It wasn’t a very big peach orchard but it lined  the road with trees in full bloom, with paper charms wrapped around their trunks.<br/><br/>As she approached the shrine, though, it seemed that the charms hadn’t done much good…  Two ronin—tall, powerfully built men in light lamellar, and tattered kimonos emerged from the temple grounds and filled the road before her, standing at the read with hands on their katana.  A third man—brother to one of the first?—stood in the gate with his wakasashi to the throat of a human miko.  The busty girl was pale and shaking, with tears staining her fine cheekbones.<br/><br/>“Well well well,” the hostage taker’s brother gloated.  “Yukikazi of the Kitsuki ninja.  We’ll celebrate for a month off of the fortune we make bringing you in.”<br/><br/><em>The ronin have iniative 17.</em><br/>