Since I heard the news of Yaso’s passing I had not been able to sleep well. Tokio and I had now been married 5 months and living in Tokyo for over a year. My job with Teru-hime was to guard her and Tokio as Teru-hime went around doing official business in Tokyo while Tokio was her lady in waiting. Tokio was always a beautiful woman who could turn heads but she was also a well learned woman who from childhood studied Ikebana, Japanese Calligraphy, the sciences and all the traditional arts of our time. Although she had noble bearing, she had a bullish streak that reared itself from time to time but can make herself demure when she wanted to or if the occasion called for it. She was inadequate with a weapon but certainly wanted to wield one and showed interest in the men and women who wielded it but her status as an assistant to the princess meant many men would first die at her feet defending her and the Princess before she ever wielded the tanto that was traditionally kept in the folds of her elaborate kimono.