hiroru spun, pushing Shizue behind him and drawing out his kusari-gama.
"Never." The whistling sound of chain and the roar of Ginawa's sword as he freed it from its saya nearly obscured Hiroru's defiant words, but Ginawa's eyes spoke with oceans of hatred.
"We are closer to you than you think, doshi. You believe you are free of our grasp? Allow me to convince you." A gesture, a word in some strange gaijin tongue, and Shizue's face shockingly contorted with rage. As Kage smiled, Shizue drew her dagger from the folds of her obi, screamed, and plunged it into Hiroru's back. The blood was rich and dark as it slid down the blade of her father's dagger. Once more she buried the knife into Hiroru before Ginawa could reach her. With a curse and a kick, the furious ronin flung the maiden away from the collapsing body.
"Shi...zue..." gasped Hiroru, the dagger in his back moving as he labored to breathe. His eyes were wide, unfeeling. Betrayal warred with confusion as he reached to grasp Ginawa's hand.
With a roar of anger, Ginawa turned toward Shizue as she raised a stark, white face from the ground. Her eyes were haunted, confused, and she looked at her bloodstained hands with shock, hardly able to tear her tortured gaze from Hiroru's fallen form. At Kage's side, another Crane stood, shaking, his face nearly as pale as Shizue's.
"Oh, yes, Hiroru. She has been with us all along, although she does not know it. And there are others like her... hundreds of them, in every clan in the Empire. You cannot find us, you see," Kage smiled, "because we are not there."
With a roar, Ginawa reached for Shizue, his sword howling its need for revenge and death. He slammed his fist into her face. The storyteller let out a single cry of sharp, blinding pain, then collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
"What's this? Don't you know how to kill anymore, ronin?" Sarcasm, heavy and cold, dripped from the Master's words.
"Kage." Ginawa's voice was choked with rage as he turned his attention from the girl.
"Leave Hiroru to me, ronin. He will be well cared for." The frozen Crane stood in Kage's shadow, staring with terror at the ronin's howling sword. "He is to be my successor... and nothing either of you can do will ever change that."
"No," hissed Ginawa.
"There is no time, boy. The Emperor's guards are coming. Can't you hear their shouts?" Indeed, a commotion neared the barn. With it came the stomping tread of booted feet. "Leave him to me, and escape. What loyalty do you have to him? He's a Matsu."
Ginawa's roar of rage silenced the Kolat Master's next words, and Ginawa's sword sliced through the air with a gleeful scream. "You cannot have him!" The ronin's hands filled with blood, but Kage stepped nimbly aside, turning the blade away with a careless hand.
"Very well, boy," the sensei hissed. "Then I will take something far more precious to him than his own life..." With a bitter laugh, Kage vanished into the dark shadow of the barn. Ginawa howled with anger, leaping toward the young Asahina man that stood nearby. His sword tore greedily through the Crane's clothing, opening a hole from his navel to his chest. In a burst of scarlet blood, the man sank to his knees, then fell to the ground. A strangely grateful look crossed his features, then vanished as his eyes dimmed. His rage fulfilled, Ginawa stood over the fallen Asahina, his labored breathing eclipsed by the sound of the barn doors being thrown open.
"Stand where you are, by the Emperor's command!" The guards swiftly surrounded Ginawa, their faces a curious mixture of gratitude and disbelief.
"Toku lowered his steel as he realized who stood before him. "Ginawa-san?"
Standing alone in the darkened barn, two bodies bleeding on the ground around him, Ginawa finally looked beyond his reddened sword. Kage was gone... and so was the body of the unconscious storyteller. "You must come with us, Ginawa. This" - the captain of the Guard gestured - "must be explained. Murder is forbidden in the Imperial City." When he spoke again, his words were a death knell in Ginawa's ears. "We will take you to Emperor Toturi immediately."
Above them, hidden in the rafters and the darkness, the shadows laughed with glee.