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==Prologue==
 
 
The year was 20XX.
 
 
The Great Empire of Japan was under the reign of the twenty fifth head of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Tokugawa Yoshiasu, seemingly under peace and prosperity.
 
 
 
 
About a hundred kilometres away from the centre of Great Japan, the special administrative district of Oedo.
 
 
At the foot of the sacred Mount Fuji, there existed the vast grounds of a school famed throughout the land.
 
 
The Buou Private Academy.
 
 
Children from military families whose shoulders bore the weight of the future of Great Japan were gathered here, into an organization whose student population exceeded over thirty thousand.
 
 
Its teaching facilities ranged from the childcare level all the way up to university. Students studying from the secondary school level until university were all required to stay in dormitories, which were also located on-site at the Mount Fuji campus.
 
 
This academy was under the direct control of the shogunate, but the students were given a degree of autonomy, being governed by the best of them. The Tokugawa clan and their vassals made up the student council, which managed the academy.
 
 
 
 
The Buon Academy’s students were all from military households, which meant even the girls were trained as warriors.
 
 
As such they were allowed to carry swords with them, and naturally there were other weapons besides swords that were carried around as well.
 
 
In accordance with the samurai code, students were expected to accept any challenge to battle, no matter where, when, or who issued it.
 
 
Naturally, they also were expected to be accomplished in both literary and military arts.
 
 
While being encouraged to apply themselves in their studies, the idea that occasionally they would have to fight battles where their life were at stake was also drilled into them.
 
 
However, unrest was bubbling under the surface of this immortal bastion of an academy.
 
 
Dissatisfaction with the rule of the Tokugawa clan, rebellion, and underground activities.
 
 
All these were once exclusively outside the academy, but now their influence could be felt within. Wanting to smash the reign of the Tokugawa Shogunate, it was like a foetus kicking within a mother’s womb.
 
 
And here, at the Yagyuu Dojo…
 
 
 
==The Sword Princess who Fell from the Sky==
 
 
===Part 1===
 
 
“… Ha! … Ha!”
 
 
Slow and deliberate yells were coming from the rear garden of the Yagyuu dojo.
 
 
A katata was being swung in practice, and soon a thousand swings were reached.
 
 
Yagyuu Muneakira let out a huge sigh, before calmly lowering the edge of his sword.
 
 
His dougi had been removed and was currently tied around his waist, and being naked from the waist up, beads of sweat had formed on his bare skin.
 
 
On his slender body, his elastic muscles were coiled and tensed up. At the tip of his long bangs sweat had gathered, and like dew overflowing from grass, fell to the ground.
 
 
“No good. At this rate, I still have a long way to go…”
 
 
The day where he would be skilled in the Yagyuu Shinkage sword style was still far off. And the way things were now,
 
 
“How am I going to protect this dojo…”
 
 
The Yagyuu dojo itself was located in a corner of the students’ quarters.
 
 
Going all the way back from Yagyuu Munenori, the Edo-based Yagyuu clan had been instructing other military families in the way of the sword for over four hundred years.
 
 
Even within the Buon Academy, their services were requested as they were deemed the most fit for the job. Thus within this dojo, as the next head of the Yagyuu clan, Muneakira was in charge of everything swordsmanship related within the academy.
 
 
However, at the moment the dojo behind Muneakira’s back was empty.
 
 
Furthermore, tomorrow he would have to vacate the premises.
 
 
Why? Because an order had been issued from the pillar of the student council, the executive committee.
 
 
“The Yagyuu dojo will now be under the direct control of the executive committee of the student council. Yagyuu Muneakira is to lead all the disciples of the dojo, enter under the command of the public morals committee, and formally join the hunt for the Toyotomi renegades.”
 
 
That notice had been delivered about a week ago.
 
 
Hunting for the Toyotomi renegades…
 
 
Basically it meant hunting rogue students who were anti-establishment, who were rebelling against the authority of the student council.
 
 
Currently, in the name of hunting the Toyotomi renegades, the student council’s tyranny had slowly been escalating.
 
 
This had been single-handedly carried out by the public morals committee, and now they were effectively telling Muneakira to become the vanguard of the hunt.
 
 
But Muneakira had ignored this order.
 
 
“That’s just idiotic. To call it hunting for Toyotomi renegades…”
 
 
Because the Buon academy was a school for warriors, children from the shogun’s clan, daimyos, vassals, and other various families were all enrolled inside.
 
 
With the advent of the Great Meiji Reformation, social classes had been abolished, but the various families had continued their family line.
 
 
Muneakira was the heir to the Yagyuu name, and other powerful clans which once had large fiefdoms like Shimazu, Mouri, Maeda, Date were present as well.
 
 
Also, Oda, Imagawa, Houjo, and others who were once Daimyos in the Warring States Era were also present.
 
 
Kitabatake, Ouchi, and other noble families also were represented.
 
 
On top of that, families which had been the enemy such as the Ishida, Konishi, Chosokabe clans had been resurrected with the new era, and had experienced a revival of sorts, thus within the Buon academy various families were represented.
 
 
The only exception was the Toyotomi clan. There was no student bearing the Toyotomi name.
 
 
In other words, it was just a pretext given by the student council.
 
 
People who went against the executive committee, or displayed an attitude towards them, or even people who they were displeased with; all were lumped together under the Toyotomi faction and forcibly suppressed.
 
 
Students who were caught faced punishments ranging from getting brainwashed, tortured, forced into slave labour, forced to drop out or expelled outright.
 
 
“How can they even call something like that a hunt for Toyotomi renegades? What they’re doing is wrong.”
 
 
Thus, even after receiving the eviction notice Muneakira didn’t budge at all.
 
 
The student council had grown impatient and pressed him further, so Muneakira decided to shut down the dojo in response.
 
 
“Why does this dojo have to be closed!?”
 
 
The students who were disciples raised a fuss, but Muneakira’s resolve was absolute.
 
 
(… This was a bit extreme, but it couldn’t be helped. Better this than everyone being forced into oppressing other students under the pretext of hunting for Toyotomi renegades…)
 
 
Thus, Muneakira effectively excommunicated the hundred or so disciples under him, and was now defending the Yagyuu dojo, which he lived in, by himself.
 
 
However, the problem he was facing now was time.
 
 
Muneakira had gone against the executive committee, and this was something unforgivable in their eyes.
 
 
The public morals committee would come knocking at his door at any moment now. Muneakira had done all he could, what was left was,
 
 
“Polishing my sword techniques; that’s all I can do now. That sounds about right…”
 
 
Leaking out a sigh, his gaze dropped downwards.
 
 
The sweat he had earlier had already vanished. Muneakira retrieved his scabbard from the open corridor, and sheathed the sword which was in his right hand.
 
 
Clink. Just as the pleasant sound of the habaki slotting snugly into the scabbard could be heard, it happened.
 
 
Suddenly, he was assaulted by a loud rumbling that came from behind him.
 
 
“…! Wha, … what was that!?”
 
 
It was an attack large enough to cause the dojo to shake violently. It was as if lightning and an earthquake had struck the dojo at the same time, causing him to think the building was going to collapse.
 
 
Thinking the public morals committee had begun their attack, Muneakira braced himself, but there was no further sound.
 
 
“What in the world…?”
 
 
The sound and the attack seemed to have come from the training hall.
 
 
Stepping up into the corridor, Muneakira ran towards the training hall, katana in hand.
 

Latest revision as of 12:25, 15 September 2012