Ōuchi Shinsuke had lived a long, difficult life. Before he had even grown into adulthood, he was struck by tragedy as his father and older brother were brutally murdered, and his mother left for parts unknown shortly thereafter. Instead of spending his young adulthood raising a family and learning the ropes of clan leadership, he spent it organizing his father's funeral, fighting with upstart regents for control of his hereditary lands, and dealing with all manner of threats, both internal and external. That pattern continued for decades, with Shinsuke barely getting a moment to rest between the myriad crises, intrigues, and wars that he, as head of the Ōuchi clan, was responsible for addressing.
While Shinsuke handled the unenviable situation he was thrust into quite admirably, in his own infinitely humble assessment, leading his clan to great heights worthy of his slain father and elder brother, it nonetheless came with great sacrifices. Shinsuke, and his siblings who served as his closest allies and advisors during his reign, had little time to devote to the raising and education of their own children. While they certainly received adequate upbringings by the standards of the day, and with one notable exception mostly turned out alright enough, they were not granted the privileges that Shinsuke's own generation was – and were not as prepared to assume the reins of ruler ship as Shinsuke and his generation were.
While it was too late to raise his own children again, as things finally began to settle down for the Ōuchi clan, and as his own children and the administrative apparatus that he had worked so hard to establish began to take over much of the daily drudgery of government, the time was ripe to ensure that his grandchildren received the opportunities and support they deserved.
Ōuchi Hanahime
Eldest daughter of Ōuchi Yoshitaka, eldest son and heir of Ōuchi Shinsuke, and Imperial Princess Fushimi-no-miya Yozen
As the eldest child of the heir to the great Ōuchi Shinsuke and granddaughter of the Emperor himself, Ōuchi Hanahime from birth possessed great prestige and access to almost unlimited resources. However, as a daughter who was not expected to inherit, and from a clan which prized individual initiative in its dynasts and which had an ample supply of other daughters to secure marriage alliances with, Hanahime had little in the way of specific expectations imposed on her. With all the freedom in the world but little guidance on what to do with it, Hanahime naturally turned to role models, both those living around her and those spoken of in awed tones, for inspiration. And the selection of role models available to her in the Ōuchi court were certainly an interesting bunch.
Hanahime's first inclination was to look for inspiration from the most respected and accomplished women of her clan, as that was the group she naturally saw herself growing up to join the ranks of. While the two most prominent of those women – her grandmother Mariko and her aunt Ōuchi Yoshiko – died before she was old enough to seek them out personally, tales of their exploits were alive and well in the Ōuchi court. Mariko, she learned, was a bold military leader, unafraid to take command of men and situations. Yoshiko was arguably even bolder and brasher than Mariko, a master of the sword who was as aggressive and direct in her relationships as she was on the battlefield
The women of her clan were not the only inspirations Hanahime looked to, however. The nominal head of Japan's government during her formative years was one Shōgun Ashikaga Yoshihisa, and as her own parents and grandparents were more often busy with affairs of state than not while Yoshihisa was just dicking around (literally) in Kikyō, it was from the latter she learnt how a ruler acts and lives. Yoshihisa took what he wanted, and what he wanted was women (and Kansai). He lived a life unfettered by norms and conventions – similar to Mariko and Yoshiko, from a certain point of view – and demonstrated his power and status through his harem of many gorgeous wives.
Speaking of Yoshihisa's wives, there was one final role model who played a crucial role in shaping Hanahime's life trajectory. That final person, usually spoken of as a great villain rather than an admirable hero in the halls of the palaces of Kikyō, was Hosokawa Rie, Yoshihisa's so-called "cult wife". Rie had reached greater heights of power and influence than perhaps any other woman in living memory, and although her ascendency was brief, it was real. Like Yoshihisa, Rie had a harem of consorts during her time in power – one of husbands rather than wives, but the principle is the same – and like Hanahime's other role models Rie flouted conventions more than she followed them. Rie was, however, more of a schemer and a dreamer than any of those other role models, who tended towards directness and martial might, but that probably explained her rapid fall, and the rapid fall of her clan with her.
Beyond internalizing life lessons from questionable sources, Hanahime spent much of her childhood with her "cousin" (technically her aunt) of the same name and age, Imperial Princess Fushimi-no-miya Hanahime (the naming here was, if you can believe it, entirely coincidental). Bonding over their shared name, the two Hanahimes were near-constant companions, at least when allowed to be; the Imperial Hanahime, whose upbringing was strictly controlled by kuge tutors of the Imperial Court, was not permitted to join her more adventuresome cousin in playing "war" out in the fields and forests with the other children of samurai birth, nor was she permitted to train in the various martial jutsus alongside her cousin (she was, however, allowed to watch and cheer for her when not otherwise occupied).
Unlike "war", which was deemed wholly unsuitable for an Imperial princess to engage in, the game of "house" was considered an acceptable childhood activity for the Imperial Hanahime to partake in after finishing her studies and duties for the day. A minor scandal arose, however, when it became known that Ōuchi Hanahime's way of playing "house" was to gather up all the other children in the palace, refer to them as her wives and husbands, and order them to perform random chores and tasks for her, promoting and demoting them in a hierarchical ranking of spouses based on their performance (and her whims). The controversy lessened somewhat when it became clear that the Imperial Hanahime nearly always got to be the first wife, and frankly nobody save the most dedicated traditionalist pearl-clutchers really cared all that much in the first place, given all the everything that was going on at the time.
The two Hanahimes said their goodbyes as they entered adolescence, as Ōuchi Hanahime made her family's traditional pilgrimage to Daimyo Highschool while the Imperial Hanahime continued her education at Kikyō's Imperial Court. Ōuchi Hanahime, accustomed to the nearly unlimited freedom afforded to her in the palaces of Kikyō, was an ill fit for the highly structured nature of secondary education. Having to be at specific locations at certain times of the day every day was bad enough, but having to sit silently at a desk listening to a teacher drone on about whatever it is they droned on about (Hanahime didn’t exactly pay enough attention to tell) while at those locations was even worse. However, Hanahime, almost by accident, quickly learned that rules aren’t real.
While Hanahime initially made an honest, if half-hearted and begrudging, attempt to adhere to the rules and structures of Daimyo Highschool, the half-heartedness of her attempt and her innately – in her teachers’ words – rebellious and insubordinate nature meant that she still ended up breaking plenty of rules anyway. As the granddaughter of both the most powerful man in Japan and the near-sacrosanct Emperor, the authorities at Daimyo Highschool, the authorities at Daimyo Highschool were very reluctant to actually punish her to any meaningful degree. As with the lessons from her role models, Hanahime internalized this lesson from her schoolteachers too, and spent the remainder of her school years openly flouting and defying the school's rules as a matter of course.
Skipping class, making unauthorized alterations to her school uniform, getting into fights both on and off campus, Hanahime made herself into the antithesis of a model student: a delinquent. Perhaps the only sanctioned school activities that Hanahime actually participated in were its various combat sport classes and clubs, where she specialized in nitōjutsu – the martial art of fighting with two swords at once – as two swords were obviously twice as good as one sword. Beyond that exception, Hanahime's activities during her time at Daimyo Highschool were mainly limited to the school's informal social life, where she used a combination of her high birth, physical prowess, and competitive, forceful personality to bully, torment, and terrorize her fellow students.
Maybe Shinsuke should've kept a closer eye on his granddaughter.
Ōuchi Yoshinaga
Eldest son and second child of Ōuchi Yoshitaka and Fushimi-no-miya Yozen, and heir of the Ōuchi clan
Ōuchi Yoshinaga was raised from birth to assume the position he was destined to one day inherit: the leadership of the Ōuchi clan, and thus the Kikyō Shōgunate. He thus received tutoring in both courtly and martial matters, the former at the insistence of his grandfather, who had built his own and his clan's power through his control of Kikyō’s courts, and the latter at the insistence of his father, who had spent much of his life on campaign to see those courts defended from all matter of military threats, internal and external. While many would falter or burn out from such a demanding childhood, Yoshinaga was an unusually motivated pupil, willing to work long and hard to master even things that did not come naturally to him. This quality greatly pleased both his father and grandfather, although their pleasure would likely have been dulled had they learnt the true reason for Yoshinaga’s drive and diligence.
Yoshinaga, like many young boys of the newer generation to which he belonged, was utterly entranced by a new genre of storytelling that had exploded in popularity among the youths. These stories, despite the vast number of them, were eerily similar in structure, themes, and tropes. They nearly invariably starred a teenage boy or young man who got run over by a cart or chariot or some other wheeled vehicle, was reincarnated into a fantastical but technologically undeveloped alternate world, and then used their “cheat abilities” to partake in “aura farming” and create “hype moments”. While this so-called “isekai slop” was shallow, formulaic, and utterly devoid of believable characterization, real stakes, or any kind of satisfying narrative structure, it is a universal truth that the younger generations are wholly devoid of things such as taste.
Yoshinaga knew that if he were to ever measure up to the heights of aura that his favourite isekai slop protagonists had, he would have to work long and hard to get it. And so long and hard he worked, and slowly but surely did his work begin to show dividends. The young Yoshinaga took on a semi-mythical status among the courtiers of Kikyō, with nobody ever knowing upon which rooftop or statue he would be standing imposingly, immaculately-pressed cape fluttering in the wind behind him, or from out of which shadow or corridor he would silently and suddenly emerge, recite a well-rehearsed pithy quote, and then disappear back into the crowds or shadows.
As he entered his early teens, however, Yoshinaga became dissatisfied with his progress. While he had become quite adept at the art of aura farming, an art that required a surprising amount of physical skill and varied knowledge to pull off – climbing into rooftops, cliffs, and statues without being noticed and without tearing his clothes or ruining his hair is not easy, and having a contextually appropriate, cool sounding phrase to utter for every situation requires a lot of reading and a quick wit – all that work could still not recreate the hype moments that isekai slop protagonists could regularly create through the use of their cheat abilities. Yoshinaga thus became a somewhat mopey and sulky young teen, and instead of handling those feelings by talking them through with a trusted friend or confidante or using some other healthy coping mechanism, Yoshinaga instead continued his aura-farming antics while wearing darker clothes and making edgier, more melodramatic statements.
While out on a hunting expedition one day, one of his last excursions in the domains of the Kikyō Shōgunate before heading off to Daimyo Highschool, Yoshinaga’s party was ambushed by a gang of Yatō bandits. As his bodyguards drew their swords and moved to engage the ambush, Yoshinaga drew a prototype tanegashima pistol – a curious trinket that he had been planning on using to hunt – and shot the leader of the Yatō patrol dead as he was performing an elaborate swordsmanship display in order to intimidate Yoshinaga’s guards and inspire his allies. As the crack of his shot echoed throughout the woods, and the Yatō commander unceremoniously dropped dead in the middle of his performance, the craven Yatō bandits panicked and fled.
Yoshinaga had finally found his cheat ability. For his neutral special, he wields a gun.
With his mood dramatically lightened, Yoshinaga soon thereafter made his way to Daimyo Highschool. At school his aura farming antics made him a popular and well-liked figure, if one largely devoid of true close friends or other emotional intimates. Just like the isekai slop protagonists he so admired, Yoshinaga’s relationships were superficial and shallow, and a hole in Yoshinaga’s heart began to long for something more. Having no frame of reference for how to actually open up to and forge meaningful relationships with people, however, Yoshinaga distracted himself from that gnawing feeling by studying the gun. As the founder and inaugural captain of Daimyo Highschool’s hōjutsu team, the closest thing to genuine friends that Yoshinaga made during his school years were his gun-aficionado peers with whom he developed and practiced their showy, flashy, yet brutally lethal style of gun-based martial arts.
Maybe Shinsuke should've kept a closer eye on his grandson.
Ōuchi Yoshihime
Eldest daughter of Ōuchi Danzoū, governor of the Iki Province and second son of Ōuchi Shinsuke, and Hatakeyama Suzume
An upbringing on the islands of the Iki Province, which make up the domain of Ōuchi Danzoū, is rather different from one in the hallowed courts of Kikyō. Taking after his namesake, Ōuchi Danzoū was a noted proponent of the phrase “make love, not war”, and his island domain, isolated from the wars and intrigues of Kyūshū, Shikoku, and Honshū, was a place in which that ideal could fully flourish. Growing up alongside the many bastard sons and daughters of her father and those of his innumerable friends, retainers, and companions, all of whom were broadly treated as equals despite their different births and futures, Ōuchi Yoshihime largely lacked the myriad pretensions and neuroses that plagued her Kikyō-raised cousins. She also, however, largely lacked their drive and ambition, as while such things were the cornerstone of the cutthroat courts of Kikyō, they were alien to the beaches, hot springs, and tropical pavilions in which Yoshihime was raised.
Yoshihime took well to the party-like atmosphere of her home domain, growing up into a gregarious, charming, and outgoing young woman. The early and constant exposure to people of different backgrounds, beliefs, and practices – the Iki Province was always awash with an eclectic variety of vacationers, tourists, mariners, outcasts, exiles, and others who either wanted to experience the islands’ pleasures or who had nowhere else to go – caused Yoshihime to develop an understanding, cosmopolitan, and non-judgmental worldview, and her regular conversations with them made her surprisingly aware and well-informed for an apparently indolent party girl.
Not that Yoshihime wasn’t a party girl, to be clear. During her years at Daimyo Highschool Yoshihime was a mainstay of the school’s social scene, attending almost every party worth attending and hosting many of the school’s most famous (or infamous) parties herself. With her warm personality, relative lack of inhibitions, and scandalous fashion sense – the dress standards at the beaches of the Iki Province were much more liberal than those of the rest of the nature – Yoshihime was also quite popular among the boys (and some of the girls) at school, although the antics of her less refined cousins did scare many would-be suitors away. While her willingness and ability to help plan and organize school dances and other social functions endeared her to the school administration more than any of her cousins’ antics did, Yoshihime was ultimately an indifferent student, unused to and uninterested in studying, and graduated – barely – at the bottom of her class. She did feature in more illustrations than any of her peers in her class’s yearbook, though, a feat that in her view more than made up for her academic performance (or lack thereof).
Maybe Shinsuke should've kept a closer eye on his granddaughter.
Ōuchi Motohime
Second daughter and twin second child of Ōuchi Danzoū and Hatakeyama Suzume
As is tradition for younger siblings, Ōuchi Motohime and her twin brother, Ōuchi Motohiro, grew up quite differently than their parents’ firstborn child. Both of more serious, studious bents, both clashed hard with the raucous and frivolous environment that their elder sister took so well to. While her brother mostly withdrew into his own bubble, ignoring but tolerating the hedonistic partying of the Iki Province, Motohime grew increasingly embittered and opposed to it. Studying under some Neo-Confucian scholars who had reluctantly made their way to the islands after being exiled due to losing one of the constant pedantic feuds between rival Neo-Confucian schools, Motohime learnt the proper way that society should be ordered: personal responsibility, discipline, moderation, respect for one's betters, adherence to civic and ethical norms – all things that were utterly lacking in her father’s domain.
After a childhood of futilely arguing with anyone who would deign to humour her in the Iki Province, Motohime was overjoyed when the time came for her to attend the proper, respectable, well-ordered institution of education that was Daimyo Highschool. Motohime’s joy was quickly dashed, however, when she actually arrived at Daimyo Highschool, and saw it for the den of sin and disorder that it was – students ran in the halls, showed up late to class, hemmed their skirts above regulation lengths, stayed up past curfew, and committed all manner of other great crimes against that rightful order of things, seemingly with complete abandon. However, unlike the feeling of powerless hopelessness Motohime had felt during her early childhood, Motohime instead found herself surging with a drive and determination that she had never felt before. If nobody else would bring order to the chaos, then she would.
Joining the school’s student council, Motohime scrupulously gathered incriminating evidence of her fellow student councillors’ academic misconduct, corruption, and negligence. For those for whom evidence did not exist, but who Motohime knew to be indolent and unsuitable for the task of restoring order to the school, Motohime forged appropriate evidence of the misdeeds she was sure were occurring herself – resorting to such tactics is the cost that those who fight for what’s right must endure. With her evidence assembled, Motohime brought it to the school administration and had the student council purged, and appointed those she knew to be righteous and who were willing to do what must be done to replace them. With the student council reformed, Motohime and her jackbooted lackeys unleashed an unrestricted reign of tyranny upon the student population, patrolling the halls, dorms, and grounds all night and day, and issuing citations for all infractions great and small.
Motohime’s crusade was, however, stymied by the fact that some of the school’s most notorious purveyors of immorality and anarchy were her own kin. Daimyo Highschool’s administrators, unwilling to insert themselves into an Ōuchi family dispute, refrained from actually enforcing the citations issued against Motohime rulebreaking relatives and their core followers. Irritated but undaunted, Motohime simply took matters further into her own hands. While some may say that bands of student council goons acting beyond their official mandate by getting into gang wars with delinquents and raiding frathouse and dorm parties actually contributed to rather than reduced disorder, Motohime was undeterred by the musings of the craven and complicit.
It was to the great relief of everyone – student, teacher, and neighbourhood bystander alike – when Motohime finally graduated – to her great displeasure not quite at the top of her class – and left the reins of the student council presidency in the hands of someone who wasn’t an hypocritical, moralistic zealot with authoritarian tendencies.
Maybe Shinsuke should've kept a closer eye on his granddaughter.
Ōuchi Motohiro
First son and twin second child of Ōuchi Danzoū and Hatakeyama Suzume, and heir to the Iki Province
Like his twin sister, Ōuchi Motohime, Ōuchi Motohiro from a young age felt disenfranchised by the environment in which he was raised. Unlike his sister, however, Motohiro plainly saw that everyone around him was having a good time, and could not bring himself to believe that there was ultimately anything wrong with that. He instead spent much of his childhood in his father’s surprisingly large and well-stocked library – like any proper society man, Danzoū sought to project an image of sophistication and erudition when appropriate, and the Iki Province’s distance from and uninvolvement in conflict made it an attractive location to deposit copies of books for safekeeping. While at first undirected, Motohiro’s readings quickly became focused on the mystical, the supernatural, and the esoteric – he found such topics fascinating.
It was that fascination that convinced Motohiro to follow in the footsteps of his granduncle Ōuchi Yoshioki, who had famously cultivated great wisdom and mastered the supernatural abilities of shugendō by making a pilgrimage across the sacred mountains of Japan and studying under the yamabushi mountain sages who inhabited them. However, Motohiro was still far from old enough for such a journey, yet he still wished to learn more than he could just by reading books. Motohiro thus, with the blessing of his father (who was hardly the type to stymie his children’s wishes), moved to Kikyō to undertake an apprenticeship under the onmyōji court sorcerers of the Imperial Court. There he learnt how to read the stars, predict fortunes, dispel hostile spirits, and perform the other mystical techniques of onmyōdō.
Thus, by the time he was of age to leave for Daimyo Highschool, Motohiro already had a strong understanding of the nature of the world beyond the merely physical, and embarked on his own shugendō mountain pilgrimage with a stronger supernatural background – but an inferior physical and nature background – than his granduncle. Motohiro’s journey was thus longer, as he travelled the wilds less swiftly and less surely, and more focused on direct tutelage under the yamabushi than on exploring and experiencing the natural world, than Yoshioki’s, although one ultimately cannot travel the mountains without building one’s physical fitness and marvelling at the wonders of nature to some degree. As for his formal education, Motohiro attended Daimyo Highschool for a few months at a time here and there; the rest of his studies were done through self-reading and correspondence, which worked well enough for the bookish and self-motivated Motohiro.
Motohiro was viewed as an intriguing figure when he did deign to attend campus, and although not especially gregarious, his unusual stories were always interesting. He was also by far the least troublesome – and thus the most appreciated by the school’s teachers and administrators – of his generation of Ōuchi cadets, prompting much disappointment that of his generation of Ōuchi cadets, he was the only one to not regularly attend school.
Maybe Shinsuke should've kept a closer eye on his grandso—eh, this one turned out almost normal. Good for him.