Session One; Dark Plots

Morasahi hustled to the dueling grounds, keeping pace with Asahina. What she would find, she couldn’t even fathom, from the start of this morning life had been a series of unexplainable events. Her hand had told her to go there, yes, her hand. As if waking up, standing, fully clothed, and in some strange place wasn’t odd enough, the Spider, Daigotsu, was just as peculiar, and then there was that shadow beast, and the noise, and that Jashuwa who had such a story to tell them. Dead, he had said she was dead, and bestowed upon her a series of numbers counting down to the end of the game. A game for her life. The script on her hand clearly read, “Get to the dueling grounds.” And so, if she were to win this game, that’s where she had to go. Asahina seemed to be the only one as eager as she to wrap up the day, the week for that matter. This game was to be a week long, and the sooner it was over, the sooner she could return to a place where things actually made sense.

She slowed to a trot as the observing benches came into view, following Asahina’s lead. Glancing around she wondered what would come next, another dark creature, or perhaps Joshua would be waiting to give further directions. It seemed neither was the case, there was nothing obvious to greet them. Just a washed out representation of an outlined dueling area, an observers stand full of faint shadows of people, Asahina and herself. Morasahi slowly turned, taking in every detail from the scene, if this was a game there had to be some path to victory she hadn’t discovered yet. If only she knew what the end goal was, the strategy would be much easier to figure out. There was nothing.

She let out a small sigh and glanced down at her hand to check the countdown and found the direction she had been seeking. Below those constantly shifting digits, a new sentence was beautifully scripted reading, “Find what is wrong.” How was she going to do that? This whole place was wrong. The people not being real people. The terrible noise buzzing in the background. The dueling grounds not having opponents. Wait. Morasahi checked again, sure enough there was no one standing at either end, and considering the stands were full, someone should be there.

Just as she was about to make her way to one side of the match area an influx of emotion overcame Morasahi, fear gripped her chest and her head became fuddled with panic. As soon as it had taken a hold, it was gone leaving a string of curses behind echoing in her ears, “Kuso! Kuso! Kuso! Kuso!” A grey haze of a person came into view in front of Morasahi, his back towards her displaying his clan’s emblem clearly. It was a Dragon boy walking towards the starting area of the duel where Morasahi was about to head. With a shudder, Morasahi realized where the panic, fear, and curses that had just gripped her came from. The Dragon shadow had just walked through her.

The noise, that ear piercing noise unlike anything Morasahi had ever heard began to grow. It couldn’t be explained, but the closest thing she could imagine was a dozen rusty gates being thrown open at once, each groaning and protesting with dirt grinding in their hinges. It wasn’t as loud as before, but now it was noticeable instead of an annoying ringing in the background. She looked around, attempting to locate another obsidian dog, both relieved and disappointed to find there wasn’t a threat in sight.

“So, what is wrong here?” Daigotsu had finally arrived with Matsu and was staring at her hand, or was it his hand? She wasn’t clear on what sex Daigotsu was. Morasahi would guess female, the voice was the right pitch that it might be female, then again, Daigotsu was taller than both her and Matsu, so it was completely likely he was male. There was no real way to tell, he was covered nearly from head to toe. She wore a white shozuko around her head, leaving only her eyes exposed. His armor was a yoroi, or at least in design, the black slats looked rather thin to be wood, and he was far too quiet to be wearing metal. Most of her garments were white, the color of death, fitting for the Spider clan, accented by black. He didn’t have a katana, but a wakizashi was tucked in his obi. And she held a bisento, a long handled, bladed weapon, that she was obviously capable of using telling from the encounter they had not long ago.

Asahina shrugged. “I don’t know, but that sound got louder. Maybe that‘s it.”

“Well…” Morasahi began, “I don’t know if this has anything to do with it. Maybe…” She trailed off, everyone’s eyes were on her. Even the lion seemed to be looking at her. She began to fidget and gestured towards the Dragon duelist. “He seems to be upset.” She watched as everyone focused on the Dragon, glad she wasn’t being scrutinized by their stares any longer.

“Try to calm him down.” Asahina said in a cool voice. “He could be causing this noise.”

Morasahi briskly made her way next to the Dragon. What was she supposed to do? How did you calm down something that could walk right through you without noticing? It wasn’t like he was just going to shout out his problem so she could take care of the issue. But… she could hear him. Maybe he could hear her too. She leaned close to his ear and whispered, “You’re going to be okay. You can do this.” To her surprise, he nodded as if he understood her. The sound began dying down again. How interesting. The sound was related to this Dragon. When he showed up it became louder, and once he calmed his nerves, it began to fade away.

“It worked!” Morasahi exclaimed. Asahina nodded his approval and brought his right hand up. Daigotsu did the same. Morasahi followed suit.

“Yeah, but that wasn’t the problem.” Said Daigotsu. Morasahi could see that, her hand still read the same as it did before the Dragon entered the scene.

“Maybe we missed something.” Asahina suggested and began combing over the dueling grounds.

Morasahi did the same, starting with the first aisle of benched observers. They were unremarkable. A Scorpion woman two rows back, however, stuck out to Morasahi. Even with the muted colors, Scorpion were easy to pick out of a crowd. Their clan was known for their subversive mask wearing, hiding their faces from the public, the court, and the Emperor herself. This Scorpion, mask and all, was a little more flush, more real and less faded than the rest. She was staring right through Morasahi, probably at the Dragon duelist. Morasahi  pivoted to find Daigotsu squatting behind her, examining a chair between the Dragon and herself. It, too, seemed unremarkable, but Daigotsu was studying it carefully warranting it another once over from Morasahi.

Daigotsu left the chair and skated across the dueling field, circling around both the Dragon and his opponent who must have appeared while Morasahi was searching the stands. It was an elegant affair if not strange to behold, Daigotsu could have been dancing with these shadowed duelists. He wove around the Dragon in a fluid motion and headed towards his opponent, another Scorpion. Before reaching the Scorpion she spun mid-step, never losing stride and returned to the Dragon, leaning in and whispering something in his ear and quickly shuffling backwards, away from both duelists.

Morasahi shook the perplexing Spider from her mind and focused on the chair that had been so interesting to Daigotsu moments before. Beneath the Dragon’s haori sat a dagger, the handle manipulated into the body of a scorpion. She shot her eyes back to the vivid woman, she was indubitably staring at the Dragon. Then looked across the field at the Scorpion duelist. This all seemed too planned to be a coincidence. A dagger the shape of a scorpion below the Dragon’s discarded haori, a Scorpion opponent, and the woman in the stands also Scorpion.

“There’s a dagger here.” She called out.

“A dagger?” It was Asahina who answered. Daigotsu just stood there, watching Morasahi.

“Yeah, there’s a scorpion dagger under the Dragon’s haori. And there’s this lady over here,” She pointed towards the Scorpion woman, “She’s more solid than the rest. And she’s a Scorpion.”

“And this guy is a Scorpion.” Asahina finished her thoughts while strolling across the field to examine the dagger. “Do you think it’s a setup?”

Morasahi nodded. “It looks that way.”

“Are they going to kill the Scorpion duelist?” Matsu chimed in, joining the group near the Dragon.

“I don’t know. The Dragon has the weapon under his haori, and he was extremely nervous before the duel started…” Morasahi’s heart sank. “And I calmed him down and told him he could do it,” would have been the next words out of her mouth, but she didn’t want to say it. They didn‘t know what she had whispered, and to believe that she had helped someone commit murder… No, it wasn’t her fault. She had to think of the group here in this dismal place. Calming him down kept the noise from growing any louder, and the last time exploded in sound Asahina was attacked by some thing. It was the right thing to do.

“So this woman is going to have the Dragon kill his opponent. That‘s what‘s wrong.” Matsu smiled, obviously pleased with herself. “It’s a Scorpion killing Scorpion thing.”

Morasahi couldn’t help but look at Daigotsu. The Spider were known throughout the land many years before they were declared a great clan. She had heard the stories growing up, the evil, horrible things they did. It was no great surprise three years ago when the Empress declared the Spiders outlaws, all who wore their mon were to be killed on sight. Then she let them into Rokugan, accepting them as a great clan not four months ago, to be treated as the people. That was Imako’s decree. And there Daigotsu stood, that monstrous thing that was so vile all of the Empire was to kill it without a second thought only four months ago.

Daigotsu was eyeing the shadow duelists, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. It had grown quiet while Morasahi wondered of the murderous things their companion had committed. She realized Asahina and Matsu must be thinking the same thing, as none of them had made a sound since Matsu’s revelation. Daigotsu must have noticed, he took in Morasahi first, meeting her eyes, then snapped them to Asahina and Matsu. She saw Daigotsu take a step back, widening her stance in a defensive position, inclining her bisento towards the group.

“What are you all looking at me for? We don’t kill our own.” Daigotsu exclaimed. No one denied it was on their mind. No one said anything to Daigotsu.