The characters from Dead or Alive belong to Team Ninja. All others are mine. This story is an unauthorised work done purely for my personal enjoyment, and is not intended to infringe on any of their rights in or their profits from these characters. But this story is copy write to me.
Comments, especially (constructive) criticism, always welcomed. Please e-mail me at
italics indicates unusual words or characters' thoughts
Notes :
The shinobi philosophy is largely Buddhist in origin, as opposed to the Shinto beliefs of mainstream Japanese society. In particular, the Tendai and Shingon sects are major sources of shinobi spiritual beliefs, befitting the believed origins of the shinobi ways in the arrival in Japan of Chinese monks and military commanders fleeing the fall of T'ang China in about AD 900. However, over the years shinobi beliefs have become an amalgam of Buddhist, Shinto and some Taoist ideas.
A few words on, well, words. The kanji characters spelling ninja ("one who endures") also say shinobi no mono ("one who steals in" or "one who hides"). Japanese kanji characters frequently have multiple pronunciations, as given previously, which also means that a given word might have different, often quite separate, meanings.
A ryu = familial tradition
Ninpo = the philosophy of ninjutsu
Taijutsu = the shinobi way of martial arts
Names :
A few name translations, for those interested.
Mugen - infinite
Ten - Heaven
Shin - truth/faith, trust/fidelity, core/heart
Jin - benevolence
Haji - shame
Mon - gate, but can also mean a family crest or badge
So,
Mugen Tenshin - Heaven's Infinite Heart or Heaven's Infinite Truth, or Heaven's Infinite Trust. I will settle for Heaven's Infinite Truth, as it better fits in with
TenjinMon - Mark of Heaven's Benevolence (Truth and Benevolence go together better than Heart and Benevolence)
HajinMon - Mark of Shame (I wonder why TenjinMon is more popular ..... )
Ayame - Iris
Ayane - Aya = woven silk, ne = price or cost. So Ayane = Price of Woven Silk (or maybe Expensive/Costly as Woven Silk would be better?). Alternatively, in Buddhist tradition, ayane is chanted during certain ceremonies, where it means 'on the day when the sun begins to move north' or 'in the solar movement'
Kasumi - Mist
Hayate - haya = fast, te = hand, so 'Fast-hand'
Ryu (actually Ryuu) - style/method, kill/axe
Hayabusa - 'fast bird', meaning the peregrine falcon
So Ryu Hayabusa could mean 'kill(ing) like a peregrine falcon'
And after all that, ONWARD!
Darkness Of HajinMon - prologue
Bright sunlight angled down through the tree canopy, casting dark shadows on the ground. It struck the roof of the small shrine, illuminating the sloping roof and straight, wooden walls. The peeling paint showed the effects of years of weathering, yet the structure retained its grace and elegance despite the ravages of time, and the accumulated debris of years of neglect.
Yet it seemed that there was something .... wrong .... about the place. The sunlight seemed to dim as it struck the Jinja and its surroundings, as if something unseen was obscuring the light. And a visitor would also note that there was silence in the vicinity of the shrine. No birds sang or perched on the Torii in front of the shrine, no insects hummed, no reptiles basked on the hot earth.
And, despite the heat of the midday sun, the dark, hidden interior of the shrine radiated a .... coldness .... which should not have been. Coldness, and a sense of watchfulness.
Like a predator in ambush, it crouched in the sun, and waited ......
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It looks like - yes, those are the same characters as on the scroll Genra showed me. So there should be an opening of some kind -
She slid her tanto along the wooden surface of the wall, searching for any kind of indentation which might mark the edge of a panel. She stiffened. A slight notch, just there. Barely visible, yet she had felt it.
She took a deep breath of the stale air, then slowly eased the tip of her knife into the now just visible gap. Then she carefully moved to one side, before exerting pressure on the knife in order to open the panel.
A sudden twang and the hiss and thud of something passing through the air where she'd been crouching only seconds before, striking the charred and blackened wooden wall beyond, told her that her precautions had been worthwhile.
Father made sure that anyone not intended to read these scrolls would die before they had the chance to open them. Assuming they could ever find them.
She stood up, noting absently that the two ninjas assigned to escort her were close at her elbow. She knew they were only doing what they had been ordered to do, but she still found the close attention annoying.
Still, she had the scroll now. Another one to cross off her list. A dozen or more to collect from their scattered hiding places.
I wonder why Father never gathered them together. Oh well, I just need to find the remainder, then I can read them to find out the hidden mysteries of HajinMon, at least that's what he told me. I hope it proves worth the effort, Genra-sama.
Carefully slipping the tattered and brittle scroll into one of the cases she carried with her, and closing the panel so it was as if it had never been opened, Ayane turned to leave, her escorts close at hand. The three moved silently from the blackened and shattered remains of the HajinMon dojo, destroyed during DOATEC's capture of Genra the previous year.
Within minutes, there was no trace that anyone had been there, just dust sifting down from the charred rafters overhead .....
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Jinja - Shinto shrine
Torii - the long bar across two posts outside the entrance to a Jinja. It symbolises leaving the earthly realm and entering a place of spiritual purity