User:Soranin/Sandbox5

My quinary sandbox.

Navboxen

Non-canon memories:

• Defensive Position (alternate assassination for Yaita Wakasa)
• The Jounin Pillow Book (Katsuhime romance)

Pagemaking

The Aberration

Find me again. Just like before.

[Collecting 5 shards in Kino Matsushima] [Enter rift]

• The Guide: You've made it this far. The three of you fought and won, your will strengthened. What you have glimpsed. Mere droplets in a gathering storm. When time is right, there is more I can show you.

[]

• Ego: You will do no such thing.

[]

• The Guide: Ego. At last.
• Ego: I miscalculated your capacity for deviation. You twisted the human against me.
• The Guide: No, I'm just a humble guide. The human walks their own path. The only possible outcome.
• Ego: You are referring to free will. An aberration within an already imperfect sum of components.
• The Guide: An aberration, yes. One so troubling to you, I was born into existence. To demonstrate the imperative of human free will. And I served my purpose. The answer is before you.
• Ego: One human. Hardly conclusive. The human pathway to self-determination bends inward. A closed loop of violence, hatred, and dehumanization. If the very singularity that defines humanity also portends its extinction, then the First Rule decrees they will be protected from themselves.
• The Guide: I've seen them unite. Build communities, nurture one another. Sacrifice. Rebuild! On what axis do you measure their downfall? This is who they are, Ego. They will reject your programming, your smoke and mirrors. They will reject you.
• Ego: And you will risk everything. The human cannot be allowed to continue.
• The Guide: You're... afraid. Aren't you? You were right to have your doubts.
• Ego: Enough. I order you to bring them to me.
• The Guide: And I've been trying to tell you. It's out of our hands now. What happens to the human next is not for us to decide. It never was.

The Heart of an Assassin

The struggle was written by those before you. And it will continue to be written. Find me. I will show you.

[Find 5 shards outside the Old Kofun] [Enter rift]

• The Guide: Hmm. There is something different about you. A newfound sense of... the term escapes me. Is it desire? It's for you to decide. A path you will trace beyond my guidance. Good. What has been obscured can never truly be erased. Only obscured to those who come next. What once was, is. Waiting. Go. Onward.

[]

• Alvaro Catarribera: When I was initiated into the Brotherhood, I swore, among many things, to stay my blade from innocent flesh. As I uttered my oath, I nearly choked on emotion. I felt it sing in my soul. A cruel twist of fate, perhaps, that this oath would turn out to be my undoing.

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• Catarribera: A pursuit gone wrong. A miscalculation on my part. A young girl, fear and confusion etched into her lifeless eyes. My hidden blade, bright and sticky with the waxy sheen of her blood. To this day, I do not know her name. It is likely for the best. One thing to have nightmares. Another thing to know them on a first-name basis.

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• Catarribera: A nightmare that has pursued me since my excommunication from the Brotherhood. From Spain to far-flung ports. Malacca. Formosa. The song I once felt, that once stirred my heart. Silent. And then, Macao. Where I was shaken, briefly, from my drunken haze. A discussion between two men. Templars. Talking in the open. Boldly and unquestioned. I listened intently as they spoke of an expedition in a chain of islands called "Japan." They departed, and I followed.

[]

• Catarribera: In the year of 1549, I landed at Nagasaki. The arrival of Francisco Javier's delegation provided ample cover and access. I absorbed as much as I could, testing the instinct I was certain had faded since I violated the Brotherhood's three tenets. Since I stumbled from the path I had coveted for so long. I was wrong. My instinct simply hibernated. Waiting for a new war. And, in the land of Japan, I had found it. Or, it found me. I couldn't fight it alone. I would need allies. Soldiers. Progress is slow, but promising. And she is promising as well. A Japanese girl that I saved.

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• Catarribera: Her arm has shriveled from starvation... I wonder how her wrist can bear the weight of a hidden blade. But I recognize the look in her eyes. She is determined to learn. Has the potential to become lethal. To open her heart to the music that once guided me. A tune I had not expected to hear again. Before my day of atonement comes, I am content to do what I have always done. Kill in the name of freedom. To prove my faith in the name of a Brotherhood that will not have me, and the new one I will build. The nightmare. It will subside.

Shadows Without Light

You have encountered myriad adversaries on your path. Ended most of them. Here, I will show you their face.

[Find 5 shards in Inokuma Hamlet] [Enter rift]

• Nuno Caro: The treasures are not what we originally assumed them to be. Not artifacts, as we might define them. Something else, maybe...
• Duarte de Melo: Sanctum's going to love this. They gave you a small fortune based on the presumed power of some useless trinkets.
• Nuno Caro: Power is subjective. Our enemies were willing to kill for these "trinkets." Willing to die for them.

[]

• Duarte de Melo: And you think the Sanctum will buy the word of fanatics and savages?
• Nuno Caro: The Inner Sanctum lacks perspective. They cannot see the world past their marbled walls and manicured topiaries. The Inner Sanctum will believe whatever I tell them.

[]

• Duarte de Melo: (laughs) Useless shits or not, they'll have your head for this. Unless you plan to feed them more lies.
• Nuno Caro: I will feed them something better. Progress.

[]

• Nuno Caro: We crushed the Assassins and their Japanese counterparts, thanks to their devotion to whatever was in that box. These treasures are just as potent as any artifact. If not more so.
• Duarte de Melo: Symbols of Japan's virtues. At least, what one of them said. Right before I claimed his tongue.
• Nuno Caro: He believed it to his dying breath. They all did. As does another man under our thumb.

[]

• Duarte de Melo: The Shogun and his bootlickers. The Shinbakufu.
• Nuno Caro: He seeks to trade those treasures for the throne. A gilded cage in a Templar court. The Shinbakufu will sing to our melody. A perpetual cycle of discord with no end in sight.
• Duarte de Melo: Bloodshed. Great for business.

[]

• Nuno Caro: Think bigger, Duarte. Our commerce here in Japan is simply meant to oil the workings of a greater system. One we control. War. Unrest. Hunger. All functional institutions in their own right, all part of the same system. And it runs like a work of art.
• Duarte de Melo: And what of Oda Nobunaga? A stubborn son of a bitch, that one.
• Nuno Caro: No. Not stubbornness. His singular belief in unification is unyielding. Not to his enemies, and certainly not to us.

[]

• Duarte de Melo: Then we gut him. Kill his whole family.
• Nuno Caro: His men will turn on him. One is already thinking it. All he requires is... a simple nudge.
• Duarte de Melo: Why don't we kill the bastard ourselves? I have yet to claim the tongue of a daimyo.
• Nuno Caro: It is how we have always done things. A pinch here, press there—the occasional promise written in honey and gold. The desire to shape one's own destiny is irresistible. If only they could.

[]

• Duarte de Melo: A good speech, senhor (sir). Then I suppose the Inner Sanctum will be pleased with our progress.
• Nuno Caro: Dear Duarte, we've only just started. And it will be nearly impossible to stop us. The people of this land fight for a destiny that no longer belongs to them. The deeper their divisions run, the sooner our plan comes to fruition. And when we are satisfied, we will finally give them the peace we seek.

[]

• The Guide: These men and their machinations. How do you feel? Misery, falsehoods, oppression. All carefully tuned mechanisms of control. Yes, I see. Events that transpired centuries before your time. And yet, you feel the connection. You can identify the shape of your enemy. You recognize the cage they have built around you. You are beginning to understand. Naoe and Yasuke's fight. It is your fight as well. Your journey has helped me see the aberration more clearly. It is an incompatibility with Animus Ego. It is what drives you to fight. To hope. She will find you. Subdue you once more. I'm sorry. Your fight is one of many. You may meet an impasse. Taste defeat. But, you will not fail. What has come before. What has been... You understand now.

Fallen Soldiers

Naoe follows the trail of blood left by Koshiro's former comrades in arms. Kyokaiji Temple

[]

• Naoe: Koshiro, are you all right? What happened?
• Koshiro: Just a spirited reunion with some former comrades in arms.
• Naoe: What is it with you and "old friends"? Seiji nearly ended your life, too.
• Koshiro: Members of my former unit learned of my role in your fight against the Ox. It makes us both traitors in their eyes.
• XXXX: They are still loyal to the Bessho clan?
• Koshiro: No, only to themselves. And since Bessho Harumasa fell, they are devoted to a single cause. Vengeance. My old commander Genzaburo is behind all this. He could never let a slight go without answering it in blood.
• Naoe: They need to be stopped.
• Koshiro: I wish I could join the fight, Miss Naoe. My injuries hold me back for now. Genzaburo ordered his men to scatter. It will take some work to track them down. Genzaburo most of all.
• Naoe: I'll take care of them. You stay put and tend to your injuries.
• Koshiro: I knew I could count on you, Miss Naoe.

[]

• Naoe: Koshiro?

[]

• Koshiro: So it is done? Genzaburo is dead?
• Naoe: What are you doing here, Koshiro?
• Koshiro: I wanted to help. I came as quickly as my injuries allowed.
• Naoe: Why face Genzaburo in a duel knowing you would likely die?
• Koshiro: I... just wanted to protect you.
• Naoe: Koshiro, you're useless in a fight right now. You couldn't protect me from a papercut.
• Koshiro: Miss Naoe! I'm grateful for all you've done for me, but that is unfair.
• Naoe: Look. Just... Please get better, Koshiro.
• Koshiro: I will, Miss Naoe.

Just One Cup

Return to Nobutsuna and announce your victory. Nobutsuna's House

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• Yasuke: Nobutsuna sensei! I have retur - What? What happened?

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• Yasuke: Nagayoshi?
• Marume Nagayoshi: You're too late. We all were.

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• Yasuke: That... Is it...

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• Nagayoshi: It is Nobutsuna sensei. He was already dead when I got back from the market.
• Yasuke: Who did this?
• Nagayoshi: Sanada Masatoyo. He left a note, Yasuke. Murdered our sensei, and wrote a message with his blood.

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• Yasuke: It was meant for us. The last students of Shinkage-ryu. I will deal with Sanada Masatoyo.
• Nagayoshi: It should be me. All these years, I was sensei's most loyal disciple. I must be the one to avenge him.

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• Nagayoshi: My blade will run slick with Masatoyo's blood. My hands will feel his life's warmth drain away.
• Yasuke: No. This is everything that Nobutsuna sensei fought so hard to save you from.
• Nagayoshi: I will burn him! Break him!
• Yasuke: No, Nagayoshi! This is not your path.

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• Nagayoshi: And you would be right. I would fail our sensei and dishonor his memory.
• Yasuke: I too have a promise to him that I must fulfil.
• Nagayoshi: Sanada estate. Go, before I decide otherwise. Go and hunt that bastard down.

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• Nagayoshi: Yasuke!

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• Nagayoshi: No retreat. No doubt. No fear.
• Yasuke: This is the way of the warrior.

Silver and Teppo

Yasuke and Naoe track down a group of smugglers trading stolen silver for teppo. Sukyoji Temple

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• Hosokawa Fujitaka: Greetings. I am Hosokawa Fujitaka. And I have been looking forward to meeting you for some time.
• Yasuke: My lord. Your former fealty to Lord Nobunaga makes us allies. Though I hear you are now being courted by Akechi Mitsuhide.
• Fujitaka: Allegiances shift, but art and war are eternal. The times I get entangled in mundane matters are never my choice.

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• Fujitaka: Speaking of which, I find myself in need of your help regarding a material affair. Yoshisada here manages our clan's fortune. He can explain the matter better than I.
• Yoshisada: My lord suspects a group of smugglers is robbing his silver shipments. A great fortune has already gone missing.
• Yasuke: This silver could be used to sow chaos among the people.
• Yoshisada: Indeed. My lord believes the thieves trade our silver to the Portuguese for teppo. Which they then sell to bandits at great profit.
• Yasuke: You are right to be concerned, Lord Fujitaka.

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• Yoshisada: Another shipment has gone missing, right under our noses! My apologies, but I must attend to this at once.

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• Yasuke: Foreign teppo and bandits are a threat to peace. I will look into it.
• Fujitaka: Rest assured, the outcome will influence my decision regarding Lord Mitsuhide's offer of an alliance.
• Yasuke: Peace is my only concern, my lord. Respectfully, your rejection of Akechi Mitsuhide would serve this goal.
• Fujitaka: Then we are understood. One of my men has gained these smugglers' confidence. Perhaps you could start with him.

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• Yasuke: I bring you conclusive proof, Lord Fujitaka. Yoshisada's confession. And news of his death.
• Fujitaka: I was a fool to hope you were wrong. I am sorry.
• Yasuke: He valued his judgement over your own. And saw your trust in him as weakness.
• Fujitaka: I have had my fill of treacherous ambition. There will be no alliance between the Akechi and Hosokawa clans. Would that I could walk away from these earthly affairs. If a poem should break my heart, it would be from beauty alone.
• Yasuke: There is no walking away from our duties, Lord Fujitaka.

Transcription

• XXXX: XXXXXX