Kae Yukiwari

Considered a beauty by those around her, Kae stands at a middling height with fair skin and blue eyes. Her grey-blond hair falls into a ponytail off the left side, with curling strands framing her cheeks and short bangs parted down the middle. Day to day she favours white garments trimmed with blue at the collar, paired with grey trousers and white sandals.

When she appears in full royal dress she switches to a long-sleeved blue robe cut like a qípáo, layered grey necklaces, one bearing a pendant, and a slender ornament resting across her brow.

A warm, good-natured girl, Kae carries herself with the poise her rank demands while quietly longing for the freer life of ordinary people. She would rather lose herself in romance novels and meet new faces than perform for anyone's expectations, and she treasures the memory of her late mother, whom she hopes to grow to resemble.

For a time she keeps up a flawless front at the Academy, until Kawaki nudges her toward simply being herself, which lets her friends finally meet the real girl. She proves remarkably perceptive, reading when someone behaves oddly and working out why, and she stays unbroken even in captivity. She also forgives easily, quick to accept that a wrong was never truly someone's doing.

Groomed as her country's future ruler, Kae grows up starved of friendships, her childhood company limited to a younger stepbrother, and she clings to the parties and lessons of her beloved mother. To let her sample some freedom, her father enrolls her at Konoha's Academy, where her looks and noble birth make her an instant favourite. She takes an interest in the aloof, older Kawaki, unaware he has been assigned to guard her, and she leans into Academy life through tea parties she hosts herself, a play in which she portrays Tsunade, and the class's midnight hunt for the school's seven mysteries.

Her sharp instincts and warmth pull her friends together through squabbles, kidnappings, and a string of assassination attempts that slowly reveal she is the true target. The plot traces back to a scheming minister of her homeland, and the danger peaks during survival training on a remote island, where her teacher Hana turns out to be the killer and stages Kae's death as a ruse. Kawaki and Himawari rescue her, and with the threat undone, Kae returns to the Land of Bamboo to stand in for her ailing father, parting from the friends who have shown her a life beyond the throne.

Along the way she proves a gifted host who bakes and brews for her guests, and she picks up ninja basics like tree-climbing, if not without a wobble.