Katana Castle

There is a steeple on a hill that belongs to the people. It was a hard-fought right. About four hundred and seven years ago there was an uprising in the lands. The nobles overstepping their bounds, despite their bonds being to aid the people.

Every island up in arms, everyone at war, it was chaos. There was one noble who was seen as pure despite all of this: Shinzano. This man/woman/individual was the one who could unite everyone, it was as if his spirit was intermingled with everyone.

If you talked to him/her/them, it was like talking with a part of yourself. You were already bonded intimately and there was no interaction before this. However, he was captured by those who could not have a piece of Shinzano in them, because they had no soul. He/she/they were taken off to Katana Castle. That wasn’t what it was called at the time. It was called “The Lord’s Quarry.” What a pretentious name.

He/she/they were tortured, belittled, and made to march in front of everyone in the surrounding country town stripped down to nothing. Death by a million cuts. However, people saw the man’s plight, as if she was a part of them, and marched off in the dead of night to nearby villages. They took immense risk to do this. As part of the uprisings, the nobles had all gotten together to lock down the entire island chain and the war itself certainly didn’t make everything much safer.

But off they all went, still exploring and wandering. Each town they went to, they talked about them. About Shinzano. Everyone was sceptical at first, naturally, but as more was explained about them, the more they came to understand. After all, Shinzano was a piece of everyone. His lands had been seized and carved up by the rest of the nobles and divvied up evenly.

Once word reached from Katana Castle to the lands that Shinzano once called home, there was great fury in the populace. Everyone, their mothers, their fathers, their children, felt the sting of what had happened the woman and they were ready for blood.

In the dead of night, a mob of all of the people in Shinzano’s lands stormed the nearby noble’s armoury. The noble called for reinforcements, but none ever came. Because every single other nearby noble’s weaponry caches had been seized as well. This uprising spread like a virus, in an already uprising nation. However, this was different. This was not an uprising that was just a squabble amongst the nobles, this was an uprising that came directly from the people.

People far and wide armed themselves, armed their families, and headed straight for The Lord’s Quarry. Picture this:

An army, ragged, hungry, angry, furious, even. All lined up in perfect single file, as if they were being commanded in their souls by Shinzano, all wielding swords. This was the greatest army. They were not motivated by duty or honour or where their next paycheck would come from. They were fighting for a part of their souls that had collectively been stripped out of them.

The blood spilled that day laid the foundation of Shinzano’s rule over all others. Never again would the will of the people be questioned. The swords dropped by the fallen men, women, and children were collected, melted, and turned into a sharp statue in remembrance of those who had fallen that day.