Laughing Under the Clouds

Set in the 11th year of the Meiji era, *Laughing Under the Clouds* unfolds in a Japan still reeling from the fall of the shogunate and the nationwide ban on swords. As resentment festers among displaced samurai, violent uprisings threaten the new government, prompting the construction of a massive prison fortress in the middle of Lake Biwa to contain the growing unrest.

In Oumi, Tenka Kumou is quietly tasked with assisting the police in apprehending criminals, all while ferrying prisoners to the lake-bound penitentiary alongside his younger brothers, the driven Soramaru and the spirited Chuutarou. Joined by former Fuma ninja Shirasu Kinjou, the Kumou brothers keep to a modest, upbeat life of study and training—until an old legend begins to tighten its grip on the region. Whispers of the Orochi curse, said to reincarnate every three hundred years in a human vessel, draw competing factions into conflict: some seek to suppress the calamity it foretells, while others pursue far more sinister goals.