Kenson Gakka: Slaughter at Yaruki Jukko

After the long ride, the group finally arrived at Yaruki Jukko Temple at nearly sunset. Stopping at the temple doors, next to the Three Sides River, Ikare ordered his men to dismount. "Collect the monks," was his order.

The Lion jumped from their horses and ran into the temple. With much shouting and commotion, they ushered two dozen monks to the temple's steps at swordpoint -- fourteen local monks and ten visiting Crane. "Noshin is not here," one of the lieutenants reported to Ikare.

"It does not matter," Ikare replied, dismounting and walking to the line of nervous-looking monks with a crazed fire in his eyes. Handen slowly dismounted and walked to a respectable distance behind Ikare; his yojimbo followed suit.

Ikare ignored them. "My son was kidnapped today. What do you monks know of this?"

"Nothing, Ikare-sama," one of the monks replied. "We have been here practicing kata since this morning."

"You mean since you were thrown out of the city for insulting the hospitality of the Lion!?" Ikare shouted at the monk. He winced. Most of the local monks cringed as they were reminded of their earlier shame.

"Sanju powder is not used in any of the dojo within Kenson Gakka," Ikare continued, apparently changing the subject. "However, the dojo at this temple does use it, correct?"

"My son was found thrown in a well. And he was covered with sanju powder. And you are the only ones within a day's ride of this city that use sanju powder! WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF MY SON'S KIDNAPPING?!"

Ikare's control over his emotions was completely lost. The fire in his eyes has flamed to a full blaze.

"Nothing, sama! We know nothing!" many of the monks began shouting at Ikare. Handen's yojimbo placed their hands on their weapons.

Ikare glared at the monks for a moment. Then the general closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He reamined that way for a moment until his breathing slowed. When he opened his eyes, the anger was gone from his face, repalced once more by the mask of emotionlessness that samurai wear. "Very well," he said calmly to the monks, then turned back to his men.

In a flash, the Lion guards had killed three of the local monks and four of the Cranes. The remaining monks scattered into the temple and the nearby woods. The Lion pursued them, cutting down monks whenever they caught them. The Crane yojimbo immediately had their blades out and began pursuing the Lion.

"Ikare!" shouted the voice of Daidoji Handen. "You are insane! You have no testimony for this atrocity! Face me! Now!" the Crane courtier shouted, dropping into his stance, his hand hovering just above his katana's hilt.

Roshii stepped forward. "Cease this usless fight. Can't this be settled some other way?" the Phoenix asked. But it was too late for words.

In contrast, Nyoko did nothing. There had been a challenge. The results of the duel would determine her actions.

Confusion clouded Aramoro's thinking. The general had gone mad, though perhaps that was not too surprising, given what Aramoro had seen earlier. However, Daidoji Handen challenging Ikare without speaking to their daimyo first was completely unexpected. Aramoro thought of himself as an honorable soldier, and he had given his assistance to Ikare freely. He would have never anticipated the ruthless slaughter of Scorpion monks as a possible consequence. The assembled samurai had gone in all directions leaving Aramoro frozen with indecision.

A memory floated to the surface of his mind: Matsu Ohigachu's lecture he had heard before his gempukku. "When you act, act swiftly and with decisive determination. But you cannot act decisively without making a decision, and only fools decide without contemplation. Exercise your mind before your arm.

And so he thought. Aramoro was not under Akodo Ikare's command so there was no shame for him to ignore the general's order. Nor would he bring shame to himself by butchering defenseless monks. And he certainly could not stand against his own clansmen to stop them. He was not associated in any way with Daidoji Handen and the Crane's recklessness was a problem only for the Crane.

Aramoro also decided that he would do nothing. At that moment here was no honorable action for him to take, though his every muscle tensed in anticipation of whatever action he could take.

At his side, Katsu grabbed his axe, but did not move, seemingly torn with indecision about whether he should fight the Lion, monks, or Crane.

Ikare and Handen faced each other wordlessly. The general's hand was firmly around his hilt, and the fire in his eyes gave him a maddened look. Handen returned his stare with the practiced patience of a Daidoji warrior.

The two faced for seemingly an eternity. Neither moved a muscle.

A cherry blossom fell from a tree overhanging the two. With an unearthly howl, Ikare charged Handen. The two met under the tree, swords flashing. Both stood still.

Matsu Ikare fell to the ground. Daidoji Handen stood and drew a cloth to wipe his blade clean.

At that moment, the fighting of the Lion soldiers and Crane yojimbo spilled once more onto the front steps of Shinden Yaruki Jukko. The Lion soldiers saw the body of their commander lying on the ground and stopped.

"IKARE!" one shouted. A half-dozen Lion charged Daidoji Handen.

The very next instant saw Aramoro's decisiveness lance forward.

"MATTE!" His voice took on an intense tone of command. The same tone used by generals in battle. "Lion, hold your position! I will not allow you to disgrace yourselves and my clan with further, useless death!" The charging warriors paid him no heed. Aramoro ran to attempt to protect Daidoji Handen from the ochre-clad wave about to break upon him.

Jin, appalled at the coming senseless violence, seized the opportunity afforded to him to stop the fray. He raised himself to his fullest size and took on a grave and serious face. "STOP THIS NOW IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR!" he shouted. But just like Aramoro, his cries went unheard by the mob. As Jin swears to them he will see them ronin, they continue to bear down on Daidoji Handen.

Hida Katsu was less ambivalent on the issue. His ono already at the ready, the small Crab charged the mob, cutting down one of the samurai and blocking the path of the rear three. They stopped to face him as the remaining two continued their charge to Handen.

The two remaining Lion reached Handen, swords drawn. The Daidoji deflected one's attack, and Aramoro, reaching the diplomat's side just in time, deflected the other.

Behind them, the other three attempted to take on Hida Katsu. One attacked high, and the diminutive Crab ducked deftly out of the way. Another Attacked low, but Katsu blocked his sword easily with his oversized weapon.

"Is that all you bastards've got?!" Katsu shouted as he wrestled with the samurai's sword. The third began to rush Katsu with his axe entangled, but his battle cry ended abruptly in a bloody gargle as a crimson arrow spruted from his neck. The Lion fell to the ground, dead.

The samurai all turned to look at the interference. Atop the bridge over the Three Sides River stood a large black horse, with a rider clad in crimson and black holding a crimson bow. Behind him was a legion of Scorpion troops.

"I am Bayushi Karamasu!" the newcomer shouted. "I have been informed that the Lion have attacked a neutral monastery, and am here to defend its monks! Put away your weapons or become like him! Now!" A row of archers behind Karamasu drew arrows taut to their bows, to accentuate his point.

Handen flicked the blood from his katana and slowly put it in its sheathe. The Lion around him stood still for a moment, then broke into a run, heading for the woods. The archers fired, but missed the swift-moving targets. Karamasu waved, and four cavalrymen rushed past him to hunt down the fleeing Lion.

Nyoko watched them go, face impassive. This was a... difficult situation. The Dragon are given to watch, and interfere only when it is deemed necessary. Though now, someone will remember. That is the Dragon's other duty.

It is countered with the greatest sin of the clan, Regret.

The shugenja straightened her kimono and stepped forward to bow to Karamasu. "Domo, Karamsu-san," Nyoko smiles. "Your aid was..." She glances only briefly at the dead Lion. "... I am things could have gone far worse than they did had you not arrived."

There is a small bit of mistrust implicit. Did they time this just so, for their own reasons? While the Dragon and Scorpion are close allies, the Clan of Secrets would be disappointed if anybody accepted them at face value.

"I am not here to offer aid," Karamasu said dourly as he dismounted and walked towards the group and the corpses of the monks and Lion. "I am here to investigate the claims of atrocities at the hands of General Ikare, Mir- Agasha-san," he said, catching himself as he saw Nyoko's family mon. "It would seem at first glance that they are not incorrect."

"Indeed," said Handen. "I am Daidoji Handen, ambassador of the Crane to the Lion's festival here, and I had been watching Ikare since this morning. The general had been acting ever more crazed since earlier today when his son was kidnapped. It culminated with his march here, mad demands to the monks of the temple, and then his order to slaughter them. It seems that I lost all of the monks that I was to escort here for the festival, and," he added questioningly to the commander of his yojimbo, "one of my guard?"

The yojimbo nodded.

"But Ikare retained enough of his honor to face me in a duel. The end of which you may have witnessed as you arrived."

"Yes, we did," Karamasu said, inspecting the body of general Ikare. "Your cut was true." Karamasu stood and looked at the assembled samurai. "Does anyone else have testimony?"

Jin stepped forward and bowed to Karamasu. "In the name of the Emperor, I thank you for coming, Karamasu-sama. The supreme loyalty of the Scorpion to the Empire is shown by your presence. For this, on behalf of the Emperor, I thank you.

"I personally saw the Lion become enraged and, as you know, order his men to strike down the monks here at the temple. I am a mere voice for the Emperor in such times as these. I saw Ikare-san accuse the monks of kidnapping. They as one denied the charge and no further witnesses on either side were called. That is when chaos erupted.

"I must say, in such a fray, I am not one to galumph into simply fighting without knowing which side has true witnesses. Witnesses are, as you know, key to this sort of thing. No side can claim truth over the other if it does not have the proper witnesses. Without witnesses, the validity of the courts of the land would be in a shambles. Anyone could simply claim whatever he wanted, and there would be no reliable way to say whether or not it was the case, outside of a duel. And dueling over every single disagreement, while it would serve each case with a great deal of finality, would doubtless deplete the empire's reserve armies in a very short time. In fact, if it were not for witnesses..."

"Which is why I am gathering witnesses for this event, Jin-san," Karamasu said quickly, cutting off the courtier's increasingly long moral digression. "I'm glad you understand the importance of my work here."

Katsu looked at the Scorpion with a slight grin of satisfaction and a bit of disappointment for the interference with his fight. And possibly relief for quieting the courtier. "Ah, you see," he said to the general, "Ikare just went crazy. He ordered his troops to attack the monks. And when they saw Ikare fall to Handen's sword, they decided that the Crane were a far more worthy target. I noticed quickly that words would not stop the fray, so I myself intervened and quickly drew the Lion away from the Crane. It is a shame that so many men lost the lives out of simple madness on this day." Katsu turned to the bodies and knelt to honor the deaths of fine warriors.

Akodo Aramoro absently nodded in appreciation of the act by Katsu. With his mon clearly displayed on his kimono, the Lion had decided he was best staying silent up until now, however the question from Karamasu and his own honor required that he speak up. "I do not defend the actions of my brethren. The slaughter of the monks was pointless. However, I can attest to Akodo Ikare-sama's evidence against them. I was the individual who found the General's son, nearly drowned, at the bottom of a well. I was lowered by rope and recovered the child, merely an infant. The child was covered in a white powder which had no significance to me at the time. Ikare-sama saw the dust and went at once to gather his soldiers and bring them here. His accusation claimed the dust is Sanju powder and that it implicated the monks."

"But as Jin-san pointed out," Karamasu said, "the witnesses are the key to bolstering a claim, and it seems that the knowledge of whatever witness Ikare had to base his claim went to his death with him." Otomo Jin opened his mouth to speak on the importance of witnesses again, but Karamasu continued. "And besides, even if the powder alone were enough for Ikare to make these charges, there could have been many ways for it to be in Kenson Gakka, this week of all weeks. Though this dojo may be the only nearby that uses the powder, there are visitors from across the land in the city at this moment, are there not? It could have come from anyone in the city."

Aramoro nodded at the Scorpion's words. The young man was about to step back until another thought occurred to him. "Karamasu-sama, the monk Noshin-san is missing. He was not with the other monks. Noshin is the monk who was so agitated when the festival at Kenson Gakka was disrupted. What do you know of him?"

Karamasu thought on it for just a moment. "I have never met him, but I have heard a little of him. He is the leader of this group of monks, who are... were mostly retired Scorpion. Little word leaves monasteries, but the caretaker of a shrine of my family this close to my patrol does draw a little interest. But at this point, I merely hope he survived this day. Although he does not have any of his fellow monks to return to, he may yet keep his life and rebuild here."

Karamasu took a moment to survey the scene again, then turned to the army at his back. "We must take news of this to Matsu Kioma. he must be informed of what the general of Kenson Gakka did this day. And if you," he added to the samurai who witnessed the events, "would please ride with us. I would be forever dishonored if I were to leave you here only to fall to any men Ikare might have hidden in these woods. And I am certain that your testimony will be required by Matsu Kioma; I doubt he will merely believe me. It would be an honor if you would accompany me as my honored guests."

Everyone present could tell that it was not a request.

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	Kenson Gakka: Slaughter at Yaruki Jukko

Adventure Hook: You're about to die.