Asako Hanasaku

Asako Hanasaku was one of the most prolific scholars in the history of the Asako family. He was fascinated with the effects of substances on the human body. Hanasaku tested anything he could find on himself, and recorded the effects. He was greatly reviled for his unconventional methods. His death was a direct result of his work, coming shortly after ingesting a powerful poison.

Life's work
In the early second century, Rokugan was still a new world. Much was unknown, and its inhabitants were still struggling to learn what they could of their home. Asako Hanasaku did much to increase the knowledge of the fledgling civilization. Hanasaku gave much research to the categorization of materials around Rokugan. He would eat, absorb, or otherwise expose himself to all sorts of materials, including plants, meats, blood, oils, spices, and even poisons. His extreme methods gained him much animosity among the highly cultured, but his work forever increased the knowledge of the learned.

Death
It did not come as a surprise to many that Hanasaku's death was the result of his bizarre and often dangerous experiments. The scholar was testing a rare poison, which came to be known as jin-hana saku. Hanasaku took a drop on his tongue and immediately began convulsing. When it stopped, his left arm remained numb, but he recalled to his scribe that the poison tasted "sour, like old rice milk." His accounting of the poison complete, Hanasaku cleaned his mouth with a drink of sake. Moments later, he collapsed, never to wake again.