Life Story
Page 1
Rinne's most ancient memory is of a great hand conveying her into darkness--
In the Eastern nations, there is a village of shinobi concealed within the deep mountains. Therewithin dwells a clan who serve a certain estate, who possess every technique that can take a life; terminating without a sound.
Rinne was a simple elven girl who was carried away and brought there. The clan head and village leader set his sights on the long-lived elves that he might instill into living flesh and blood the secret arts passed down through the clan that cannot be committed to writing.
The training that the young Rinne was forced to undergo was harsh. She was left upon a mountain, told to return alive, and thrown to wild dogs, told to "vanish".
The girl, wounded throughout her body, unwaveringly mastered the skills of the shinobi.
Page 2
Decades after being swept away to the shinobi village, Rinne is given her first mission along with a small blade, which she accomplished by flawlessly killing a person.
When the elderly clan head received the news, he summoned her to his deathbed, bade her continue passing down the ideology of the shinobi village.
"Shadows are those who live in solitude, who choose to die only at the command of their master."
Shinobi live always in solitude, and even their own deaths are for their master alone to decide... Leaving it at that, the clan head grasped Rinne's with the last of his strength. Rinne bowed her head deeply, shuddering at the fingers like withered twigs, so different from her own, white, young and vivacious.
Thus, the shinobi village installed its second clan head. The second son, sharing the same blood...bore little resemblance to the first. But his voice alone carried the same weight, the command of a Master.
Page 3
When Rinne was able to kill more easily than she could breathe, the second clan head, bedridden with age, summoned her.
"Shadows are those who live in solitude, who choose to die only at the command of their master."
Taking in Rinne, who once again acknowledged the ideology of the village with a nod, the second clan head took his last breath in satisfaction.
Next, the third generation head was a thin, willowy man. However, he was a man of great ingenuity, having made success of many difficult commands of his master, and achieved more than any other. Every one of those achievements was backed by Rinne's strength. At this time, Rinne was able to kill more quickly than any other, more deftly than any other.
The third head found himself abed, facing his end much earlier than previous generations. In his final moments with Rinne by his side, he spoke of the village's ideology with labored breath and passed. It was at this moment that Rinne finally had doubts.
"They always get to die on their own terms."
Page 4
The fourth clan head resembled the first in some ways. Rinne continued to prune lives as asked, but a strange feeling was sprouting within her heart.
"Though not one thing has changed about me, those here are not the same." "Born and growing old, born yet again... Just to go to their deaths."
But, her uncertainty secreted within, only her artistry for taking lives came to be honed. Now there was no one who could equal Rinne in terms of sheer talent for killing.
And so, erelong, the fourth clan head was upon his deathbed. The fourth generation clan head, no longer able to give voice, clutched at Rinne with fingers like dead twigs. Those boney fingers grasping at her, just as the first clan head had... But now Rinne was no longer the least bit afraid of death. For she had killed too many, lived far too long, and had come to understand that death was the furthest thing from her.
And yet it was not the same for the others. Rather than living in solitude, they clung to Rinne and died wrapped in cotton shrouds.
Page 5
At the deathbed of the fourth clan head, Rinne unsheathed her small blade. Leisurely she hummed the philosophy of the shinobi village.
"Shadows are those who live in solitude, who choose to die only at the command of their master." "Despite these teachings, why do you people continue to depends upon me?" "Why do you not resist death without master's command?"
And so Rinne lopped off the head of the fourth clan leader. As blood spurted out to color the exuberance hitherto unfelt, Rinne bellowed a laugh.
"My mind, my body, even my principles were crushed... This village is no more!"
In one night Rinne had taken every life, annihilating the village of the shinobi.
Rinne's destination was lost into darkness, but-- Only the legends of a terrifying girl still remain in various lands: the hands of dozens of brigands surrounding the girl severed in an instant, helmeted heads flown by the hundreds by the girl hired on the battlefield.