Summary
Heike Shige is a mysterious figure who appears to be in his twenties or thirties but is actually over five hundred years old. Posing as a nobleman, he wields a biwa and leads a group of zombie-like laborers who have been mining for the legendary gold of the Heike clan for half a millennium. Thanks to an unearthly quality of the local mushroom population, these workers were preserved long after their deaths. Due to this preservation, Shige and his men mistakenly believed only five years had passed, unaware they had been laboring for five hundred years. Shige believed he was a descendant of the Heike clan and intended to use the discovered gold to defeat their ancient rivals, the Genji clan. He claimed that his biwa had the power to summon stars from the heavens to strike down his enemies. Upon encountering Mugen, Jin, and Fuu, Shige offered them ten percent of the treasure in exchange for their assistance at the quarry, a sum that would have been immense if the gold were real. However, his quixotic quest ended when Fuu uncovered the true nature of his workers. During the confrontation, Jin proved that Shige was not a true descendant of the Heike. This revelation caused the zombie workers to turn against their leader. In a final act, Shige unveiled his ultimate weapon and successfully summoned a meteor that struck the entire area. While Mugen, Jin, and Fuu likely escaped before its arrival, the ultimate fate of Shige and his men remains unknown, though they were presumably annihilated in the impact.
