Session16

The oni and the dilemma

After leaving the Battle of Mamoru Kyotei Toshi, Isawa Bin returned to Toshi Ranbo with Governor Asato which meant they arrived back long after dark.

Arriving back at his residence, he found a number of his investigators in a heated discussion out near the stables. He quickly discovered what had just happened, that Isawa Satomi, mentor and friend to Bin and uncle to his betrothed had summoned an oni which had killed several samurai at the castle and was now rampaging across Rokugan towards the Shadowlands.

It was quickly decided that they would head to the Phoenix Clan embassy where Satomi had been staying with his niece while in Toshi Ranbo. After a short, swift walk they arrived to find the guards asleep outside and two servants, apparently having coughed up their lungs, dead on the ground floor.

At the sound of a disturbance upstairs, the Magistrate and his investigators went upstairs but before they could intrude the paper shoji screens separating them from the room where the noises were emanating spontaneously burst into magical flames. Several investigators including Isawa Bin tried to climb out of one of the windows to circumvent the fire but Otaku Isauo ran round the back of the embassy and climbed the compound wall to get a clear look -and a clear shot- into the room. Seeing a figure holding a bloody knife she took a shot with her bow and pierced the figures wrist. Satomi turned snarling and bid the fire kami to inflict a terrible and crippling pain upon his attacker that saw her fall from the wall, writing in agony.

By this point, Isawa Bin and Kitsuki Akito had climbed back into the first floor room on the other side of the flaming screens but the person on the other side heard them. At this point, the spell causing the spell that was crippling Otaku Isauo subsided, and Satomi turned to Bin and Akito; the screens burst open revealing the Phoenix shugenja and the demon from Jigoku that he had summoned: Oni no Satomi. At over 9 feet tall, with black/red skin dripping in foul slime and three glowing red eyes the beast was truly terrible to behold but thankfully it seemed contained within the circle of powered bone on the floor. In front of it, lying on a table was a dead heimin, probably a servant, that had been cut open, presumably with the knife Satomi had been holding until Isauo shot it out of his hand.

Isawa Satomi turned to Isawa Bin and pleaded with him to help him. "Yes" Satomi said, "I summoned this monstrosity and for that I must die but not until I have banished this thing back to Jigoku; you must help me, I don't think I'm strong enough to do it by myself, he has bested me once before..."

Isawa Bin now had a dilemma. There was no doubt that the oni should be sent back to the hell from which it came but the only way to do so without possibly releasing the creature was by using maho and that was not something he was not willing to do. Although he refuse to help Satomi directly, he did offer to assist the shugenja by healing him

However, while the maho tsukai was preparing to banish the oni, Togashi Rogi, who had been hiding behind one of the shoji screens leapt out and attacked him; Satomi collapsed to the ground, seriously injured. At that point, the oni broke free it's prison and bounded across the room -injuring Isawa Bin and narrowly missing Kitsuki Akito before bursting through the walls of the embassy and out into the night.

The Emerald Magistrate then ordered the arrest of Isawa Satomi and Togashi Rogi. The Phoenix shugenja went willingly but the Dragon Clan monk refused to submit and left the building attempting to return to his clan's mountains but only got as far as the first city gate before being subdued and put under house arrest.

The following morning, after Rogi had made an attempt escape, the Magistrate ordered the monk to leave Toshi Ranbo and destroy the oni as his actions had led to the demon being unleashed on the Empire. Also, after seeing Isawa Satomi, Bin agreed to let Satomi commit sepukku? as Satomi's seniority and inter-clan relationships would make it difficult to convict him publicly of such a heinous crime.

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