Kakita Wayozu

Kakita Wayozu was the first ever female mistress of the Kakita Academy. She served as the master sensei to all the arts taught at the academy including iaijutsu. Although not a student of the sword Wayozu would still spend hours in the dojo studying bushido as well as the gentler arts. She was a well respected headmistress, and many expected her reign to be spent in peace and harmony and Wayozu to be remembered for her wisdom and gentle nature. That was until war was declared with the Crab Clan. The Daidoji forces took heavy casualities, and in the end the Kakita were called upon to aid in the defense. Wayozu dispatched the Kakita Artisans who had specialized in iaijutsu and watched as they were cut down by the Crab. The Kakita had to withdraw, and pulled back to the large bridge that spanned a ravine near the River of White Waters. Wayozu gathered up a number of artisans from the school and went to the bridge to defend it with their lives. With a mighty effort Wayozu began to fuse their abilities. First the poets, then the actors, then the painters and storytellers, until finally they had created a realm of fantasy which existed only in their art. Wayozu and several of the artisans released their own souls into their works, destroying their bodies but bringing the works to life. The Hida warriors besieging the bridge vanished without a trace, and no remains of the artisans were found either. The only thing found was a fine book with delicate calligraphy written in a language unknown to Rokugan. The writing was never deciphered, but it is rumored that it is a tale of the Crab and Crane, and the war they had faught, and about the world they had been drawn into never to return. The pictures in the book depict a Crab army, and the characters in the bindings appear to be the Crane artisans who disappeared. Wether they still live in some world of imagination is unknow, but the battle is always remembered with a celebration at Kyuden Kakita on the sixteenth day og the month of the Dragon every year. (Crane pp. 84-85)