Shimazu clan

"The Shimazu clan has worked alongside the Templars for generations. That's part of the reason why the Shimazu clan has been so prosperous... unlike the Assassins, who have degenerated into a criminal gang."

―Shimazu Sei, c. 2023.

The Shimazu clan (島津氏) is a Japanese noble house which originated during the Kamakura period in the 12th century and ruled a significant part of Kyushu Island. Since the late Sengoku period, the clan has worked with the Templars for generations, enabling it to accumulate a large amount of wealth and remain prosperous.

History

Sengoku period

"Ever since Saint Francis Xavier brought word of our heavenly Father to this land, and chose us to serve the Lord's gospel as his disciples... the Shimazu clan has sought to realize his vision as defenders of the world order."

―A Shimazu clan member, 1725.

The Shimazu clan was the first Japanese clan to welcome Francis Xavier's Jesuit mission following its arrival in the country in 1549. The clan's leader at the time, Shimazu Takahisa, granted the missionaries permission to preach Christianity in his domains, hoping this would lead to more trade with the Portuguese. After a year had passed and no Portuguese ships had arrived, however, Takahisa, under pressure from local Buddhists, prohibited Christianity in his domains and expelled Xavier.

Despite this, some clan members continued to support Xavier, secretly a Templar, and helped him spread both Christianity and the Templar ideology in Japan. Even after Xavier's death, the clan continued to work alongside the Templars for generations, due to sharing their goal of finding Isu artifacts and using them to bring peace and order to the world.

By 1585, one member of the clan, Shimazu Masujiro, had traveled as far east as Awaji, where he became a captain under the local Templar Imagawa Tomeji. Alongside his fellow captains, Masujiro patrolled the island and oppressed its people in an attempt to maintain the Templars' hold on the region, until they were all eliminated by the Kakushiba ikki members Fujibayashi Naoe and Yasuke.

Edo period

"Those Who Came Before left a legacy upon this Earth. Our calling is to use their divine power to restore peace and order to the world."

―A Shimazu clan member talking about their mission, 1725.

Clan members at Saito's induction into the Templar Order

In the early 18th century, the head of the Shimazu clan passed away without leaving a legitimate heir. The closest claimant to his legacy was an illegitimate daughter born overseas, who had grown up unaware of her true heritage. The young girl was subsequently brought to Japan, where she was given a new name, Shimazu Saito, and a new purpose: to bring honor to her family.

After years of training alongside her friends, who had accompanied her to Japan, Saito became an efficient assassin for the clan and was inducted into the Templar Order. She was then informed of the Templars' search for Pieces of Eden and was tasked to find and retrieve a set of three such artifacts hidden throughout Southeast Asia.

Saito was accompanied on her mission by her friends and subordinates, all of whom were of mixed heritage and, thus, looked down upon by the clan's Japanese members. Believing this mission to be an opportunity to finally prove their worth to the clan and be recognized as full-fledged members, Saito and her companions embarked on a journey to Portuguese Macau to commence their search.

Search for Angkor

"This is the duty you were born to fulfil... To restore the might of the Shimazu clan. You must find the relics and achieve your family's purpose. Failure will not be tolerated."

―Shimazu Saito being given her mission, 1725.

Saito and her followers with Sun

Following their arrival in Macau in February 1725, Saito and her men quickly came into conflict with the British Assassin Edward Kenway, who had similarly journeyed to Macau to search for the Pieces of Eden. They also learned about the Dutch navigator Hendrik's discovery of a Piece in the lost Khmer city of Angkor, and silenced him.

After Hendrik's death, his sea log was acquired by the businesswoman Madam Lee, until Saito managed to steal it during an attack on Lee's estate, the Mandarin's House. However, Saito soon discovered the journal to be encrypted,. and she was later forced to give it to Sun, a business rival of Lee's, in exchange for his protection of Saito's followers. This, combined with Saito's preferential treatment of her fellow mixed-blood subordinates over the Japanese ninja in her employ, eventually led the latter to desert and form their own faction, branding Saito and her loyalists as traitors to the Shimazu clan.

Civil war

Main article: Shimazu clan civil war

In time, the conflict between the Japanese ninja, led by Fuma Sukuna, and Saito's faction escalated into a civil war, with members from both groups frequently clashing on the streets of Macau. After Sukuna managed to secure an alliance with Madam Lee, he enlisted the help of Edward Kenway to eliminate Saito, who was serving as Sun's bodyguard aboard his floating gambling hall. Sukuna and his men also infiltrated the ship, having been tasked by Lee to assassinate Sun and recover Hendrik's sea log, and in the process killed most of Saito's subordinates.

Saito confronting Fuma Sukuna and his men

However, Edward went back on his deal with Sukuna and, rather than kill Saito, he formed an alliance with her, believing he needed her skills to find the Pieces of Eden. Edward and Saito subsequently fought against both Sukuna's ninja and members of the Chinese Brotherhood of Assassins in order to secure Hendrik's sea log. The Chinese Brotherhood's Mentor, Xiao Han, was the one to ultimately claim victory, obtaining the sea log after killing Sun, and later decided to seek an alliance with Madam Lee, who agreed to work together to find the Pieces.

Meanwhile, with all of her subordinates dead, Saito sought revenge on Sukuna and his followers and joined Edward's organization, the Zhang Wei Union. She helped them in their search for the Pieces of Eden and traveled alongside them to the Philippines to look for additional leads.

Conflict in the Philippines

Saito: "Curse you! I walk no one's path but my own! All that the Shimazu clan possesses will be mine...!"

Sukuna: "A grand vision, for a trembling weakling."

—Saito vowing to take over the Shimazu clan, 1725.

Sukuna and his men also journeyed to the Philippines, where they employed the services of a group of Japanese mercenaries and sent them to hunt down Saito. However, the mercenaries, including their leader Nagamasa, resented the Shimazu clan for shunning them and their families in the past due to their mixed heritage. As a result, when Nagamasa and his men encountered Saito, she convinced them to defect to her side.

Saito dueling Sukuna

With the mercenaries' help, Saito and her fellow Zhang Wei Union members battled Sukuna and his ninja followers, luring them into an ambush. Despite being aided by the Qing Empire's Rattan Shield Company, which had been deployed on Madam Lee's orders, the ninja were ultimately defeated and killed, with Sukuna himself perishing at Saito's hands.

After achieving vengeance for her late friends, Saito set her sights on taking over the Shimazu clan and exacting retribution on the other clan members who had mistreated her. Nagamasa and his men agreed to aid her in her mission and joined the Zhang Wei Union in their search for the Pieces of Eden, believing that the artifacts' power would allow them to accomplish their goal.

Modern times

Shimazu Sei's mission

"I'm sure it comes as no surprise that many of our brethren are skeptical of your family's value to the Order. Make no mistake. This is a test of your clan's loyalty and worth to the Templars. You will not be granted another like it, Supervisor Shimazu."

―A Templar higher-up cautioning Shimazu Sei, c. 2023.

The Shimazu clan remained a prominent noble family well into the 20th century, when Saito's descendant Shimazu Sei was born. As a member of both the clan and the Templar Order, Sei enjoyed a wealthy upbringing, though she was always encouraged to focus on her education and later her career, as to not bring dishonor to her family. Eventually, Sei graduated from Harvard Medical School and became a respected doctor for the Templars' front company, Abstergo Industries.

However, by the early 21st century, relations between the clan and the Order had severely soured. Because numerous clan members had clashed with the Templars' vision in the past, the Order began to doubt the clan's loyalty and value to their cause. To salvage her family's reputation in the Templars' eyes, Sei was tasked with leading the search for a Piece of Eden that Edward Kenway had encountered in Southeast Asia.

Sei making a deal with Noa Kim

Operating out of the Exitus research vessel, Sei had one of Edward's descendants, the Korean-American student Noa Kim, abducted and placed in the Animus in order to relive Edward's genetic memories. In time, Sei started to bond with Noa and even struck a deal with him, promising him his freedom in exchange for his cooperation.

After Edward's memories revealed the whereabouts of a Piece of Eden—a crescent amulet—in the Strait of Malacca, Sei contacted her superiors to update them on her mission's progress. However, she was taken aback when the Templar higher-ups ordered Noa's termination, believing the test subject had outlived his usefulness.

Although the Templars assured Sei that she had done a great service to her family and the Order and informed her that she would be re-assigned to another project, Sei refused to let things end there, believing Noa still had his uses. She consequently made a deal with the Assassin Nathan Zhang to ensure Noa's safety, and convinced her superiors to keep Noa alive for the time being so that he could recover the crescent amulet from the SS Ourang Medan's wreck.

Sei's defection

"This is quite the secret the Shimazu clan's been keeping from the Templars all this time. It certainly calls into question whether we can really trust them at all."

―Abstergo questioning the Shimazu clan's loyalty to their cause, c. 2023.

Following Noa's successful retrieval of the amulet, Nathan and his men attacked the Abstergo ship, allowing Noa, Sei, and her bodyguard Yuki to escape with the amulet during the confusion. The trio were then brought by Nathan to a Zhawang Corporation safehouse in Singapore, where Sei relived Saito's memories to find another Piece of Eden that could help Noa recover from the amulet's effects. When Sei began to suffer from the Bleeding Effect, Noa took her place in the Animus, and his genetic memories ultimately revealed the location of a Piece of Eden in Myanmar.

Sei being confronted about her betrayal of the Templars and the Shimazu clan

While attempting to retrieve the artifact from the Shwedagon Pagoda, Sei was subjected to a series of illusions meant to test her will and determine whether she was worthy of claiming the Piece of Eden. Confronted by apparitions of Mitsuko Nakamura, a Shimazu clan elder, and Yuki, Sei was reprimanded and mocked for her betrayal of the Templars, an act which would backfire on her family. Fortunately, with encouragement from a vision of Saito, Sei regained her resolve and, just like how her ancestor had learned to master her fate, she resolved to forge her own path and fight against any who opposed her, even her own family.

Following her eventual capture by Abstergo, Sei was forced to become an Animus test subject, reliving Saito's memories to help the Templars find another Piece of Eden. After learning that the artifact had been buried with Saito, Abstergo recovered it from her grave, although this discovery caused the Templars to further call the Shimazu clan's loyalty into question, due to having kept this secret from them.

Members

Sengoku period

• Shimazu Masujiro
• Shimazu Takahisa

Edo period

• Fuma Sukuna
• Shimazu Saito

Modern times

• Shimazu Sei

Behind the scenes

While never mentioned in Olivier Gay's 2021 novel Assassin's Creed: Fragments – The Blade of Aizu, the Shimazu clan historically ruled the Satsuma domain, which sided with Emperor Meiji in the Boshin War. In the novel, the Templars also sided with the Emperor.

Historically, the Shimazu clan was one of the few Japanese clans to initially welcome Francis Xavier's Jesuit mission, although the clan's leader, Shimazu Takahisa, soon ended his support of the Jesuits due to pressure from local Buddhists and forbade the conversion of his subjects to Christianity under penalty of death. In the Assassin's Creed universe, it would appear that several clan members disobeyed Takahisa and secretly continued supporting the Templars, resulting in the clan's longtime affiliation with the Order.

Gallery

GeneralMilitary

• 
  A young Shimazu Saito with members of the clan
• 
  Saito and her men mourning one of their own after a battle
• 
  Saito with her ninja followers
• 
  The two opposing factions of the clan in Macau
• 
  Fuma Sukuna leading the Shimazu ninja

• 
  A group of Shimazu ninja
• 
  Two Shimazu clan horsemen
• 
  A Shimazu clan sniper
• 
  A confrontation between Saito and Fuma Sukuna's followers
• 
  Sukuna's ninja followers

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple (first appearance)
• Echoes of History (mentioned only)
• Assassin's Creed: Shadows – Claws of Awaji