47. Doji Ren

Clad in black

That night, the rest of the group is discussing setting up a watchrotation. I call out blashemy! The notion someone might enter our room uninvited in the middle of the night in a Crane castle!
That night as we're all asleep, Tichuki is meditating and feels a presence in the room. He asks who goes there and he partially draws his weapon so it catches a glimpse of candlelight reflection. The dark presence notices his presence has been noticed and runs for the cabinet holding the Mantis invitation. Tichuki strikes with his Katana, but the dark figure continues towards the cabinet, meanwhile lighting a candle. Tichuki whips his concealed weapon around the arm of the figure. Kyo takes the invitation from the strangers hands while I jump up barely awake, but already brandishing my Katana and Wakizashi.
The person then slumps to the ground. When Yoshi then removes the mask, we notice it's Rumiko. But she's already far whiter than one would expect from the few hits we delivered, even though they might have proven fatal eventually. Aki calls upon the Kami to save her life, while Tichuki and Kyo determine she wasn't indeed killed by us, but that is a case of suicide. The dishonour!

Who to tell?

I propose to warn Hatsuhina about what just happened to us, but the others think this wouldn't be a good idea. We spend a great deal of the night discussing what would be the wisest thing to do.
Eventually we decide to bring this to the attention of Agasha Sumiko, the Ruby Champion. Kyo will remain at the corpse to make sure noone else finds out.
I start out to explain that an assailaint entered our room. Agasha wonders if we know who it was, to which Yoshi calmly replies that she was masked. Agasha promises to take care of the situation and asks us to inform if we learn more. We're advised to act very discreetly as this will generate some tension during this Winter Court.

A vanished corpse

Four of Agasha's Bushi join us to our sleeping quarters.
There we find a unconcious Kyo on the floor, lying next to the puddle of blood from Runiko. But the corpse is gone!