There we were just five Li1 outside the village of Sekukan. We were carrying several wagon loads of rice to help the village as it had a poor harvest. It had gotten dark and we were in a hurry as there were stories of a gang of criminals prowling the roads in the area. That's when bandits waylaid us. Because we are all farmers, none of us had anything more than a few farming tools to defend ourselves and the bandits, armed with swords, spears, bows and clubs were able to quickly overpower us. Riki and Bayuzo were killed when they fought hard against the bandits, but were no match for their big bruiser who had a tetsubo2 and their heads were crushed. Poor Mitsu tried to run for it, but received three arrows to the back. Seeing that we weren't able to defeat them or run away, we surrendered.

The bandits had bound us and were ransacking the wagons. We thought they were after the rice, but quickly grew angry and their leader started asking where the gold was. I tried to tell them that we were just farmers delivering rice to the village of Sekukan because they had a bad harvest this year and we had a bumper harvest. That earned me a kick to the chest, forcing the breath from me. The bandit leader pressed his foot on my neck and said if we didn't tell them where the gold was, they'd start killing us one-by-one.

Then it happened. There was a bright flash, briefly turning night to day. Blood and screams filled the air as a figure moved among the bandits, cutting through them like a river cuts through the land. Soon it was just the figure, the bandit leader and the bruiser. As the three circled in the road, the moon slipped out from behind the clouds and I could see it was her! Pale skin and wide eyes of a gaijin! The hair of red and gold flowing out from under her straw hat! In her hands she gripped a katana and she moved like a samurai.

How do I know how a samurai moves? When I was young, on the cusp of manhood, a samurai of the Kakita3 family was traveling the roads and stayed the night at an inn in my home village. That night thugs from the Black Palm Gang surrounded the inn and demanded the samurai surrender to them. The samurai walked out of the inn, the back of his hand resting on the grip of his katana and told the thugs to leave as they had no business with him. The leader of the thugs simply laughed and reached for his axe. But he never got the chance to use it. There was a flash of steel and a blur of motion, that samurai stood there with his blade pointed at the thug's face. Then the thug's hand fell away from his arm. For a second the thug just stared at where his hand used to be, as if his mind was still trying to figure out what happened. I could see it in his eyes as the pain and realization set in, but before he could scream there was another flash of steel and the thug stared dumbfounded at the samurai. A second later the thug fell to the ground and his head rolled away. The smart thugs immediately ran away, but there were enough left that they thought they could take the samurai. With a blur of movement, the Kakita samurai vanquished the remaining thugs, then tore a strip from one of their clothes to clean his sword and reentered the inn.

She moved like that, only less graceful, almost like she wanted the bandits to feel all the pain of her katana as it cut through them. The bandit leader and the bruiser circled her. The bruiser was the first to charge, and when he raised his tetsubo over his head, she deftly darted to the side. He was down in an instant, she had felled him with two strokes, one across his belly and the other down his back. Then the bandit leader, enraged, charged her. With a single stroke of her katana to the back of his legs, he was dropped to his knees. The bandit leader dropped his sword and begged for mercy. Stood over him, returned her katana to its saka, squatted before him and said she'd show him the same mercy that they had shown us when they waylaid us. She then drew her tanto and buried the blade in his throat.

As the bandit leader lay on the ground choking on his own blood and clawing at his throat, she casually strolled over to the down bandits. The few that were still alive, she quickly dispatched, cutting their throat with her tanto. She fished through their clothes and withdrew several pouches of koku4. After taking a moment to count the coins, she walked over to us, cut our bindings and gave most of the koku to us, saying that this should compensate us for the damages the bandits had caused. She stuffed two small pouched of coins in her kimono, told us to be more careful when traveling after dark, bid us farewell and walked away. We quickly rushed to Sekukan and told the locals of our encounter with Aka to kin no kami no kanojo. The next morning a pair of hunters from the village set out to try and find her trail so that she could be properly thanked and invited for some sake and dumplings. They said that they found her footprints at the site of the fight and walking away. But they said that her footprints went around a bend in the road and just seemed to halt mid stride, almost as if she appeared out of thin air to attack the bandits then walked away and vanished back into thin air.

I never believed the tales that Aka to kin no kami no kanojo was a spirit that protected travelers before, but now that I've seen her appear out of thin air and strike the bandits down, I do now.

--Notes transcribed from a Doji5 retainer after their interrogation with a peasant regarding their encounter with Aka no kin no kami no kanojo

Otosan Uchi6

In the Imperial Palace, at the head of the Chrysanthemum Court, sat a two-tiered dais. On the top tier of the dais rested the Chrysanthemum Throne. On the Chrysanthemum Throne sat the emperor of Rokugan, Hantei XXXVI, the thirty-sixth emperor to bear the name Hantei. He was the thirty-fifth descendant of the first emperor of Rokugan, the Kami Hantei. He was clad in robes of emerald green. On the second tier to his left sat a beautiful woman, clad in robes of sky blue and silver, she was a daughter of the Doji Family of the Crane Clan. On the second tier to his right sat a rugged-looking man clad in robes of brown, yellow and gold, he was a son of the Akodo Family of the Lion Clan. Behind the emperor, just to his left stood a figure clad in robes of crimson and black, a crimson veil obscuring their facial features, this was a member of the Bayushi Family of the Scorpion Clan.

All figures in the court knew to be fearful of the representatives of the Lion Clan, they were counted among the fiercest warriors in all of Rokugan and the right hand of the emperor. They knew to be cautious of the representatives of the Crane clan, they were the most savvy politicians and were counted among the best duelists in all of Rokugan, and were the left hand of the emperor. They knew to be wary of the representatives of the Scorpions Clan, honorless curs is what they often called them...when none were thought to be around, but all knew to be especially wary when the underhand of the emperor was present.

Normally in the Chrysanthemum Court there would be nobles and courtesans all vying for the emperor's attention in matters involving the political matters of the Emerald Empire, and of the concerns of their clans and retainer families. However on this day Hantei XXXVI had dismissed the nobles and the courtesans, there were another pressing concern on his mind than the usual bickering between the clans. He was currently reading a scroll that held the account of a strange woman, she had the features of a gaijin, but dressed as a ronin and fought like a bushi. Several archivists were kneeling before the throne, their satchels full of scrolls. Weeks ago the emperor had heard of this strange warrior woman when a bard accounted his tale before the court about the strange gaijin ronin who had saved him from a group of ogres. The bard had recounted how he tried to flee from these monsters, only to be cut off as they had laid an ambush for travelers. The bard had told of how he had been surrounded by the slavering monster and was sure he would die. That's when there was a flash of light and flashes of steel that quickly sent the tainted monsters into their death.

Hantei XXXVI leaned forward in the Chrysanthemum Throne as he read the description of the gaijin ronin woman on the throne. The scroll had told the story of a small group of merchants that had gotten separated from their caravan and found themselves waylaid by bandits. The account of the merchants was the same as the bard's when she appeared: A blinding flash of light, the flash of steel, when the fighting was over she would take valuables off of the dead, give the majority of to the survivors, keep a small portion for herself and leave, when hunters or trackers tried to follow her trail, her footsteps would seem to stop, almost as if she manifested out of thin air and disappeared back into thin air. Her physical description in the scroll matched the bard's description: She had the pale skin of a gaijin who lived far across the sea, but her eyes were larger than any matching the description of any known member of the gaijin races, they were larger, twice the size, their color was different too. The gaijin from Merenae and Thrane had eyes that ranged from a deep brown to a pale blue. Hers however were described as being a light teal, nearly the color of many of the tidal pools that were found along Rokugan's coast. Her hair was also different from most gaijin too. Gaijin who had light hair would often be a ruby or gold in color, her's was stripes of ruby and gold.

Hantei XXXVI rolled up the scroll and gestured for another. After hearing of this strange gaijin ronin woman, he had ordered the great and minor clans to send out retainers to interview or interrogate the commoners who had encountered her so it could be determined where it was she lived. On the one hand imperial law forbade any gaijin from setting foot on Rokugan unless expressly given permission by the emperor and any found lurking or lingering within the empire's borders without permission would be expelled, often by force, imprisoned as spies and trespassers, or executed. On the other hand she clearly understood Bushido and only caused harm to those who were harming the innocents. It was clear by the number of scrolls present with the archivists that she had been living in Rokugan for an extended period of time.

Scroll-after-scroll he read, always coming across the same accounts: Bandits, criminal gangs or Shadowlands tainted monsters would attack travelers, then she would appear in a flash of light, cut them down, loot their bodies, give the bulk of what she scavenged to those who had been waylaid while keeping a small portion for herself and then walking away, seemingly to vanish. Hantei XXXVI encountered a few accounts that were different, she seemed to brutally attack the members of the various organized criminal gangs that enslaved and sold people into forced servitude, or Maho-tsukai7 who kidnapped people to sacrifice to fuel profane Maho rituals, the accounts of what she did to them was brutal, their bodies dismembered and left strewn about. She had an extreme hatred for slavers and practitioners of Maho.

Hantei XXXVI decided that she would be a useful asset for the empire and considered after she had been brought before the Chrysanthemum Court that once her intentions and ancestry had been determined, to make a decree declaring she was not a gaijin and not a ronin. He then opened another scroll and what he read gave him pause. The scroll was written by a monk over two hundred years ago. It told the story of a ronin who lived outside a small farming village on the border of Lion and Unicorn lands. The story told of the ronin formerly being of the Hiruma family8, but had left his family's service, placing himself in exile after he had been captured by a group of Maho-tsukai and was rescued by a wandering ronin. The story would have simply been a forgettable one about a monk encountering a ronin if it weren't for the monk writing down that the ronin had a strange girl with him. She was about twelve years of age, had the skin of a gaijin, large teal eyes, and striped hair of ruby and gold.

The emperor read on what the monk had written down. He had sat down with the ronin and had a conversation over several cups of sake. The ronin told about how he had encountered this strange girl. The ronin had said that he had stopped at Mirror Pool Waterfall ten years prior and was getting ready to strip down to swim in the cool water to escape the heat. Suddenly there was a flash of light and a girl came tumbling out of the waterfall, completely nude and landed with a splash into the pool below the waterfall. The ronin dove in to save her from drowning and when he dragged her to the shore, he discovered she was like a gaijin, except for her eyes and hair.

Hantei XXXVI propped his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward and read on. The ronin had adopted her as a daughter and had said that in the teen years since, she seemed to only age about two years. The ronin had told the monk about her strange abilities, how she had strange powers, she could levitate objects, fire beams from her hand, and how she could disappear and reappear in a flash of light. The monk wrote about his interview with the girl, and that she seemed very well spoken and learned, like she was someone much older. The monk wrote about when he had her demonstrate her powers for him outside the village. He had her levitate objects, a writing stylus, a pot of ink, a flower, a silk handkerchief, a boulder twice the size of a man, she even levitated multiple things. She demonstrated her ability to vanish and reappear in flashes of light at various distances and heights, the only limitation being line of sight. He had her fire beams of teal light at different objects, a fallen log, a piece of parchment dropped from his hand, a series of stones placed on stumps, they all pierced or blew apart the targets he had her shoot her beams at. The monk wrote down how when the girl used her powers, her fingers would be surrounded by a teal light, the same color as her eyes and would be accompanied by a strange sound, almost like dozens of wind chimes in the distance when a breeze blows.

The emperor noted that the name of the village had been blotted out and at the bottom of the scroll the monk had written a final note. While on the way back to my monastery with all intentions to tell the abbot of my findings, I had bedded down for the night. In my dreams Lady Amaterasu came to me riding a white steed that had a pair of wings on its back and a single horn on its head. She told me to blot out the name of the village where the girl lived and seal up the scroll. As it was not time for all of Rokugan to know of her and when the time came, she would help beat back the forces of Jigoku.

Hantei XXXVI huffed in annoyance. He understood why the monk had done what Amaterasu had commanded him. Though he wouldn't know the name of the village where the ronin had lived and this girl, who was clearly a woman now, lived. But there was a small snippet of hope. The name of where the ronin had found this strange girl, Mirror Pool Waterfall. He quickly sent out an order for the royal cartographers to find where Mirror Pool Waterfall was on the maps of the empire...that's where he would begin his search.

Kyuden Isawa

9

An obese man covered in tattoos and puffing on a pipe filled with gaijin pipe weed strolls through a rundown warehouse. Starving men, women and children, all chained together in cages, dressed in filthy huddle together in fear and for warmth as the obese man walks by. He is the infamous gangster known as Toshi the Lizard. He is known throughout all of Rokugan as the boss of the Black Palms Gang. The enforcers for every clan, major and minor, as well as the Emerald Enforcers, all want his head, and whoever were to claim it would receive one thousand koku as a reward.

Toshi the Lizard, accompanied by six large bodyguards wielding truncheons and hatchets, pauses at each cage to inspect his human wares. "Any word on what happened to that urchin that escaped yesterday?"

"No, boss.", one of the enforcers answers. "Do you think she was found by Aka to kin no kami no kanojo?"

Toshi pauses for a second before answering. All echelons of the Black Palms knew of her as she has been a thorn in their sides for several years now. "If she has, we'll all be gone from here before she finds this place. I've bribed some of the gate guards to leave the south gate open and look the other way when we pass through. By the time she, the Emerald Magistrates or Phoenix enforcers find out about this place, we'll have sold this cargo off to the Yobanjin10 and be well on our way to a safehouse in Unicorn territory."

"Any word on who alerted the Emerald Magistrates to our safehouse here in this city?"

Toshi took a long draw on the pipe and blew the smoke out his nostrils as he looked sidelong at the enforcer who had asked the question. It had been a bit of a shock when the Emerald Magistrates hit that safehouse. It had been well disguised as a house whose occupants had died of plague, so most people avoided it like...well, the plague. When the Emerald Magistrates raided the safehouse, they captured a dozen gangsters, along with the chief enforcer for this city, Banku Tiger-Fist. There had been a fireworks show over the safehouse that had drawn the enforcers of imperial law in Rokugan and witnesses said there was a ronin outside minutes before the light show setting up fireworks. That had been a week ago, which had prompted him to sell off as much of his human cargo as possible and get out of the city quickly. He'd set fire to this warehouse just before he left and leave behind ashes, and the charred remains of any human cargo he couldn't find a seller for.

***

Sunset Shimmer stood perched atop an old, rundown warehouse as she looked down onto the old warehouse that was currently holding dozens, maybe more, of people to be sold off as slaves. She found about this place a few days before when she bumped into a little ragamuffin girl who was running as hard as her little legs would carry her. The girl had told her of the bad men who had kidnapped her and her family, and had directed her to where they had been held. After dropping the girl off at a local orphanage run by Shinseist11 monks. She knew that the Black Palms were aware that she was onto them and would move soon. Tonight had to be the night that she hit their leader hard and decapitate, both literally and figuratively, their leadership. To let them get away would mean that after nine months of investigation, she'd be back a square one.

Sunset closed her eyes as she thought back to the teachings of the man who had raised her over two hundred years ago, he was once a scout for the Crab Clan named Hiruma Gosuta, but had left service to that family after suffering a disgrace and changed his name to Yodotai. She reopened her eyes and focused on the guards protecting the front door. Wait and watch your enemy. Look for a moment when they're weakest. One of the guards walked around to the side of the old warehouse and began to fiddle with the front of his kimono. When one of your enemies separates themselves from the rest, strike hard and fast before they have a chance to react or shout out to their fellows. The lessons of Yodotai rang in her head as clear now as they did all those years ago.

Sunset's fingers glowed as she prepared to strike. In a blink of light she vanished in a teleport. As she reappeared behind the guard emptying his bladder, she drew her katana and thrust forward before he could react. He let out soft gurgles as the blade pierced his throat. She quickly twisted her wrist, jerking the blade sideways and nearly severing his head in the process. With a quick slash, she severed his left arm from the shoulder as his body fell. using her magic, she levitated the severed arm, extended the hand past the corner and made it gesture for his compatriot.

Sunset stood crouched with her sword ready for a vicious thrust as she heard the crunching of the man's footsteps on the ground. As soon as the second guard turned the corner, she thrust forward with the blade. It pierced his throat and exploded out the back of his neck. Hissing gurgles and blood poured out of the man's mouth. He reached up and grabbed the blade of the sword out of instinct, as he fell backwards, it severed his fingers. A properly sharpened katana in the hands of a well trained bushi will cut through flesh like warm dumplings. Your opponents will only feel the strike if you want them to.

Sunset quickly dragged the body of the second thug into the shadows, no need to alert the criminals inside because a passerby screamed seeing a dead body. Reaching into her kimono, she pulled out a piece of chalk and walked to the front door. She quickly drew a hexagramatic spell diagram onto the door, an incomplete transmutation spell. She had learned how to draw these when she was the protege of Princess Celestia, before she stepped through Starswirl's mirror and wound up in the Emerald Empire, so making on that was incomplete was foal's play to her. When charged, the incomplete transmutation spell would begin to rearrange the atoms of the door, but being incomplete meant that when the spell's energy ran out, the atoms would jerk away from one another with explosive force.

Once the last lines of the incomplete transmutation spell had been drawn, Sunset placed her hand on it and began to charge the spell. Stepping back from the door, she raised a shield over it to redirect the outward force through the door way. That would have the added effect of shredding anybody who happened to be on the other side of the door.

*KA-BOOM*

The door exploded inwards with a shower of splinters, a blinding flash of light and a gout of superheated gases, causing the whole warehouse to tremble. Charging up a teleport, she also prepared a blinding flash spell to further blind and disorient those inside...hopefully no one or nothing would be in the exact spot she was going to re-materialize or this would be a very short and grisly teleport as she was technically going in blind. In a blink of light, Sunset vanished. As she emerged from her teleport, she released the blinding flash. She was safely inside the warehouse...so-to-speak. Her target, Toshi the Lizard and six of his goons were flailing around blindly. Quickly she sprung on them. With strikes honed by over two hundred years of practice her katana found it mark as she dispatched the goons first. Blood splashed on the timbers of the floor as intestines were spilled from bellies, arms and legs were severed from bodies, and finally heads were severed from necks.

Over the ringing in his ears Toshi heard the screams of his men as they died. Blinking away the spots before his eyes, he staggered away as quickly as he could from the sounds of steel slicing through flesh and screams of dying men. Before he could make it halfway across the warehouse, pain erupted from the back of his thighs and he collapsed to his knees.

Sunset rounded on the now kneeling Toshi and aimed the point of her katana at his throat. "If you cut a lizard's tail off, it will grow it back. I wonder if what I cut off of this lizard will grow back?"

Toshi prostrate himself before the sword-wielding woman on his hands and knees. "Please don't kill me! I'll give you anything you want! Money, drugs, gaijin pipe weed, men, women, children! Anything you want, just name it and it's yours!"

Sunset walked circles around the downed gangster. "Anything I want, you say?"

"Yes! Anything! Just name it and it's yours!"

Sunset grabbed the gangster by his hair and pulled him into an upright kneeling position. "I want your head." before he could utter another word, she swung her katana. The blade bit into his neck and passed through, causing the head to fall away from the stump and hit the floor with a thud.

Sunset unceremoniously kicked the decapitated body of the gangster to the floor. Picking up the pipe, she knocked the pipe weed out of the bowl and slipped it into her kimono. Wiping the flats of her blade on his clothes, she cleaned the blood from it and returned it to its sheath. She flipped his decapitated body and fished around inside of his clothes, withdrawing a ring of keys. She walked over to a cage, unlocked it, shoved the ring of keys into the hands into the hands of a terrified man and pointed to the head of the dead gangster. "When the Emerald Magistrates or Phoenix enforcers get here, give them his head and share the bounty between your fellow freed prisoners. This is my gift to you and the entire empire."

The scared man pressed his still chain palms together and bowed several times. "Yes! Yes! Thank you She of the Red and Gold Hair!"

Sunset simply grabbed the edge of her straw hat and tipped it to the bound slaves who were now beginning to free themselves, then walked out the door. She looked up and down the street. She could see the lights of torches, and hear shouts and the stamping of feet in the distance. She looked up at the roof of the warehouse she had teleported from and vanished in a blink of light.

Dozens of Phoenix samurai ran up to the old abandoned warehouse that was until twenty minutes prior, the front for a Black Palms Gang front for human smuggling. They looked on in disbelief at the front door that was exploded in and the now freed former human slaves that were going to be sold off that were milling about in front of the warehouse. One of the freed former human cargo placed the head of Toshi the Lizard in the hand of one of the samurai.

"Get these people some food and water!", a commander shouted.

"Make way! Make way!", an Emerald shouted as he rushed up with several scribes in tow. He gestured for one of the recently freed slaves to stand before him. "Now tell me in your own words what happened here." As the freed slave began to tell what had happened, a scribe began to quickly write down what was said.

The next mornin Phoenix samurai and shugenja12 along with a small army of the Imperial Legion13 had roped off the warehouse and were in the process of rebuilding what had happened in the moments before She of the Red and Gold Hair attacked. One of the shugenjas noticed a small amount of white dust sitting at the bottom of the door jamb, she knelt down, touched her fingers to it, smelled the substance clinging to her fingertips and tasted it. She spat out the substance before talking. "Chalk! There was chalk on this door. Did she use chalk to mark this place or was it used for something else?"

Author's Note

*A Li is a measurement of distance in Rokugan, about a mile

**A tetsubo is a learge, two-handed, octogon-shaped club that usually has iron studs or spikes embedded in it

***Kakita is one of the retainer families of the Crane Clan and are reputed to be the best duelists in Rokugan

****Koku is the money of Rokugan, a single koku represents a single bushel of rice

***** The Doji Family are the controlling family of the Crane Clan, descendants of the clan founder, the Kami Doji

6Otosan Uchi is the capital city of Rokugan

7Maho-tsukai are practicioners of the forbidden blood magic, Maho

8The Hiruma family is one of the retainer families of the Crab Clan

9Kyuden Isawa is the capital city of the Phoenix Clan territory

10 The Yobanjin are gaijin who live north of Phoenix lands, they were originally from Rokugan but left in the early days of the empire when they refused to bend the knee to the Kami

11Shinseism, also known as Shintao, is one of 3 religions in Rokugan, it is based off the teachings of the monk Shinsei

12Shugenja are magic users who specialize in magic of one of the 5 rings of magic(earth, wind, fired, water, void) and are considered to be part of the samurai caste, the Phoenix Clan has the largest number of shugenja

13The Imperial Legion is the military force directly under the command of the emperor

Sorry for all the annotations. I'll try to use fewer in future chapters. I wanted to make sure you all knew what things were so I wouldn't get inundated with questions in the comments section.

Legend of the Five Rings is one of my favorite fantasy settings and I decided to write my own crossover story seeing as I couldn't find one on this site.

Leave any questions, love or hate for the story, or any shade or bane in the comments down below.

Thank you all for reading and I hope you all enjoy.