Author: there was a mistake last chapter. Serika is high level 50s, not low 60s. I got the timeline mixed up, thinking she trained with the girls for months when Quinlan was away in Zhenwu... Yep, I know.
Now onto the story.
...
Kaede's body jolted upright with a ragged scream.
"Ghhh!!!"
Her chest heaved, eyes darting wildly around for the woman who had driven her sword through Kaede's heart. But there was no battlefield, no scent of iron, no echo of screams.
Only silence.
And the perfume of sakura drifted in through a half-open wooden frame.
She blinked several times until her vision finally adjusted to the atmospheric illumination of the paper lanterns lining the walls. She was home in Fujimori territory. Her clan's main estate.
This room was given to the acting clan leader.
