Heart of the Infiltrators

Chapter 1: Arrival

Heart of the Infiltrators

(Senran Kagura x Male Reader)

Chapter 1: Arrival (Redux)

"Shinobi..."

"The elite agents of Japan who carried out their missions, both honorable and nefarious, within shadows. All of them were trained and specialized in the art of weapons, old and new, with the strength of each individual rivaling that of over a thousand common soldiers."

"For the better part of a millennium, their tactics and weapons were the pinnacle of advanced warfare. Beyond that, their variety of skills outclassed any military in the world by training by what was most intuitive to an individual."

"But modern technology and society advanced exponentially, far faster than any centuries old organization could ever anticipate."

"As the distance between countries and people dissipated, the shadows began to recede in the face of new technologies' blinding light. There was a belief that the use of shinobi, good and evil, would be redundant within a few decades' time."

"Even more distressing for the shinobi leadership, as news of the world's happenings spread, the moral lines and codes that defined good and evil began to blur. Factions split apart and fell to disorder as the next generation's culture combated the cemented ways of the old."

"Still, the way of the shinobi lived on. Despite how far the world had come, they endured and would dutifully remain on standby as the next generation of warriors trained to fight amongst and against each other. Just as it always had been."

"But a long-guarded secret was rapidly growing in scale and its dangers would be profound."

"As the blood of Yōma drenched the earth, its corruption slipped into the minds and hearts of the shinobi who carried on living. Without even being aware of it, the shinobi would become ticking timebombs who would submit over an unpredictable period of time."

"Their emotions became distorted and prone to extremes through the power of corruption and their consciousness would slip. Eventually, the person they once were would be gone, replaced by a husk who would never realize they were victimized in the first place. If nothing were to be done, certainly the way of the shinobi would have died out early into the twentieth century, when war was rampant and Yōma were widespread across the battlefield."

"But this was when two groups of individuals stepped into their secret world... Infiltrators and Dignitaries."

"With the tools of modern day and supernatural ability, both of these groups had long kept the Yōma's influence from growing beyond control."

"Though the two groups' philosophies and means differed, leading to a longstanding blood feud between the two which carried on from parents to children, their skills and presence have long been acknowledged by the shinobi higherups and all of their factions... though not for the better."

"The dignitaries, an organization bent on utilizing the corruption and bending it to instill order into the minds of shinobi, relied on a forceful ritual which altered the very fiber of an individual's mind and personality. Such an act was regarded as a heinous and hypocritical crime that warranted death."

"The infiltrators, a group lacking formal structure, relied on rogue elements and mystically personal rituals that expelled the corruption in its entirety. But, due to both aimless paranoia and acts that justified wariness, they were condemned as a lingering threat and hunted from cell to cell."