T. James Reese

1303. Feudal Japan. Smoke rises from the lush green valleys. Screams echo off the mountain walls. All across the countryside, children are disappearing, ripped from their homes, their villages left in ruin. Young Sheng and his best friends, Daisuke and Kimiko, fall victim to these attacks. In Kyoto, the imperial throne is highly contested between the Daikaku-ji and Jimyo-in families. However, the real power resides to the east where the shogunate rules from Kamakura. There lives an opportunistic samurai, Takeshi Hasegawa. His hand is firm, his jaw unflinching. His dream: to rule all of Japan and unite the people of the Northern and Southern kingdoms once again. And to do that, he must build an army. Sheng is taken to Kamakura and placed in a special school. Educated by the wisest teachers and greatest warriors, he and his classmates are trained in the way of the samurai. Hasegawa’s plan is in place, his evil begun; time the only obstacle between him and his fate as supreme ruler. But there is one who can stand against the oppression of the wicked Hasegawa, one who will rise to free his people and protect the honor of the imperial throne, one who will become The Legend of the Blade.