Shi: Prelude to War

They were called "sohei," the greatest warriors of feudal Japan. Originally they were monks of the massive temple Enryaku, built in the year 788 among the cypress groves of Mt. Hiei to protect the Emperoršs new capital of Kyoto from evil spirits...

But the pressure of constant attacks by marauding samurai intent on the treasures of their temple forced the sohei to take up arms, and they eventually abandoned the teachings of the Buddha to follow the path of war...

And it was a bloody path. Masters of war, the sohei priests were mercenaries who fought constantly, leading armies of conflicting samurai lords in furious combat. But the greatest rivals of the sohei were the warrior monks of the former capital, Nara, and their terrible feud lasted centuries.

In this great age of civil wars, the sohei became corrupted by bloodshed and ambition. The power and prestige of the order led them down paths of gluttony, debauchery, sin and death. In their pride, the sohei began to dream of themselves as masters of all Japan. Unlike the samurai lords who were careful not to bring their wars to the capital, the sohei sought to control the nation with the dual levers of their religious influence and their military might. By the 1400šs, the monks of Mt. Hiei were raiding precincts of Kyoto belonging to the very samurai clans that once preyed upon them.

At the urging of the St. Francis Xavier, Shogun Oda Nobunaga ordered the destruction of the Kyoto temple and its inhabitants. An unholy alliance of their bitter enemies, the Nara monks and the armies of the Shogun, finally defeated the Kyoto sohei, leaving the survivors dispersed, powerless and in hiding.

These few survivors assumed the guise of Komoso (wandering monks). Dressed in kimono robes and large braided hats that hid their faces, they relied on their commitment to a sacred code of honor to see them through these dark days - for they had nothing else. Facing road bandits, masterless rogue samurai (ronin), and the relentless wrath of the shogunate, the monks built a reputation as teachers, warriors and heroes that was immortalized in both story and song. But the sohei found more than adventure, many discovered peace, humility and enlightenment.

At last a new temple was constructed in Kyoto upon the ruins of the old, and the monks returned home. Forbidden to practice their warrior arts openly, the monks assumed an outwardly tranquil way of life. Secretly, however, they preserved their martial tradition and created a hidden order of shadow warriors.

Today, the sohei uphold a white banner in a tri-color war waged across oceans, across time. Locked in a struggle with the black warriors of Nara and the red of the Yakuza, the sohei have sworn a crusade of righteousness in a world grown weary of such nobility.

Born of an American father and raised a Catholic, Ana Ishikawa is an outcast of the sohei, a renegade from a society of renegades...

And this is her story.