Description: The Ryouhara were just servants, until they rose from oppression to realize their destiny as a shinobi clan in their own right, but one whose history is cast long with dark shadows. For all record, this file chronicles that clan's history. (Recently Updated: Theme of HIRETSU: Reticence)
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HISTORY OF THE RYOUHARA
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1. The Humble Servicemen
The story of the clan called 'Ryouhara' starts in servitude. The people who would eventually become known as the Ryouhara clan started as a service caste of an Iga aligned clan established near the beginning of the proliferation of ninjutsu. The ninja clan, Hirano, took on the Ryouhara as the largest family of a small village in the Shinano province which was assumed as a protectorate of the clan.
Though originally largely a family of fishermen and carpenters, the Ryouhara were inducted into the Hirano as a broader service family and were largely responsible for the day-to-day care of the ninja of the clan, in exchange for protection and recognition under the jurisdiction of the new daimyo of the region. Though this would remain the status quo for some time, it is notable that the Ryouhara produced several nin for the clan, as Hirano blood and Ryouhara blood were not strictly separated. On more than one occaision, Ryouhara women were claimed by the greater Hirano clan. Children were adopted as Hirano's own.
This was a comfortable, if obviously one-sided relationship. Ryouhara had always been a neutral blood and was willing to accept the fate that it, in some ways, had no choice but to accept.
At least, until an exceptional child was born.
2. The Greatest Genius the Family Had Ever Produced
He took to the machine like a fish to water. From an early age, the boy known as Ikou would be regarded as a secret pride of Ryouhara--a genius without parallel. Even the Hirano's own crown son did not take to his training as readily as Ikou did to his studies. He was an insatiable learner, able to perceive the truth of things as quickly as his eyes could follow them. As he grew, he built great things, mysterious things.
Unlike ever before, the Ryouhara were able to produce weapons. Blades so exotic that their steel sparkled in the noonday light. Graciously, the Hirano accepted them as art; a tribute to their strength. They were veiled gifts from the Ryouhara artisans claiming to have made them, who selflessly took their own lives into their hands to keep the jewel of the family secret.
Ikou was explicitly instructed not to reveal his skills to any of the Hirano--a thing which riled the rambunctious youth to no end. Ikou had a will that did not exist in the Ryouhara batsu before. A will that was noticed by only two of the Hirano clan. A graceful woman of the Hirano named Minako and her daughter, Nei. Under press and veil of sworn secrecy, Ikou would show his real creations and his wonders to them and them alone.
Unfortunately, Ikou was only a youth by then. And youth only knows exuberance. When a master of the Hirano used the clan's signature ninjutsu 'Horou' to put down a member of a rival clan who had located the hidden clan, Ikou was able to implicitly understand it. Even in time, he found he could replicate it. Ikou's greatest mistake was not in learning the attack, but secretly petitioning the Hirano clan lord to be trained as a ninja and serve the Hirano with that technique and his skill at the goad of Nei, whose wish was to see Ikou shine.
Younger even than the heir to the clan, at 17, he has achieved a mastery of that one fundamental jutsu before the head's son. The boy would shine brighter than even the strongest bloodline of the shinobi clan.
To the pride of the Hirano blood, this was unforgivable sin.
3. Shinano's Wolves are Betrayed
Ikou was taken from his family. A necessity, the clan executors said, Ikou had offended the clan head and was clearly possessed. His mother and father were forced to give up all of their possessions. His creations were located and destroyed. He was beaten to within an inch of his life. At least four Ryouhara clan artisans were implicated in the plot and executed. Worst of all, Minako was discovered by the resulting hunt, and was killed, her daughter sold to the Daimyo as a gift. In Hirano, there is no room for weakness.
Ikou was beaten to within an inch of his life and thrown into the Shinano River to drown and die. Dazed and only just barely alive, Ikou drifted on those waters what seemed a lifetime, eventually taken in and only surviving his injuries by the favor of a passing traveller who saw him when he washed up at the riverside.
The boy went into hiding for what seemed years. He plied his trade in the Musashi province, eventually becoming lost to the world as a little-known onmitsu working chiefly as a court engineer deep in the bowels of Edo Castle, a boy without a name for the longest time. There, he did some of his greatest works, though those who would give him shelter would only ever really be aware of half. A skilled engineer and servant to the shogun, but little else. He existed as a ghost, becoming aware of the Oniwabanshuu's existence and through them, gaining a slow awareness of what lay underneath the underneath.
When the time came, Ikou simply disappeared.
The Ryouhara were never one for revenge.
But youth.... can be fiery.
4. The 46 Hours War
The exact details of the war that was waged between the Ryouhara and Hirano over a little under two days has been a subject of extensive record amongst the Ryouhara logs, however it is due to that extensive record that details tend to be hard to verify between accounts. Only a few items from the collected accounts will agree.
The Ryouhara clan was disillusioned with the loss of their secret pride, and had in time become subject to more controlling actions of the Hirano. Ikou's return, made in secret, is said to be the birth of the will of Ryouhara, when they finally took their destiny into their own hands instead of allowing it to be directed by others from afar. When he showed himself to the Hirano leader and demanded the liberation of his family, the leader refused. It was the final catalyst needed to spark open civil war between the Hirano and Ryouhara.
The Ryouhara clan suffered heavy losses, but those who had been taken from their family to become Hirano cut into the trained shinobi's number the greatest amount, and soon the Hirano were fighting an open rebellion from within and from without. This, in addition to the abilitty of Ikou to _lead_, was pivotal in the outcome of the 46 Hours War, in which Ikou would use what would eventually come to be called Ninkougakujutsu to arm and protect his own, while scorning the Hirano. Many bloody battles were fought in that brief period, as vlood ran thick in the streets and Hirano fought their own. A select few of the Ryouhara chose to side with the Hirano, and even these people were fought as the family struggled for their independence.
In the end, the clan fought their much better trained stewards, and they won. Ikou ended it himself, capturing the Hirano leader in a chain encircling ninkou and casting him over the edge of a ravine. However, he was not aware of the significance the leader's last words held for him.
"The rightful masters of common dogs will always live on in their hearts."
5. The Ephemeral Curse
At the end of the day, the cost paid was great on both sides. Ryouhara blood ran as quick and as free as the Hirano's. Though few real Hirano were left, they agreed to exist peacefully with the Ryouhara as members of a new clan forged around the ideas of Ikou. Those who did not concur were executed or exiled. The few Hirano-born Ryouhara's teachings melded with that of Ikou's to create the first true shinobi loyal to Ryouhara in a new age of prosperity for the family.
The daimyo of the region would necessarily concur with their views. Politically, his regime would be weakened without the Hirano's assistance, so the Ryouhara were legitimized as a clan. To consummate this arrangement, Ikou arranged for the return of Hirano Nei, traumatized from her experiences at the hands of, and the revolt against, her family. But the Ryouhara accepted her as their own and she would eventually go on to marry Ikou, strengthening the bonds between the remnants of the Hirano and the fledgling Ryouhara clan. From that point onward, the clan would be known as the Wolves Over Shinanogawa.
Though unconcerned with the greater politics of shinobi by their nature, the Ryouhara got along by providing their daimyo's army with advances and wonders the world hadn't ever seen prior. As a result, the Ryouhara were generally traditionally underexperienced with direct combat. Their pride has always been in their works. Training, technology and money were the primary reasons for Ryouhara excursions beyond their own sphere of influence, and the majority of mercenary missions and special coverups were performed by a secret four man group within the clan. Ryouhara Shiro led this section, and reported directly to Ikou. To that It is said that many of the Ryouhara weapons and techniques were taken as indirect inspiration for many ancient forms of ninjutsu, though most of the clans using them are lost today.
However, the curse of dead men is not something so easily forgotten.
6. Howling Canto of the Ryouhara
At first, the Ryouhara prospered, normally a peaceful, if rather stolidly nonconfrontational clan, but as time passed, so did Ikou, who passed on only a week after Nei. Many strong leaders had been chosen since then, but it seemed as if ghosts plagued the clan from the moment their first and greatest leader had passed, causing the clan to withdraw further into themselves. First war from without from many rival clans took their number, then a plague. Then members simply began to die even in diplomatic missions, some young enough to see their grandmothers cry. Motomaro Ryouhara famously wrote that "The Ryouhara inherit genius and tragedy equally."
The nature of the slow downfall was of intense debate amongst the Ryouhara. Of these, Hiretsu, who would later be an 8th generation clan leader, was one of the most critical of the clan's weaknesses and insisted they be concealed at any cost. To strengthen the clan, he was forced to support the merger of the Ryouhara clan with the Leaf Academy, a hidden shinobi training ground aligned with many smaller clans and families for their children and others of noble birth. It is said he even took his wife, Yuuhi, to conceal a degenerating sickness deep in his body.
In the end, the Wolves of Shinano did not die with a cry, but a whimper.
They have paid the ultimate price for taking their freedom.
Their bloodlines slowly dwindled until one was left.
He was an 12 year old academy student named Seishirou..
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THEME OF "HIRETSU"
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1. "RETICENCE"
"--Motomaro was an /idiot/," he interrupted.
The shinobi groused loud and long to no one in particular. Hobbling across the small workshop favoring his left with a long length of a cane that used to be part of a cedar tree before his ninkoujutsu got ahold of it, the master engineer almost knocked over his apprentice as he passed.
"Tragedy this. Curse that. The clan should have been rid of his parents before he was born. If his writings weren't protected, I'd have had them burned. We could do without such pointless and bleak prattle."
Wobbling to keep the scroll stack he was currently straightening in order, the wide-eyed youth from the Sashima clan came just shy of toppling the entire mess when Hiretsu stormed past. It was part of his charm that he managed not to simply by adding a few more scrolls from the heap in his arm at the bottom. Part of that was the boy's natural ability, and the rest was Hiretsu's teachings.
"Sorry," Lin whispered without much meaning, nudging the last scroll straight with his free hand.
"You'd know better if you were educated properly," the engineer grumbled. "But I can't fault your parents for being empty-headed no more than I can you. 'Student exchange,'" he spat. "Suiin is better off under my tutelage than any other's."
Lin blinked. "But Hiretsu-sama, the school system--"
"--Don't give me anything about diversity and strength in unity!" Hiretsu snapped, lashing a mechanism off his workbench violently with his cane to shatter to scrap and gears across the near wall. By the time he slid into the pneumatized seat across from it, he had mercifully grown a little quieter. "Since when do clans huddle together like kittens? Squander the secrets of countless generations just to keep themselves in power just a little longer? Since when was that the way of the ninja?" Introspective, he set his cane across the bench. "The Ryouhara's genius is sufficient to carry itself for as long as is needed. Unfortunately, the other heads of the clan have been ensorcelled by the concept of your 'Leaf style Ninjutsu.'"
He leaned back. It certainly was a captivating idea. A grandiose unified style encompassing 13 different disciplines, one of which would eventually take pages from the Ryouhara Tactical Manual. How often had he argued with that fox-devil Yuuhi? He supposed he'd have to eventually /teach/ at the academy..
Lin never even flinched, no matter how venomous Hiretsu's words became. It was part of the reason Hiretsu confided in him and him alone. To tell the truth, it seemed much of the time the boy simply didn't pay much attention to Ryouhara's verbal whipping. That was another part of his charm--Hiretsu had gone through four other apprentices in the past two years of this tired mail-order system of treaties and he didn't like a single one of them.
The youth breathed, his lips moving only briefly.
".. Times are changing, sensei."
"They are," Hiretsu conceded, coughing into his long sleeve. "...damn it."
Log created on 21:40:57 11/23/2007 by Seishirou, and last modified on 04:25:03 09/30/2008.