Shi Ryurou of The Spirits

Since the dawn of time, average people have arisen up to shatter the chains of normality and do great things. These people become legends who are remembered through song and story for generations to come. The stories are often about a hero who battles soldiers or beasts, or even sacrificing himself in the name of virtue, love and goodness. These stories also, quite often, are ones filled with heroism, romance, characters you sympathize for and love, and all too often the perfect ending that leaves you with the warm and fuzzy feeling inside. This isn't one of them...
      In Japan, there is a place that harbors warriors that make up something called 'The Ring of the Storm'. It is these warriors who worship the spirits of wind, thunder, and rain the three spirits who unified to create The Great Storm. It was this storm that purged the land of the great Evil that resided here before humanity's prosperity. The Evil was an unknown source of corruption that had come to consume the world and all its denizens. The true concern however, was the Dragon Spirit, the Spirit of Death. Death itself had been corrupted by this Evil, and began reaping the lives of those who were not yet fated to meet him. Death had even claimed the essences of many other spirits, and it was only when The wind, thunder and rain united that Death's new power could be matched. The wind whispered to the dragon and told him of his impending doom, should he persist. Death ignored him, and so Wind tore throughout the world and rendered Death's mighty wings useless. Then Thunder came and crushed the mighty dragon spirit, but it was STILL not enough. Finally, Rain took its part. The droplets of water inside the furious winds were like spears to the mighty Dragon, and Thunder was unrelenting. But when the winds died down, and the thunder ceased...the rain remained. Rain knew that it's job was not finished, no for it was compassionate. Seeing the evil that had usurped their draconian brother, Rain cried. The tears of Rain burned Death, but the burn was righteous and as it burned, it burned the evil from the Dragon. Death looked to his kin and with tears of his own said 'Forgive me, one day I shall make this right.' and then Death himself fell into eternal sleep.
       Few remember the spirit, Death as the loving spirit he truly was. For it was he who took our frail, sickened bodies and remade them into the form we would next assume. To this day, those who worship Death are few and far between. Yet, in the under-ground city of Kage in Japan there lays a clan dedicated to Death. The Elder, Kage Masamune, was as old as the Great Storm itself. He was there when the waters purified their master, and he was there when this clan began. In this clan, was a boy who was not born, but found. This child, was adopted by the Elder, and due to his unusually pale skin, he was named Shi Ryurou. Shi learned quickly, when he was two years old, he was already wielding a blade, he was surly a gift from their spirit. Even when many of his peers were sleeping or eating, Shi would skip meals simply so he would know the true feeling of starvation and to be truly fatigued. By the age of sixteen, Shi was ready to take his place at his adoptive father's side, he was ready to be an Elite. The training Shi endured was enough to break any man, even the greatest of them. The Death Clan molded his body like clay, until his body was that of an Adonis, and tormented his skin was as callous as a Dragon's scales. 
       However, when Shi reached the age of twenty he was forced to take on a job that he would come to regret. Upon reaching the underground city, his home, he found bodies in the streets and fire quickly devouring the oxygen in the large cave-city. Shi quickly made his way to his Elder, his adoptive father, to see what his orders would be. When he reached his Elder, he found him in a pool of blood, all of Shi's peers around him, lifeless. 
       "Master, what has happened!?" Shi cried. His Elder only looked at the bodies with a frown and tear-filled eyes. 
       "The Evil has returned." Elder Kage said. He looked to Shi. "You are the only one who has not been corrupted. For even I...have fallen to the corruption."
       "Master, that cannot be, I refuse to believe it!" Shi said, determined to see the good in his Elder and father. 
      "Shi, you are ready. Come and take your place." Kage said, and without a moments notice, Kage attacked. Shi used everything he'd ever learned from the order. The Shadow-Step which allowed him a quick jolt to silently dash at the speed of light. He used his own resolve, the resolve of a warrior and by almost supernatural means he was able to see and slice even bullets with his blade, but the moment he moved to attack, his speed and god-like perception was lost. He used the fighting stance of the Elder, the Kushalatatsu, the stance of the swift dragon, and while his strikes were not deep, they were many, and they were precise. As the fire roared in the cave, Shi was forced to a knee as he grasped his father's blade, and his father mirrored him. Shi looked to the shrine of Death behind them, and he heard a voice in the back of his head. "Kin of my Kin, Blood of my Blood, Now is out time, let your prowess shine.". Almost as if he had blacked out, Shi lost all sense of vision. Suddenly he felt his body moving, and when he next saw, his Elder, his own father was at his mercy. Kage looked at Shi and was mortified, not that Shi had done this, but that he had forced Shi into this situation. The earth above them came down, and there was no way they could get out alive. Kage then thrust his dagger into his own abdomen and began chanting. When the chant was finished he looked to Shi and allowed him to hear his final words.

"It's your clan now..."

        As if guarded by Kage's soul, Shi emerged from the rubble and ruins untouched by the stone. Shi had a new role. Shi was not only the Elder of the Death clan, but he was the incarnate of Death himself! With the events that had just unfolded, Shi immediately set out to find The Ring of the Storm, and to begin rebuilding his clan so that he can defeat the Evil before it can claim the world that The Storm Spirit's had worked so hard to create. He would not see this world parish...Death would redeem himself.

Shi Ryurou took on an apprentice, his first attempt at rebuilding his clan, and it ended in misery. While Shi was busy with OCEAN and being the groups peacekeeper and mentor, Shi Ryurous was nowhere near prepared enough for the betrayal that would follow. While taking on all of OCEAN's toughest jobs and acting as a guardian to all he could, standing to fight for what was right and just. 
       Shi's heroic debut and his path of redemption was cut tragically short. Shi Ryurou' s student had proven that the student CAN surpass the master. Just outside of OCEAN HQ, Shi suffered fatal injuries, but despite the mortal wounds, Shi's greatest damage was to his honor and his pride as a warrior. His 'student' of the fighting arts crippled him, and somehow used a strange energy to prevent the wound form sealing over. Shi descended into a coma, for days. Only awaking to speak with Saileyra for a short time before slipping back into the comatose state. While in Comatose, Shi Ryurou and Redline became more connected, Shi basically offering up a portion of himself to grant Redline a second chance at life, free form the sins of the past. 
      Shi would awake one day however, and he would join in with training sessions, showing that despite his handicap, he was not going to be outworked or outdone. Even in his wheelchair, Shi proved to be a rather resourceful and slippery combatant who somehow ended up on top. Eventually, Shi Ryurou would meet face to face with his "Spiritual Twin". While Shi represented the penance and the redemption of Death, his twin seemed to embody all the unwanted and evil virtues of Death. Sean probably would have killed Shi, had it not been for Yam, the Dragon king, sacrificing himself in attempts to save Shi. Upon witnessing Yam's death, Shi was forced to accept who and what he was, and consequently was forced to embrace who he was.

He...Was...Death.

       Shi accepted his role, and when he did he assumed control of his destiny, and became what he was intended to be. He was the embodiment of Death itself, and all of it's redeeming qualities. Yam was a Dragon, a creature of destruction, yet allowed himself to die as a man whom overcame his evil nature. Shi would not allow Yam and the Souls of the fallen Dragons to fall prey to Sean and his disgracing powers. Shi broke his oath to the spirits, and he devoured Yam’s soul, and with it the soul of every Dragon whom harbored inside his body from the Focus Sites.Shi would do the impossible and with his oath broken his new power coursing through him, he would walk again, and he would fight. With Yam's last moment, Shi had elected to use his sovereignty as Death, to consume the soul of Yam, but it did far more than simply unlock his powers as the Dragon Spirit of Death, it preserved Yam for time immemorial. With the soul of the Dragon King devoured by the Dragon Spirit of Death, Shi Ryurou had truly returned.

       But when he returned, he did not return as The Embers of Hope.
 
                                                                                  He returned...as Virtue's Avenger.