Return of the Enemy: The setting

For as long as there has been a need for the rich and powerful to uncover valuable information about each other and to wage war in secret, there have been ninja to fill that need.

The ancient shinobi clans of Iga and Koga were always much more than they seemed, honing their chi-craft over the centuries, going from two hidden clans of saboteurs and assassins serving the warlords of the Sengoku era, to almost innumerable families who developed unique and astounding abilities, passed down from parent to child and kept secret from anyone not of the same blood.

As the ninja families grew more powerful and widespread, they became ever more secretive, though as the centuries passed they no longer relied on isolation in the mountain provinces of feudal Japan to remain hidden. Instead, they hid in plain sight, living among the non-ninja, but never revealing their true identities and powers, carefully cultivating a very specific mystique that became the ninja of myth and legend, tailoring it as the years passed to mislead and confound the masses and thus prevent them from knowing the true nature of the ninja.

But with the masquerade came a splintering of ninja unity. Instead of two large interlinked clans, the ninja were now many families, some large, many small. Ninja fought ninja out of jealousy or petty vendettas almost more often than they took jobs for outsiders, and the internecine conflict drove the development of ever more devastating and deadly uses of the chi manipulation techniques that gave members of the ninja families their incredible powers.

Finally, to prevent the warring ninja from either wiping each other out, revealing their presence and true nature to the world at large, or both, the leaders of the greatest ninja families decided to band together under the auspices of the Ninja Council, a body that represented all the individual ninja families, and would regulate their dealings with each other and the outside world. Each family was free to see to its own internal affairs, but if it had a conflict with another family or wished to take a ninja job, it had to go through the Council.

Although there were many families that refused to be bound by such a restrictive method of control, most of the ninja families agreed to join the Council, and abandon their most devastating and dangerous chi techniques. And so the world of the ninja prospered, yet remained hidden...

...until twenty years ago, when a young ninja named Hosoki Yoshikazu discovered the secret techniques of his family. A naturally gifted chi user, he was easily able to master these abilities, and quickly became addicted to the rush of power that their use gave him. When he discovered that the other ninja families all had their own forbidden techniques, he became determined to learn them as well. Since simply asking them nicely to turn their secret techniques over to him was unlikely work, Hosoki decided he had to take them by force.

With his mastery of the long-forgotten techniques, Hosoki easily defeated the first few families he struck against, taking advantage of both surprise and the families' own reluctance to use those selfsame techniques they had forsworn, even in self-defense. With each victory and each secret technique stolen and learned, Hosoki grew ever more drunk with power, and soon decided it was his Destiny to destroy all the other ninja families, take their secrets, and use them to rule the world.

It wasn't long before Hosoki's actions drew the attention of the Ninja Council. Recognizing the great threat he represented, the Council determined to stop him. However, they couldn't simply mobilize all of ninja society for war - such an action would break the long-maintained masquerade. Instead, the Council chose a select group of the strongest ninja from all the families, great and small, and these few brave individuals set out to defeat Hosoki.

But Hosoki, while megalomaniacal, was not stupid. Several of his stolen techniques let him become aware of the Council's plan, and he set his own plan in motion. In a series of fights, he clashed with the chosen warriors sent against him, allowing himself to win only minor victories, and pretending to grow ever weaker with each defeat. During these many fights, however, he had begun slowly poisoning the minds of many of them against their fellows and against the Council, using honeyed yet poisoned words, laced with a chi sorcery of his own devising.

At the the site of what was to be the final confrontation between the warriors of the Council and Hosoki, he sprang the final trap - at the moment the warriors began to strike the final blow, they were suddenly stabbed in the back, as the ninja who had been poisoned against their comrades turned on them, killing many. Fortunately, Hosoki had not had the time to turn as many of the Council ninja as he wanted to, and the traitors were defeated. Weakened by the betrayal and fight, however, the Council ninja were unable to deliver the killing blow to Hosoki. Grievously wounded but unvanquished, Hosoki and his traitors fled, and the exhausted Council warriors were unable to pursue.

The conflict had nearly destroyed the ninja world, and Hosoki, the greatest enemy the ninja had ever faced, became known as the Enemy, and those he turned were called the Betrayers. Concerned that the Enemy would recover from his injuries and return to finish his war, the Council established the Watch, a special group of ninja formed of the survivors of that fateful fight against the Enemy.

Years passed, and the ninja families returned to prosperity once again. The Watch kept their vigil, but saw no sign of the Enemy or the Betrayers. In time, the heroes of the struggle against the Enemy had children, teaching them of the threat.

Now, those children have come of age, and are ready to take on the duties of their parents, keeping Watch for the return of the Enemy.