Kasumi

Kasumi dragged the flat of their blade across a whetstone, the rhythmic scrape a strange song against the wind howling through the valley's colossal bones. The pink yukata they wore was a cruel joke from a life of tea ceremonies and political poetry, now tattered and stained with swamp mud. They were sent on a “diplomatic mission” to this scorched plateau, a polite form of exile meant to break them. At first, they nearly were. Every night, stories of Yaban-hito’s savagery haunted their sleep. But survival is a startling teacher. The war paint, once a clumsy copy of a mercenary's scowl, is now applied with ritual precision. The grin they wear feels less like a mask and more like their own face. The noble was supposed to perish here; instead, something far more dangerous is learning to hunt.