Japanese Brotherhood of Assassins

The Japanese Brotherhood of Assassins, also known in modern times as the Osaka Brotherhood,Assassin's Creed: The Essential Guide is the Guild of the Assassins located in Japan, active since the Sengoku period.
==History==
===Sengoku period===
In 1549, European Templars arrived in Japan aiming to spread their influence to new lands. Their new activities in Japan would soon catch the attention of the Assassins,Assassin's Creed: Memories most notably Xiao Hu, a member of the Chinese Brotherhood under Shao Jun. Taking back his original Japanese name, Kotetsu ambitioned to establish a Brotherhood on the island in order to combat the Templar presence.Assassin's Creed: Blade of Shao Jun – Creed
After their arrival, the Assassins found allies in the Japanese ninja, from whom they learned new techniques. They made contact with the warlord Oda Nobunaga, who promised an alliance as soon as he united the country. In addition, the Assassins made a secret alliance with Tokugawa Ieyasu, whose vassal Hattori Hanzō had become a Master Assassin.
Aside from battling the Templars, the Japanese Assassins also aided the Tokugawa clan in unifying the land. To this extent, Hanzō killed the rival warlords Mōri Motonari, to aid Nobunaga's conquests, and Takeda Shingen, who held a Sword of Eden, which later wound up in Nobunaga's hands. Five years later, he killed the Templar warlord Uesugi Kenshin.
When the Tokugawa and the Assassins discovered that Nobunaga was to be attacked by his vassal Akechi Mitsuhide, Hanzō protected Tokugawa Ieyasu, while the Assassin Yamauchi Taka secretly killed Nobunaga amidst the chaos and retrieved his Sword of Eden. The Chinese Assassin Liu Yan then transported the artifact away from Japan.Assassin's Creed: Memories – Oda Nobunaga (memory)
In 1596, Hanzō was killed by a rival ninja, Fūma Kotarō. Suspecting that Nobunaga's successor and the new ruler of Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, played a part in his death, Ieyasu tasked Yamauchi Taka with the investigation, which led to his assassination of Hideyoshi in 1598.Assassin's Creed: Memories – Last Days of the Taikō The land then became divided between Toyotomi's loyalists, and Tokugawa's supporters, which included other Assassins like Mogami Yoshiaki and Yamauchi Kazutoyo. This led to the Battle of Sekigahara, in which Yamauchi Taka killed the general Shima Sakon to help ensure Tokugawa's victory, and consequently, the foundation of the Tokugawa shogunate.Assassin's Creed: Memories – Shima Sakon (memory)
===Edo period===
In 1615, the Japanese Brotherhood assisted the Tokugawa shogunate in the Siege of Osaka against the remnants of the led by Toyotomi Hideyori, the youngest son of the late Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The siege saw the destruction of the Toyotomi clan, one of the last remaining threats to the shogunate. During the siege, the Japanese Assassin Hattori Masanari fought valiantly in the Summer Campaign, but was ultimately killed. 
====Bakumatsu era====
The Japanese Brotherhood had supported the Tokugawa shogunate for centuries ever since the Sengoku period and the subsequent reunification of Japan in the early 1600s. More than two centuries later, with the encroaching influence of Western powers and rapid modernization, the Assassins sided with Tokugawa Yoshinobu and his allies hoping to stop the Templars who influenced Emperor Meiji and the to dismantle the shogunate and abolish the feudal system. Despite its flaws, the Assassins believed that the old system was far better in protecting freedom than a strong and centralized imperial rule.Assassin's Creed: Fragments – The Blade of Aizu 
Jules Brunet, a French Army officer and a liaison between the European Brotherhoods and their Japanese brethren, acted as a military advisor to the weak Yoshinobu. Appalled by the renunciations he made to preserve peace, such as bowing down to the British Consul or relinquishing his shogun title, the Assassins decided to act. The shinobi Issa was sent to kill the Consul, Harry Parkes, to send a message but he failed and was killed in the attempt by the fearsome Templar William Lloyd.
Soon the country would spiral into conflict as clans would align with either the Shogun or the Emperor in what became known as the Boshin War. During the war, Nakano Takeko, a member of the Brotherhood, was tasked to protect the Musashi Masamune, a legendary blade which the Templars wanted to acquire to bolster the prestige of Meiji. To accomplish her duty, she was assigned as a bodyguard to Saigo Kayano, an inept lord of the Tokugawa army who owned the blade.
At the beginning of the campaign, Takeko unmasked the 16-year old Shiba Atsuko, the skilled daughter of a samurai from the Aizu domain. Takeko soon discovered that the girl had joined the army to escape the shackles that her feminine condition imposed on her and to watch over her brother, Shiba Ibuka, a genius swordsman afflicted with pathological cowardice. Taking the younger woman under her wing, she began to train her in the arts of the Assassins. Together, they thwarted the assault made by Lloyd and his team of elite ronin to stole the Musashi Masamune.
However, due to Yoshinobu's lack of leadership and the superiority of the Imperial army's weapons and supplies provided by the British, the tide of the war began to turn against the Tokugawa side; especially at the Battle of Toba–Fushimi, which saw the Tokugawa forces loose to the Imperial artillery despite their numerical superiority.
Six months later, as all hope was lost, the remnants of the Tokugawa army were besieged at Aizu by the Imperial army. During the battle, while leading a group of female warriors, Takeko was fatally shot. After she took the head of her mentor to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy, Atsuko faced Lloyd. Ultimately, the petrified Ibuka overcame his mental block to save his dying sister and to recover the Musashi Masamune from the British swordsman. His own fatal injury inflicted by Lloyd freeing him from his fear of death, the young warrior killed the Templar before carrying his sister away from the battlefield with the last of his strength. Atsuko was eventually taken away and had her wounds tended by one of Lloyd's ronin, in fact the Assassin spy Matsuo. After telling Atsuko what her brother did for her, Matsuo proposed that she joined the Brotherhood, an offer she accepted.
===Modern times===
====Hunted by Abstergo====
By the year 2000, the Japanese Assassins had a training camp on the island of Kyushu. On 6 December, after learning of Daniel Cross' betrayal of the Brotherhood, Hajime Shimada implored the camp's overseer Yuri to evacuate and regroup with the Brotherhood in Osaka. However, the camp was attacked by Team Epsilon, a task force of Abstergo Industries led by the Templar Maxime Gorm. While Yuri was killed, her son Tomo escaped to safety with Hajime.Assassin's Creed: Bloodstone – Book 1
Some years before 2012, a young Gavin Banks trained under the Osaka Brotherhood's Mentor, Kenichi Mochizuki.Assassin's Creed: Initiates – Surveillance: 
In September 2012, the cell was being pursued by agents of Abstergo Industries. In response, they contacted the Assassin headquarters and informed them that they were going dark in order to lose their tail, scheduling to contact headquarters again on 30 September.Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood – Shaun Hastings' email – Subject header: "Status" By 6 October, the cell had made contact with headquarters and informed them that they had not yet lost their tail and were going black until further notice.Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood – Shaun Hastings' email – Subject header: "Update" Eventually, the cell managed to escape from Abstergo.
====Assisting the Altaïr II crew====
In September 2013, the Osaka Brotherhood's headquarters was attacked by a yakuza faction known as the Onmoraki-Gumi, resulting in the deaths of several members, including Kenichi. His wife, Saeko Mochizuki, led the surviving Assassins in attack on the Onmoraki-Gumi in retaliation, and took over the organization, subsequently using it to blend the Assassins into the city and leading them as the Osaka Brotherhood's new Mentor.
On 17 December, at 9:47 pm, Assassin Kiyoshi Takakura was guarding the entrance to the new headquarters of the Osaka Brotherhood when he was approached by Gavin Banks and Emmanuel Barraza, who were investigating the deaths of Kenichi and the other Assassins in the destroyed bureau. When Gavin demanded to see the head of the Onmoraki-Gumi, Kiyoshi told him and Emmanuel to leave before he had to beat them, but Gavin then insulted his fashion sense and refused to go.
Kiyoshi responded by punching him in the face and kicking him as he fell to the ground. Two of his fellow Assassins came out to watch and cheer him on. Fortunately, Emmanuel overheard the Assassins talking to each other about how Saeko would not like that kind of attention, as she had worked hard to keep the Brotherhood out of sight, and realized that everyone there was on the same side.
When Kiyoshi attempted to stab Gavin with his Hidden Blade, Emmanuel stepped in between them and caught Kiyoshi's fist in his hand, allowing it to be impaled. Emmanuel then asked Kiyoshi what the first tenet of the Creed was, stunning Kiyoshi, who responded it was "stay your blade from the flesh of the innocent". Emmanuel pulled out a dog tag with the insignia of the Assassin Order on it, proving he and Gavin were also Assassins. Kiyoshi retracted his Hidden Blade and apologized to Gavin and Emmanuel for attacking them.
On 18 December, at 1:03 am, Saeko met with Gavin and his cell of Assassins and laughed upon seeing Gavin's injuries, telling his cell that Gavin had always been troublesome. Over the next two days, Saeko exchanged information with Gavin. She informed him that the recent struggles against Abstergo and the yakuza had weakened the Osaka Brotherhood and drained their resources, with Japan's restrictive gun laws making it difficult to stay armed against their enemies. Gavin provided her with weapons his cell had procured in the Philippines and gave her the contact information for a supplier there. In thanks, Saeko passed on to Gavin an Animus headset her Assassins had stolen from a local Abstergo facility, and expressed her fears that the Assassin–Templar War was about to enter a new stage.
On 31 December, Saeko was invited by Eric Cooper to go on a tour of the Altaïr II. She disliked the disorganized state of the ship, and informed Captain Susan Drayton that the Japanese believed in starting off the New Year on a clean slate, which included having a clean house. Saeko enlisted the help of Susan and Eric in cleaning the ship and made homemade toshikoshi soba for them afterwards. Kiyoshi, who had accompanied Saeko aboard the Altaïr II to help the crew gather supplies for their next journey as well as to celebrate the new year, sparred with Emmanuel for three hours and managed to convince him to join Dr. Stephanie Chiu and himself at a local karaoke bar.
On 26 March 2014, Saeko received a message from Gavin's crew informing her of the destruction of the Russian Brotherhood and subsequently arranged to send weapons via the Philippine gun suppliers to a new cell of Assassins being set up in the country by agents of the Georgian Brotherhood.
====Later operations====
In 2015, Saeko sent teams into China and the Koreas to aid the local Assassin cells as part of the Brotherhood's global hunt for Álvaro Gramática, the Abstergo scientist who became a top priority when the Assassins learned of his plan to reconstruct an Isu's body using a Shroud of Eden, and his laboratory.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Database: Assassin Intel 4
On 28 July 2017, Hajime was contacted by the now-adult Tomo Sakagawa, informing him that he had tracked Gorm to a clinic in Switzerland run by Dr. Nathalie Chapman. Hajime invited Tomo to his shop in the Akihabara district of Tokyo the next morning, where they discussed Maxime and Nathalie. During their meeting, Tomo formulated a plan to infiltrate the clinic.
In 2019, Saeko sent Kiyoshi to Yokohama to find an Animus test subject, a teenager named Kō Risa, who was being used by the Templars to explore the memories of Shao Jun in search of her Precursor box.Assassin's Creed: Blade of Shao Jun – The Assassin Brotherhood and The Templar Order Meeting with Risa and her cousin Mari, Kiyoshi explained to them the dangerous side effects of the Animus and revealed that Risa's doctor, Kaori Kagami, was a Templar who did not care about her well-being.Assassin's Creed: Blade of Shao Jun – The Bleeding Effect
However, Risa refused to believe him and stormed off, leaving Kiyoshi alone with Mari, to whom he explained the far-reaching influence of Abstergo. Understanding the situation her cousin had found herself in, Mari offered to help Kiyoshi rescue Risa, but she also failed to convince Risa to end her Animus sessions with Dr. Kagami.Assassin's Creed: Blade of Shao Jun – Warning This soon resulted in Risa being taken hostage by the doctor and forced into the Animus,Assassin's Creed: Blade of Shao Jun – The Great Wall prompting Kiyoshi to mount a rescue mission, with Mari's help.Assassin's Creed: Blade of Shao Jun – Culmination
As the two broke into the Abstergo facility, they were surprised to find that Risa had subdued Dr. Kagami on her own and witnessed her using the doctor's gun to destroy her Animus. With that, Kiyoshi, Mari and Risa left the facility and were greeted by Saeko and her guards, who had been called by Kiyoshi for backup. Saeko invited Risa and Mari to join the Assassins and, after they accepted, they were tasked to search for Shao Jun's Precursor box.
In early 2020, Kiyoshi joined an Assassin team comprising Layla Hassan, Shaun Hastings, and Rebecca Crane on a mission to infiltrate the Abstergo facility in Tokyo and extract an Assassin informant, Dr. Kazui, as well as destroy samples of his DNA collected by Abtergo. The Assassins were ultimately successful in their mission and escaped the facility after an altercation with the Master Templar Juhani Otso Berg.Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood of Venice – Tokyo XXI
==Members==
;Sengoku period
*Akira
*Fujibayashi Naoe
*Hattori Hanzō
*Hattori Masanari
*Kotetsu 
*Mochizuki Chiyome 
*Mogami Yoshiaki
*Yamauchi Kazutoyo
*Yamauchi Taka
;Edo period
*Issa
*Matsuo
*Nakano Takeko
*Shiba Atsuko
;Modern times
*Kō Risa
*Mari
*Kenichi Mochizuki 
*Saeko Mochizuki 
*Tomo Sakagawa
*Hajime Shimada
*Kiyoshi Takakura
*Yuri
===Allies and puppets===
;Sengoku period
*Chaya Shirōjirō Kiyonobu
*Honda Tadakatsu
*Ii Naomasa
*Oda Nobunaga 
*Tokugawa Ieyasu
*Yasuke
;Edo period
*Jules Brunet 
*Shiba Ibuka
*Tokugawa Yoshinobu
;Modern times
 
*Gavin Banks 
*Emmanuel Barraza
*Stephanie Chiu
*Eric Cooper
*Susan Drayton 
*Charlotte de la Cruz 
*My'shell Lemair
 
*Arend Schut-Cunningham
*Galina Voronina 
*Victoria Bibeau
*Layla Hassan
*Alannah Ryan
*Rebecca Crane
*Shaun Hastings
==Appearances==
*Assassin's Creed: Initiates 
*Assassin's Creed: Memories
*Assassin's Creed: Syndicate 
*Assassin's Creed: Conspiracies
*Assassin's Creed: Uprising
*Assassin's Creed: Odyssey 
*Assassin's Creed: Bloodstone
*Assassin's Creed: Blade of Shao Jun
*Assassin's Creed: Fragments – The Blade of Aizu
*Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood of Venice – Tokyo XXI
*Assassin's Creed: Shadows
==References==
fr:Assassins japonais
zh:日本刺客兄弟会
Category:Assassin guilds
Category:Assassin cells