Asako Akiro

Asako Akiro was a scholar and seer of the Phoenix Clan, who never revealed his prophecies and was killed by his bloodspeaker cousin who could not let his prophecies endanger their plans.

Family
His father was Asako Itsuo and lacking no shugenja abilities he was used by his clan for other activities, as guard at Shiro Shiba, for some time. His mother died in his childbirth in 727, beginning his sorrow life. He was named Ichiro.

Youth
In 735 Ichiro was playing with his best friend Toshi, when he told one of the nightmares he suffered since child. In the dream Ichiro saw Toshi's mother dying in a fire in her house. Toshi enraged and never forgave him it. Ichiro's father, Asako Itsuo, also was angry, and their relationship suffered and became ill from that day. Toshi turned the other students against Ichiro and his childhood was terrible from that day on. He never talked again about his prophecies and grew as an isolated and eccentric boy.

Training
Ichiro was trained as scholar in Kyuden Isawa, being his master a scribe and historian who served under the provincial governor. In 739 he was visited by his former friend, and attacked by him. His prophecy respect his friend's mother had been fulfilled few days before. After the incident he had another vision of a battle near the Kaiu Kabe between Toturi's Army led by Toturi the Black and the Yogo Junzo's army, led by the mad tainted Scorpion.

Station
In 742 Ichiro had his gempukku and took the name Asako Akiro, becaming a scholar of a remote library atop a cliff edge overlooking the sea in the northeastern reaches of the Isawa provinces. In 745 Akiro was visited by his cousin, the shugenja Shiba Mariko, the only true friend since the incident when youth. Mariko inquiried about his prophecies, and Akiro confirmed all became truth. She saw one written time ago about the Return of the Ki-Rin.

Prophecy
He had another vision this day: A city, lost in the depths of darkness. A temple dedicated to a sinister god who murdered Fortunes as a samurai slaughters unarmed peasants. Invincible in the heavens, only in the mortal world could his power be broken. A Dark Lord, his face masked in white, the last legacy of a fallen Emperor, guarded the key to the god's defeat. His faith was the fulcrum upon which all others rested. Four Winds gathered to face him. None of them alone could overcome him, and his armies were vast.

Death
In 749 Akiro was visited again by his cousin. On top of the cliff he revealed his decision to send all the prophecies he had recorded and collected in his satchel to the Elemental Masters or to the Emperor, hoping its knowledge could avoid some future destruction or threats. Mariko stabbed him in the stomach, and tried to reach the scrolls. With his last breath, Asako Akiro took the only defiant action of his life and hurled himself from the cliff, plummeting hundreds of feet to the jagged rocks below, clutching his satchel of prophecies as he fell.

Jama Suru
Mariko met her master, Jama Suru and explained the final of her cousin. Suru filled the chasm with rocks to avoid the prophecy scrolls could be retrieved by anybody.


 * Visions of the Future, Part I, by Shawn Carman