The Ninja Island Correctional Academy

Not every ninja is perfectly behaved. Young ninja sometimes clash with their clan leaders, or prove troublesome or ill-disciplined. Usually the clans deal with such youngsters themselves, but sometimes clan leaders decide that a particularly irksome ninja-to-be requires stricter discipline, and more direct supervision than most clans can supply. Such children are sent to the Ninja Island Correctional Academy.

This graceful, and securely walled, campus sits on a high promontory overlooking the port town on Ninja Island. It includes dormitories for the students, lecture rooms, training halls, an excellent library, archives, laboratories and temples of all descriptions. Over the years the Academy has become not only a school but a sort of museum and research centre shared by the clans, and supporting various facilities is a point of pride among the wealthiest clans.

The Academy is run jointly by the clans, and instructors are drawn from many different clans. Grand Master Izunosuke Izawa of the Everlasting Moon Clan, for example, teaches history and tradition, while Grand Master Leng of the Heavenly Blades Clan teaches ritual (and serves as the Academy’s president). The school administration is run by Chamberlain Wong Sah-Min, also of the Heavenly Blades Clan, who oversees all school activities with a stern eye, determined to see these wayward children learn to behave with proper ninja decorum and discipline.

There are several hundred students at the Academy at any time, living in shared dormitories, usually. They spend their days in class, and most of their “free” time is spent either on homework or various duties around the Academy. And getting into trouble — these were mostly bad kids before they came here, and they often continue being bad upon arrival.

But most smarten up quickly. For students, there are only two ways out of the Academy: either their instructors agree that they have learned the necessary discipline and character, or they are expelled. Getting expelled from the Academy is very serious; such students are cast out of the clans completely, and forced to leave Ninja Island, never to receive help or shelter from any clan ever again. Their names are removed from the roster of the clans, and should they ever claim to be a ninja, or use their ninja skills, they will be hunted down and killed.

As most ninja grow up knowing no family other than their clan, and have no skills for getting by in the world, this is a terrifying prospect. Being cast from the clans is a fate worse than death for most ninja.