Sukaru had lived for over four hundred years. She saw little more than twenty rulers die; she had gotten used to it. It helped, perhaps, that she wasn’t necessarily considered a member of Kuro’s royal family—she was Yanami Sukaru, if many thought to even name her. That certain level of dissociation helped when she was bound to live a longer life than her relatives.
She always wanted to be rid of her obligations at Kuro no Shuto; she only left the damned place twice in her entire lifetime. Once to negotiate with Sólstaður on its terms of being freed due to Shunji having no interest, and when she came to Masaaki territory in their retreat. She envied the people who left—Masaaki Miya, even Kioshi.
The battle at Masaaki’s home was strange, in that Sukaru had never considered the end of her life until then. She had been put in charge of Shunji’s littlest two—she would have advised some other pairing, but Shunji was mad enough at the circumstances that he didn’t want to listen. Sukaru imagined she would have died, if that boy hadn’t stopped and turned away without lifting a blade against them.
She fled while they were still fighting, taking the two children with her. The forests around Masaaki’s territory were thick, and she correctly guessed that Gin’s forces wouldn’t try to pursue.
Sukaru found herself surrounded by kitsune for the first time. They were kinder than she would have thought, for creatures known as tricksters. A keen mind for strategies seemed to be common, whether or not those strategies were for battling. For once, her efforts were genuinely appreciated.
The battle happened in March. Come May, the kitsune of the forest started venturing a bit further out. Sukaru thought it save to go out as well, traveling away from Kuro no Shuto. She had no interest in ruling the kingdom, even if that meant losing it. She found herself a bit surprised that it wasn’t Kuro’s insistence on strength that made it fall; although, it could’ve been their pride instead.
Things fell into chaos shortly after. The people weren’t sure how to manage the kitsune on their own, and Sukaru was selfish enough that she didn’t want to take control of the kingdom. She felt no real obligation to, and she saw it more tactically sound. She didn’t have much schooling in actually ruling, because they never thought that she might outlive the rest.
So, in early June, she left Kuro entirely with Shunji’s youngest two children. Sukaru had a chance to make the family relatively normal, and she didn’t want to ignore it. Kurokami and Ginshin’s feud had ended.
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Kyoumi didn’t think things would fall as far as they did. Within months, Kuro no Ōkoku was reduced to a playground for creatures that could be seen singing and dancing from the other side of the river. She never imagined such disorder was possible, and perhaps making it worse was that it came across the border as well.
She hesitated to allow anyone who went east of the mountains back home, due to the quick loss of structure in the west. Kitsune crossed Hiroki’s fort out of sheer curiosity, tengu appeared more frequently and began to interfere with trade between the two sides of Gin.
Unsurprisingly, the blame fell on her. They just wanted someone to take responsibility, since the exact cause was a mystery. She wouldn’t have minded if it had come at a different time; they still had to manage the aftermath of the war and mourn for those they lost. The first matter of business when they returned to Gin no Shuto was to set up a memorial for Taiyo, yet Kyoumi wasn’t given enough time to fully process that her son was dead.
By July, there were few people living west of Gin’s mountains; they either went north or east, and regardless they weren’t fond of Kyoumi’s inaction. She already knew that mourning and responsibility didn’t mix well—there was only time for one or the other. She tried to explain that there was little she could do—she could do nothing to encourage the creatures to leave, save sending out people to actively drive them out—to no avail.
Given another month, and she began to read warnings mixed in with the regular reports. Any other ruler might look at the threats and decide to retaliate towards those sending them on the grounds of treason; Kyoumi, however, had no interest in entertaining the idea of fighting as the letters suggested.
Kyoumi decided that, if they were so dissatisfied that they would fight against her, she could prevent all the fighting and simply leave. Discussion with Sorai and Tsujihara Isei brought a similar conclusion, and Rei accepted it without much protest once his questions of where they would go and who might come with them were answered. They were only home for a few months before having to leave again.
Sólstaður allowed them to stay, even giving them a place to live in Byen Roken so Rei had a familiar face; one or two of the loyal servant or guard families came with them, although Fujita and Tsujihara initially stayed. The Tsujihara family came later, having tried to manage the people in Kyoumi’s absence and similarly being rejected, but took up residence farther away; the Fujita family came to Byen Roken specifically to announce that Gin ceased to exist as a unified nation, its attempt of self-government failing due to impatience and lack of proper knowledge.
It did frustrate her a bit—everything fell apart and she couldn’t do anything to fix it—yet the whole thing also didn’t bother her. It gave her time to grieve and consider things without having to worry about anything else. For once, she thought lightly of the situation.
Perhaps it could’ve ended some other way, considering the war, Taiyo, and what was left of Ginshin and Kurokami’s island. Yet Kyoumi recovered quickly than she thought she would have, due to having more time to sort out her thoughts and address them. She still didn’t like that she lost a family member along the way, but at least she could think back on the memories with him and not fall into regret.