Shadows Without Light

Shadows Without Light was a virtual representation of The Guide's interference in an Animus EGO user's session of reliving Fujibayashi Naoe and Yasuke's genetic memories.

Description

The Guide opens another rift.

Dialogue

The Animus EGO user, while reliving Naoe and Yasuke's lives, travels to Inokuma Hamlet in Wakasa. They collect the shards and eventually reached the edge of a cliff. A rift was soon opened to them once they had collected five of them. The user enters the rift and was brought to a Memory Corridor. They interacted with the first shard and was shown voice recordings of two Templars, Nuno Caro and Duarte de Melo, as well as scenes from Naoe and Yasuke's past related to them.

• 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.

(Second shard)

• 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.

(Third shard)

• 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.

(Fourth shard)

• 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.

(Fifth shard)

• 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.

(Sixth shard)

• 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.

(Seventh shard)

• 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.

(Final shard)

• 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.

Outcome

The Guide imparted a memory of a conversation between Templars Duarte de Melo and Nuno Caro to the user.