There are many secrets in this house. Walking through the wooden fixtures and rice paper walls, I can only wonder at them. This house has been your families since...I don't actually know when your family was given this house and this land. It must be at least centuries, centuries of whispered words held close in the darkness.

There are many secrets in this house. Is that why you recoiled from them my husband? Why you a Bayushi born and raised, chose to become a Junshin? I do not know, I just do not know. I would like to think that it is not so; that it was fate that you were what you were. Yet, in my inner heart, the knowledge that it could have been different clings like a painful embrace.

There are many secrets in this house. Secrets like why I married you, our marriage was arranged young as normal yes. But, by the time of your gempukku it was known that you carried bushido in everything you did. Courtesy, Compassion, Courage, Sincerity, Honour, and most damning of all Honesty. So I trained in the ways of the Shoshuro became your wife, and the knife held to your throat should you ever try to harm the clan.

I do not know what I expected upon marrying you. We had met as children and I considered you a smelly boy and no more. When we met again upon marrying I saw man not so handsome as some, nor as strong as some, but who was handsome enough and strong enough. Living with you would not be so bad. Even as I hardened my heart in preparation for a terrible day.

I do not know when I began to fall for you. You were honest, genuine, giving me flowers you knew I liked, not out of an attempt to court me or make me love you, but to make me feel welcome at your home. The first clumsy attempts you made with my body were not pleasant but you soon learned, learned to make me sing. I will not deny enjoying that. Everything you did, you tried to reach me as a friend. I think in trusting me, I had to fall for you, giving me something no other Scorpion would dare, complete trust.

I do not know how you came to know of those secret movements of our people. The shadowy paths that let us move through out the Empire hidden from the magistrates view. However, it did happen and you reacted as a Junshin would, you came to your superiors telling them of this thing and that it would have to stop. Fortunes above why did you do that?

I do know that when I received the message from my superiors of what to do, my heart broke. I was to kill you, kill the man I loved for the clan. There was no way we could trust you with that information, not with what you were. So, the preparations long made would go into affect. I could have poisoned you, should have poisoned you.

I do know why I could not. I couldn't just poison you from afar and spare myself that pain of seeing the life go from your eyes. You had earned the right to know who your killer was. And, I wanted, I wanted to look into your eyes one last time, to feel your embrace, to love you, even as I slew you. So I embraced you a final time. Your heart against mine. The hairpin needle slid out of my kimono sleeve, out of your view. I took it and punctured your spine just where it met the neck. It was the quickest most painless death I could give you like this.

I don't know why as you fell to floor, you whispered "I forgive you"

I can't forgive myself. So why do you forgive me? Because I spared you from making the choice between honour and loyalty? Or something, no it has to be that. I don't dare believe that you loved me enough to forgive me killing you, that isn't something I'll let you put on me. I saved you, I saved you from making that choice. That's how I endure.

As I kneel before your shrine, I feel something in my eyes...tears.

This house holds many secrets, that I sob like a child every night over what I did, is just one more