Lore

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Introduction

2022 energy buzzes on the 80th floor of the ONE WORLD TRADE CENTER in Manhattan. The giant glass windows reveal the shimmering upper bay and Lady Liberty proudly bearing her torch in the distance. But, nobody looks out the window on this floor. Here, hedge fund traders slalom through desks, computer screens and their assistants as earnings reports flash across screens like baseball scores.

They’re decked out head-to-toe in Chanel, Tom Ford, Zegna and Rolex. Everyone trying their hardest to signal, “I’m a millionaire!”A WOMAN’S VOICE cuts through the noise, “Tesla just hit twelve-hundred!”

More buzz. More millions. Drinks are on her tonight. The entire floor celebrates except for two traders in the corner of the pit. One in a pair of fresh white-on-whites, the other has a small CRYPTO PUNK tattooed behind her right ear. They’re not cheering Tesla stock. They’re scouring Rarible and OpenSea… CLICK! That classic sound of the mouse signals a different type of trade. The screen reveals that they just bought a DOODLE for 20 ETH.

We whip across the skyline, down into Central Park to find a WOMAN in a BAYC hoodie. She checks her phone and we reveal that she’s the seller of that Doodle and just made a huge profit. We zoom 1,300 miles to Miami, fast-forwarding through high-school kids, retail workers and investment bankers on their phones. But they’re not texting. They’re ripping through Discord servers… We fly to Sao Paolo and it’s the same thing! Reykjavic, London, Beijing and finally…

Tokyo. From our God perspective we can see everyone on the sidewalk, in their cars and at their desks engaged in the metaverse. Waves of invisible energy emanate out from all these devices and converge in a nondescript alleyway. Then, a RUMBLE. It’s subtle… as if the molecules in the air are conspiring. A single PURPLE FRACTAL pops into existence like a tiny snowflake. Then another… and another… and another until thousands coagulate and swirl into an angry spiral. Drawing on the energy from the devices engaged in the Metaverse, this anomaly expands and as it does it reveals… A world beyond. We FLY into the eye of the purple storm, a kaleidoscope of shimmering ribbons of color that funnel to black…

We’re not in our time anymore.
The year is 1184 AD.

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Tomoe Gozen

The golden sunset shoots beams of light at cotton candy clouds. 10,000 feet below the orange glow filters through cherry blossoms that helicopter toward the ground. The idyllic tableau is interrupted by — WHOOSH! The glinting blade of a SAMURAI SWORD slices through the air. A red mist speckles the falling flowers. Blood spurts from the ashen face of a TAIRA CLAN SAMURAI as he takes one last look at the ONNA-MUSHA (female samurai warrior) that ended his life. His eyes roll back into his head and he collapses into a heap on the ground. A cherry blossom lands on his lifeless face.

The ONNA-MUSHA spins, a tornado of fury, impales another TAIRA CLAN SAMURAI, drops to a knee to duck an attack, pulls a short-sword (Ko-Dachi) and drives it through the thigh of an enemy. More blood. More victims.

The Onna-Musha pulls both blades, whips around to reveal…
SHE is TOMOE GOZEN.

Across the battlefield she eyes her enemy, UCHIDA SABURO, massive in his gleaming black lamellar armor. His helmet bears a deadly symbol: A serpent that forms an equilateral triangle, devouring its tail.

Tomoe blitzes through bodies and blood, closes the final three, two, one steps launches herself into the air, screaming for murder, she brings her sword down to cleave Uchida’s head in two but he blocks it just in time. They thrust, parry, punch and kick. Blood and spit. Rage and pain.

Then, a crystalline purple substance begins to swirl like a miniature blizzard behind Uchida’s head. Engulfed by rage, Tomoe misses the otherworldly purple fractals radiating out in a spiral. She leaps in the air to bring her two sharpened blades down into Uchida’s throat and chest but then… He’s gone… She’s gone…

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Those shimmering ribbons kaleidoscope again and implode as Tomoe Gozen and Uchida Saburo pop back into existence in present day Tokyo. Uchida doesn’t waste a second, he lunges and slices his razor-sharp blade against a weak point in Tomoe’s armor and draws blood. She takes the pain as an opportunity, snatches an arrow she dropped to the ground and shoves it into his throat. He gives in to the darkness, collapsing in a heap on the modern cement.

Tomoe struggles to stay standing, turns around to face what looks like fireworks. It’s a massive LED billboard that evocatively tells her to drink something called Red Bull. Just before she’s about to collapse from blood-loss, Tomoe Gozen makes eye contact with a modern woman, NIKO SATO, who has been watching everything from the end of the alley.

Niko rushes to help Tomoe. Using her rolling cleaning cart as a type of gurney. Niko just lost her largest cleaning account at the Ares International corporate headquarters today when she accidentally walked into a forbidden room and spotted an ancient samurai sword. The label claims it was the sword of the fiercest Onna-Musha in Japanese history… Tomoe Gozen.

As Niko begins to wheel the injured samurai to her apartment, she and Tomoe look up at the towering Ares International building. Their massive gold logo is exactly the same as the crest worn by Tomoe’s enemy, Uchida…

A serpent that forms an equilateral triangle,
devouring its tail.

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Already widowed in her early 40’s, Niko has clung to the small office cleaning business that she and her husband started together. Now, it’s a fledgling business and her relationship with her daughter is equally tenuous. She gets the most joy from her Friday night book group where Niko and three other women (Chie, Junko and Moe) indulge their sci-fi fandom with books by Orson Scott Card, Frank Herbert and Arthur Clarke. Her life is barreling into the abyss of boredom until now… until she took a time traveling samurai into her home. It only takes a few tumultuous days to realize that Tomoe’s memory is failing. She’s forgetting who she is…

The book club arrives at the realization that Tomoe is basically an amnesia patient and they need to reunite her with her ancient artifact… the samurai sword at Ares International. It turns out that this group of women all have a special skill that will help in the heist. They scope the building and Niko is able to sneak them in with the new cleaning company. She uses this ingress to map the floors and locate the armor…

It’s the night of the heist. Everything goes wrong.

The group is momentarily captured but Niko’s daughter helps them escape. It’s a flurry of security guards, book club women and cleaning equipment as they blitz through the hallway to the secret office where Tomoe is finally reunited with her samurai sword. The moment she wraps her fingers around the hilt…

A wave of unseen energy blasts them all backward a step as purple fractals fly in from the ether and swirl into the point of contact between Tomoe Gozen and her ancient artifact. We follow the wave of energy into her consciousness as she cycles through a lifetime that culminates in a massive inhale of realization. Her pupils dilate from the information and when she turns to look at everyone in the room they see that she remembers exactly who she is… TOMOE GOZEN.

The next day, after they say their goodbyes, Tomoe stands on the streets of Tokyo, tall amidst a sea of strangers. Through the millions of LED lights, in the distance, she watches as a strange PURPLE LIGHT glows. She knows there’s something more to this ancient connection between her enemy Uchida and the modern Ares International. Her eyes sharpen and she begins to move in the direction of the light.