18. Akodo Yumako

For the Empire

Month of the Serpent 19th, 1123

Dead Assassin

We see Agasha Sumiko looking from her window. Shinjo Takuya searches the assassin, he finds a small container with green stuff in it. "The poison!" he tells me with a big smile on his mouth, and he puts it back. Agasha Sumiko arrives. She removes his mask. Wait, I know who that is! It's an assistant of Kitsuki Kāgi! She also searches him. Shinjo Takuya points her towards the poison. She also finds some notes, which she quickly scans. I notice it's the same handwriting as the letter written to the Hidden Serpent. But when asking she tells us it is nothing important.

Then we notice some green liquid coming from the corner of the assassins mouth, the poison! Who did that? Was it the assassin himself? Or even Agasha? We will never know. A few seconds later we see some guards from the Ruby Champion's quarter and they quickly drag the assassin inside. Agasha also goes in her quarters and closes the door. We stay outside, and hear the other guards arrive. Togashi Yoshi tells them that he yelled for them, but that the other guards already solved it.

Still confused by everything that happened we go back to the Dining Hall to get something to eat. Only Isawa Aki is missing, she went directly to our quarters.

What to tell?

After dinner we all meat in our quarters. I tell everyone about who the assassin was and we make a plan for the evening. I go to the library with Togashi Yoshi and Isawa Aki. We want to check if we can find Kitsuki Kāgi's handwriting. We need to know if he has written the letter to the assassin or not. The others will check the quarters of the assassin.

All we find out is that it's for certain not Kitsuki Kāgi's handwriting. The others found out that assassins's name is Kitsuki Tomo, but didn't found anything weird in his room.

Back in our quarters we decided to visit the secret room one more time. We do find the assassin's common clothes there as expected. And we take the letters written to the Hidden Serpent, to make sure they are not found by the wrong person.

Month of the Serpent 20th, 1123

In the morning we discuss about our story for this afternoon. It's hard to find a story all can agree with, but in the end we decide to tell the truth about the assassin, and that he killed Doji Satsumi and wanted to kill the Ruby Champion. We assume that telling the last part will not make the Dragon clan any suspect, because both Kitsuki Tomo and Agasha Sumiko are from the dragon clan. And Doji Ren will do most of the talking.

At the end of the morning we all meet at the Garden of Verdant Serenity. There we receive our Badge of Office, and we are official Emerald Magistrates now!

Poisoned Chicken

Then we go to Agasha Sumiko's quarters. Doji Ren explain our theory very well. But then Agasha Sumiko asks if this really is the best conclusion that we can draw from that evidence. It's clear she doesn't agree with our theory being in best interest with the Empire. And thinking about it she might have a point... What if it still ends up with people seeing the Dragon Clan as being behind this... What about Agasha's position... if that is also lost it will end up in Chaos. But besides that, any great Clan being behind this will turn out in a negative way for the empire.

Luckily Doji Ren also sees this, and with a few seconds she comes up with an amazing story! About how Doji Ren liked chicken, and that he had eaten from the Oji's sick chicken. And that caused him to become sick and weak ending with Doji Satsume falling down the stairs due to food poisoning.

Agasha Sumiko tells is this is a story she can work with, while she rubs a shuriken from the assassin with her sleeve. She also asks us if we found anything else, and ofcourse Isawa Aki starts to tell about the Kolat. Agasha Sumiko tells her we solved that now, and if it's still an issue it's something she will tell the future Emerald Champion about.