Shosuro

Shosuro
Born:	Pre-calendar
Died:	1133
Titles:	Scorpion Clan Thunder Shosuro family founder
People

Shosuro was a human who became the first follower of the Kami Bayushi. She was actually made from a piece of the Lying Darkness. Her superb acting skills and expert deceptions impressed her master. A Kharmic Tie was created between them, and she was sometimes known as Bayushi's Daughter.

Creation

Shosuro was created by the kenku Mukashi and his brother Takashi using a small piece of the Nothing. Mukashi hoped that by giving the small piece a purpose it would be shown a different path. Mukashi intended for Shosuro to replace a small girl named Shuro who had gone missing from a nearby village. Shortly after Shosuro's creation Shuro was found and Shosuro was left without a purpose. Saddened, Shosuro vowed to find a father for herself.

The Name

The name "Shosuro" was thought by many as an obvious pseudonym, being a slight bastardization of the word shosuru, which means "name" in Rokugani. It was known that Bayushi often called her Shosuko, a nickname fathers usually gave to their first-born daughters, and Soshisa, which meant "founder" in Rokugani.

Questions Unanswered

Shosuro did not know her origins, nor why she could alter her form with a thought. She expected Bayushi would be able to give her the answers she sought about her identity and mysterious powers.

Bayushi's Follower

Shosuro and Bayushi

In the year 17 Shosuro came to Bayushi's notice first as a stable boy. It was not until later that same night that Bayushi realized she could change her shape. Shosuro changed shape and held a knife to his throat at a geisha house. After deep conversation between the two, Shosuro subsequently became one of Bayushi's first followers.

Shiba and Togashi

Bayushi brought Shosuro to meet with Shiba, but Shosuro sensed that Shiba was aware she was something more than human. Sometime later Togashi appeared before Bayushi and warned him that Shosuro would have to follow her own different path. Bayushi was angered with Togashi and refused to believe in the destiny Togashi had foreseen.

The Day of Thunder

"Bayushi forbade any more of his followers to die in this war. I do not intend to die, Atarasi-san." -Shosuro

Shosuro

When Shinsei came to aid the Kami in their fight against their brother Fu Leng and required seven humans, The Seven Thunders, Bayushi refused to let any more Scorpion die in the war. Shosuro ignored his order and went anyway, intent on surviving the war.

Shosuro Family

Shosuro left behind three students who had learned the secrets of her techniques, the eldest being Shosuro Kinjiko. They took on their sensei's name and continued to serve Bayushi in her memory. Since then, the Shosuro family has served the Bayushi family.

Facing Fu Leng

When the Seven Thunders entered Fu Leng's keep Shosuro was not with them. Isawa was already binding Fu Leng when the Thunders saw Shosuro again. She had been finding another way out. Fu Leng was eventually bound to the Black Scrolls and the First Oni attacked furiously when it did not see its master. Hida Atarasi faced the First Oni alone and sacrificed himself to allow Shosuro and Shinsei to escape with the Black Scrolls.

Bargaining with the Nothing

The Darkness had followed Shosuro and the other Thunders since they entered the Shadowlands. While the First Oni was chasing Shosuro, the Darkness approached her and promised escape, hope, and answers about her origins and powers. The Darkness had the knowledge Shosuro sought, and the Scorpion Thunder willingly embraced the touch of Nothing.

Returning Rokugan

Shosuro was the only one of the Seven Thunders who survived the battle with Fu Leng. She had made a pact with the Darkness to escape the Shadowlands alive, but her survival was only due to the intervention of the Kami Shiba, who sacrificed his life by battling the First Oni, which had been chasing Shosuro to recover the Scrolls.

Upon her return to Rokugan, Shosuro brought with her an Obsidian Hand which later came to be known as Shosuro's Hand. It was in fact Onnotangu's Hand which had been severed from his arm by the Kami Hantei. Given to her by the Darkness, the Obsidian Hand held not only the flesh of a God, but a piece of the soul of the Shadow. She also brought back from the Shadowlands an Obsidian Mirror and a satchel containing the Black Scrolls, which had been created by the Phoenix Clan Thunder, Isawa, to imprison Fu Leng's soul.

Corruption of the Shadow

Shosuro arranged for a small number of shinobi students to be “recruited” out of the Scorpion clan every year. These students were taken to a secret dojo, where each was touched with the Obsidian Hand, exposing them to the power of the Shadow. Most of them eventually became Shadowspawn and were absorbed into the Lying Darkness forever.

Faked Death

After returning to the Imperial Palace of Otosan Uchi, Shosuro faked her own death and disappeared. The Darkness had told her of her true self. She and it were the same, it claimed, formed from the primal Nothing that existed without form and without name. Nothing was slowly turning her back into the formlessness from which she came.

Shosuro family

The Shosuro family was founded by the remaining followers of Shosuro, built around the nucleus of an acting troupe who were actually expert spies and infiltrators.

Soshi

Soshi and Bayushi

The mask and clothes of Shosuro were cremated, and a young shugenja stood beside Bayushi and lit the pyre. Bayushi and the shugenja, who said his name was Soshi, walked together and built a secret fortress guarded by sorcery and shadow. The shugenja took Shosuro's place at Bayushi's side, becoming Bayushi's advisor and closest confidant. Shosuro had changed her identity and founded one of the two Scorpion Clan Shugenja schools, the Soshi family.

Shadow Brands

After Fu Leng's defeat Hantei tasked Bayushi with creating an Empire-wide spy network. Bayushi accepted and the ninja were born. Soshi aided Bayushi, developing a new style of magic called Shinobi. After further experiments, Soshi was able to imprint Bayushi's spies with shadow brands, literally making them one with the shadows. Of the souls it touched, one in fifteen were taken by the Darkness, never to return. These nameless souls would be the price of Shosuro's bargain for the coming years.

Imprisoned

Shosuro's link to the Lying Darkness was too strong, and she finally was Lost to the Shadow. Traveling to the Dragon lands, she beseeched the Kami Togashi to help her. Unable to remove the Shadow taint from her, he opted to encase her in a crystal cage deep beneath Kyuden Togashi in the year 82 (other sources date it as 59).

Tempting Kokujin

In 1132 the mad Dragon Hitomi Kokujin began having secret conversations with Shosuro. They made a bargain: Kokujin would join the Shadowlands forces and Goju Adorai, leader and avatar of the Shadow, would lure the armies of the Empire to a trap deep in the Shadowlands where they would be utterly destroyed. Kokujin would wait until Shosuro was released from her prison to implement this plan.

Hitomi

The Dragon Clan Champion Hitomi believed that Shosuro had the knowledge to avoid the future she saw and also believed she had the knowledge of how to defeat Lord Moon, Onnotangu. Using the knowledge she had of the Darkness, Hitomi began communicating with Shosuro. She wished to gain knowledge about the Lying Darkness and how to harness its dark powers, and she expected Shosuro could give her these secrets.

Shosuro Released

Shosuro goaded Hitomi, who pressed her Obsidian Hand against the crystal prison and invaded the mind of the prisoner. As Hitomi's will was distracted by the visions Shosuro shared with her, the Scorpion Thunder reached the scrap of Nothing that remained in the Hand. As if by its own will, the Obsidian Hand smashed into the crystal, cracking it. Hitomi had released Shosuro from her imprisonment before realizing her grave mistake. For hundreds of years Shosuro had been trapped in the light of the crystal prison, hidden away from the Darkness. Now her Master's will won her freedom from the crystal cage through a tiny crack, all the Shapeshifter needed to escape her prison. The two Thunders clashed against each other, but Shosuro was too weak and dazed from over a thousand years of imprisonment and a sudden release to fight effectively, so she fled.

Embracing her Fate

Shosuro's torment had awakened the Shadow itself. After a thousand years of imprisonment, Shosuro was disappointed with two broken promises. Bayushi never came, Togashi died years ago, and Shosuro's body and soul yet remained corrupted. She had come to understand that once again the Lying Darkness offered her the truth when others lied. She had become a willing minion of the Darkness.

Against Rokugan

Toshiken fighting Shosuro

Shosuro went to the Shrine of the Seven Thunders, killed all the guardian monks, and stole Shosuro's Cloak from the Shrine. She killed several Crane bushi. The Emerald Champion, Seppun Toshiken, fought her, and his blows fell like rain, but Shosuro only laughed then cocked her head and vanished.

War in the Heavens

Prior to the duel between Hitomi and Onnotangu that decided the War in the Heavens in 1132, Togashi, incarnated in Hitomi, condemned Lord Moon for stealing away Bayushi's only love in his envy and hatred.

Kachiko's Lake

Shosuro was nearly lost to the Shadow forever, but while she shared part of her soul with Bayushi Kachiko and was the Scorpion Thunder, Shosuro could not be truly consumed. She went after Kachiko to kill her in a bid to replace Goju Adorai as the true avatar of the Lying Darkness. As the Clans were fighting the Shadow at the Battle of Oblivion's Gate in 1133, Shosuro went to Kyuden Bayushi and reached Kachiko at the Sleeping Lake. Bayushi manifested himself at the lake and drew both Kachiko and Shosuro into the lake with him. Kachiko merged her soul with Shosuro's. Although their bodies would die, their spirits would be far from Darkness' reach.

See also

• Shosuro/Meta

Preceded by: None

Shosuro Daimyo ? - ?

Succeeded by: Unknown

External Links

• Shosuro Exp (Dark Journey Home)
• Shosuro Exp7 (Dawn of the Empire)

References

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