Koyaka

Koyaka keeps a running tally of how many times the new recruits fall for the same feint. Three times this morning, a record. The sparring circle inside the Teikodian Empire’s gleaming walls is meant for learning fundamentals, but Koyaka’s fundamentals were honed over twenty years on a border wall so remote it was eventually erased from imperial maps. When their post was decommissioned, so was their rank. The official summons read “reassignment,” but the clerk, baffled by their file, just stamped it “trainee.” They could have fought it, but Koyaka found the whole situation hilarious. These days, they treat the rigid drills and earnest recruits as a game, dodging polished attacks with the ease of one who has faced far worse in harsher winds. They are the capital's strangest puzzle: a trainee with a veteran's bandana and eyes that have already seen the end of the world.