Sai's Comments

"Wasn't expecting a storm today... why's the rain red?"
Sai is a travelling assassin with an appetite for crimson. Once a former black hand to a war clan's emperor, they betrayed their ronin compatriots by selling them out to a rival in the promise of a reward: unlimited power for the heads of their allies.
And so they went slaying. Through the night, one by one, all of the ronin fell, headless or cleaved in twain.
Who would've thought that all Sai would get for their troubles was a red bauble? A decorative, blood-red glass ball lined with gilded kintsugi? On the outside, it seemed to just be something for a home, naught more than a paperweight...
Yet this bauble had more to it than met the eye. It hummed in the tunes of a demonic panopticon, and they could feel it. It knew what Sai did and it hungered for more. It offered the power of an unstoppable blade, an extended life, immunity from sickness and disease... All it needed was the souls of those Sai would slay. It was hungry for the carnage of the fight, and the taste of mortal ichor.
Who were they to disagree?
A second bloodbath unfolded, and they stood victorious. The once-mighty war clan, all of their heads cleanly cleaved from their necks. Three thousand men, gone in under a night's spell, with the bodies splayed for all to see.
It did not take long for stories of Sai to pass from ronin to ronin, civilian to civilian, soldier to soldier, and even from emperor to emperor, under the guise of The Zanshutō, or The Beheading Blade. The words they utter are of fear, of hatred, of spite, yet no one knows the face behind the name, nor who it targets. They don't know where it comes from, or where it's bound for. They don't know why it severs the life from the people, nor who it works for, it's motives.
All they know is to pray that they won't be next.