---Get your own Daisho
--Take to the roofs
You take a deep breath. There's a part of you, a large part that just sort of wants to sit here in shock. Death is nothing new, people die all the time, but you've never seem something this violent before. A broken nose and and a black eye is more your speed.
But these people killed her, killed a woman that for all of her reputation, wasn't evil. Hell, she was even willing to take you seriously when you came to her with a story of a bloodspeaker cell. No you wouldn't dishonour her by stealing her things...and touching the assassin's weapons seems like a good way to get poisoned.
So you leave the scene, and hurry as quick as you can back to the small shack on the outskirts of the city that serves as your 'home' it's not much, barely four walls and a door, but the price (free) is right. In the humid heat of the afternoon, you carefully move around the boxes that serve as furniture to reveal the daisho of your father.
It's a beautiful thing, even now aged, it's steel shines with an inner strength to you, the intricate saya work depicting a mantis overcoming a scorpion. You're pretty sure that's important, but what it means well...mother suggested something about becoming a man and you kind of tuned out after that.
Setting the daisho at your waist. You come out into the setting sun, Lady Moon is slowly rising along the horizon. The twilight makes your life both easier and harder. Easier because it's harder to see you from below, harder because night running has the irritating habit of making buildings look too far or too close in your experience.
Mindful of the distance you need to cover, you set a moderate pace and fall into the rhythm of running. Never too fast that you got winded, but never too slow that you didn't make any progress. Below you the people are out about. Hundreds of fortunes made and lost in a single night, loves won, and bitter partings, people in the prime of their lives, and old men nursing memories. Kyuden Gisei is alive at night in a way that you don't think any other Clan's capital could be. None of the other clans are as close to their people, none of the other clans have such a hunger for life.
The moonlit sky is the only guidance you have as you reach the dedicated palace district, where all the nobles of the Clan and the Emperor are no doubt beginning their 'winter court' festivities. The walls loom large, and the quiet lanterns moving about them warn you of guards. No doubt they're on extra high alert for obvious reasons..but well you can climb. Hmm, that doesn't feel right somehow.
Carefully you scale up the walls, reaching for handholds and toe holds that have only the barest of purchases. Were you anyone less skilled, this would be impossible. As it is, your arms burn from the effort as you hang right underneath the parapet. The sounds of people walking bye as you wait for the right moment to come over the edge.
When the footsteps fade, you pull yourself up over the ledge, landing with a quiet thump as you look around. The torches along the walls, are all just far enough to let you...in. There's no way this isn't intentional. Which of course explains why Mayu didn't trust her own Clan. Well that and being stabbed in the side.
Still you take advantage of the gap and clamber over to the other side of the walls, climbing down into the palace proper, you realize for the first time that you have absolutely no idea where the Seppun would be staying. You've never been in the palace proper, which means you kind of just have to wing it.
Yoritomo-no-kami don't fail you now!
While you were no ninja, a life time of running, thieving and generally being a no good punk serves as a good substitute that leaves you sticking to the shadows and bushes, as you make your way deeper and deeper into the palace. Seriously, all you saw were Mantis Samurai, where were the Seppun?
You hear something coming from one of the gardens...investigating reveals an older woman with an older man very much praying to Benten. You blush a little...didn't think anyone was that flexible. Although the woman looks a little familiar...maybe you saw it on a painting somewhere? Well the Crab mon on the pile of clothes beside her means it's probably not important.
Ignoring that, you find yourself search all over the Palace for signs of the Seppun, anywhere, and failing. That doesn't seem right. You understand that there's a limited number of them, but as you got closer to the central keep there should have been someone, right? Well unless they were all holed up in the keep for some reason...
You look up at the tall central tower. Outside it was relatively easy to hide in bushes and what not to avoid being seen. Going inside the keep would forfeit that, but it might be the only way to find them. On the other hand you could keep looking, you do remember a hulking giant of a man at one of the temples apparently praying. You can trust a monk right?
[] Go into the keep
[] Go talk to Giant Monk
[] Something else (Write in but be reasonable)
