SS: LotMB - Hayashi Sachiko 03

Not the entire story. . . but what is known to other players at the start of the campaign.

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Hayashi Sachiko

The Hayashi clan is one of the newer and younger ninja clans of the Kouei islands, having been founded after the Great Sundering. It is said that the founder of the Hayashi clan saw the great adventurers who saved the world come by as his spirit attempted to feed koi fish during the Long Sleep. In honor of these adventurers, the clan chose to devote itself not to the spirit patrons of the Kouei ninja, but to the new God of Nature, Arathon, and his wife Cikkida, Goddess of Purity.

Sachiko was the eldest daughter of the Hayashi clan leader, Hayashi Daigoro, and his first child. She was born under seven unlucky omens: in fact, the oracle who attended her birth claimed that she would bring misfortune to the clan. Hayashi Daigoro, however, pointed out that she had also been born under eight lucky omens. “I think the good luck outweighs the bad,” he pointed out, and went on to name her “Sachiko,” which means “child of blessings,” just to make sure.

As a child, Sachiko was rather willful and angry. She was a complete tyrant to the other children, and ruled over them with an iron fist. Part of it came from being a child of privilege, but another part came from the whispered rumors of the circumstances of her birth, from the fearful looks that the adults gave her, and the mistrust they showed to this unlucky child. All that changed with the birth of her brother Eiji: when she came back from speaking with the oracle, she had become wiser and more serene, like steel wrapped in velvet, where before she had been a bare blade.

She doted upon her younger brother, and spoiled him rotten and protected him from the bullying of the other children. As time passed, however, he grew up to be one of the better shinobi of the clan, while she became one of the most powerful mages the clan had ever seen, second only to her mother, Hayashi Nadeshiko, the clan’s chief matriarch and most powerful magus. Sachiko grew up with a talent for the more violent magics, as opposed to the illusion and artifice that is a ninja’s traditional forte: this, some said, was a remnant of her fiery childhood, which they now spoke of in rueful, loving terms, as if forgetting how much they had feared her.

Time passed, and Sachiko spent her life in relatively pampered circumstances, attended by the other women of the village, and spending her time in the company of the spirits and minor gods of the land. Although it seemed that she would live out her life in bliss, all that changed when her brother’s first mission failed and he was reported dead. Several days later, however, a shuriken was found pinned to the wall next to her, with a note in her brother’s handwriting. In it, he said that he had not died, but he had dishonored himself and needed to atone by leaving the clan forever and searching the world for a way to atone.

Deciding that this was nonsense, Sachiko snuck away from home. She packed up a few things in her bag and decided to go find her brother. She’s not sure what she’ll do when she finds him, but she has a feeling that a sharp slap in the face and a demand to get ahold of himself might be involved.