Yoihime

Yoihime was a merchant. They sold imported silks in a respectable stall, believing the gilded streets of The Teikodian Empire could wash away their past. The shirt and tie were a costume of assimilation, a promise that the ways of Sourukipa's exiled tribe were behind them. But when the Imperial guard shoved the old frog vendor, spilling their wares across the marble, something older than commerce took over. Yoihime's hands, usually busy measuring fabric, moved with ancestral memory. The Mega Sabre, a relic carried for its weight rather than its purpose, was suddenly in their hand. Their fingers smeared ceremonial war paint across their face. The shock in their eyes was not for their opponent—it was for the warrior staring back from the reflection in the polished blade.