Duty is my love
Loyalty what gives pleasure
Honor, my husband

Akodo Kasumi: Her Life and Background

Akodo Shoshiro angrily paced the hall outside his bedroom. Inside, his beloved wife was suffering the pains of childbirth; the couple's first child. However, it wasn't going well. The baby had turned the wrong way and Mai had been in labor for nearly three days. The attending midwives had been unable to turn the infant inside Mai, so a shugenja had been summoned. The priest chanted his prayers and left. That had been more than a day ago. In the hour of the Hare this day Mai had started to bleed, Shoshiro sent one of the midwives to fetch the damned shugenja again.

A panicked cry from within the bedroom caused Shoshiro's warrior heart to miss a beat. He charged through the sliding wood-frame and rice-paper door without bothering to open it. Inside Shoshiro found a midwife crouched between his wife's wide-spread, shapely legs, which were bright red with her own blood. The squatting midwife, too, was crimson with the blood of his wife. With an anguished cry Shoshiro pulled the older woman away from his beloved Mai. The midwife slid into a wall-panel, recovered her senses and, with one of the two remaining midwives, fled Shoshiro's house.

Shoshiro gently cradled his wife, speaking soft reassurances in her ear. Mai's eyelids flickered then opened. "My husband?" she croaked. "I'm here, my lovely one" Shoshiro responded. Naimi, the midwife who had stayed, quickly brought Mai a cup of water. Shoshiro looked gratefully at her, as she tried to help Mai drink it. Much of the water ran down Mai's chin and long neck , were it quickly soaked into the already stained silk of her kimono. Mai spoke again, her voice, after the water, more like it's usual music to his ears, "Save our child, Shoshiro-san. Please."

"Hush, Mai. Don't worry, the priest is coming. The Fortunes won't take you from me today, you'll see." Shoshiro said, tears running down his cheeks. "My love, save our child. Now husband, before I can no longer draw breath. PLEASE!" Tears now were running down Mai's wide, lovely face. "Wife, Mai, I... I cannot." "Husband, save... child..." Shoshiro, his despair clear upon his face turned to Naimi. "Woman, bring me my wakizashi!" The midwife bowed her face to the floor, trembling. "No... noble lord! I cannot! I will bring shame to your hon..." "Woman!" Shoshiro interrupted, "I will not leave my wife and I need my blade. Please, honorable midwife, bring me my wakizashi."

As pale as the dying woman in the samurai's arms, Naimi went to the main room of the house, where Shoshiro's daicho waited. She bowed to the floor to honor the blade's spirit and, trembling with fear, took hold of the smaller sword by it's scabbard. She flew to her feet and raced back to the samurai and his dying lady.

Shoshiro looked at his wife, her breathing ragged with long pauses. She stirred, "Sho... shiro?" "Yes, Mai? I'm here." "Our baby, save..." "Great samurai?" Shoshiro turned from his wife, before him the midwife was bowed, again her face to the floor, save in one hand she clutched the blade and scabbard, holding it high, well away from the floor. Shoshiro drew the blade, and turned back to his wife. She was gazing at him and seeing the wakizashi, she smiled. He lay Mai down and kissed her, and was kissed by her, a final time. Shoshiro steeled himself, and with a single stroke, cut his wife open. Then he stood and fled the room.

Naimi drew forth the infant from the Lady Mai's open womb, and performed her midwife's duties, separating mother and child. As she spanked the infant, making the girl-child draw her first breath, Naimi noticed the cut running down the baby's face. Her father's stroke had gone deep, and with the child turned around wrong... Naimi quickly did what she could for the cut, bundled the child up, and went to find the samurai.

Outside, Shoshiro fell to his knees, thrust his weapon at the sky, and screamed his rage and pain to the Fortunes and the stars. "Shoshiro-san?" He look towards the sound of the voice, the shugenja and the midwife he'd sent to fetch him were coming along the path over the rise ,which hid the rest of the village from Shoshiro's estate. "She is dead, priest." Shoshiro's voice sounded dull, lifeless. The shugenja and the midwife stopped. "Then she moves along the Wheel of Destiny. We cannot know the Fortunes' will. And the child, does the child live?" Shoshiro turned to look back towards their house...his house.

The midwife who had stayed was coming to him, a bundle in her arms. He took the bundle from the midwife, looking at Naimi, his question written upon his face. "Your daughter is well, noble samurai. Though she was cut as you freed her from her mother." The midwife said. Shoshiro deftly tucked his blade into his kimono's sash, and checked the infant and the bandage.

"Shall I say a blessing?" asked the shugenja. Shoshiro turned to face him. "Your prayers and chants did nothing for my wife. What makes you think they would mean anything more to my daughter?" "Shoshiro," the priest started. "Say your blessings at the shrine, I don't want to hear them here." Shoshiro said, and he turned and took his newborn daughter with him.

So it was that Adoko Kasumi was born in the hour of the Dragon on the fifth day of the month of the Dragon seventeen years ago, even as her mother died. Naimi, the midwife, became her wet-nurse and nanny in turn. Shoshiro never forgot her bravery in the face of his anger and despair, or her kindness to his dying wife. Some of the villagers gossip that, since Shoshiro didn't take another wife until much later, that he, too, made use of Naimi's services. Though such things were never said in front of the samurai, Kasumi or Naimi.

Shoshiro loves his daughter very much, often calling her his 'lovely one', despite the scar she bares, the mark of her birth. "The Fortunes put that mark on you for a reason, " he would always say whenever she was upset from other children's teasings "And to keep you from surpassing even their beauty." He would often add with a wink. Shoshiro was pleased that his little Kasumi grew up strong and healthy, and learned well the skills and philosophy of Bushido.

She performed well, though not outstandingly, at her Gempukku ceremony last year. She has since helped her father manage his territories. However, she is young and desires to see things and places shown to her, so far, only in her histories. Because of Naimi, Kasumi has something of a soft spot in her heart for the Heimin and Hinin of this world. She always tries to be more than fair in her dealings with the peasants, and has gained the respect and admiration of the villagers and merchants of her father's lands.

Despite her father's reassurances to the contrary Kasumi is shy, and somewhat sensitive about her scar. It is roughly a half-foot long and runs diagonally from above her left eyebrow down to below her right eye. She doesn't feel beautiful as her father says and this had a small part in her decision to become a samurai-ko.

Dragons, perhaps because of the hour and month of her birth, have always held a particular fascination for Kasumi. She has read every scroll in her father's admittedly meager library, seeking more information about the mythical beasts. This is also one of the reasons Kasumi is eager to begin her travels. She desires to see with her own eyes a real dragon; she wants, rather badly, to meet and talk to one of these great and terrible beasts herself.

Kasume bowed deeply before the Emerald Champion. As she sat back on her heels, she drew a deep breath. whether it was to make the talking to come easier or to steel herself she didn't know.

"Honored Champion, my thanks for this time alone to speak with you."

The Emerald Champion sat, watching the young samurai-ko. After a moment he shifted slightly. Kasume, who had been trying to marshal her thoughts, saw this motion and realized her silence.

"Your forgiveness, my lord. This is a very serious matter you have asked me to speak on, and I am not accustomed to evaluating the judgement of my betters. However, you have told me to speak my mind, and so I shall."

"On the matter of the Phoenix, Isawa Ahiro, I cannot really say much, I have hardly worked beside the man. From what I have seen, he is level-headed and quick of mind. However, like his brethren, his is too slow to act or resort to force, even when the situation clearly calls for it."

"Regarding the Crab, Hida Tagasuru, I can tell you the man is not the pillar of honor he would seem to be. Too many times I have seen him waste time and effort filling his belly with sake when there was work to be done. Once when a task of the utmost importance loomed over us, he and two others found it more important to drink and gaze at geisha, then to do what needed to be done. Do not mistake me, though. In combat, I would rather no one else, save one, at my side or against my back. Tagasuru has been too long on the wall to ignore obvious danger or to confuse who his friends are. His honor is at its strongest when his tetsu-bo is in his hand."

"Of the Crane Yojimbo, Daidoji Kage , I can say only that he follows the wielder of the accursed Blood-Sword too closely. He too prizes sake before his honor and his duty. I believe he seeks the service of the most influential member of our association, hoping for material rewards. I do not trust him, my lord. His manner is more like that of a thief, than that of a samurai."

"Of the Unicorn shugenja, Moto Buti, I cannot help but question the wisdom of those who have advised you that he must live and the damned Blood-Sword remain at his side. He is a mad, viscous dog waiting to fall upon some hapless soul. He has no regard for those beneath us in the Order of things; my lord, he has no regard for life at all. I tell you, he is a threat to all around him and, perhaps, to the Emerald throne itself! I can speak no more about him, for I lack the evidence for the crimes I suspect him of."

"As to the Wasp, Youma, I don't know where to begin, however, I realize that much of my mistrust and doubts stem from his shunning of bushido and his disregard for honor. He too loves his sake too much. Having said that, I must respectfully keep my silence."

"Lastly I come to not the least of our band, the Unicorn Bushi Kozo. While the Fortunes have not blessed him with the quickest, or most agile mind, or the strongest or lithest frame, I do believe that to make up for this slight, they did bless him with the truest spirit and the most honorable heart. He has already saved my life once, when we faced the Oni which lurked so close to the Imperial City. I don't believe that any other, of my fellow magistrates, would have done the same, except perhaps The Hida Crab. I do not wonder that he won the Topaz Championship. I would trust Kozo to guard my back through the wastes of the Shadowlands and into the depths of the many hells. Only in the area of his anger does he fall short, and I believe that time will cure him of that."

Kusame inhaled again, her heart racing. Finally. Finally, she thought, I spoken what I can about these men. Perhaps, she thought, it will do some good, besides lightening my load. She looked up at the Emerald Champion.

"Thank you, my lord, for hearing me out."

Kusame bowed deeply again, and when her head came back up the Emerald Champion met and held her eyes. Then he bowed his head slightly in a gesture of dismissal. Kasume quickly got to her feet, turned and left.