DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to Sai Yukino and Kairi Yura, Kadokawa Shoten, Madhouse Studios, etc., i.e., not me.
I'm just borrowing them for a while to spin a tale

A New Age—a Brighter Legacy
By firewolf
November 2008

Shouka shook his head with dismay as he stared at the newly arrived letter from Kurou.

"I was too young then to understand why you stopped playing, Sho Aniue. But please think of our next generation.

"I know you had your wife teach Shuurei the Erhu instead of letting her take the Pipa to try and support Rei Aniue and my position in the clan. Still, we are entering a new era with a new Emperor.

"Kouyuu may not have our name, but he is of our house. He should be taught the Pipa of our Clan."

Shouka let the letter slip from his fingers as his mind drifted back to the night he last played the Pipa; the night he fulfilled his first mission as a member of the Wolves of the Wind and poisoned his great grandmother, Kou Gyokukan, knowing that with her death he would preserve the existence of their clan.

The great woman had understood and accepted him when he came to her at the assassin's hour of that fateful night. And he played the Pipa for her while she peacefully slipped away into the arms of death. He, who had at age five, been acknowledge by the clan to have inherited the sound of "Pipa-hime", the greatest player of her era, then played no more.

But now, Kurou was asking him to take up the instrument again... To teach Kouyuu...

His nephew had been on his mind a lot lately. Shouka doubted either he or Yuushun would ever forget the day Kouyuu was menaced by pit vipers hidden among his piles of paperwork. If Shiro's insistent barking hadn't aroused Shouka's suspicion to move nearer, he wouldn't have been close enough the sweep the snakes away from Kouyuu before he was bitten.

Shouka had taken care of one snake, striking and killing it with Yuushun's purloined walking stick before it could attack. Kouyuu sufficiently stunned and distracted the other with several well thrown books to allow his young wolf to get close to catch its neck in her jaws and crush it to death.

Yuushun and Kouyuu had covered up for Shouka then. When the guards came crashing into the Prime Minister's office, they found Yuushun holding his blooded walking stick and Kouyuu standing protectively over Shiro who had just dropped the dead snake from her bloody jaws.

Neither Yuushun nor Kouyuu made any comment to Shouka then for the deadly speed he displayed in first knocking the snakes away from Kouyuu, then seizing Yuushun's walking stick and killing one of the snakes. However, Kouyuu came to confront his uncle nearly a month later with his carefully researched report revealing Shouka's identity as the Black Wolf.

Kouyuu had taken the report from Shouka and burned them after his uncle read them. But in that meeting he also asked Shouka to accept him as a student. Shouka had vehemently refused, appalled at the idea of turning his gentle nephew into an assassin. But Kouyuu persisted, stating his determination to learn from his uncle.

"Lost in thought, Shouka dono?" Shouka started guiltily for being surprised as he saw Shou Taishi at the door to his office. The old man entered without waiting for his invitation and familiarly took a seat at his tea table.

Shou Taishi stole a glance at the letter Shouka had left on the table before looking up at him and giving him calculative look. "You need a successor to learn all that you know, old Wolf."

Shouka's blood ran cold as he rose to his feet to loom over the old man. "Do not ever suggest this again, Shou Taishi."

"Ma, Ma." Shou Taishi waved a placating hand at him. "It was a harmless thing to suggest you teach young Li the pipa."

Shouka stared at him suspiciously, wondering if the old man had also somehow heard of the challenge he set for Kouyuu. "You will not approach Kouyuu or try to fill his head with any silly suggestions, Shou Taishi. Or I really will kill you."

"But perhaps I needn't do anything at all." The old man chuckled before reaching into his sleeves to withdraw a slim book. "In any case, you may consider leaving this where a promising student might find it."

Shouka accepted the book with all the caution of handling a viper. He almost dropped it when his cursory glance identified its contents. "You—"

"I would be saddened if knowledge were lost without offering a chance for it to be passed on." Shou Taishi got up to leave. "Will you see to it that someone worthy inherits it?"

Shouka clutched the little book of poisons and antidotes tightly, in two minds of the dangerous nature of this knowledge. He knew he could safely entrust this knowledge to Kouyuu, but did he want to give this responsibility to his innocent nephew.

Kou Shouka stared in dismay at the twin fans which lay on the table before him. He had never wished failure from someone he cared for before, but clearly the spirits did not heed him.

He knew he really should have known better of the young man looking hopefully at him. Kouyuu had never shirked from a challenge in his life. If he took an interest in something, he studied it to exhaustion until he mastered the subject. It was this single minded determination and desire for knowledge which ensured he graduated as Jorgen at the tender age of 16, when Reishin finally allowed the boy to take the national exams.

Shouka picked up one of the foot long fans and gave it an experimental twirl. Yes, as he suspected, it was perfectly balanced. One would hardly notice the additional weight of the almost imperceptible steel blades slid into the tips of the bamboo frames awaiting release by a cleverly hidden switch.

He opened the blades of the fan to examine the workmanship. The woodwork was exquisite in detail. The dark outline of a character painted across the midnight green silk surprised him though.

"Kou?" Shouka looked up at his nephew. "It is not the same character as our family name, or even your name, Kouyuu."

"Yes, Shouka sama. This 'Kou' (光) is for 'Light', because in this accomplishment—" Kouyuu gestured to the combat fans, "I am not asking you to teach me to be an assassin. We both know I could never deliberately take another life."

"Yes." Kouyuu's words reminded Shouka of how the younger man had discovered his secret. "But you can and will do all you can to defend the ones you love."

And learning barehanded defense from Ensei was apparently not enough for Kouyuu. He wanted to learn to use a weapon, but he didn't want Ensei, Shuuei, or Seiran to know. Shouka sympathetically recognized Kouyuu's awkwardness with the, at times, over protective nature of the three men. Still he couldn't overcome his own abhorrence to 'sully' Kouyuu's hands with weapons.

Shouka had thought to put Kouyuu off by demanding he make his own weapons. Now that he was faced with Kouyuu's chosen weapons though...

"This is truly what you wish, Kouyuu?" He asked quietly.

The younger man nodded firmly. "No one would question why *I* would wish to start carrying a fan."

That was very true given it was Kou Reishin's favorite accessory. It would be easily taken as an influence on his son. But for *him* to teach his nephew to fight...

"Shouka sama." Kouyuu knelt at his uncle's side. "This is a different age and Ryuuki is not his father. You can set your days as an assassin aside."

"You—truly think so, Kouyuu?"

Kouyuu nodded solemnly. "You know how an assassin thinks, so teach me how to be a *defender*, Shouka sama. Teach me all that you can so that assassins cannot harm our loved ones when we stand between them."

"A defender..." Shouka repeated Kouyuu's words in wonder. "One who preserves life..." The opponent—of an assassin.

"A defender trained by the Black Wolf." Kouyuu added softly.

Such a man would be a formidable opponent to any assassin. However—Shouka raised his eyes to meet Kouyuu's. "Kouyuu, you know that physically—"

"I could not hope to stand for long against a determined and trained fighter." Kouyuu finished for him. "But as Ensei has suggested, I need not fight to win. But must learn enough to defend, delay, and create opportunities to flee.

"I understand this. I believe though, my mastery can lie in different areas."

Shouka thought of the skills and tools of an assassin which were more knowledge based such as alchemy—poisons and their antidotes. A field he had not managed to master as well as Shou Taishi. However—if he were to let a man of Kouyuu's talents tackle the subject and give him the book the old man left in his possession...

"I am no easy task master—'Kou'."

Kouyuu's lips pulled into delighted though determined grin. "You know I thrive on challenge, Sensei."

Shouka smiled to have this 'light' join his Wolves of the Wind and with it mark a new era of their and the Black Wolf's history. And 'yes', he would teach his young successor the pipa as his little brother had asked of him.

~owari~

Thanks for reading.
Cheers, firewolf