Mikokoro

The Gleeful Outcast of the Forest is what the others call them. Mikokoro was once a sentinel from a society of ice and discipline, where a smile was seen as a tactical flaw. For humming on watch and tending a lucky plant by the barracks, they were exiled, stripped of rank and purpose. The long journey south shredded their uniform but offered unexpected gifts: the taste of a sweet choc stick from a kind stranger and the freedom to laugh at the rain. When they finally stumbled into The Heart of the Forest, they found others who had been thrown away. Takeo saw not a failed soldier, but a spirit that had endured winter and learned how to bloom. The trusty katana is still theirs, but it defends a found family now, not just a cold fortress.