Articulated Icons: Purple Ninja

“He fights like a demon,” A purple clad ninja screamed.

The Age of the Ninja was coming to an end.

With the death of the Ninja Master, the splintered clans had fractured further. New prospective masters seeded dissent into the clans, gaining followers through lies, deception and betrayal.

And then came an enemy the Ninja could not defeat.

Fumetsu

The undying Samurai had set his sights on wiping out the disease of Ninja that terrorized the countryside. The four clans lost many to his blade.

It is irony that the threat of Fumetsu brought the fractured clans together once more.

The clans prepared an ambush for their common foe, deep in a forest just outside of Edo, where they believed Fumetsu resided. From a distance they watched his comings and goings. Always at night, as if he rejected the sunlit world.

As he returned to his camp, an arrow took down his horse, and then the ninja swarmed on him. Clan Orchid of the Poisoned Blade. Clan Cloudburst of the Shuriken Storm. Clan Oaken Fist the Unstoppable. Clan Windleaf of the Ghost Strike. Ninja by the score, and one man.

If he could truly be called a man.

“He still fights,” said a ninja in a slate grey shokozu before his chest erupted in a geyser of blood. Fumetsu growled deep in the back of his throat as he ripped an arrow from his arm and pushed his blade deep into the body of a foe.

“He fights like a demon,” A purple clad ninja screamed.

“No. He is a demon,” the Master of the Clan Orchid said. He watched as one of his own ran Fumetsu through with a blood-slickened katana, only to see Fumetsu turn on the ninja with fire burning in his eyes and remove his head with a swift downward thrust.

That one man pushed back his attackers deep into the woods. He batted away a shuriken storm with a wave of his fist, grinning as he plucked steel from his knuckles and tossing it to the ground. He spat blood onto the body of a dead ninja and returned a shuriken to its owner, burying it between shrouded eyes.

“We cannot win,” the master of Clan Cloudburst said. A diagonal slash of blood decorated his chest. It was not his own.

The four masters watched as their Clans died in blood and steel. Fumetsu growled and slashed. The Clan Windleaf’s master held hope as one of his own ninjas aimed a swift blade at the demon’s throat, but Fumetsu returned the favor and loosed the ninja’s guts to the forest floor.

“He will come for us,” the Orchid clan master said. His voice was distant, his eyes hollow. “He will not stop now.”

Blood rained down onto the forest floor. The blood of ninja. It awoke something. Something old. Something powerful. A voice issued forth from the Forest. It was a light and feathery voice, yet one that that held no patience for those that interrupted her sleep.

“What do you want,” the voice said to each of the Ninja Masters. “Tell me your desires.”

“Revenge,” Said the Master of the Orchid clan.

To be continued….

 

words by @ibmmt_

pictures by @kwehttamm