Amadan's voice echoed around the small, dark quarters. Just an hour after sunset, the supposed dead Scout had made his way to a small garrison outside of the Mirumoto provinces. Crouched over the small desk in the corner of the room was the reason he had come.
The samurai once known as Bayushi Tashiro looked up from a weathered book with old eyes. Tashiro was perhaps no older than thirty summers, but the reflection of his soul was that of a man who had seen much, and lost even more. He nodded once, "We return tonight?" Amadan stood in the doorway and said, "Hai. You are sure Shosuro Kage yet lives and remains in the lands of the Scorpion?" Shosuro Kage was Amadan's sensei during his stay at the Scorpion lands. The Shosuro man had unwittingly sparked what would become Amadan's obsession with the Ninja. For reasons known to only three people, Amadan was admitted to the Shosuro Ninja school for six months before he was recalled to the lands of the Dragon. Since that time, the gaijin had heard nothing of his shadowy teacher.
Mirumoto Tashiro stood and reached for a small satchel under his desk. "I am sure," he said, "that he lives. As sure that our adopted Clan is doomed should we fail." The samurai looked at Amadan with a piercing gaze and whispered, "I cannot bear failing my Clan twice in such a manner."
Amadan nodded. "Then prepare yourself," he called to the man as he walked out into the night, "I will return here in one hour."
Tashiro looked at the empty doorway, then back down onto his desk. He heard the wind blow across the land, and in it, he heard his lost sister's voice. "I know, sister" he whispered, tears forming in his eyes. "Only a fool would think we have lost all that we could..."
*******
Moonlight created a soft glow reflection on the wooden floor of the dojo. This is perhaps where I began my new life here... the scout thought as he walked across the chamber of the old structure. In the garb of the Ninja, Amadan was nearly invisble as he moved. Abandoned for perhaps four months now, the dojo's floor was broken by an occasional weed. The mountain winds brought leaves from many miles away to rest here, and the surface of the wood was faded and warped.
Amadan stood before a small shrine to Mirumoto at the front of the dojo. It pained his Rokugani senses to see the shrine uncared for, and he instinctively kneeled before the unlit censer and obelisk. On either side of the shrine was a window, overlooking a great river valley in the lands of Last Step Castle. Below the windows were small scrolls with the words "Neither will I" On them.
The only words Shinsei had spoken to Togashi. As Hitomi's will over the Clan strengthened, the words on the scrolls seemed to fade faster every day. "I will not move until I understand," Amadan whispered into the darkness.
"Then your defeat is certain, gaijin." A voice like angry wind cut across the silence and seemed to assault Amadan's ears. The gaijin turned and stood ready with his daisho in hand. The moonlight was gone, and all Amadan could see was the wooden floor, and a black figure across the room from him. The figure was hooded, and his body seemed to have no real definition, as if he were a walking shadow.
"Who dares disturb the meditations of a Dragon?" Amadan challenged.
The figure smiled, and shadow curled from his lips like smoke, "No one," came the quiet reply. The figure took a step closer to the scout, "Tell me, gaijin, why do you leave your Clan now, in perhaps the hour of it's greatest need?"
"I will not explain myself to you, shadow. You will not make yourself known to me, so I will not make myself known to you." Amadan relaxed the grip on his blades and his mind shifted to the familiar calm of the sword.
"Oh," said the figure, "You need not make youself known to me!" The figure pulled back his hood to reveal the shadowy visage of Amadan's slain lover.
"Hashiko?" Amadan sputtered in surprise. Her features were the same, however black, but her eyes... her eyes were of the Void, of bright blackness. But they were darker. They were not of the Void, but of Nothing. The gaijin raised his daisho again and said, "No," firmly. "You are dead."
"Which is why I am here, my love," The voice had changed to a hoarse mockery of Hashiko's. "You kneel before the altar of the Mirumoto Ancestors, and they have sent me to guide you." The shadow readied it's own daisho, seemingly produced from it's hands. The blades matched the figures eyes, black and hard. "I will guide you to the ancestors of your homeland!" The figure screamed as it charged Amadan.
The scout prepared himself for the charge, deflected both blows with his wakizashi, and swung his katana, only to find it stopped by the blades of darkness.
"Why do you leave? I ask you again!" The figure struck twice at Amadan's body, and Amadan leapt back, narrowly avoiding the blades. He then lunged at the shadow's throat, and as the figure ducked, he spun and leveled his wakizashi at his opponent's stomach. The shadow knocked the second thrust away and laughed, "A killing blow, my love?"
"You are not Hashiko," Amadan said lowly, and brought his two blades down in the Strike of the Dragon's Wings.
The shadow again stopped the attack, and held Amadan's blades fast with it's own. The figure leaned in close and whispered, "With your presumed death, the family of Togashi is dead. Your homeland erupts into war, and your Clan will lose yet another family before this is over. Yet you run. You are a coward." The figure knocked Amadan back, and struck his katana from his hand. "Toturi is dead!" cried the shadow as it thrust at Amadan's chest, "Leave this mad quest and defend your homeland!"
As the black blade entered Amadan's chest, he felt his body explode into a sensation of freezing cold. He could not feel his fingers, and it felt as if his very soul was being frozen to death.
"NO!" Screamed Togashi Amadan. He gripped his wakizashi and felt it explode into a holy flame as he slashed through the figure. There was a noise like the cry of an old man being carried across mountain winds, and the figure stumbled back. Amadan looked up and saw the shadow had no face, only the form of a woman as it dissolved into nothing.
"Togashi-san!"
Amadan snapped his head up and saw he was kneeling before the shrine of Mirumoto still. The voice of Tashiro rang through the abandoned dojo. The scout looked down at his hands, empty. His blades were still on his back, strapped in the Ninja style. "A vision?" Amadan wondered aloud.
The Scorpion walked up to Amadan and whispered, "Is all well, Dragon?"
"I... I do not know, Tashiro-san." He looked up at Tashiro and asked, "Do I call you of House Bayushi or House Mirumoto?"
Tashiro looked at Amadan's ninja garb and asked, "Should I call you of Shosuro of Togashi?"
Amadan laughed quietly and said, "I see. You have picked up my family's habit of answering questions with questions during your stay here."
Tashiro shrugged. He was dressed in dark greay and black garb, and his sword was also strapped to his back. Across his other shoulder was his large bow. They would travel in complete secrecy. Two dead men would walk the shadows all the way to the lands of the Scorpion. "What was your vision, if I may ask?" The Scorpion archer asked.
Amadan stood and whispered a short prayer to the ancestors. "It was a vision of something that would keep us from our quest if it could." Amadan led Tashiro from the dojo and into the night. "The shadows are no longer our home, friend. They are the bastion of our enemy."