Chapter Text
It wasn’t easy being the child of an affair. Akina knew that better than most.
Gota, her father, was a man of high standing, to whom reputation was everything. But he was also a deeply sentimental man. That’s why he couldn’t help but to fall in love with Akina’s mother when he was doing business in Indonesia, and between that and his sense of honor, it was why he chose to bring Akina back with him to Kanto when her mother died in childbirth.
All her life, Akina was a source of shame for her father. Her brown skin made it blatantly obvious that she wasn’t the daughter of his wife, and so he made sure to keep her out of the public eye and away from the people he did business with. On the rare occasion when he had to introduce Akina to someone, he referred to her as his ward, never as his daughter. And whenever her father took her half-brothers somewhere, she was always stuck at home.
As for Akina’s half-brothers, none of them thought well of her, and their mother outright resented her. In their eyes, Akina was the embodiment of Gota’s betrayal to the family and the shame he had brought upon it.
Thankfully, her books and studies offered her a means of escape as well as a glimmer of hope that she might one day prove herself in the eyes of her family. And her father was more than happy to sponsor her interests by hiring expensive private tutors and buying her a library’s worth of books. After all, this had the benefit of keeping her out of the public eye.
Having spent her youth doing little else than studying and reading books, Akina grew up to become something of a prodigy, albeit a socially stunted one, and shortly after reaching the age of sixteen, her father sent her to study in Galar. While this was ostensibly done to help the family business—and Kanto as a whole—modernize, Akina knew her father just wanted her out of the way. And so she applied herself more than ever and studied hard in the hopes of proving her worth when she finally returned.
Her time in Galar proved to be a transformative one. She had always preferred books over the company of people, but that distant region provided her with ample opportunity to learn to socialize—a vital skill if she were to become a proper businesswoman and the kind of daughter who would be worthy in her father’s eyes.
She spent every waking moment in Galar either studying or working on her social skills, eschewing all other distractions. After four years, she had become a completely different person. She knew how to navigate her way through conversations in order to get what she wanted, and she had learned all she could about western commerce, logistics, and industry. By the time she finally made her return trip to Kanto, she felt that she had what it took to make a real difference at home and make her father proud.
Friday, July 23, 1875
Akina had spent most of the afternoon on the steamship’s deck, enjoying the sun and a good book when she was hit by a smell that alerted her that they were approaching the coast of Kanto. While the scent of coal smoke was similar to that of Galar, it was mixed with the very familiar and distinctively Kantonian smell of seaweed, fish, and rice straw.
She put away her book, walked over to the railing and smiled as she took in the sight of Vermillion City. As the most outward-facing city in Kanto, it felt half-Kantonian and half-foreign, with western-style warehouses, customs buildings, consular flags, and foreign signage alongside traditional Kantonian fish markets, street vendors, food stalls, wooden buildings, and shrines.
Even the people on the streets were a blend of Kantonian and foreign. Some people wore traditional kimonos, some wore western clothes, and others wore some combination thereof. It was quite a sight to see street merchants selling traditional Kantonian wares while men in western-style suits, scarves, and top hats walked on by discussing business.
Western ways were changing Kanto, just as it had changed Akina, who had dropped her kimono in favor of something a proper western businesswoman would wear—a white blouse worn under a vibrant red peplum jacket with prominent lapels, along with a matching red skirt with a long train, a black silk scarf, as well as a red hat with black ruffles and a wide variety of colorful flowers. In fact, she now looked so foreign in Kantonian eyes that when they disembarked, the customs officer assumed her to be a foreigner. However, her fluency in the language, familiarity with Kantonian customs, and bearing made him quickly realize his mistake.
As Akina left the harbor, she couldn’t help but to admire just how far Vermillion City had come since she left. There were so many more western-style brick buildings and factories compared to before, and gas lighting was practically ubiquitous. Most notably, though, was the railway. Connecting Vermillion with Saffron City, it was the first of its kind in Kanto, and it had been halfway through construction when she left. But now? Now it looked like something that had always been there.
On her way to the train station, Akina took a quick detour to one of the food stalls and bought a grilled rice ball. While the food in Galar had been perfectly serviceable, she had missed the flavours of Kantonian cuisine, and getting to enjoy a good rice ball made her truly feel like she was home again.
As she stepped onto the train, Akina couldn’t help but notice that it felt oddly self-conscious, like it was an imitation trying to be something more, yet the people who worked on and around it had a clear sense of pride, knowing that they were part of a new wave of innovation that was bringing Kanto into a new era.
Once the train got going, Akina smiled to herself as she took in the view through the window. The bustling cityscape gave way to villages, shrine roofs, canals, telegraph poles, and stretches where the railway cut through an older, less developed landscape. Wilderness was receding as Kanto kept developing, and less wilderness meant less wild Pokémon, which in turn meant fewer attacks. It was yet another benefit of adopting western ways.
When at last the train reached Saffron City, she was more than a little surprised by what she saw. Gone were the wooden buildings of her childhood, with the city now completely dominated by stone, brick, glass, metal, and very deliberately planted trees. Uniformed policemen now patrolled the streets, a multitude of rickshaw runners transported people hither and thither across macadamized roads, and there was a shop on nearly every corner selling imported goods.
Her family home had changed very little, however. Her father had already had it built in the western-style with brick, glass, iron fittings, and all of the modern conveniences. The only thing that was new was the telegraph wire connecting the house with the outside world. The house did, of course, retain more traditional Kantonian elements, like the tiled roof adorned with the family crest.
As Akina approached the heavy wooden gate separating the grounds from the outside world, the gatekeeper squinted as he regarded her. Then as she got closer, his eyes went wide and he quickly greeted her with a bow.
“Mistress Akina, you’ve returned!”
She offered him an acknowledging smile, and he proceeded to unlock and open the gate for her, waving over the porter as he did. The porter rushed over to Akina and bowed lower than usual before taking her luggage and carrying it inside the house. She, meanwhile, followed at a leisurely pace as she admired the garden.
Entering the house, Akina was hit with the smell of tatami and lamp oil. She smiled to herself as she took in the scent. It almost perfectly embodied her family and the region as a whole—the combination of Kantonian tradition with western innovation.
She removed her shoes—something she hadn’t had to do when entering a home for four years. As such, it took a little longer than it used to before she left for Galar. However, while she did so, she could hear the faint murmurs of the servants as news of her arrival quickly spread.
While her father no doubt knew that she was home by now, Akina didn’t want to wait for him to summon her. She wanted to greet him, at the very least, and hopefully prove to him how valuable her education had made her. And so she wandered through the winding hallways adorned with Kantonian art and western keepsakes until she reached the reception room and the door to his study. As the latter was closed, Akina surmised that he was in the middle of a meeting and so wasn’t to be disturbed. As such, she sat down and waited.
The waiting room was a dedicated western-style parlor with carpet, curtains, glass lamps, a clock, framed photographs, and stiff upholstery. Imported biscuits and brandy were locked in an ornate wood-and-glass cabinet, and fine Kantonian porcelain was placed beside Galarian cut glass. It was all very intentional and meant to illustrate to prospective business partners and government representatives that her father could master both worlds.
After waiting for a little over ten minutes, Hokuto, the oldest of her half-brothers, exited their father’s office. Upon noticing her, Hokuto frowned and side-eyed her as he passed her by, not bothering to pay her any courtesy or even acknowledge her presence. It always hurt when he and his brothers did that. Just what did Akina have to do in order to get them to accept her as a member of the family?
She shook her head and reminded herself to focus on her father. After all, he was the only one who had any say on whether or not she’d be allowed to contribute to the family business. And unlike her stepmother and half-brothers, he thankfully didn’t hate her.
Akina got out of the chair and entered her father’s study, which was part patriarch’s chamber and part command center for the Okai Company. She found her father leaning over his desk, which was—as usual—filled with documents, ledgers, western books, contracts, seals, inkstones, maps, and shipping notices. He was writing something down, but she could tell that he was aware of her presence.
Setting aside his brush, her father turned to her, a smile creeping onto his typically stern face. “Ah, Akina. How was your voyage?”
“Pretty uneventful,” she replied. “I spent most of it reading.”
“Something useful, I hope?”
“Just some books on architecture and engineering,” she explained. “I figure that a more intimate knowledge of the things we have others build allows for better efficiency and planning.”
“Indeed,” he said with a firm nod. “And it is fortuitous that you’ve taken the time to study those subjects, as they will no doubt benefit you in your new position.”
Akina’s heart soared upon hearing that. She was finally going to become a part of the family business and get a chance to prove herself to her father and half-brothers!
“New position?” She asked with a smile, barely able to contain her joy and excitement.
“Yes, as the head of a branch office in Veilwood,” he revealed as his smile faded.
She furrowed her brow. “Veilwood? Where in the world is Veilwood?”
“It’s…” He hesitated in an uncharacteristic manner. “It’s in northwestern Hisui.”
Her eyes went wide. “Hisui??? You’re sending me to Hisui???”
“Technically it’s called ‘Sinnoh’ now.”
“Why are you sending me to Hisui???” She demanded.
“Because Veilwood is perfectly situated to become a major trading and industrial hub in the north,” he explained. “They’re already the chief exporter of timber in Sinnoh and—”
“That doesn’t say much at all! That whole island is a backwater!” She almost shouted, cutting him off.
“Akina, control yourself!” He scolded her, his words cutting like steel. “This position is non-negotiable!”
She looked away from her father and rubbed her elbows as her eyes began to sting. “And just how long am I going to be stationed there?”
Her father didn’t respond at first. Then, with the finality of a family patriarch, he said, “For the foreseeable future.”
Akina’s eyes welled up with tears as she stared at him in disbelief. “You’re getting rid of me?”
He closed his eyes and let out a drawn-out sigh. “I will not insult your intelligence by telling you otherwise. So yes, I am.”
“Why? I did everything you asked of me!” She fell to her knees and sobbed. “I spent four years studying in Galar because you said that I was going to help you modernize Kanto!”
Her father regarded her with sympathetic eyes and knelt down. “That was the plan, yes. But things have changed. I now have the opportunity to get Kanto on equal footing with the west, but it’ll take decades to see it through, and I can’t risk having the people I work with questioning my reputation or honor. That’s why you can’t stay here.”
Akina let out a whimper, feeling completely and utterly betrayed.
Her father stroked her cheek. “Please don’t view this as a punishment or something done out of cruelty. Yes, I need to get you out of the way, but you’re my daughter—I love you, and I want you to be happy and fulfilled.”
She searched his eyes and was surprised that he was being completely sincere.
“Veilwood may be just a tiny little village on the periphery, but that means you’ll have the opportunity to be a part of something new and shape its future,” her father pointed out. “Your life and your legacy will be yours and yours alone.”
“Will I ever be allowed to come back home?” She sniffled.
“Yes. Once our plans have gone through and we have fully modernized Kanto, you’ll be allowed to return and become a real part of this family,” he said with a level of weight and candor that could only be uttered by a man of his standing. “This I swear to you.”