Editing Kensei (section)

====Sohei====
[[File:Sohei.jpg|thumb|300px|left]]
Mostly made up of the priesthood and armed peasant rebellions that they support. Sohei are united in theory alone, as each temple is entirely independent of any other authority. In the past, temples have lost priceless relics and destroyed each other in small contained wars over the details in the life of important figures, or in which temple gets to host the local festivals that season. 

Among the Sohei, gender is a meaningless distinction in terms of duty and both nun and priest fulfill the same roles. The Sohei nuns are aware of the bias of other castes however, and in war will switch between their conservative style at a distance and feminine ways before engagement (such as letting loose their hair) to demoralize foes who may not find slaying a holy woman to be healthy to their sense of honor. 

In general, the Sohei are at war with any other faction at war. The Kuge bicker like children while the holy relics lay forgotten although Sohei believe their lack of piety and trustworthiness will destroy them in the end. The Buke have refused their sacred duties to the royal line and must be taught humility and that the philosophy of "might makes right" will backfire. While the Otokodate have committed grave acts of heresy by allowing in foreigners, converting to other faiths, and thinking they can simply become part of the nobility without having any of the goddess Hikari's blood in their veins, they are considered by the Sohei to be the lesser of all potential evils in Hymukai and possibly a better model of society. All three sides put all the pressure on the poor to support their endeavors, allowing the children of farmers to starve in order to sell that food to buy weapons to arm the sons of men they left trampled in the mud over an acre of land that regardless of their claims only truly belongs to the Tenno (whoever it may be). 
When armed samurai covered in blood come to the temple and demand the offerings to the spirits of the harvest to feed themselves because they are strong enough to take it, the response will not be pleasant. Kuroi-te are the single greatest enemy of the Sohei and destroying each and every one of them is the overriding job of all Sohei. Hattori are known to the Sohei, and are considered a great evil. 

The calls of the Sohei have come to all Hymukai, and many have abandoned their stake in the conflict to swear themselves only to their faith. Men desert their armies and civilians take up discarded weapons to protect the few places of peace there are left in the world. 

While the Sohei are completely unwilling to convert to other faiths and have no means of trading with the outside world, any firearms that do come to the Sohei are not turned away. Regardless of faith, many foreigners find mercy and kindness when driven to the Sohei by the aggressive Buke or fair-weather friend Otokodate and those not native to Hymukai can be found among the Sohei (as well as their teachings like, how to make new guns).

The Sohei in real life were Buddhist warriors that fought against other temples in the 900's over which school of Buddhism was superior and generally anytime an abbot from a different sect was elevated above or placed in charge of their own, although despite burning each other's temple complexes down every so often these skirmishes rarely actually resulted in deaths since most were more brawl than battle. The Buddhists joined in the Genpei wars in the 1000's-1100's as their first military forays. Many sects rose and fell, fought each other and sided in almost any conflict as well as peasant rebellions, until the early 1600's when the last and greatest Sohei military group, the Ikko-ikki, were defeated after becoming a thorn in the side of the biggest warlords of the day and choosing the wrong allies to attempt to find protection. Some small groups survived the slaughter and joined various factions afterwards but never in a major united way. The lifestyles of the Sohei monks survive to this day, although the Sohei as a fighting force wasn't seen again after 1603. 
The Kensei Sohei also incorporate the Shinto clans, who have a much more storied history. According to Japanese mythology, while Amaterasu hid in a cave from the rage of her brother Susanoo, two men named Futodama and Amenokoyane attended her. When her grandson Ninigi was born, the two attendants were among the five servants that accompanied him down to the Earth to lead mankind. Futodama became the father of the Inbe Clan, Amenokoyane was the father of the Nakatomi Clan. The two clans together were the entire religious faction of early Japan, with the Inbe as their superiors (who interestingly had a cannabis leaf as their clan symbol) that oversaw the most holy of ceremonies and the connection to the Kami, while the Nakatomi saw to the purity of mankind and their relationship to lesser spirits. The Nakatomi grew in prestige and were eventually blessed by Emperor Tenji in the late 600's with the name Fujiwara. The singular Nakatomi split into four different Fujiwara clans plus the pure Nakatomi that ruled them and was eventually absorbed into the Fujiwara in the 1500's. Nakatomi influence continued to grow through intentionally altering the faith and culture of Japan, causing the leader of the Inbe Clan named Inbe no Hironari to petition Emperor Kammu in the 700's to put the Nakatomi in their place via a list of grievances called the Kogo Shūi. Shinto was restored somewhat closer to its original form as a result, and both Clans fought the influence of Buddhism. The Inbe continued to decline until they disappeared from history as a proper Clan and into the lower classes. The Nakatomi similarly vanished into the Fujuwara clans, which had become the bulk of the Kuge cast and the patrons of the Shinto faith as most Emperors married Fujiwara women, causing their children to grow up with the Fujiwara causing the heirs to also marry Fujiwara women in a cycle that maintained the power of the Fujiwara clan. The Fujiwara maintained the chain of succession indirectly when the royal line was broken by the death of the child Emperor Antoku via the coronation of Emperor Go-Toba under the protection of the first Shogunate. This technically makes the Sohei, the Kuge, and the Buke allied victors to the real life version of the Kensei storyline. 
As for the modern Sohei, there are many monasteries across Japan of both Buddhism and Shinto that are open and preaching to the commonfolk although as previously mentioned the Sohei never became a military force again, and barring the propaganda of Emperor worship during the second World War never became involved in another armed conflict. Regardless they can be said to have won in the end, since the caste system of Samurai and dictatorial rule both fell and the public shares equal rights and freedoms while Christianity joined the two older faiths rather than replaced them.