Editing Phoenix Clan (section)

===Shiba Kneels===
When [[Horus|Fu Leng]] came back and threw his little [[Horus Heresy|temper tantrum]] over his siblings leaving him to rot in [[Chaos|Jigoku]] while they played Sim Empire without him, it was a state of total war. But for a lot of the early battles, Isawa...decided his people would mind their own business and sit this one out.

Isawa had always resented the Kami's conquest of Rokugan, and their demands that he serve them, as well as the shaky "alliance" he had with Shiba for such insults as ''placating Hantei's conquest'' and ''sponsoring their continued existence''. And as far as he was concerned, this entire catastrophe was essentially a dysfunctional family affair that was entirely the fault of the Kami (which is a few grains of truth buried under a whole lot of bullshit they had no control over). This led him to a conclusion: if he stayed out of this huge war in the south threatening to wipe out the entire country (while leaving that upstart Empire to take the hits for them), the extremely vengeful and possibly magically insane megalomaniacal demigod and his horde of eldritch terrors would turn a blind eye to him and leave his lands alone. After all, as Isawa put it, "''If you would fail without me, why do you deserve me as an ally?''" We'll let that line sink in for a bit.

But as the war dragged on and the hits kept coming, Isawa and his people began to realize that the eldritch monstrosities indiscriminately butchering all of humanity also indiscriminately counted ''them'' as humans to butcher. Shadowlands monstrosities also found their way to Gisei Toshi, and Isawa finally consented to send shugenja to the Empire to help and train more shugenja among the other Clans. But even then, his primary focus was on [[Imperium Secundus|holding onto what he had]], so he never fully committed the vast magical power at his disposal. Finally, when it was becoming clear that the danger to Gisei Toshi would only increase, along came Shinsei, asking Shiba to join the Seven Thunders and overcome Fu Leng with humanity's ability to master fate.

And yet, despite coming to realize that [[Irony|his people would most certainly fail without Hantei's forces]], Isawa still had the balls (some would say gall) to demand something in exchange for his aid: for Shiba to kneel and swear to protect Isawa's family long after he was gone. Now, to be sure, extracting an ironclad promise of protection in exchange for taking on a suicide mission can be a reasonable response. But it takes an ego of a certain [[/d/|throbbing girth]] to demand that the person you're swearing fealty to should be the one to bend the knee. And yet, even at this critical juncture, Isawa still felt that the Kami, being the ones who screwed up, should be prostrating themselves when they begged for help, and that he wouldn't place his people under someone else's rule without being able to say that he represented them on his feet while the other guy got on his knees. Isawa [[Meme|did nothing wrong]] indeed.

Shiba did so without hesitation. To most of his heavenly siblings, this would have been unthinkable. But thankfully, Shiba had the sense to understand that kneeling and protection were a small price to pay to recruit the Empire's most powerful spellcasters as well as the Thunder destined to join the group which would save them all. Shiba's kneeling would be remembered as the most humble and heroic moment in the Phoenix Clan. The rest is history: Isawa gave his life to seal Fu Leng within the Black Scrolls, and Isawa would sacrifice himself bringing back the last survivors bearing those scrolls. And in these two leaders, the Phoenix would find an eternal cycle of behaviours: blinding idealism, boundless curiosity, tremendous hubris, and heroic self-sacrifice (often against whatever their hubris caused).