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RP [Danko Clan] Samurai Monogatari

Ametheliana

Head in the Stars
Staff Member
🌟 Site Supporter
🌸 FM of Yamatai
🎖️ Game Master
Yamatai
Blackport Prefecture
Flames
YE 39


The head of the fledgling samurai clan that was traveling through Flames looked about the inner halls of a Shinto shrine with a light in her grey eyes. She wore yukata and hakama, black on bottom and white top, with her gold hilted katana and dark beige geta sandals and black tabi socks. The Zesu swords at her obi belt swung as she looked around the room she was in. Her kusarigama sickle blades were sequestered away as though they were the symbol of the samurai's fledgling clan, the sickles were rarely seen outside of sigils and practice.

"I have been led to believe..." Kuro began. Her name meant black and though her dark teal hair, fair skin, and grey eyes were not black, the forcefulness of the color, the resilience and inherent drive to it was something she did not lack. "I have been led to believe there is a castle north of Lorrheim... One that this temple practitioners once worshipped at." Acquiring a place of practice for her own practitioners, those fledgling samurai currently milling about the temple and town while Kuro spoke to the quasi temple's caretaker was her prime mission and it was apparent.

The Shinto practitioner gave a wan smile, saying, "There is something I know about that, but going there directly will yield more answers than I can give, I'm afraid."

Kuro nodded solemnly and looked about the room with her peripheral vision.

"Can you tell me more about what is it this temple practices?" Kuro asked as she took a step back. She looked up and around herself, hand still on a golden hilt.

"Shintoism is a belief that the kami of our past and present inhabit this world as entities with forces powerful and that necessitate respect, but that is my own interpretation," they said. "I feel like some prayer would work well for you, samurai."

The samurai head smiled now that she had been informed and bowed politely, then answered the latter statement, "But of course.

"Arigatou gozaimasu," the ex-Ketsurui samurai said at the Shinto temple's entrance with her back to the outside world a few minutes later. She then bowed and turned back around, facing the town of Flames.

A soft wind brushed over her black and white clothing and one hand clung to the gold and black hilt of her katana. The tsuba's etching of flames caught her interest as she took a step away from the temple of interest and to the steamy and sizzling food district where she suspected many clan members of being. A few were visiting the other torii gates that had been erected around and behind the Shinto shrine.

One such samurai emerged from a nearby mossy pathway that, though winding, led parallel to the shrine. Behind them walked a long black haired and crimson eyed counterpart to the samurai who wore the same yukata and hakama of the other Danko members. This Neko, effeminate as he was, wore black jeans and a leather belt with a chrome, small buckle and a form-fitting black v-neck. His shoes were the nicest thing he wore next to his own demeanor.

He smiled politely at Kuro and waved, then bowed before raising again, "May I train with you, Sensei?"

"Of course, we will outfit you and work with you once we make it to the castle." she asked.

"Yukiko has told me everything," the Neko man said. "I will be happy to be under your guidance."

"I am Kuro," she said with a light bow.

"Koga Akemi," the Neko man said with a grin. He opened his mouth to say more but Yukiko coughed and pursed her pink lips and her sea foam green curly bob cut hair bowed towards Kuro.

The head of the clan let her ashy eyes fall on the other samurai, who asked, "What will it be about the castle?"

Kuro answered, "The castle is something that still remains a mystery."

"At times," the trainee said. "I think that is the way you like it."
 
North of Lorrheim
Two Days Later


Kuro was the first to draw her blade as the samurai around her converged on her. She looked about at each one before speaking fully and forcefully.

"There is no tradition of drawing your blade only when willing to draw blood in this clan. Our blades are extensions of our bodies and much more. We are not those that wish to see blood as often as we use our own bodies. Draw your swords with me," Kuro stated as she turned her back on the samurai and began slashing with her sword so that they could walk further into the deep forest.

They had been hiking an old trail to what could only be the castle that preoccupied the clan's desires at the time. Not all of the clan was comprised of those that had the ability of unassisted flight and so they had been traveling through a dense forest for a three hour journey after leaving the transportation away from Lorrheim, a city above the underground Hell that was just North of Flames.

"This entire area is rife in mystery," Kuro had said to many of the clan over a small and sparse dinner in Lorrheim the night before their trek. "As are many things..."

Swords slashed at vines that could not be ducked under and crawled through as the samurai in the clan walked, some thinking deeply on Kuro's words. They would not follow in the footsteps of the clan they had come from. For some, they didn't know the commandments of the Ketsurui clan of Yamatai but for others, for the disgraced ex-samurai, it was all too real.

Another small number of hours later and the clouds seemed to be kissing the tree line in the bright baby blue sky. Then Kuro floated in the air and when she was above the tops of a few particularly high trees, she could see it. The castle of mysteries and her dreams.

Its white crests were upturned at the corners of each roof and the sparkling white walls of the castle blistered ones eyes with its radiance. It was angularly shaped except for its curving rooftops and there were horizontally connected spires coming from the edges of the top of the ambiguously constructed building. The design of the castle was inherently deceitful in a way that made it look like it has perhaps three enormous stories as there are three main rooftop lips coming from the central structure. It was built on a foundation of earthy colored stone that was mossy and greenish hued.

The entire castle was situated on a lake that sparkled cyan and had shadowy patches where the clouds moved above it. There was a small side lookout, perhaps for guards, food storage, or even an observatory. Kuro wondered what the Danko Clan would use it for. Likely a dojo if accommodations allowed. She let her mind slowly wander in her thoughts as she slowly floated down and was walking the forest path once more.

The samurai that had spoken at the shrine days ago seemed to cling to Kuro and asked quickly, "Is that a good sign?"

First there was a nod, then Kuro added, "We have found the castle."
 
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