After the death of Josuke Sorano, the shoguns installed their own puppet emperor – Genichi Takeo. He was young and held no real power. Thus, when the six shoguns eventually began to covet one another’s lands, he was unable to stop the ensuing war that spread throughout Ikaiguchi.
Over the next 70 years shoguns rose and fell and the land of Ikaiguchi was torn asunder by internecine warfare. It seemed peace would never come, but Ikaiguchi’s savior came in an unexpected form. Takeo, now an old man, had seen what his inaction had wrought. Knowing he could never be strong enough to stop the shoguns, he sought out an ancestor of the Sorano dynasty that they might rise up against the tyranny of the shoguns.
Most of the Sorano clan had fled across the sea when the shoguns seized the throne but, using what power he had, the puppet emperor Genichi Takeo tracked down a direct descendant: the true heir to the imperial throne. Yusuke Sorano was only a young woman, but she had been educated in the same way her ancestor Benjiro Sorano had demanded his own descendants be taught. When she arrived on the shores of Ikaiguchi for the first time in her life, she found the ordinary folk of the island loyal to her, and only too eager to help her overthrow shogunate rule.
In a war that lasted three short years, the people of Ikaiguchi rose up against the shoguns and cast them down. Genichi Takeo never lived to see Yusuke ordained as Ikaiguchi’s first empress, but his bravery has been honored by the Sorano dynasty ever since.