Given the events of In the Palace of the Emerald Champion, it is entirely possible that Agasha Sumiko ends up in possession of Doji Satsume’s correspondence with his ‘friend and peer’ in Otosan Uchi regarding matters of Imperial succession.

When she confronts Bayushi Shoju for orchestrating a coup, does she suspect that it’s him? If so, then does she think that she had advance warning, even before Akodo Toturi was invested as the new Emerald Champion, but still didn’t see it coming or prevent it from happening?

No wonder she retires.

1 hour ago, Doji Hyōkin said:

Given the events of In the Palace of the Emerald Champion, it is entirely possible that Agasha Sumiko ends up in possession of Doji Satsume’s correspondence with his ‘friend and peer’ in Otosan Uchi regarding matters of Imperial succession.

When she confronts Bayushi Shoju for orchestrating a coup, does she suspect that it’s him? If so, then does she think that she had advance warning, even before Akodo Toturi was invested as the new Emerald Champion, but still didn’t see it coming or prevent it from happening?

No wonder she retires.

The additional information from the RPG certainly adds extra details to her decision. I've said before that I appreciate how the RPG is being treated more like an integral part of the setting and story rather than the tail being wagged by the dog of CCG storyline tournaments.

I suspect that we'll never actually know exactly what happened there so that there isn't a 'correct' way to run In the Palace of the Emerlad Champion.

On 9/23/2020 at 6:46 AM, Doji Hyōkin said:

When she confronts Bayushi Shoju for orchestrating a coup, does she suspect that it’s him? If so, then does she think that she had advance warning, even before Akodo Toturi was invested as the new Emerald Champion, but still didn’t see it coming or prevent it from happening?

When Shoju comes to her with the Edict, she agrees it's genuine - she knows her (new) bosses hand, and more importantly she has a rough idea what was supposed to happen - that Satsume though neither Prince was a fit emperor and had some sort of plan to deal with this.

A regency, held by Bayushi Shoju - who you may not like but was as close to a 'personal friend' as Emperors can have - sounds like the sort of thing Satsume might have cooked up. She might not have known the details of the plan, but she knew to expect something wildly unexpected, which is why (to Kakita Yoshi's shock) she didn't reflexively assume it was a forgery.

Would she think Shoju is the 'friend and peer?' - dunno. But I'm going to guess not, for three reasons:

1) 'friend and peer' murdered Satsume, and tried to kill her, to stop the recency ever happening. Whilst she and Toturi have sort-of-rationalised having the latter killed once he's already written the edict, killing off the man with the plan before he suggests it to anyone doesn't work if you want to be regent.

2) Satsume and Shoju weren't, as far as we know, friends, and for that matter weren't peers - at the time of writing, in a personal letter so sensitive you'd assume no third party would ever read it, Satsume was Emerald Champion (and no longer Crane champion) whilst Shoju is 'just' a Great Clan Champion with no imperial office.

3) when she's already accusing Shoju of basically the worst crime it's possible to imagine in the celestial order, even if she didn't want to talk about the Kolat to the court at large (e.g. Yoshi) for fear of sounding like a crazy person, I can't see her not mentioning that suspicion to Toturi privately - the Emerald Magistrature is fully aware the Kolat is real and the possibility one of them is regent is not something she'd keep to herself!