Aoshi

Aoshi is known for the kindest eyes in Waterfall City, yet they keep a ledger of names they intend to ruin. Years ago, they watched a powerful trade baron force their family from the upper city, leaving them with nothing but the spray from the falls below. Then came the smile, practiced in a cracked mirror until it held no trace of the past. These days, they run the most successful stall in the lower plaza, selling river pearls to the very chimps who watched their family fall. They know the shipping routes, the secret debts, and the whispers shared over rice wine. Every deal they make, every charming negotiation, is another stone laid on a path leading back up the rock stairs—not to reclaim a home, but to dismantle an empire from within.