The Subjective Worldview

[Lucend]

The Hogosha are still beautiful, even after I've killed more than I care to count. They serve their people and bring about results, which are rare in this day and age.

Some in Kusari say that enlightenment comes from an upward lifting of your mind into a new plane of existence, glimpsing that plane for a split second and settling back down to the ground.

As Gaijin say, that's bull****.

Enlightenment comes from falling from a perch of ignorance and realizing you're just another insect crawling over other insects, forever fearing death and nonexistence from some unforgiving 8 year-old with a god complex.

I've gotten cynical from my travels, for that you'll have to forgive me...

...or blame me. That's probably the conclusion I'm going to come up with anyway.

This is the Bounty Hunter Aikin Sanshi, former Hogosha retainer based on Deshima Station and other bases intermittently. And this is my attempt to make sense of the past in order to reconcile the present.

Ancestors be damned...

My ancestors would be a good place to start. The Sanshi family has historically been retainers for the Hogosha since early in the organization's history. My family has served with distinction from every position, from thugs to accountants. People within the shogunate may change, but the Hosgosha is a stone bulwark. Relentless in it's persecution and removal of unwanted elements, they have been regarded as heroes and villains, and are perhaps the most colorful of the Kusari criminal organizations.

The first recorded San to serve the will of the Kusari people was my great-great-great grandmother, Saika Sanshi. Saika was a Hideyoshi mistress around the time of the revolution. As the story goes, she was a loyal cohort to the Emperor until several Samura agents contacted her, informing her of the coming storm and enlisting her in their plans. Saika was troubled by this and spent several nights of soul-searching. Poetry flowed through her of the greatness of the Kusari house and her thoughts of rebellion or loyalty. Finally she made a decision and betrayed her master for the Samura agents.

I don't know how much of the story is truth, embellished or not. For generations my line has taken this story with one meaning and one meaning alone. Now, with the contact of other houses and newer information flowing in, the story passes to me, and I find new wisdom in it. New ways of thinking, especially since I have traveled the Sector and encountered peoples of different viewpoints. Of one thing I am certain:

Rebellion is in my blood.

---

"The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.
Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there."

Osaika Moto, the Fall and Rise of a Kusari Farmer

Juan Lucendez, √ Corsair