Soul
Chapter One
Restoration: Time
It is 1873 and the world is changing, changing into a thing that past and present will both deny and shy away from when it comes. It is Japan, opening its eyes to a wider view; it is emperors and kings drawing their last breaths of dominance in a world bound for democracy – democracy, which has cast its reigns and chains over every nation from west to east, crossing the boundaries of its old homeland and reaching for the rising sun.
It is 1873, and new laws are in place that will draw out the best and brightest and bring them into the folds of Industry and Army, of War and Power and Right. It has been years since Japan reached out its hand to the world; it will be years more, but the buildup is a promise that the young men reach for with naïve and greedy hands. For some of them, the spirits of their ancestors cry out, weeping as the peaceful world for which they paid in blood is broken -
For some of them, the crying is the sound of their own soul.
Date Masamune, conscript in the Imperial Army, soldier in training – he is one of those men.
Sanada Yukimura, a son of Saigo, last of the Samurai, is another.