A topic from AEG's L5R CCG Rules forum, copied for Oracle of the Void from a copy of the forum saved in October 2015, so pages it didn't save are missing. Players' names are left out; the rules officials are named. Rulings are as they stood on these dates; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.
A player, 18 October 2007
So I searched for (specifically) rulings concerning bayushi hisako, and didn't find anything. Since I have the same question with bayushi takuro, I thought it's worth asking now.
My question is, can you use bayushi hisako's (or bayushi takuro's) reaction ability if they were bowed when they were destroyed? Both cards start with "After [cardname] is destroyed..." Since cards in the discard piles don't have bowed/unbowed status, it would seem that they should be able to use their death reactions even if they're bowed when they die. Is this the case?
Martin Lund (rules official), 18 October 2007
So I searched for (specifically) rulings concerning bayushi hisako, and didn't find anything. Since I have the same question with bayushi takuro, I thought it's worth asking now.
My question is, can you use bayushi hisako's (or bayushi takuro's) reaction ability if they were bowed when they were destroyed? Both cards start with "After [cardname] is destroyed..." Since cards in the discard piles don't have bowed/unbowed status, it would seem that they should be able to use their death reactions even if they're bowed when they die. Is this the case?
"Cards enter discard piles face-up."
As per the Comprehensive Rules entry for the Discard Pile.
So you don't have to worry about not using their abilities due to them being bowed - assuming they have text that indicated you can use the ability even while they are not in play (like Hisako does).