30. Doji Ren

The cabin

Yumako's distraction allows me to quickly enter the cabin and shut the door behind me. I storm down the stairs and jump in the water which is starting to fill up this end of the boat already. I pull out my Wakizashi and together with Aki, we manage to break Hiroshige and his friends free from their bonds. Somehow I now also manage to breath underwater after some motions and sounds coming from Aki.
We take them outside through the hole in the side of the ship and swim to the quay.

While we are swimming there we see a woman in a small boat on the horizon. Her hands held high with a sickle in one of them glow red, like we've seen a couple of times before now.It seems even from this distance that she's looking directly at me!

Back on the docks

While Aki and me were rescuing the prisoners, the others were quite busy too we learn. Yaguro attacked Tichuki, but eventually had to face defeat and was allowed an honourable death. The tattoo Ronin fought hard with Yumako but died in the end, stating "This is a good death".
Kyo is now helping our prisoners climbing back onto the docks. "Unfortunately" two didn't survive. I use Cadence to tell Kyo, that next time he tries to get rid of someone he should be thorough. The lack of response, indicates to me I'm not too far from the truth.
Aki communes with the spirits to figure out what the Ronin was about and learns that indeed Maho was at play again! To make sure he won't resurface again, she beheads him and then burns the remains.
Meanwhile I try to gather my afflicted thoughts sitting at the edge, looking out over the harbour.

Trotoise peacekeepers at last

Now, finally, a number of Toiroise Clan Samurai peacekeepers appear, asking what has happened. Yoshi tells them everything they need to know. Tichuki explains about our prisoners who we want to hand over, being accused of opium trafficking (as if they care about that here), wielding Katana's (ok, quite an offense there), but most importantly kidnapping several and even murdering one Samurai (instant death penalty there).
They also ask who the famished and soaking SAmurai and Ronin are. We explain these are the disappeared people, who we have just rescued. By now they've also learned that Yaguro played quite an important role in this whole story. So two of the peacekeepers run of to get reinforcements. This is way above their 'paygrade'.
We join the remaining peacekeepers as we leave for the Magistrate. I hope this will be the last few moments we spend in this lawless village!