Think Spy Vs. Spy
I'll tell you the story of Red Ninja Versus Blue Farmer. It's the story of killing for revenge versus killing for money.
Blue Farmer was a happy family man. He had a wife and a daughter. He was really excited, earlier in the day The Emperor confiscated his land because he'd just received word that his daughter would be accepted into the local school. She might actually learn to read and write. Think about that. . . He sat down to his lunch musing on how great it would be that, finally, someone from his family would attain literacy. Before he could finish his meal, an arrow flew through his window and pierced his wife's heart. Fastened to the shaft of the arrow was an Imperial decree which neither he nor his daughter could read.
Blue Farmer ran outside to see the Emperor's men harassing other families. The neighboring farmers soon banded together in the center plot of the farmland, where they were told by The Four Horsebacked Samurai that they were to leave their homes at once. The land would be flooded the following day and those who stayed surely stayed to drown.
The farmers were flabbergasted, at first. . . they didn't understand what a dam was. A river was to be stopped, and their land was considered expendable due to low crop yields and a questionable loyalty to The Emperor. Yet, in the farmers' minds, they saw a darkened sky suddenly bursting open with a torrential rain that would sweep them all away.
Needless to say, the farmers considered the idea ridiculous and, quickly and collectively, decided The Four Horsebacked Samurai had killed too many people and went crazy.
The farmers, together, rushed those sent by The Emperor. The farmers that first plunged into the fight were dead before their bodies hit the ground. Families scattered. The Four Horsebacked Samurai tried to kill every last man, woman and child from that district. They burned the houses to the ground. They made certain there were no survivors.
You can never be certain.
Red Ninja also wants to kill the Emperor, but his motivation is the desire for profit. He's aware that by killing the Emperor, he'll be stepping into the history books, but it doesn't bother him.
He's being paid to the kill the Emperor by a group of Businessmen. They feel there is more money to be made with the Emperor out of the way. They do not feel the Emperor is doing enough to safeguard their financial interests. They have tried every other avenue of persuasion and deceit. They have held the newspaper editors in The Big City hostage. They have done everything in their power to encourage civil unrest.
Still, The Emperor rules. Still, The Emperor lives.
Red Ninja believes that this last killing will allow him to retire from killing. He believed something very similar the last time he killed someone. He has held similar beliefs for twenty years. To Red Ninja, making money is almost as much fun as spending it. In the last twenty years of his life, ever since he left his Monastery, Red Ninja has earned more money from killing than some feather to middleweight kings have seen as their birthright. He spends money notoriously fast and, after collecting his due for a successful killing (he knows no other kind), he commences to spend it as quickly as he possibly can.
Red Ninja left the Monastery as a young man. His feelings at the time amounted to those one associates with pride. He was sure that he could making a better living elsewhere. The life of physical poverty was accepted, among those in The Monastery, along with the gift of stability in a transient world. So, beneath the veil of night, Red Ninja left to find a better life.
Just before he agreed to assasinate The Emperor, it had taken him one year to spend an amount of money that could have sustained an Island Kingdom. He started out with the money to buy a mint and wound up with nothing.
He was eager to return to work.