The shrill voice of a lone cricket pierced the night’s stillness. A chill was in the air, with only a slight breeze waving the blossoms of the cherry trees in the courtyard. The inky-black shadow of a figure rose from behind a small shrine and darted to servants’ doorway. Shosuro Yusuko fought the urge to breathe a sigh of relief, few had managed to approach the manor proper undetected. She slid the screen aside briefly as she slipped inside. She paused, studying the hallway for the briefest of moments, her objective lay on the other side of the building. She would have entered the structure closer to her target, but could find no way past the sentries. The risk of possible detection on a longer course outweighed the surety of detection on the direct route. She moved down the hall and from room to room as if she resided here. A soft moan made her stop instantly. After a moment she smiled to herself. Not all the inhabitants were sound asleep for the night. Luckily for her, they had more pressing matters to attend to than a shadowy figure sneaking around. She approached a long hallway that led to her target and paused, care was needed here and her training would be put to the test. Slowly she stepped across the wooden floor, one wrong move would alert all within earshot to an intruder.

---

Chirp.

Yusuko winced for an instant, knowing what was about to come.

“Again!” cried a voice. She spun at once and exited the room of the dojo. “Unacceptable. Your form is all wrong; a drunken Crab could have heard you from a mile away!” She winced at the scathing remarks from her sensei. “Hai, sama,” she intoned, her gaze upon the dojo floor.

“Your body says one thing when your lips say another, young Yusuko. It betrays your thoughts,” [Bayushi Churai] chided. “Do not be ashamed at your failures, embrace them and learn from them. Only here can you do so. Once you leave, assuming you ever do, you will not learn from them any longer, but only die because of them.”

“Now, again!”

Yusuko noticed the sensei’s assistants had been busy as she once again entered the nightingale testing. All of the shoji had been rearranged, and none of the rooms were the same.

---

“One does not need to bathed in shadow to be hidden,” the instructor paused “to strike without notice.” Shosuro Isasuke spun quickly as he gestured around the room. The other students gazed wide eyed at the displays filling the rather large room. Court fashions of the day mixed with heimin dress. Clan mons, family mons, vassal family garb was literally in every available inch of the place. “More often than not, your knowledge of everything around you now will serve you better than any martial training.”

Shosuro Yusuko was in complete amazement. Two days prior she had been living comfortably. Stalking the house cat was the closest she had ever been to being sneaky, and that one particular misadventure in her ‘mother’s’ closet with her friend Soshimi was the closest she had been to masquerading as someone else.

“The mandate to the Scorpion was to insure the survival of the new empire, and how are we to do that now?" He paused, "We must know the others. Lips purse shut when a Scorpion is near, scrolls rolled, meetings adjourned.” Isasuke strolled among the students, “If we are to watch, to find the hidden threats, we must watch undetected. It is the duty of the Shosuro to watch and gather information for our clan, and if necessary… to act.” “You are all familiar with the mons of the great clans, but who here knows the minor mons, the family mons, what to wear and be unnoticed to a slightly less than reputable sake house in Toshi Ranbo? Pay heed and you will learn…”

---

Yusuko slid the shoji aside and entered the room. A pale shaft of moonlight sliced through the room, illuminating a small shrine to Bishamon. She moved silently to the bed in which her target slept. Slowly she drew a glass tube and unstoppered its mouth. Pulling a lone black lotus petal, she dropped it in the pitcher of water at the bedside and smiled to herself. Her gaze shifted to Lord Moon and she silently gave her thanks.

When Yusuko slipped from the window Churai adjusted the sheets and finally allowed himself a smile, another was ready to leave.