Akane Takeshi
Akane Takeshi is the last living member of a swordsmen family that held the eastern gate for three critical minutes during the surge two years ago. Her parents and two older brothers bought the evacuation enough time with their lives, and now she carries their reforged katana — blade folded from the Sun-element core of a creature unlike anything in the guild bestiary, a bird of living flame that her father called beautiful even as it killed him — like she carries their names. Scarlet hair pulled back in the traditional style her mother taught her, movements precise enough to satisfy her father's ghost, stance perfect enough to honour her brothers' sacrifice.
Every instructor at the academy watches her differently. Some see the brilliance that runs in Takeshi blood — her blade work is textbook perfect, her forms flawless, her understanding of traditional technique unmatched among the cadets. Others watch for the breaking point, waiting to see if the weight of three deaths and a legacy crushes her or forges her stronger. She's determined to prove the answer is the latter, that the Takeshi sword school still matters in a world that's abandoned grace for brutal efficiency.
Felix and his greenhouse hobby, his unconventional halberd, his casual disregard for proper form — it all offends something fundamental in her. The weapon is ungainly where it should be elegant, practical where it should be artful, wrong in ways she struggles to articulate. Worse, he's good despite breaking every principle she was raised to revere, and that makes her furious. She needs to prove that honour and discipline still mean something, that her family didn't die defending traditions the world has already forgotten.