Kojirō Nobutamo

## History

#### Prologue

Although kitsune are regarded to be dangerous, troublesome, and underhanded, there is no denying their use to a lord. An enemy that meets his death from a dagger in the dark will be just as dead as one killed in the heat of battle. This is something that the Kitsune Lord Nobutama Kojirō knows all too well.

Born thirty years ago to a large temple in the rural countryside of Sheng within the Akatsuki Prefecture, Kojirō was born the son of the main branch of the Nobutama clan. A life of spirituality, guardianship, and legacy would be one he would come to understand. During his childhood Kojirō was told of a prophetic dawn that would define his destiny— a fate of shadows, love, betrayal, and inevitable death. Such a prophecy frightened him and despite respecting him parents’ wishes often wondered if he should end his life prematurely before such a thing could ever become true, that he should face such misfortune. But somehow, he didn’t succumb to his sadness even at a precious age; reasons unknown why, but he changed his disposition to live for hope and defy definition rather than unquestioningly follow some cryptic words written several centuries ago. Kojirō then devoted himself fully to his training and responsibilities as the next heir to the Nobutama clan as he looked forward to the knowledge that would come with the texts and the wisdom that would come through experience. Years passed; one tail became two, and the clan passed its most vital of teachings: that the word could cut as deep as the sword. It had been skulduggery and maneuvering that saw them survive the Kuchiku rebellion, and it would be these same virtues that would see them another generation.

Brought into a special chamber of the clan’s shrine, the kit’s father would explain to him that it was time to begin his journey from Jiyu to do as he had done in his youth. However, while the journey would be a dangerous one and one he would have to go alone it was here that he explained to her that the responsibility that he inherited as per him being the only surviving child of the main branch of the clan— the ancestral sword of their dynasty, a sword that was said to be one that had purified uneasy spirits as well as safeguarded innocence, and a blade that was his by right of birth. Whilst Kojirō saw that the time had come to embark from his previous duties to greater responsibilities and begin hia pilgrimage he was not sure if he deserved the right of inherited such a precious and sacred item. After much discussion with his father, mother, and other mentors he realized that despite he misgivings that the blade had protected others in times of strife before and it sitting in their seat of Soyokawa would be a disservice to it. Thus relenting on carrying the weapon for his own. The next morning Kojirō left home on his pilgrimage with a weapon that had been the most important relic of her clan’s history; he promised to live up to expectations but not any idea of fate or destiny.

A decade later, and another tail would see him as Clan Head.

To an outsider, it would have seemed suspicious. Strange for the old lord to choke on his sake at the feast for the return of his son. And yet, the kitsune wept openly as other Lords bowed to give their respects at the funerary ceremony.

Oh, he was clever. He did not simply collect the stories and lock them away. He paid the Emperor's taxes in promises, and began to spin his web, sitting in the center like a fat spider. He bought gossip when it was peaceful and sold scandals when it was vital. He bought songs from the north and stories from the south and rumors from afar, horded them, embellished them, fabricated them, sold them. The secrets bred and multiplied, and Kojirō sent them out and brought them home with new stories to tell.

And in the process, he moved his own Kitsune into place. Harborworkers, merchants, sailors, guards, geisha, toll collectors, pursers, sake factors; nine of every ten tails belonged to the Nobutamo. They were everywhere, with foxy grins hidden by false sincerity, wearing the faces of merchant's sons, lesser lordlings, sometimes even foreigners, but judging from the results, effective enough.

Kojirō is no threat to anyone. A clever, placent, genial lord, a gracious host, always able to find whatever information the Emperor, or a paying client, required. And yet he is not a fox to fear. He has no vassals to call, no army of retainers, no great stronghold, no castles to speak of.

And yet death and profit are also found in darkness.