This interlude takes place after the 27 Days of Darkness Ambition's Debt. It refers to the Scorpion/Shadowlands attacks made by the False Hoturi during Clan Wars, and to the Unicorn takeover of Otosan Uchi in War of the Heavens. However, most of the original events leading to this story can be found in the Pearl edition Rule Book.


Gekidan Boukire - The Search for Doji Shizue
         By Kakita Kaori

Northern Hub Village. Center of the Empire. It's a dirty town, a beaten town, a town that's been overwhelmed with the taint one too many times for my tastes. But it's my town, and these are my people. Besides, a Kitsuki magistrate needs to make a koku any way he can, with the way the Empire is these days. Especially when he has habit to feed. Here, that is nothing remarkable. Everyone has a dark secret in Otosan Uchi.

That's where I was when she arrived. I was sitting behind my writing desk, wondering when they had last shook out the tatami mats, when the shoji screen smoothly slid open. And there she was. Tall, statuesque, with hair that cascaded in black waterfalls around her. Her hands moved delicately as she fluttered her fan, and her sky blue eyes were filled with tears behind the Scorpion-like mask. Her kimono was exquisite, red and dark blue, and I bowed before such loveliness before she said a word. However, I had to notice the lack of mon on her clothing. There was something different about her.

" Kitsuki-sama," she said, her voice breathless and desperate. "I have found you at last! I need your help, Kitsuki-sama. I beg you...I will do anything...anything...if you will help me find her!" She fell to the floor at my feet, sobbing and entreating.

I started to reassure her, reached to lift her up, when she looked up, smiled, and stripped off the Scorpion mask. I thought wistfully of my opium pipe...for behind the delicate mask was the face of a man. Well, at least the face of a Crane, his features white with kabuki makeup. He grinned brightly at me.

"So? What do you think? Did you like it?"

I was too stunned to respond, still wondering where I had left my dwindling supply, so he continued. "I've been working on that for a while. One of my senseis has created a play about a Kitsuki magistrate, and I thought you might like to see the part. What do you think? Was the emotion genuine enough? Did you feel the pathos? And the hands? I always wonder about the hands. Women have such lovely hands...it is a real strain to depict them properly."

I nodded slowly, and returned to my place behind my writing desk. "Please, tell me who you are and what I can do for you, Kakita-san?" I asked. I had seen worse things in Otosan Uchi.

The actor settled comfortably opposite me. "Any tea? No? No matter." He leaned closer, his voice dropping into hushed tones. "We should get to the point. It's very important. Utmost importance, of course, or I wouldn't be here."

"What is it?" I asked, growing frustrated. Actors are madmen, I think.

He leaned back again. "My name is Kakita Yoritago. I lead the Troupe of the Broken Branch, a theater group of marvelous acclaim. I assume you have heard of us?"

I shook my head. I never got into theater.

"Pity. We have performed before the Emperor...we were one of the finest troupes in the land not so long ago. Which is the whole key..."

"Key to what?"

"The Key to finding Doji Shizue, of course! We have to go find Doji Shizue."

Now I knew the man was mad. I had heard of this Doji Shizue. She was the sister of the Crane champion and renowned as a storyteller through the land. I may not watch much theater, but living in this town you learn to recognize the names of the real players in the game, and Shizue was one of them. Was. The last round of evil to sweep the place, namely in the form of our 'beloved' emperor...Shadowspawned Toturi...was a little more thorough than most purges. Killed off the entire Imperial Court...including this Shizue girl. For an instant, I wished that Toshiken had been more diligent in his duty. I could think of a certain Kabuki actor that had been overlooked....

"Doji Shizue. I am familiar with the name. She was one of the ones who died in the slaughter of the court. I think you will not find her, except, perhaps, her spirit. They do say there are ghosts in Otosan Uchi."

"No, no, no," the actor cried out. "She's not. And my troupe, the Troupe of the Broken Branch, is going to find her. And you are going to help us do it."

* * *

Not for the first time, I wondered why I accepted their offer. I don't think we even got to talking about koku. No matter. I wove my way around the pair of ox-drawn wagons that carried the gear of this motley crew, and hoped that this case would not take me any deeper into their lives.

"So, Yoritago-san, now I am here, tell me why you believe Doji Shizue is alive."

The actor, carefully picking his way amongst boxes and crates, replied, "As I said before, we are a troupe of some small acclaim. It was autumn when we were last in Otosan Uchi. We were performing at the Imperial Palace, a magnificent piece called "Justice." Beloved Shizue-chan was one of our biggest supporters in the court, and she would often come to me after a play. She'd pass me some little piece of news or gossip to carry on my way, or compliment me on a brilliant performance. A wonderful lady."

"Ah....Nosho-san...please allow me to introduce my friend. Kitsuki-sama, this is Doji Nosho. Please forgive her if she does not respond. She does not speak, but instead uses the jewel-like tones of her jade flute to sing her thoughts."

The young woman, her face scarred horribly along one side, smiled sweetly at me, and blew a quick trill on her flute.

"See, she is greeting you." The flutist blew a few more notes. "And thanking you for agreeing to help us find our greatest fan. Pardon us, Nosho-san."

As we walked on, I glanced back over my shoulder. "Why doesn't she speak?"

The actor looked back at her also. "She was in Doji Castle, you see, when it was destroyed. She was hiding in a lacquer cabinet from the oni, naturally. The burning lacquer covered up her smell very well, and the beasts of the Shadowlands could not find her. However, the foul smoke from the lacquer destroyed her voice."

I turned back. Such stories were all too familiar. "If she was trapped in a burning cabinet, how did she escape alive?"

The actor beamed at me. "Aha...but I found her, my Kitsuki friend, and released her from her terrible peril before she could die. I could not return her to her parents, of course, because no one knew who her parents were, and she could not say."

"And how did you escape the oni, Yoritago-san?"

"I was one," he replied, and the smile no longer seemed sincere. It was the first serious thing he would say, and he refused to speak of it again.





Some time later, the actor continued his story about the search for Shizue. "On the last day we were to be in Otosan Uchi, it is traditional for us to thank our hosts, and renew our acquaintances with our dearest friends. Nosho-san especially loved the Storyteller, and had made for her an origami spider that would dance and run for her amusement. I was, naturally, happy to deliver it to her.

"I went to Shizue-chan's favorite places, and found her near the window-seat where she often went to overlook the gardens. She was standing, gazing at nothing. Thinking her distracted or confused, I coughed to make my presence known, and bowed. I started to thank her, offering the origami, but she merely smiled at me and hurried on her way. It seemed unlike her, to ignore a fellow artisan so. But, what could I do? I went back to our wagons, and we left the next day at the crack of dawn.

Perhaps Shizue-sama shared my own dark secret? Perhaps...though there seemed to be more there. Still, the actor had not explained why they thought she was alive. "Kakita-san, tell me why do you think she lives? "

He stopped and looked at me. "Because she was not at the Palace when we left, of course. Now, quietly, please!" He had reached a small tent, made from a flap of brightly colored cloth over the side of a wagon. "Xeng Cho does not like loud noises. They frighten him. Please, come."

I entered the tent, and saw one of the smallest men I have ever seen. He had a broad face, and bright eyes, but the face had grown haggard with pain. He wore outlandish hues of clashing blue and green, and in his long hair bells and ribbons were tied. As he looked up, the bells jingled.

"Yoritago, well the day
You send a visitor my way."

The dwarf smiled, opening slightly the cracked wound on his lip.

"Honored Magistrate, I see
I will answer questions three."

The rhymes were terrible, pure doggerel, lacking the stylistic simplicity and purity of the haiku. Instead they mocked, like a mischievous child. Coupled with his height, it did not seem so strange. "I have been requested," I said stiffly, glancing over at Yoritago, "to investigate the disappearance of Doji Shizue. What do you know about it?"

The jester, for surely that is who he was, again answered in his confounded rhymes.

"In the sacred city, filled with light
I saw her walking with a knife
As I bid her "Merry Day"
She would not even look my way."

By this, did he mean that he saw Doji Shizue walking through the hallways of the Imperial Palace, carrying a tanto or aiguchi in her hand? That would indeed be a strange circumstance. Enough to intrigue a jaded magistrate. "Where was she going? What did she look like?"

"Questions three, questions three
Only will I answer thee."

The jester cackled.

"Between her room, the corridor
Then out the stable-facing door
Hooded, cloaked with hair of white
Like one who seeks her love at night
Careless blade within her grasp
Eyes with love shine blue as glass
Trapped by love, which weakens most,
And followed by a stealthy ghost."

After that, he would say no more, but rolled over and pretended to go to sleep, despite my orders otherwise. Yoritago ushered me out eventually. Once we were outside of the strange little tent, he wrung his hands together. "You will have to forgive the jester. He's quite insane. He used to be known for his eloquence, and would be pointed like a spear where he was needed. Of course, the patience of samurai for such self-reflection grows shorter with each passing year, and recently, a few too many hot-tempered men have taken it into their heads to beat courtesy into a jester." He looked embarrassed. "I'm afraid it hasn't worked very well. So now he's completely mad."

I tapped the hilt of my wakizashi thoughtfully. "If I understood his foolish riddles properly, he saw Doji Shizue walking from her room, down a corridor, and out of the door that leads towards the stables. She was carrying a tanto in her hand, but not as if she cared about it. She was dressed in clothing to go out into the night, and looked, at least to the jester, who are traditionally observant about such things, as though she was going to meet a lover. In the stable. With a knife."

"And she was being followed, Kitsuki-sama," the actor helpfully suggested.

"And she was being followed," I repeated. "I need to see that stable."

The actor grinned again. I was beginning to dread that smile. "That will be no difficulty at all."

* * *


To this day, I cannot believe the method by which we gained access to the Imperial Palace. I do not know which I disbelieve more...that Yoritago told me that I should put on the outlandish costume that he provided for me, or that I actually did it. But greater still was my disbelief that the guards, for all their alert watching, actually believed that he...we...were a stray steed that needed to be returned to the stable. It seems inconceivable to me that they should fail to notice that our garments were sewn from silk and the mane and tail of this stallion were merely brightly colored ribbons. But, apparently, it was enough to convince the Seppun that guarded the gates of the palace, for they let us pass without difficulty. They led us to the stable, muttering about stray animals. Well, whatever works, as the Togashi say.

Clearly it had been many months since the events of the autumn when Doji Shizue disappeared. I was, however, looking for something very specific. The Ninja didn't clean much, and I hoped that the Unicorn were keeping their horses in some abode they found more suitable. Like their sleeping quarters.


I was not quite that fortunate, and the stables had been cleaned and new straw was laid down for the horses. Once we were left to our own devices I still searched the place thoroughly. Yoritago watched me with amusement as I pushed aside the straw and casually broke into the rooms in back. In one room where the tack was stored, I found a box full of odds and ends, left from previous riders and previous visitors to the stable who had yet to return to claim their goods. I poured through the box, looking at pouches and inro and fireboxes, long cold. Near the bottom, obscured by an old hapi coat, was a fine tanto, marked with the mon of Doji and the sigil of the Emerald Champion. The Fortunes favored me! Or maybe it was that accursed ikebana that Yoritago insisted we meditate upon before we set out. In any event, I found the tanto, and looked at it carefully.

The obvious...it was the tanto of Doji Satsume; there was no doubt. The less obvious. It was stained with blood, obviously discarded in haste. The blood stained half the blade...the wound that had made the stain was very grave, certainly, but possibly not fatal. Possibly. And there, clinging to the blood trapped between tsuba and blade, was a single, white thread. Not just white, but shimmering like a strand of fine crystal, or glass like the Unicorns make. The victim's?

Gazing at it, I remembered a rumor I had heard around that time. A rumor of an Asahina shugenja, slain in the stables by a mad Ronin. The Ronin was let go, and I would say from this that the shugenja was slain by Doji Shizue, save for that single fiber. The knife met another that night, though no other bodies were found.

It all seemed very unlike the Doji Shizue that I had heard of to deliberately murder a man in the stables at night. And I became convinced that this ronin and the Asahina had something to do with it. And another man, a man in white. And Shizue's 'ghost'. I had to put it together somehow.

* * *


Truly the guards were incompetent, because we slipped out of the Palace without incident. That night at my house in the village, I sat down and discussed the case with the Kakita Actor, who listened to me without a single interruption (much to my relief). I explained my thoughts to him. About a lover in white crystal and his companion, a mad ronin. An Asahina and a mysterious third person who could somehow manipulate Doji Shizue into stabbing her lover. This angered the Ronin so that he attacked the Asahina, slaying him, but somehow the strange man disappeared, with Doji Shizue, before the Ronin could slay him also.

It all fit. It fit too well. I did not even use the word that rumors had abounded about Otosan Uchi of, due to the cries of Toturi. Kolat. But Yoritago knew. He beamed.

"Wonderful! We have a lead. I have friends in Phoenix Lands who tell me all sorts of things, and of course, Nosho-san has her cranes she can send out. And I have a friend who is a wonderful painter..." He started rubbing his hands together. "You will, of course, come with us? If this conspiracy is as dangerous as you describe, we will need your help."

No. I couldn't do it. I couldn't travel with these mad artisans day after day, chasing paper birds and rumors of Kolat and talking to paintings and hiding behind poetry....that's no life for a Magistrate! Besides, I admit, I was afraid. I could not leave Northern Hub Village. Not for Shizue. Not for anybody.

"Ie. You go without me. I've done my job...I've given you the information you wanted. Northern Hub Village is my city. I'm staying here. You can go chase ghosts and ninja if you want, but not with me."

The actor looked surprised, even shocked, but he bowed deeply. "Of course, Kitsuki-sama. I understand. Please accept this gift as a token of our appreciation for your assistance."

He bowed again, and presented to me an exquisitely wrapped box, tied with string of white and red. "Domo Arigato. May the Fortunes treat you better, in this life, and the next."

He left. I spent some time looking at the empty place on the mat before me. He was gone. I opened the gift. Within, there was a tiny tree, carved out of jade. On one branch that was broken as if by a storm, hovered a black dragonfly. It was beautiful. It was expensive. It had been made by the Kakita Artisans. I would trade it the next day like a common merchant. Tomorrow, I would have Opium. And sleep.