Overview

This is the second installment in a story of struggles between rōnin and followers of the Edo shōgun. It's an action-packed work of historical fictional about masterless warriors, police detectives, and undercover agents in Kyoto, Japan's old capital, during the early Edo period. In the late summer of 1654, the streets of Kyoto are flooded with the masterless warriors known as rōnin. Unable to find work and dissatisfied with their lot, some rōnin have chosen to live as outlaws. The most notorious of the bunch is the young and murderous Ishida Kurōbei, self-styled Shining Blade. For weeks, undercover government agents led by Deputy Inspector Tanaka had been tracking Kurōbei. Finally, they'd cornered him, and, in the struggle that ensued, a female agent had landed a crippling blow to the head of the rōnin before collapsing herself. Tanaka had discovered the wounded Kurōbei lying alongside the lifeless body of his female agent. Wasting no time, the deputy inspector had arrested the unconscious Kurōbei and had delivered him in shackles to the guarded emergency clinic at Second Street Castle. The following morning, and the deputy inspector is summoned to the office of Magistrate Gomi, his boss's superior. Gomi informs him that Kurōbei had regained consciousness overnight and, with outside help, had escaped. In the absence of Tanaka's immediate superior-Commissioner Wada, who is away on business-the magistrate charges Tanaka with capturing the criminal once again. Shimada Gorō, a senior rōnin who formerly had served Kurōbei's father, now deceased, goes looking for Kurōbei and finds the fugitive in the abandoned barn where rōnin recruits have learning to fight. Gorō attempts to dissuade Kurōbei from his murderous intention to lead a rōnin uprising, arguing that Kurōbei's wrath serves no purpose. Meanwhile, a young firewood carrier named Aki is determined to figure out what's going on in her world. Intrepid and curious by nature, Aki has many questions. For one, she wonders why her teacher, the nun Bunkai, is so concerned about the simple task she asks Aki to perform, carrying secret letters in the bundles of kindling that she delivers around town. Bunkai has cautioned Aki, explaining that the task might put her in harm's way. When Aki tells the nun that she sympathizes with the masterless warriors, Bunkai warns Aki about the rōnin, saying that they cause troubles across the realm and that the Edo shogunal government protects the people from violent warriors with no master. Aki responds, expressing sympathy for rōnin who face hardships and restrictions imposed by the shōgun and his Edo officials. What Aki will soon learn is that Shining Blade is quite close and her deliveries put her in danger.

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