Generation 2 - Bullet Points
[Trigger Warning: Non-consensual sex, drugs-use, incest]
Enter Hantei Kaia, the second child of Hantei Kanpeki and Otomo Misaki; a hit at winter court with delusions of grandeur and an arrogant streak that makes others wonder if she thinks she’s better than the empress herself. Secret not-so-secret: she does believe the Hantei line is better and deserves to be on the throne, but her plans to get that don’t involve any sort of overthrow.
Kaia knows she’s a bombshell, and Toturi Taro, the heir to the Empress’ throne, is a playboy. He has at least 3 girlfriends at every court and several more hanging on his arm, and he has no problem flirting with all of them. Currently, his eyes are on Shika Sakura, an emerald magistrate from the Deer clan who is as soft as she is cute.
Taro also has a habit of getting in trouble, and Kaia’s been stalking him while he runs out to play ronin-hero, with his exhausted cousin and Yojimbo (bodyguard), Yasu in tow. They run into her in town when they are attacked by bandits, and she rescues them, in a full stealth suit so they don’t recognize her, with an uncharacteristically large axe.
Some less than savory magical shenanigans at Winter Court throw Kaia and Taro together at various points, and they mostly bicker, but in one particular event, Taro decides to take advantage. He fucks Kaia against her will, thinking everything would reset once they were back in the real world, but Kaia comes back to the real world aware and enraged.
At first, Kaia is mad--but then, Kaia decides she’s going to get even. The Hantei girl wants to be empress, and Toturi Taro is gonna be emperor. So she meets Taro for tea and tells him that he has 2 choices: announce his intention to marry her at next Winter Court and make her Empress, or she will out him as a rapist--and while her voice may not have weight against his, the scandal alone will cause a rift his mother, Empress Izamiya, will have to answer to. He agrees, but is angry about it.
During one of his fits, he rushes off and gets himself in trouble, ditching his Yojimbo, Yasu, and putting himself in danger. When Yasu reports back, Izamiya is forced to take action. The Empress strips him of his rank temporarily for a Musha Shugyo--a warrior’s pilgrimage--in which he loses his name and takes a year off as a ronin to get his shit together.
Hearing this, Kaia asks her father to let her chase after him, to keep him safe should he decide to do something stupid. She proceeds to start stalking him during his trips and keeping him safe, where they both end up traveling with the ever-flirtatious Yasuki Chiare and Shosuro Izanami. Kaia, is, of course, the belle of the ball, and Taro is irritated about how jealous he is, while simultaneously mad at her for ruining his life and trapping him.
While they grow on each other over time, their eventual marriage is a rocky one, in which Kaia and he both flirt with other people to upset one another. As an Imperial couple, they are powerful, but not as even-tempered as Toturi IV and her court. They give birth to 4 children, and Kaia hides one away just in case.
Tomohiro is the eldest and heir to the seat of the Spider Clan Champion. He’s tempered like his father--stoic, quiet--but kind like his Mother, and passionate like his uncle underneath it all. Shortly before Kaia takes off to hunt down Taro, Matsu Kentaro shows up at Otosan uchi to escape his father.
Kentaro is like a cousin to everyone in the Spider palace, as he spends much time here with his adopted father-figure, Toku Senzan, since his own father is losing the battle to some mental illness that nobody speaks of out loud, but everyone in the castle knows is the Taint.
Kentaro flirts with the girls at the castle for a bit before he gets bored and decides to move on before his father summons him back, and Kanpeki orders Tomohiro to accompany him to keep him safe.
They proceed to wander the countryside for a bit, running into Utaku Callus, the only son of the Shogun Utaku Naomi, whom Kentaro proceeds to flirt with shamelessly. Callus quickly falls head over heels for the lion boy.
While up on the Dragon mountains during their trip, they run into the Ronin Itsuki and her peasant girlfriend, Karin. They end up traveling together for a short bit, both trying to become unlost from the mountain, and Tomohiro and Itsuki are butting heads constantly. The Ronin hates samurai, and she’s not quiet about it, and she enjoys taunting Tomohiro with flirtatious outbursts to make him uncomfortable because he seems to be a stiff.
They end up hitting a strange hole in the Senkyo and passing through, unexpectedly, into the Land of Earth and Sky--where Karin learns to speak with ghosts and is chosen by an Ujik death god. The five of them slowly make their way back to Spider lands, with Itsuki and Tomohiro growing more and more irritated with one another, and Callus falling further in love with Kentaro. Over the course of the walk, Tomohiro snaps during one of Itsuki’s flirtations and kisses her. After that, he becomes obsessed. He determines that he doesn’t want to be married to anyone else.
When he gets back, he tells his parents, and they are frustrated and try to talk him out of it. The heir to the house marrying a ronin is unheard of. But, Mitsuki is a sucker for a love story, and eventually gives in; after all, Tomohiro won’t marry anyone else. She invites Karin and Itsuki to Otosan Uchi, and plies Karin with gifts to bribe her to stay and allow Tomohiro to woo Itsuki. Karin, in love with Itsuki, is unthreatened by Tomohiro’s advances. She can see Itsuki’s grown attracted to him physically, but Karin is asexual and has no problem with her girlfriend being sexually attracted to another person. Tomohiro does eventually convince Itsuki to marry him, mostly through insisting that she’d have a better chance of helping the peasantry from the position of clan champion, and Itsuki realizing that the Spider clan actually is fairly good to its non-samurai denizens.
They are married, and have 4 children--quadruplets, on account of a Unicorn midwife, sent by Itsuki’s father, who only recently discovered her and has been bothersome in trying to reestablish a connection since he never knew she existed, as her mother kept her a secret and gave her away.
Sachihiro, Sukiya, and Hideo decide that after Kaia and Tomohiro have gone off on their respective adventures, it is their turn! Most of it is ridiculous sleuthing and causing more trouble than they are worth, but over the course of their adventures, Sachihiro figures out that she doesn’t really feel like a he, but she doesn’t know how to deal with that with her two brothers around. They don’t adjust well to change.
She returns home and asks her mother for advice, and Mitsuki arranges a temporary adoption to the Mantis under Yoritomo Raishen so she can test out being a girl for a year without anyone to interfere, and see how it feels. If she decides to return and declare herself a female, the family will abide by that choice.
Sachihiro is adopted out as a Yoritomo, with excuses given to her brothers as to why they shouldn’t go with her and should give her space. This does not stop them from showing up at a Mantis party six months later the first time they can sneak it, and finding Sachihiro living there as a girl. While both of them are confused, and misgender her frequently out of habit, they immediately start to adjust their expectations and have no problem with the change. After all, Aunt Fujiro was also trans.
Nariko meets her significant other in Shinomen, where she and 3 others get trapped in an ancient ruin. Stuck close with Nekhi for about 5 days down there, barely surviving pit traps and gasses and getting saved more than once grows a fondness for the Utaku boy. She’s wholly unaware of exactly how perverse Nekhi is, as most of his affections were taken out on her unconscious form.
When he seeks to marry her later, she is quick to accept. Their marriage is passionate for a while, but Nekhi loathes stagnation, and Nariko is soon to become Castellan to the Emperor & Empress. His travel habits put serious stress on the relationship, because Nariko does not like being left alone.
They have triplets, identical boys.
Seichi is born with a blessing and a curse of being touched by the void. The phoenix insist on his training, and he is fostered to them at a young age, but Mitsuki is abundantly clear that Seichi spends his Winters at home.
Seichi is also a sociopath. His ability to see every outcome of a solution and turn back time lends a certain amount of freedom to his choices. He frequently uses these powers to have sex with people whom he might get in trouble with, rewind out of the situation, and avoid all consequence. This extends to almost every female member of his family, and some effeminate males. Except his mother.
He runs into Doji Gorou at court and quickly finds him interesting. He proceeds to start testing the waters with him, and finds out quickly that the boy is into semi-public humiliation. Almost being caught. Seichi has no problem leaning into this, and they are soon in a very one-sided relationship that the Doji masochist would never admit to enjoying.
Seichi dutifully grows up to marry a Kitsuki woman who gives him 3 children before dying of illness.
Gorou dutifully marries out to a Yogo woman and births 5 children. 3 triplets.
Shosuro Yasu is a dutiful son to Shosuro Hide & Akodo Tao Shih. He is Yojimbo to the heir apparent and also kind of spies on his best friend for his mom to keep him out of trouble. He also is very subservient to Taro, and has definitely given him head before when Taro asked, although both of them decided that wasn’t really their cup of tea.
Taking care of Taro gets Yasu into a lot of weird situations, some of which weirder than others, but on the time he met Katsuro, they had been shunted into Yume-do into an alternate timeline to learn a piece of information. His first experiences with Katsuro was that the Agasha boy had no survival instinct. If there were books, or research, or information to be found, Katsuro walked toward it without any consideration of his own safety.
Agasha Katsuro is the son of the Master of Air, Agasha Isei, and his weird wife, Yogo Kohaku. His mother’s weird way of interacting with the world had obviously rubbed off on Katsuro. Yasu found himself quickly overprotective, and then infatuated, but the boy didn’t understand.
It wasn’t until they had interacted several more times, and Yasu blatantly expressed his feelings and fucked Katsuro, that the phoenix boy seemed to understand. But this change in perspective, like all hyperfixations for Katsuro, was not a trickle, but a waterfall, and Yasu soon found himself to be the center of Katsuro’s attention without any regard to who was watching.
It took all of Yasu’s considerable sneaking to keep Katsuro and his relationship a secret, because there was no way they could feasibly be together. Katsuro was engaged--an arranged marriage by his parents at the behest of the Phoenix, since he was sensitive to the void, and Yasu had a duty to his family as well.
Yasu was married to Toturi Hatsu, Taro’s younger sister and his friend, and they produced one child. Katsuro was married to a phoenix woman of lesbian inclination, and they produced no children, because the thought of anyone but Yasu touching him made Katsuro physically ill. Yasu and Katsuro are still very much in a relationship, and steal time away for each other whenever they are near one another. Katsuro has gotten only slightly better at hiding his affection for his lover in court scenarios, and Yasu still has to dodge Katsuro if there are too many prying eyes about.
Bayushi Mami is one of 3 sisters, children of Bayushi Shoraku & Tsuruchi Yuuta. She is a young yoriki training to be an Emerald Magistrate when she meets Shika Sakura, who is likewise in training, along with several others like Kaito Akemi & Togashi Tetsuo, Doji Izanagi & Kenzo.
Shika Sakura is the daughter of the heroes Shika Yoshiro & Mareko, who travelled from another plane of existence and helped defeat Kalima, and were married at the Winter Court under Toturi IV. She is also a yoriki training to become an Emerald Magistrate
Over the course of their work and adventures, Mami falls in love with the demisexual and demiromantic Sakura. Much faster than the young Shika matchmaker falls for her. But with time, they become a couple, and are both promoted to Emerald Magistrates.
After working with Tsuruchi Hiyori on several cases, Sakura convinces Mami to add them to their relationship, seeing the binding threads between the three of them.
They give birth to 4 children between them. 1 between Hiyori and Mami and 3 between Hiyori and Sakura. While Sakura and Hiyori are married officially, it is the worst-kept secret that the three of them are acting as if they are married, separated only when work calls them away.
Shortly after her children are born, Shika Sakura is promoted to Jade Champion.
There isn’t a lot of story here yet. It’s placeholder.
At the Topaz Championship, there are two women there for very different reasons.
Doji Hitomu is a high class crane, and the championships are being held at the Doji Palace this year. She’s a spectator, and an elite one, being the eldest daughter of the hero Yukimaru, the man who walked alongside the Fortune of Heroes herself. She’s spoiled, and rich, and entitled. She never gets told no--and she never would ask for something she thought someone might refuse her.
Ikoma Haineko is the eldest daughter of the Lion Clan Champion, Ikoma Junonosuke. She’s here to compete for her entry into Gempukku, because she’s of the opinion that she is the best of the best. She’s a tall woman, a Bushi who will one day be a strong commander, with a touch of spirit blood passed down from her father that makes her red hair radiant, and her sapphire eyes sparkle.
Seeing her enter the ring, Hitomu decides right there and then that she is going to marry her, and nobody will tell her otherwise. She proceeds to start flirting with Haineko--subtly, at first, and then more insistently when she doesn’t get it. After Haineko wins, she sends her poetry and love letters, and Haineko returns them.
When her father retires and she ascends to head of the family and Clan Champion, Haineko summons the Ikoma family army and marches on Doji lands, making every crane sweat profusely. She proposes to Hitomu, and asks permission of Hitomu’s parents, with the added threat that she had no intention of not leaving with her bride.
They are married shortly after in an expensive and extravagant wedding, where both the lion clan and the crane clan were trying to outdo each other on the provisions.
Doji Kenzo and Izanagi are both chosen as Yoriki to fill out the Emerald Magistrate ranks. Doji Kenzo, a pacifist, is deeply upset that his life is now one of handling criminals and not in the courts. Izanagi, a spy, is happy to have access to the vast traveling network and perks of the Magistrate title.
Doji Kenzo begins to realize he is very gay when another magistrate hits on him and he responds. He also realizes quickly that he is a thirsty gay, and that hot men who hit on him pretty much get away with doing anything they want.
Izanagi realizes this, too, and he begins to get jealous and possessive. It isn’t too long into it that Izanagi insists they should be exclusive to one another after confessing his feelings. Of course, they have been raised together, but neither of them knows how closely they are related, since officially, Kenzo’s mother is Daidoji Diya, but unofficially, they both share the same mother with different fathers.
Izanagi does dutifully get married and birth 3 children with a crane wife, but Kenzo’s fiance options dry up the moment they start to get close--disappearing or giving up shortly into the courtship. He comes to be known as cursed.
Togashi Tetsuo and Kaito Akemi meet as Yoriki to the same Emerald Magistrate. They work together closely, and are an amazingly powerful duo. Tetsuo’s physical strength and Akemi’s command of the supernatural and her bow & arrow are complementary.
Togashi Tetsuo is son to Togashi Miya and Hantei Iba. While he knows his father, he knows him only from his brief visits where he harrasses his mother, and he resents and despises him for it. His proper father figure is the ronin Yuugiro, Miya’s best friend. Tetsuo keeps his underlying rage caged tightly inside him.
Kaito Akemi is one of 3 orphans adopted by Kaito Reiji and Asahina Tomoriki. Her parents were… more than a little exuberant about their affection for one another, and Akemi responded by becoming painfully shy about sexual things and frightened of them.
Tetsuo is quickly attracted to Akemi, and wants nothing more than to hold her down and mark her, but can’t stand the idea of being like his father or causing Akemi harm. He comes into possession of a Numeranai (magical item) that allows him to enter a meditative trance to play out his fantasies, which gives him patience.
It isn’t until a strange occurrence where they are forced to perform a sexual act to get past a supernatural puzzle that Tetsuo and Akemi first start to break that barrier. After that, Akemi becomes more and more comfortable with Tetsuo’s affection.
They eventually grow up and are happily married, producing 3 children--2 twins.
Ju’nichi is the eldest adopted orphan of Kaito Reiji and Asahina Tomoriki, and well on his way to earning the title of Master of Water at a young age in his career. He’s a nice boy on the outside, with a bit of a darker thirst that resides under the surface.
Usagi Yoko is a young Hare Clan Samurai. One of 3 triplets, she and her brother Ayaki are very close to identical, while their other brother, Minoru, seems to have stolen all their height from the two of them. Trained as a Moshi Sun Sentinel, Yoko is a powerful warrior shugenja, but a reckless girl. Shortly after Gempukku, she rushed after a group of bandits and was struck upside the head hard enough to lose her hearing. She was almost sold into slavery before Minoru came to her rescue. Since then, she’s been shaky about fights, but she engages them anyway, and she can only barely hear.
Ju’nichi and Yoko meet on an investigation, and Ju’nichi immediately falls for her. He’s quick to court her, and Yoko, while embarrassed, does not deflect the courtship.
When Ju’nichi asks for Yoko’s hand in marriage, the Hare begrudgingly agree to give her up for compensation. The two of them are happily married, and live a very boring life if one asked Yoko, although Ju’nichi has a tendency to have his own fun with her using drugs and medications. Yoko suspects things are going on, but is happy not to know the details.
Kaito Daichi is the middle son of Kaito Reiji and Asahina Tomoriki, and he is blessed with being touched by the void. He spent his young life being trained and groomed for the position of Master of Void, and is polite and well-mannered and listens to his elders. He is happy to reside in his cage and sing politely.
Yasuki Chiare is the eldest son of Yoritomo Vihaan and Yasuki Tomi. He is able to hear kami--so he should have been a shugenja. He lied about it because he wanted to be a Bushi, and nobody found out about it until he was well-past Gempukku age. He doesn’t like cages, doesn’t like being told what to do, and is well on his way to infamy, just like his father--one of the greatest Pirates of all time.
Chiare meets Daichi when Akemi drags him into a rescue mission. Daichi is trapped in a pocket of the Void, dragged there by the Nothing to unmake him. The group of would-be rescuers wander through a sick torture chamber meant to hold Daichi inside, and eventually drag him out.
Chiare is a flirt, and a manwhore, but becomes immediately protective over the young, sweet Phoenix. He starts to hang around him, follow him around, and, of course, flirt with him. Daichi doesn’t know what to do about this at first. Chiare is very forward, and he doesn’t mind that, but it’s also very embarrassing.
They do become a couple, and Chiare is not one to marry anyone other than the one he loves. It’s a struggle to convince the phoenix clan to allow a Void shugenja to marry an outsider, especially in a homosexual union. They agree to surrogate children, and Chiare asks his cousin, Yasuki Kaoru, to surrogate. They have 4 children, 2 of which are twins, and are ridiculously in love and happily married.
Sadie is the eldest daughter of Utaku Naomi, the shogun and the Utaku family Daimyo. She has a lot to live up to, and recently, on a trip, was attacked by bandits. Her horse, Fira, was killed in the skirmish. She hasn’t been home in near a year since the story began, too scared to show up without her Utaku steed. Fira still accompanies her, giving her certain powers as a friendly ghost with a fiery bent, taking care of her.
Batu is an animal spirit of the horse variety. He’s currently out of Chikusho-do, his home realm, puttering around and enjoying himself, unsure what he’s going to do with his young life.
Sadie meets Batu when Batu is being set upon by bandits, and, in a fit of ptsd, kills all of them before they can harm him. She comes out of the exchange worse for wear, so Batu picks her up and carries her to a healer. He remains in horse form, but is far more intelligent, even, than an Utaku steed, who are far and above an average animal.
Sadie, after being tended to by a medic of a small town she is dragged to, comes to to find this strange horse kind of following her and looking after her. At first, she tries to set him free, but free he refuses to be. It takes her a while to accept Batu’s company, but eventually, they begin working together. She even starts riding him.
Batu, of course, is not just an average horse. Batu is very much in love with the Battlemaiden who saved him, and has no intention of going anywhere.
They work alongside one another for years before Batu reveals his human form in earnest, although a few times she meets him as a stranger passing in the night when her horse is missing. He’s usually far too forward, and Sadie is confused by his flirtations.
Eventually, Batu reveals himself to Sadie. Sadie is already head over heels for him, but didn’t want to admit to having fallen in love with a horse. While marriage is a bit strange to a spirit of Chikusho-do, Utaku women always take husbands who are lower status than they are. They work to get him acknowledged as a Unicorn samurai, and they are wed. They have 5 children, since Sadie needs a female heir, and she produces 4 boys first.
Utaku Calus is the only male in the quadruplet birth of the Shogun’s children, and as such, he’s not allowed to ride horses into battle. He has been brought up to take care of them, as a stablemaster, and he finds himself drawn to animals as a whole. This is why his mother gifted him Hida-chan--her pet riding bear. While the bear is well into his age, he still has a few more years living as Calus’ mount and his best friend.
Kentaro is the only son of Matsu Tadashi and Matsu Kagome, and the heir to the family Matsu. He’s a brilliant mind and tactician, but Tadashi’s mind is well-worn with holding back the taint, and his father is abusive. His mother is long-since dead, and the only wholesome family relations he has are with the visiting Toku Senzan, who acts as a secondary father figure when he comes to visit Tadashi. Kentaro is aware that Senzan and Tadashi are in love, but he hates his father for his abuses and cannot reconcile this well with his affection for the calm and loving Senzan. He frequently runs away from home, only to end up in Otosan Uchi--the Spider keep, where Senzan stays as an advisor.
The two meet while Kentaro is on one of his signature escapades from home. Tomohiro is in tow and they end up on a long trip that takes them all the way through the Land of Earth & Sky. Kentaro, the whole time, has flirted with and seduced the young and ultimately innocent Utaku Calus, not really thinking about any sort of consequence to his actions. Kentaro, after all, does like Calus. He just also likes every cute woman and cute man he comes across, too, and he’s not particularly interested in stopping that.
At first, the relationship is great. Callus and Kentaro are around each other enough that Calus is Kentaro’s whole world, and he’s not particularly interested in cheating. A few times, he falls into bed with someone while away, but it’s never a big deal. He seeks marriage with the boy, even, and while the Shogun turns up her nose at the idea of a Lion husband for her boy, even Naomi can’t manage to say no when Calus begs her and cries that he’s in love and nothing else will ever do. She can see that her son isn’t going to produce children even if she marries him for politics to a woman--he’s just… a little too gay.
They are married at a very young age. The marriage is a small event for the parties involved, with only close friends and family invited. Neither Naomi nor Tadashi want to advertise the homosexual nature of their children’s union for different reasons. Tadashi is concerned about losing control of the Matsu clan with lack of an heir--though he must admit he had lost it long ago if he is being honest with himself--and Naomi’s family’s traditionalism bears its fangs against not doing your duty. Homosexual relationships are for lovers and affairs, not for marriages. Marriages are for politics and children. She had married a bisexual man she did not love, and they had produced heirs as was proper. He had a male lover and she went to her warband, as was proper. This wasn’t proper.
Kentaro forces his father into retirement shortly after marriage. As much as he hates him, the purpose of this retirement is primarily for Senzan. He pressures Tadashi into retiring to Otosan Uchi to be with his lover. The Empress, still Toturi Izamiya, has a talk with him, and Kentaro assures the Empress he is more suited for the role. Izamiya is perturbed because Tadashi was his man on the inside of the somewhat mutinous Matsu family, but has little power to rebut this swift change.
Kentaro and Calus live happily for a few years, before the first crack shows when a child shows up at the doorstep with a woman claiming it is Kentaro’s. Calus is furious, but Kentaro talks him down, claiming it was an accident of passion and promises it won’t happen again.
It does. 4 more times. When the new Emperor is crowned, it becomes worse. Kentaro is elevated to Shogun and Kentaro and Calus are separated for much of their time, and Kentaro is susceptible to his needs and high enough up on the status chain that women want to have blackmail on him. Calus becomes more angry and cruel with each one, and cuts Kentaro off by the 3rd child. While they are still married, and Calus plays the part at court, he devotes himself primarily to the management of the Matsu family and his children, whom he loves dearly, despite their scattered ancestry. The mothers who came for blackmail are swiftly dealt with, as Calus claims their children and orders them executed for dishonor and criminal dealings. Several of his children share his disdain for Kentaro, old enough to recognize the harm when each of their siblings arrived, but some do not, as Calus tries desperately not to allow his bitterness to poison them.
Of Naomi’s children, Setsuna and Sadie are the ones closest to their mother. Both strive to emulate her, and both succeed. Setsuna is a powerful battlemaiden in charge of her own destiny, and she grows, steadily, in control and heroism throughout her life.
She ends up in a rift of time for a short period, meeting a young void shugenja from the past. She falls for him for that time, but they are forced to part ways when she returns home.
She never finds a lover, and remains unwedded, despite the taboo of it. She enters the Emerald Champion tournament and decimates the competition, becoming the foremost arbiter of law in the Empire before her mother retires as Shogun. She performs her duties without error.
While both Kentaro and Taro have made advances on her, Setsuna has rebuffed both of them, even going so far as to threaten to seduce Empress Kaia when Taro got too close.
Utaku Angel is Naomi’s last born quadruplet, and the one who died at birth. She was revived by utilizing a piece of Xieng’s soul, and as such, Xieng acts as much like a father to her as her father. This is only exacerbated by the fact that Angel is blessed by the kami, and Xieng was her personal tutor in the arts of Shugen-do.
Ikoma Nobu is Junonosuke and Masuyo’s second child, and the twin to his sister Haineko. It is unclear which of them will inherit the title of Clan Champion from their father, but Nobu is an arrogant, loud-mouthed boy who believes himself capable of anything. It is expected, as he is the male, that he will inherit.
Nobu and Angel meet on a mission together near the Lion-unicorn border. A haunted castle they both get trapped in with some other Samurai. Over the course of the situation, Angel’s capabilities impress Nobu several times. He also rescues her from near death. When escaping the strange haunt, they are forced into a short sexual encounter that neither of them are particularly against.
Over the next several years, they encounter each other at courts and exchange the occasional letter. Their attraction grows, and Nobu, like his father, is a person who falls in love hard and fast and is unyielding in his pursuits. When he asks to marry Angel, he is not asking permission, but demanding his due.