History: 20's

When Hiyashi turned 20 years old, he was sent out on his first mission as his Musha Shugyō. Hiyashi, his father, and a few other samurai were tasked with delivering medicine to a small village in the Silver Valley that had been struggling with a sickness. It was their job to distribute the medication and help the townsfolk recover since most everyone had gotten sick at one point.

However, unbeknownst to them, Jiro had poisoned the medication, causing anyone who took it to become even more violently ill, then die. He did this knowing that the Daimyo would order all the townsfolk to be slaughtered in order to contain the sickness, and that Hiyashi would not stand for that.

Jiro's plan worked out perfectly, in even more ways than he could have expected. Click here for more details. Hiyashi did exactly as he suspected and, upon the Daimyo 's order to execute the remaining villagers, even the ones who had never been sick, Hiyashi refused. As a distraction, Hiyashi set several buildings on fire, and then helped those who were still alive escape.

Because of this, Hiyashi was declared a traitor, and his father was sent to kill him. This was just as much a punishment for Isamu as it was Hiyashi, since he was being forced to kill his own son as penance for raising a failure.

Isamu found him while he and the other townsfolk were hiding in the forest, trying to figure out where to go next. Hiyashi faced his father while the others ran, fully accepting his fate, as he knew there was no way he could beat his father in combat. However, Isamu couldn’t do it, and allowed Hiyashi to win.

Per tradition, Isamu’s last request was that Hiyashi honor him with a warrior’s death, as sparing his father would only doom the man to live the rest of his life in shame. Hiyashi could not deny his father's - nor any man's - dying wish, and did as he was asked though it killed a part of him too that day. His father is the only other person Hiyashi has murdered aside from when he was 15.

Afterwards, Hiyashi ran. He left behind his home, his friends, the only girl he'd ever loved, and fled all the way across the continent to Hanafubuki to escape. One of his greatest regrets aside from killing his father was leaving without saying goodbye to Saori or Jiro.

Hiyashi got separated from the villagers after dealing with his father, only to then find out later that they had all been hunted down and killed. He'd lost everything for nothing.

The Daimyo didn't want to draw attention to the fact that, not only, had a rogue samurai escape - but one that had been able to slay one of their strongest warriors before doing so - therefore, they did not inform Tenkoku of the development and instead kept it as an internal issue.

Because it appeared Hiyashi had beaten his father, the bounty on his head was raised significantly as, given his father's reputation, they believed he was far more skilled than he actually was. This attracted several dozen independent bounty hunters, especially since the amount was double if he was brought in alive.

One man in particular is a shinobi the Daimyo hired personally named Kagiri, one of the best assassins in the business who had never failed a mission before. Kagiri chased Hiyashi for nearly a decade before their final confrontation on a cliffside where Hiyashi was shoved over the edge into a raging river below. When Kagiri didn't see him resurface, he assumed Hiyashi had drowned, and stopped looking for him, along with most other bounty hunters. Click here for more details.

In his late 20's, Hiyashi stumbled across a six-year-old girl named Yuzu, who he ended up saving from would-be child traffickers. With nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to, she clung onto Hiyashi despite his attempts to find her a better home. She spent seven years with him before Kagiri caught up with them and killed her for being "an accomplice" to Hiyashi's crimes. She now haunts him along from the man he killed when he was 15. Click here for more details.

Despite losing everything, being hunted, and holding himself responsible for Yuzu's death, Hiyashi continued to try and do good wherever he went. All throughout his 20's and into his 30's, Hiyashi helped whoever he could with whatever they needed, trying to make up for the people he's wrong and the sins he's committed.