Even after having a terrible past, even after being made inferior by her own people, Candace Hanako, a future samurai, strives to serve her empire unto her death. But when she's accused of the crime involving the summonation of the Yōkai, a dark ent...
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The moon peered through the skeletal branches of the naked trees, creating a crisscross pattern of shadows on the forest floor. She went through the dry woods, following the trail of her comrades. The December's wind stroked her dark curles, arousing an uncomfortable nostalgia in her half frozen body.
The sundown patrolling was really a headache, precisely for a young Minarai like her. To her right, she watched far off the dazzling lights of the beautiful empire. The fresh snow tucked the elegant inns and homes in its silver blanket, shielding it from the smudges of terror which lied to her right wing. The rolling fields and abandoned farms of the Akio Valley, inhabited by the lower ranks and peasants.
As she tucked her kimono's jacket closer to warm herself, a memory twirled in her mind. Last week, she was unable to attend a person's funeral. Indeed he was too much important for her and the realization only hit her after he left this world.
Burabō. It was what her distant uncle called her since he'd found her, a scrap of an orphan begging on the streets of Echihó. He'd taken her to the only place he'd known that would her ,for the sake of her father's sacrifice, with forgotten name and no reputation: the kingdom's establishment to train both boys and girls to take up the positions of samurai, the kingdom's soldiers. She'd signed a contract whose terms she'd barely been able to decipher, and whose length only seemed to swell and swell the harder she worked. She gazed at the starry sky, the place where her parents went, the place where the person who remembered who she was went.
"Watch yourself, Candace Hanako!" A voice brought her back to her senses and her blood rushed to her ears as she discovered Sensei Hajime standing over her. "It's the third and last time you've been warned. The next time you'd be expelled out of the campus, got it?"
"Yes, Sensei" she replied for the third time only to hear the giggles of her comrades thereafter.
"We've reached our stop for the evening," Sensei Hajime proclaimed, "It's best not to travel in this forest after dark. All will disperse to their respective tents after the supper."
After the so called supper, Candace unfurled her bedroll in a tent shared by two other unknown girls, removed her boots, and hung up her uniform kimono's jacket. Then, she tucked herself down into the thick warm fur-lined blankets and stared up at the tent's roof, waiting for the sleep to come.
Tomorrow, if everything went as she planned, they'd move back to the capital, Echihò and provide them some days off. As soon as the news of five shinobi sent by the enemy, Inverna for the forbidden reserves of the Empire Oshima spread like forest fire, the security heightened. Inverna, surprisingly along with Hizen, a former ally,was doing the best to snatch the scroll from them and her instincts told her that the neighboring empires were kissing the enemies' feet.
By the way, It was a mere fascination of her which took her to a ride of her past every night. The first thing was she never had friends and the reason came to her understanding very late, until she turned thirteen and was forbidden to enter an inn due to her half - white ethnicity. Ever since, she classed herself as an outcast, inferior and non-fitting being.
