Suzu Ooki

Suzu’s life seemed to begin with hardship. Her family had to send her away for money, she was caught in a shoku on her way to her new residence, and then found floating in the ocean of the Twelve Kingdoms. When she awoke and couldn’t understand the language, she knew she wasn’t home. A Shusei troupe was given custody of her and she traveled with them, still unable to communicate and doubly unable to perform. Her tasks were medial: washing clothes, animals, cleaning. One day she was pushed the stage to buy time while the troupe tried to prepare a show for Riyou, a Sen-nin in the kingdom of Sai. The only song Suzu was able to perform was one her father used to sing. But as soon as she started, Riyou interrupted her and started to leave. Because Suzu was able to understand her, she begged to be taken in as her servant. Riyou accepted and renamed her Honma, which means ‘pathetic woman.’ As soon as she was registered as a Sen-nin and this became clear to her, Suzu’s life went downhill. She served Riyou for a hundred miserable years because she was afraid leaving would remove her from the contract of immortals.

When Taiki returned to Mt. Hou, Suzu went to speak with him about Japan. Unfortunately, Sanshi attacked her and she was exiled from Mt. Hou. This embarrassed Riyou and made Suzu’s life even harder. But she didn’t stop her attempts for freedom there. When she heard the new queen of Kei was a taika, she wanted to meet Youko so badly she even had scary dreams about her. After breaking a valuable vase and being told her only way to make up for it was to gather a rare herb from the mountains, Suzu escaped to the royal palace and was taken in by the queen. The queen thought Suzu was much too spoiled and needed to mature, so she gave her a travelling pass, money and sent her on her way. Suzu headed for Kei.

Along the way she met Asano, who was with the same Shusei troupe that Youko had traveled with, the leader of which Suzu had known as a child. Suzu asked Asano to come with her to meet Youko and, after some crazy visions by Asano, he joined her. Onboard the boat, Suzu met a sickly waif named Seishuu. She constantly told him that he couldn’t understand the suffering of kaikyaku but he said he could because his life had been nothing but misfortune. Suzu cared for him and wanted to take him to Youko’s palace so that he could be healed. Unfortunately, he was killed, but not before he helped Suzu to realize that other people in the world suffer just as much as she did. Angered by his death and hating herself for it, Suzu joined Koshou and Sekki’s rebellion. Before that, she purchased a touki weapon and managed to gain access to the royal palace, thanks to her travelling pass. But Youko wasn’t there, so she left and went to Shoukou’s manner. After killing Shoukou, she was going to kill Youko. (Irony: she’d met Youko at this point but didn’t know it.) But Shoukei convinced her that it would be wrong of her and that Youko would never have ordered the boy to be killed. Renewed and in love with Youko once again, Suzu fought in the rebellion and was invited to the royal palace with Shoukei after its end. [From Phenomenal: A Twelve Kongdoms Fansite.]