Prologue
A woman hurriedly ran away from the bloody fight and climbed onto a horse. Within seconds, the woman rode away but not before she was struck with a poison arrow. However, the arrow did not stop her. The woman was the wife of the Japanese village. She was escaping with her daughter, Misako, to her friend’s village for sanctuary.
The woman finally reached the village but she was dying. Her friend, Katsumoto, who was the chief of the village ran out. With her dying breath, the woman asked for her friend to care for the child since she did not know whether or not her family and village managed to survive the attack.
