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At long last, ‘Shiro Kage’ Taka Tier III X-Retsus onto The Halcyon Fold! This is our most technologically advanced skin to date, featuring new effects, animations, lore and an awesome new visual effect when his Ki stacks hit max.

‘Shiro Kage’ Taka Tier III Model Changes:

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• Wild winter fur
• Samurai armor
• Bone switchblades
• Kaku turns Taka into a tanuki statue

Special Effects & Animation Changes:

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• At full Ki stacks, Taka’s look transforms with new glowing, flaming effects
• New Kaiten flip
• Updated X-Retsu attack
• New powerful recall
• Basic attacks even more vicious!

Alternate Fates Lore: The Unloved Dead

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By Sugarvenom

The legend of the Shiro Kage grew as winter settled upon House Kamuha. Maza sent her best assassins after the shadow that plagued her, but only their heads returned. She hired bounty hunters, but the enemy had been tracked to the Tangled Wood, and everyone feared the unloved dead who lived there. The rumor grew that the Shiro Kage was a vengeful ghost.

At last, Maza alone remained at House Kamuha. She had no more assassin sons, no more prestige in the village. Snow coated the skeletons of the cherry trees and the koi kissed the thin ice covering the pond. Maza felt the pain of winter deep in her old bones. She settled on her meditation mat and waited.

After nightfall, she heard the barking of foxes echoing through the courtyard. She remained still, for foxes are tricksters and cannot be trusted. Even when dozens of foxes burst through the paper sliding walls, yipping and growling, Maza remained still on her mat. With a powerful exhale, she released the illusions: seven copies of her, indistinguishable from reality, chanting their hypnotic magic in tandem.

The barking stopped, and Maza opened her eyes, believing she had triumphed. But instead of a skulk of hypnotized foxes, the room was littered with tanuki statues. Her chanting stumbled; she had never been out-tricked before.

“The souls of your sons have been reborn. You can’t control them anymore.”

Through the torn screens walked the Shiro Kage. The Tangled Wood had changed him. His fur had grown bushy and winter-white. Instead of switchblades, he wielded blade-sharp bones that protruded from his arms.

“But you, my son, are not yet reborn,” whispered Maza through gritted teeth. Her clones made a tight circle around their mistress and took up their old chant:

You are Taka of House Kamuha.
I have unburdened your mind of memory and remorse.
This is my gift to you.
It is a great honor to be of House Kamuha.

When Taka wavered, the tanuki statues burst apart and foxes flooded the room, kits and vixens and tods. They barked, yipped and howled at top volume, drowning out the sound of the chanting. “Get… out… of my… mind!” screamed Taka, shaking his head.

The barking broke Maza’s focus, tearing Taka from the grasp of her power. The bladed bones slashed through a clone. The air wavered where she had been. Again the Shiro Kage struck, and again, his bladed bones crossed into an X, his anger building, his winter coat glowing as his ki strengthened, one clone after another disappearing faster than Maza could create them anew. The last thing Maza saw in this life was Taka mid-flip overhead, awash in dark, furious flames, driving his blades straight down into her heart.

And that is how House Kamuha became House Kitsune, where the people bring gifts of sweet tofu to the wild foxes who live there. There are no other legends of the Shiro Kage, but it is said that he roams the Tangled Wood to this day, caring for orphaned animals and guiding unloved souls to their rest.