Hantei XXXIX

Hantei Sotorii was the childhood name of the only surviving child of Hantei XXXVIII, and Emperor Hantei XXXIX following the death of his father.

Bloodspeaker attack
In 1111, when Sotorii was four years old, the caravan he was traveling in with the Empress Hantei Hochiahime was attacked by bloodspeakers. Sotorii and the Empress were captured, but Sotorii was saved by the ronin Yotsu who sacrificed his own son to allow the imperial heir to escape.

The Unknown Sibling
Unknown to most, the Empress carried her child to term. The child was kept secret, hidden in one of the Spirit Realms by the bloodspeakers. Once the child was old enough he entered the mortal realm once more, bearing the name of Daigotsu. The son of Yotsu used to fool the bloodspeakers was also alive, now Goju Kyoden, the yojimbo of Daigotsu.

Scorpion Coup
In 1123, the Scorpion Clan Champion Bayushi Shoju attacked and killed the Emperor in Otosan Uchi. Shoju sent his half-brother Bayushi Aramoro to kill Sotorii, but the heir was spirited away by Isawa Kaede of the Phoenix Clan. Believing the heir dead, Shoju proclaimed himself Emperor Shoju I. The Scorpion Coup lasted only five days, when the joint forces of Rokugan defeated the Scorpion Clan. Sotorii returned at the head of the Phoenix army, having been given a hasty gempukku, and was made Emperor Hantei XXXIX.

Life as Emperor
One of Hantei XXXIX's first declarations was that he would take Shoju's wife, the renownedly beautiful Bayushi Kachiko, to be his own wife. The Scorpion Clan were disbanded, as was the Akodo family, for what he percieved to be Akodo Toturi's failing in protecting his father's reign. The only person to escape that sanction was Akodo Kage.

Plague
When the Emperor fell ill during the Clan War the Imperial Doctor diagnosed him with the plague. The truth was actually that Bayushi Kachiko was poisoning her husband in revenge for the fall of her husband and clan.

Assassination Attempt
Sometime during the Clan War there was an assassination attempt made against Hantei XXXIX. It was unknown who instigated the attempt, or why, but the Emperor survived thanks to Kachiko, who was wounded in the process. In truth it had been orchestrated by Kachiko in order to shift suspicions away from her.

Kachiko
Kachiko had manipulated the young Emperor, only fourteen at the time, into taking her as his wife. From her new position as Empress, she aided those Scorpion who managed to escape the purge led by the other clans. In addition she began slowly poisoning the Emperor, in revenge for what had happened to her husband and her clan.

Fu Leng and the Second Day of Thunder
The poisoning weakened the Emperor to the state that the dark Kami Fu Leng could take possession of his body. The dark Kami had been released by the opening of the Black Scrolls, which began when a grief stricken Yogo Junzo opened the first scroll following the failed Scorpion Coup. Fu Leng's possession of the boy brought about the Second Day of Thunder, where the Seven Thunders (Kachiko one of them) fought him. Fu Leng, now fully in control of the body, was made mortal with the Twelfth Black Scroll which had been hidden within the chest of Togashi. Fu Leng managed to mortally wound Doji Hoturi and Isawa Tadaka before he was killed by a simultanous strike by Hoturi and Toturi.

Funeral
The last Hantei's soul was finally at peace, freed from the taint of evil which darkened his spirit. The Emperor's body was taken from the Imperial palace and thrown into the sea, headless and wasted by the dark magics of Fu Leng. There was no funeral pyre, no honorable burial. The body belonged to the Dark Lord, and there was no reason for homage.