Stan Sakai

Usagi’s home village has been taken over by assassins intent on killing the shogun’s emissary to disgrace Lord Hikiji. With the emissary’s death will come retributions resulting in the death of the entire village. Usagi has to save the emissary but, in doing so, may have to save the reputation of the lord responsible for the death of his master.

Usagi is back in his home province for a pilgrimage to his late lord’s gravesite, however wearing the Mifune clan crest in Lord Hikiji’s territory has made him an enemy. Now beaten and almost near death, he has made his way to the one place he had been avoiding—the village in which he grew up. Bittersweet memories awaken with his long-time love, until the village becomes embroiled in a plot to assassinate an emissary of the shogun.

Long ago, Lord Hikiji defeated Usagi’s Lord Mifune to take control of the Northern Province. Usagi, now traveling through his home province, still wears the mon (a family crest) of his former lord. But, there are those who still remember the Great Wars with bitterness and threaten to kill any samurai loyal to Mifune. What happens when they come across Usagi?