Akodo and Kitsu
When the humans were created, and the One Who Must Not be Named first fell from the sky, the ancient races were eradicated from the world on which we now live. The Naga descended into a great sleep, or became once again part of the rocky earth from which they had sprung. The Nezumi, according to a heretical Crab scholar named Kuni Mokuna, were scattered across the earth, losing whatever vestiges of civilization they had achieved. The kitsu chose not to attempt to live among the new masters of the world, and took refuge in the mountains which would one day be ruled by the Dragon.
At first, man did not recognize that the kitsu were a sentient race, and hunted them. The kitsu took this to be a declaration of war, and their savagery in return earned them much fear and hatred from the primitive clans of Rokugan.
At last, ordered by Hantei to contain the dangerous beasts, Akodo began the obliteration of the kitsu. The great lions were hunted and killed, their bodies burned without knowledge of their intelligence. At the end, the last few survivors of the race gathered together in a hidden valley, prepared to give their lives in defense of their leader. When the humans found them, Akodo himself leapt to the forefront of the battle, grasping the leader of the kitsu in a mighty battle-hug. Using daring and cleverness, the kitsu escaped, and his tremendous roar shook the walls of the high valley. Akodo was startled, falling to his knees as the ground rose up beneath his feet. He expected the lion to attack, to tear his head from his shoulders with its clawed paws – but the kitsu did not. It simply stared at Akodo with tremendous, hate-filled eyes, and waited for the man to rise to his feet.
“Hold!” cried Akodo, and his warriors backed away from the combat. For a long moment, Akodo and the kitsu stared at one another. Then Akodo bowed to the kitsu, and the great lion narrowed its eyes and nodded its head. It was a simple matter to make peace with the strange, kami-like race, and a tentative treaty was formed. For years thereafter, the Kitsu shugenja say, Akodo traveled to that valley and atoned for the innocent creatures he had massacred.
It is said that five men returned with Akodo from his final trip to the kitsu valley. Their hair was a magnificent bronze-gold, a color which is rarely seen in Rokugan. Akodo claimed that they were the last of the kitsu, transformed by the Sun Goddess into human form as a boon to her bold son, to join him, to take human wives, and become as mortal men.
The Death of Kitsu
Dawn crested the peaks of the southern hills, setting Heigen no Otaku ablaze with the brilliance of another day. Akodo One-Eye halted a moment to exhale in relief – not just from the unnaturally cold night, but also from the plague spreading across Rokugan behind him.
Fu Leng had survived his plummet into the Festering Pit and made an unholy pact with the forces that he had discovered there. Now, under his vile leadership, they swept across the face of the world with all the contagion of the worst epidemic ever known. Akodo himself had seen his friends lost in battle, only to rise again beside his fallen brother.
Death itself had betrayed the Empire.
Nisiko, Akodo’s wife, was sequestered at an outpost that had been besieged by the forces of the Shadowlands since one week before. Akodo had returned and engaged them, hoping to stave them off long enough for Crab reinforcements to arrive. But finally, two days prior, that ray of hope was extinguished. Word had come that the Crab had been ambushed en route and would not arrive in time to do any good.
In a last valiant effort, Akodo and his remaining beleaguered troops carved into the undead bodies between them and the dwindling Lion at the post. Several of the corpses they cut down were their former liegemen, companions – even lovers. Honor fled in the face of such atrocity, but Akodo would not be denied. Those who remained alive within the post would be saved, or he would die in the attempt.
His fury cast a harsh glare upon the oni and their brethren, and many of the weaker races cowered in fear or deserted the scene entirely, only to be slaughtered by the stronger beasts. Akodo’s spearhead unit sliced through them with the precision of the finest katana handled by man.
Scattering monsters on all sides, Akodo and the few able bodies that had survived with him crashed into the post and cast frantic glares within. Several of the yojimbo lay horribly wounded at the threshold and a handful more huddled defensively near their charges. Nearly a dozen women and children, the families of those who now fought the forces of He-Who-Is-Not-To-Be-Named, blankly gazed back at their saviors, shock drawn deeply in their stark features.
Without a word, Nisiko wrestled to stand, the burden of her blooming belly fighting to weigh her down. Her yojimbo made to grasp her shoulder, but her piercing countenance caused him to pause. Uneasily he stood to attention before Akodo as he approached his spouse, whose struggling breath shuddered through the room with the slow meandering of a dying animal.
Turning at the call of one of his men, Akodo suddenly realized how quiet it had become. Looking past those gathering at the door he noticed that the legions of Fu Leng were retreating, only the dust of their passing visible behind their charge. Stepping out over bodies that had not yet revived, Akodo grimaced.
“Why?” was the only response he could muster.
Soon, he thought. Very soon, they would be forced to stand their ground and allow the women their rest. Five were heavy with child, Nisiko the worst of all. Akodo should have feared for the life of his unborn son, and those of the sons of his clansmen-in-arms. He should have feared for the lives all born into this dark age. He should have feared for the fate of all the generaitons to come.
But he was a Lion, and he could not afford to fear. He could not stand down, even if they took his son, his wife, and his clan. He would fight until his blood stained their clothes and his last breath crept into their hearts and poisoned them.
Yet his heart was burdened as his wife, and he hoped for the aid fot he Fortunes in this grave time. He had a few more hours to plan. The daylight would keep the evil beings at bay for that much longer; he and the others would be able to gain another several miles on them before pursuit resumed.
Questions still troubled him; questions about the unusual tactics of these hunters, and why they had not taken the chance to kill Akodo and his men when they could. Something was at work here that he could not see. Perhaps they wanted something from the living, or the living themselves…
Akodo was roused by the sudden clenching of Nisiko’s fist about his arm. Her face was a palatte of pain, her teeth gritting together in a stifling effort. She was close. They would not be able to travel much farther before nature would force their stand.
Calls from his men alerted him to the sight of ogres and oni upon the far hills behind them. The strongest of Fu Leng’s demons had pressed on defiantly through the morning and, setting their sights upon the small unit, doubled their pace.
Akodo looked into the clouded sky and silently repeated his willful oath to the Fortunes. Then, looking about him, through his charges and into their spirits, he made his decision.
They would all die here, with honor.
“Lord!” The call issued from above, and near. A mounted scout, winded from his quick ride south, continued, “There is a home to the north, an hour’s ride at most. It is defensible, and…” Hisvoice trailed off at the swelling might of corruption before him.
For the second time in his life, Akodo was sure no words remained.
Glacing over at Koshu for the ninth time in two hours, Akodo wondered again at his obvious anxiety. The scout’s eyes darted about him as if he were afraid something very near him would strike at any moment, even considering the awesome horde looming up behind them, his behavior was extreme. Questioning it would have been counterproductive, however, so instead he made a point of catching the man’s gaze with his own and prompting his attention.
“How much farther, soldier?”
Startled, the scout quickly blurted out his reply. “Another twenty minutes.” He seemed to clutch the reins of his horse more closely then, and his frame shortened in his saddle. “Perhaps less.”
Akodo himself began to feel uncomfortable, as if the air about him were gathering too closely around him. He fought to retain his composure in the face of his men and their families, for if he showed weakness, then all the others would falter.
“There!” Koshu cried, pointing down into a ravine along the river that would become known as Oboreshinu Boekisho Kawa, Drowned Merchant River. At the confluence of the stream and the Way of the Elements, stood a simple wooden structure, no more that twenty feet square. A small copse of trees surrounded it, the only noteworthy break in miles of monotonous terrain.
Nisiko was nearly unconscious as they approached from the rigors of the last several hours. Akodo lifted her frame from the horse and carefully headed for the building, noting with hollow satisfaction that it was made from petrified wood. Perhaps that would grant them a few moments’ reprieve, he grimaced, but hardly enough time for the birth of five.
Just ahead of him, Koshu rushed to open the door, but came short suddenly. Akodo made to shout at him for his awkward halt, but immediately noted his rigid stance.
“All around us…they’re all around us…” Turning, the scout’s face was pallid. “Can you no sense them, my Lord?”
A baleful roar across the hills behind him reminded Akodo of the beasts’ imminent arrival. Incautiously, he pressed, “What is all around us, soldier?”
“Things,” he stammered, “things we cannot see.”
“He is correct,” came a voice from within the dwelling, a voice Akodo knew all too well. “There are.”
The flaxen mane of Kitsu, the leader of the remaining five, caught in the waning rays of sunlight as he stepped out from the doorway, his brood of three peering out of the dimness behind him.
“Quickly. Inside. All of you!” he urged past a smile that irritated Akodo more than it comforted him.
“I know why Fu Leng’s armies chase us, my friend, “Akodo ventured. “My brother desires to be the only son of the heavens.”
“You are wrong, Akodo-sama.” Kitsu was very still, as if focusing on something outside or beyond the simple house they were in. “He desires to be the only heir…”
Akodo’s stomach churned. He turned his gaze sideways toward the second room, where the women’s stifled moans were soothed by the burakumin attending them.
“In the midst of this chaos, while his armies sweep across the south, hordes of his minions sweep out across the Empire, seeking the firstborn children of all the Kami. I have even heard that Doji’s firstborn son is dead.”
The statements were so matter-of-fact, Akodo found it almost laughable. “How do you know this, Kitsu.”
“They told me,” he indicated the room about them with a broad gesture, and his eyes burned with an intensity only the truth could rally.
Nodidng slowly at the words, Akodo looked about the room. His ragged men stood prepared for his next command, but fatigue and injuries betrayed their loyalty. They could be little match for the demons outside…
But that was not the point. Akodo stood, turned and strode to the door, beyond which he could hear the bestial howls of doom closing upon the home. His sword was already drawn as Kitsu’s voice again rang out to him. “Hold, lord!”
“This,” Kitsu placed his hand on the door before Akodo, “is not your duty. Not today.”
Following the direction of Kitsu’s pointing finger, the Kami heard the first roar of life from within the second room. “That,” Kitsu said flatly, “is your duty.
Akodo did not know how to express what he felt then. Pride, not for himself, but for the greater good of all Rokugan. Pride for the Lion, and, as his son was placed in his arms by a burakumin midwife, pride for his family.
“Remember, dear friend, if the Akodo fall…”
“Then the Hantei…”
“And everything else falls with them.” Kitsu placed his large hand upon the door and braced to exit.
Akodo, guilt at his inaction welling within him, looked down at his child, then remembers the others already there. Both sons and the daughter of Kitsu stood tall, their countenance level. “What of them?” he asked.
Kitsu looked on his children one last time, each in turn, and said, “They are here to remember.”
It seemed as if a well of movement was clouding up around him. His eyes were a flame of red when he spoke. “Do not concern yourself with fighting today, Akodo-sama. That…is our duty.”
When the door was opened, the anguished bellows of a thousand lost souls assaulted Akodo’s ears. Above the clamor of death, he could scarcely hear the final words of his friend.
“Shorai ga aru, Akodo.”
“Have a bright future.”
And he was gone.
No Ikoma records speak of Kitsu again after that day. The validity of the last passages relating to the founding of Shinden Shorai is questioned by many, as it is said that he walked across the stream and into the field of battle alone, but beside him fought the souls of every man that had fallen to Fu Leng’s evil power.
His body was never recovered.
Shinden Shorai still stands.
At first, man did not recognize that the kitsu were a sentient race, and hunted them. The kitsu took this to be a declaration of war, and their savagery in return earned them much fear and hatred from the primitive clans of Rokugan.
At last, ordered by Hantei to contain the dangerous beasts, Akodo began the obliteration of the kitsu. The great lions were hunted and killed, their bodies burned without knowledge of their intelligence. At the end, the last few survivors of the race gathered together in a hidden valley, prepared to give their lives in defense of their leader. When the humans found them, Akodo himself leapt to the forefront of the battle, grasping the leader of the kitsu in a mighty battle-hug. Using daring and cleverness, the kitsu escaped, and his tremendous roar shook the walls of the high valley. Akodo was startled, falling to his knees as the ground rose up beneath his feet. He expected the lion to attack, to tear his head from his shoulders with its clawed paws – but the kitsu did not. It simply stared at Akodo with tremendous, hate-filled eyes, and waited for the man to rise to his feet.
“Hold!” cried Akodo, and his warriors backed away from the combat. For a long moment, Akodo and the kitsu stared at one another. Then Akodo bowed to the kitsu, and the great lion narrowed its eyes and nodded its head. It was a simple matter to make peace with the strange, kami-like race, and a tentative treaty was formed. For years thereafter, the Kitsu shugenja say, Akodo traveled to that valley and atoned for the innocent creatures he had massacred.
It is said that five men returned with Akodo from his final trip to the kitsu valley. Their hair was a magnificent bronze-gold, a color which is rarely seen in Rokugan. Akodo claimed that they were the last of the kitsu, transformed by the Sun Goddess into human form as a boon to her bold son, to join him, to take human wives, and become as mortal men.
The Death of Kitsu
Dawn crested the peaks of the southern hills, setting Heigen no Otaku ablaze with the brilliance of another day. Akodo One-Eye halted a moment to exhale in relief – not just from the unnaturally cold night, but also from the plague spreading across Rokugan behind him.
Fu Leng had survived his plummet into the Festering Pit and made an unholy pact with the forces that he had discovered there. Now, under his vile leadership, they swept across the face of the world with all the contagion of the worst epidemic ever known. Akodo himself had seen his friends lost in battle, only to rise again beside his fallen brother.
Death itself had betrayed the Empire.
Nisiko, Akodo’s wife, was sequestered at an outpost that had been besieged by the forces of the Shadowlands since one week before. Akodo had returned and engaged them, hoping to stave them off long enough for Crab reinforcements to arrive. But finally, two days prior, that ray of hope was extinguished. Word had come that the Crab had been ambushed en route and would not arrive in time to do any good.
In a last valiant effort, Akodo and his remaining beleaguered troops carved into the undead bodies between them and the dwindling Lion at the post. Several of the corpses they cut down were their former liegemen, companions – even lovers. Honor fled in the face of such atrocity, but Akodo would not be denied. Those who remained alive within the post would be saved, or he would die in the attempt.
His fury cast a harsh glare upon the oni and their brethren, and many of the weaker races cowered in fear or deserted the scene entirely, only to be slaughtered by the stronger beasts. Akodo’s spearhead unit sliced through them with the precision of the finest katana handled by man.
Scattering monsters on all sides, Akodo and the few able bodies that had survived with him crashed into the post and cast frantic glares within. Several of the yojimbo lay horribly wounded at the threshold and a handful more huddled defensively near their charges. Nearly a dozen women and children, the families of those who now fought the forces of He-Who-Is-Not-To-Be-Named, blankly gazed back at their saviors, shock drawn deeply in their stark features.
Without a word, Nisiko wrestled to stand, the burden of her blooming belly fighting to weigh her down. Her yojimbo made to grasp her shoulder, but her piercing countenance caused him to pause. Uneasily he stood to attention before Akodo as he approached his spouse, whose struggling breath shuddered through the room with the slow meandering of a dying animal.
Turning at the call of one of his men, Akodo suddenly realized how quiet it had become. Looking past those gathering at the door he noticed that the legions of Fu Leng were retreating, only the dust of their passing visible behind their charge. Stepping out over bodies that had not yet revived, Akodo grimaced.
“Why?” was the only response he could muster.
Soon, he thought. Very soon, they would be forced to stand their ground and allow the women their rest. Five were heavy with child, Nisiko the worst of all. Akodo should have feared for the life of his unborn son, and those of the sons of his clansmen-in-arms. He should have feared for the lives all born into this dark age. He should have feared for the fate of all the generaitons to come.
But he was a Lion, and he could not afford to fear. He could not stand down, even if they took his son, his wife, and his clan. He would fight until his blood stained their clothes and his last breath crept into their hearts and poisoned them.
Yet his heart was burdened as his wife, and he hoped for the aid fot he Fortunes in this grave time. He had a few more hours to plan. The daylight would keep the evil beings at bay for that much longer; he and the others would be able to gain another several miles on them before pursuit resumed.
Questions still troubled him; questions about the unusual tactics of these hunters, and why they had not taken the chance to kill Akodo and his men when they could. Something was at work here that he could not see. Perhaps they wanted something from the living, or the living themselves…
Akodo was roused by the sudden clenching of Nisiko’s fist about his arm. Her face was a palatte of pain, her teeth gritting together in a stifling effort. She was close. They would not be able to travel much farther before nature would force their stand.
Calls from his men alerted him to the sight of ogres and oni upon the far hills behind them. The strongest of Fu Leng’s demons had pressed on defiantly through the morning and, setting their sights upon the small unit, doubled their pace.
Akodo looked into the clouded sky and silently repeated his willful oath to the Fortunes. Then, looking about him, through his charges and into their spirits, he made his decision.
They would all die here, with honor.
“Lord!” The call issued from above, and near. A mounted scout, winded from his quick ride south, continued, “There is a home to the north, an hour’s ride at most. It is defensible, and…” Hisvoice trailed off at the swelling might of corruption before him.
For the second time in his life, Akodo was sure no words remained.
Glacing over at Koshu for the ninth time in two hours, Akodo wondered again at his obvious anxiety. The scout’s eyes darted about him as if he were afraid something very near him would strike at any moment, even considering the awesome horde looming up behind them, his behavior was extreme. Questioning it would have been counterproductive, however, so instead he made a point of catching the man’s gaze with his own and prompting his attention.
“How much farther, soldier?”
Startled, the scout quickly blurted out his reply. “Another twenty minutes.” He seemed to clutch the reins of his horse more closely then, and his frame shortened in his saddle. “Perhaps less.”
Akodo himself began to feel uncomfortable, as if the air about him were gathering too closely around him. He fought to retain his composure in the face of his men and their families, for if he showed weakness, then all the others would falter.
“There!” Koshu cried, pointing down into a ravine along the river that would become known as Oboreshinu Boekisho Kawa, Drowned Merchant River. At the confluence of the stream and the Way of the Elements, stood a simple wooden structure, no more that twenty feet square. A small copse of trees surrounded it, the only noteworthy break in miles of monotonous terrain.
Nisiko was nearly unconscious as they approached from the rigors of the last several hours. Akodo lifted her frame from the horse and carefully headed for the building, noting with hollow satisfaction that it was made from petrified wood. Perhaps that would grant them a few moments’ reprieve, he grimaced, but hardly enough time for the birth of five.
Just ahead of him, Koshu rushed to open the door, but came short suddenly. Akodo made to shout at him for his awkward halt, but immediately noted his rigid stance.
“All around us…they’re all around us…” Turning, the scout’s face was pallid. “Can you no sense them, my Lord?”
A baleful roar across the hills behind him reminded Akodo of the beasts’ imminent arrival. Incautiously, he pressed, “What is all around us, soldier?”
“Things,” he stammered, “things we cannot see.”
“He is correct,” came a voice from within the dwelling, a voice Akodo knew all too well. “There are.”
The flaxen mane of Kitsu, the leader of the remaining five, caught in the waning rays of sunlight as he stepped out from the doorway, his brood of three peering out of the dimness behind him.
“Quickly. Inside. All of you!” he urged past a smile that irritated Akodo more than it comforted him.
“I know why Fu Leng’s armies chase us, my friend, “Akodo ventured. “My brother desires to be the only son of the heavens.”
“You are wrong, Akodo-sama.” Kitsu was very still, as if focusing on something outside or beyond the simple house they were in. “He desires to be the only heir…”
Akodo’s stomach churned. He turned his gaze sideways toward the second room, where the women’s stifled moans were soothed by the burakumin attending them.
“In the midst of this chaos, while his armies sweep across the south, hordes of his minions sweep out across the Empire, seeking the firstborn children of all the Kami. I have even heard that Doji’s firstborn son is dead.”
The statements were so matter-of-fact, Akodo found it almost laughable. “How do you know this, Kitsu.”
“They told me,” he indicated the room about them with a broad gesture, and his eyes burned with an intensity only the truth could rally.
Nodidng slowly at the words, Akodo looked about the room. His ragged men stood prepared for his next command, but fatigue and injuries betrayed their loyalty. They could be little match for the demons outside…
But that was not the point. Akodo stood, turned and strode to the door, beyond which he could hear the bestial howls of doom closing upon the home. His sword was already drawn as Kitsu’s voice again rang out to him. “Hold, lord!”
“This,” Kitsu placed his hand on the door before Akodo, “is not your duty. Not today.”
Following the direction of Kitsu’s pointing finger, the Kami heard the first roar of life from within the second room. “That,” Kitsu said flatly, “is your duty.
Akodo did not know how to express what he felt then. Pride, not for himself, but for the greater good of all Rokugan. Pride for the Lion, and, as his son was placed in his arms by a burakumin midwife, pride for his family.
“Remember, dear friend, if the Akodo fall…”
“Then the Hantei…”
“And everything else falls with them.” Kitsu placed his large hand upon the door and braced to exit.
Akodo, guilt at his inaction welling within him, looked down at his child, then remembers the others already there. Both sons and the daughter of Kitsu stood tall, their countenance level. “What of them?” he asked.
Kitsu looked on his children one last time, each in turn, and said, “They are here to remember.”
It seemed as if a well of movement was clouding up around him. His eyes were a flame of red when he spoke. “Do not concern yourself with fighting today, Akodo-sama. That…is our duty.”
When the door was opened, the anguished bellows of a thousand lost souls assaulted Akodo’s ears. Above the clamor of death, he could scarcely hear the final words of his friend.
“Shorai ga aru, Akodo.”
“Have a bright future.”
And he was gone.
No Ikoma records speak of Kitsu again after that day. The validity of the last passages relating to the founding of Shinden Shorai is questioned by many, as it is said that he walked across the stream and into the field of battle alone, but beside him fought the souls of every man that had fallen to Fu Leng’s evil power.
His body was never recovered.
Shinden Shorai still stands.