Toshi Ranbo, the Imperial City

The audience chamber leading into the Shogun’s private quarters was small, barely large enough to accommodate an important personage and his private retinue, much less actually entertain guests of any sort. Typically, the chamber was reserved for the occupant to meet privately with a single visitor, perhaps two at the most. Since the Shogun’s impromptus departure some time ago, however, Shiba Danjuro had used it to coordinate the Imperial Palace’s defenses. During that time, he only had left the city once, to deal with the aftermath of his clan’s war with the mantis. Beyond that, however, he had allowed his duties to consume him, with little thought of his own well being beyond accomplishing the task at hand. Danjuro heard the door open and did not look up from the scroll. “Good morning,: he said automatically. “The Shogun is unavailable, but I will be happy to do what I can for…”

“Tea please, Danjuro. Or sake if you have it.”

Danjuro looked up with a start. The man standing in the chamber was clad in non-descript robes, his face covered with a cloth and a wide jingasa atop his head. Despite his strange appearance, there was no mistaking the man for anyone else, even for a moment.

“Kaneka-sama!”

The Shogun pulled the cloth from his face and removed his hat. “No sake, then?”

“Kaneka-sama,” Danjuro said,” where have you been these past months? Things here have been in chaos!”

“I have been wandering the Empire in search of Enlightenment,” Kaneka said. “In disguise, of course.”

Danjuro stood in shock for a moment. “And what did you find?”

“Nothing,” Kaneka said, “And I can look no longer while the Empire founders. How have things been here?”

“In chaos,” Danjuro repeated.

“I doubt that,” the Shogun grunted. “You would never allow chaos.” He glanced around for a moment. “Its good to be home.”

“Home?”

Kaneka nodded. “Home. My brother remains ’Indisposed’ and until his emergence, I shall govern in his place. It is, after all, the role of the Shogun to enforce the emperor’s peace, is it not?”

Danjuro bowed. “As you say, Shogun.”

“Yes,” Kaneka said, reclaiming his favored blades from the stand where they had remained during his travels. “Yes, as I say.”

Near the Shadowlands border

The man simply called the Wanderer sat on a boulder and looked at the devastation stretching before him to the south. He munched absently on the rice ball in his hand, neither tasting nor really even noticing it. His thoughts were elsewhere. Without really thinking about it, the Wanderer checked his bag of jade again. He has done roughly once every two or three minutes for the past hour, and still he did not feel reassured.

The Wanderer frowned and discarded the remains of his lunch, tossing it aside where it rolled down into a larger nest of boulders below his vantage point. “If I must do this,” he muttered,”I may as well put aside deception.” With that, he reached up and ran his fingers across the strangely numb flesh of his face. He willed the mask that clung to his face to come free. He felt it resist him, but his will was too powerful. The mask that had once been called the Porcelain Mask of Fu Leng fell away, revealing his true features. The mask had been carefully purified and enchanted by the Scorpion, and Bayushi Paneki had offered it to him in order to conceal his identity while he wandered the Empire.

With the mask removed, he was the Wanderer no longer. He had never truly been the Wanderer, after all, but it was a convenient disguise to make matters simpler as he traveled. For all his travels, for all those he had spoken to., however, enlightenment had evaded his grasp, and time was short. The Empire was in need of guidance, and he had none to offer.

Somewhere in the Shadowlands, the lost Tomb of the Seven Thunders stood. The legend he had uncovered claimed that it could not be touched by the Shadowlands without great cost, and that it had stood all centuries unscathed. Within it, if he could survive long enough to find it, was the secret he had searched so long to find. The only question was whether or not he could make the sacrifices necessary to make use of it. “I need your strength Tsudao,” Naseru said. The former wanderer rose and shouldered his bag. He hesitated for only a moment longer, and then he began walking. The journey would be difficult, but he could do nothing to change that. It was best to start and be done with it.

Toturi Naseru, Emperor of Rokugan, walked into the Shadowlands. He did not look back.