Isawa Kiba's Notes

In case these journals are ever used in the future to show how life in the past was, I believe I should begin with a little about myself. I guess my chosen name would be a logical first step: Isawa Kiba.

I grew up the youngest of 7 children, 4 older brothers and 2 older sisters. The Fates and kami have blessed my family with 1 of my sisters, 3 of my brothers, and I, being able to communicate with the kami. My parents were proud of all of us (as far as I can tell) but life as the youngest is hard when half your siblings are off at the schools and the other half constantly make your life difficult and call you names. I quickly took up isolating myself, if anything to remove temptation from my siblings that were quickly coming of age and should be focusing on more than my last mishap.

The most bright point of my childhood would have to be my younger niece Hida Amaya. Father and mother had spent a lot of effort to arrange my eldest siblings marriage into the clan, and after 8 months she and her husband came to visit with my sisters daughter. I don't remember much about that first meeting since I was only 4 and she was so small, but what my mother has told me is that Hida Amaya began to cry about dinner time, and no one was able to get her to quite down. I had been napping, and not happy at being woken up, I stormed over like I was going to single-handedly solve everything. In a way, I did because when I looked over at her and she saw my hair a mess, she stopped crying and began laughing. From then on just my presence was able to calm her down, and as we got over I would look forward to her visits. She never made fun of me or tried to cause me grief, and assisted me with many pranks on my older siblings. The last time I saw her was when I was heading off to start my training, tears running down her face.

My training was fairly regular. Lots of reading, lots of practice, lots of tasks that I didn't see the point of until I had matured. I passed my genpuku with little issue. I did give a fire kami a letter I had yet to read due to my grabbing my wrong scrolls in the morning, but besides that I passed, with what the Unicorn say, "Flying colors" (Which I assume has to do with the red color of a phoenix). Not long after, however, I felt an imbalance in my spiritual self. I am not sure the source of this ailment, but seeing as I had spent so much time with my head in scrolls, that either the kami or Fates have decided that I needed to be doing something else. I have decided to take as my moto "not from anothers mouth." I will go out and experience as much knowledge as the world will impart, and this journal shall be my first notes before I work them into a more scholarly format.

That being said, I am will not be going around alone. Upon hearing of my decision, my parents have found a Shiba to accompany me. I am off to meet him at the great City of Remembrance, for what I hope will be the start of my long road of knowledge (and hopefully self-discovery).