Yamiyo no Hotaru

Chapter 21

The Ako family has a history of more than 1,000 years, and its first generation was one of the 'Seven Exorcists', Ako Yakuro, known as "Akuro the Monster who Kill with a Single Cut to Piece (千切り撫で切り人でなし悪九郎)"... And this family has only one youngest daughter, Murasaki Ako, who is a character of 'Firefly of the Dark Night (Yamiyo no Hotaru)'.

She is one year younger than Kizuki Aoi, currently 13 years old, and 15 years old at the start of the original game. The reddish-purple hair with a goofy hairdo is a perfect example of a girl with a strong personality.

She has a reddish-purple head, a baby face, a slender body, and the second smallest breasts next to those of sis (anego-sama). Her character is arrogant and proud, and she easily makes a quick conclusion and gets angry easily, but... if I may defend her, she is not a bad person.

　She is hardworking and earnest, and she will thank even those whom she does not like if they help her, and she can honestly apologize to them for their past mistakes once they become less hostile to her. She does not lash out at those who are not hostile to her, and she is polite to her superiors. Although she is hostile to and disdainful of the original main character at first, her attitude gradually softens as she goes through the events, and eventually, she is even rewarding him with help and gifts. This is what is called "delayed Dere". ...And the most remarkable point is that she admires and envies her cousin Kizuki Aoi.

This is also a reflection of her own sense of inferiority.

The Ako clan is a family of sword-wielding exorcists in the western region of the country. Her parents, relatives, and brothers do not appear directly in the games or novels, and only their names and stories are mentioned, but even just from the settings that are mentioned, it is clear that they are swordsmen of a very extraordinary level. For example, they can kill a group of great youkai from a distance of kilometers away with a single thrust of wind pressure, or they can cut down a great youkai with a wooden sword until it is cut into small pieces, or they can shoot an unavoidable and instant death beam from the tip of their swords.

In such a crazy fighting clan, a girl named Ako Murasaki was... the weakest. To be more precise, she was the weakest of the family members, but that didn't make much of a difference to her.

Being young or a girl is unfortunately no excuse for being the head of an exorcist family or for having a sword that has been handed down in her family. No, maybe that's why it was even worse. She is a leftover of the family's lineage who inherited the youkai sword but failed to inherit its talent and power... Well, her parents and brothers do not see her that way, and from the description in the work, she was probably well-loved, but the people around her do not. Behind their backs and criticisms must have been considerable.

A failure from a prestigious family... that is how the people around Ako Murasaki saw her, and she herself was aware of it in her heart, even though she acted tough. Or perhaps it is the opposite, and her personality was formed from her environment.

For such a girl, it would have been natural that Kizuki Aoi became the object of her admiration. She is a cousin by blood, close in age, and unlike herself, a strong person blessed with talent... Although it was not publicized in the original game, the fact of the rape party by youkai was a fact, and Gorilla-sama was treated like a tumor by those around her, so Murasaki's father dared to bring his own daughter closer to his sister's daughter to help her. And Murasaki herself admired her cousin who was talented, powerful, mature, and graceful. But it was also her first step toward tragedy.

In 'Firefly of the Dark Night (Yamiyo no Hotaru)', which was even disclosed to be a depressing game at the time of its release, her presence turned out to be an extraordinarily great landmine. Since she appeared on the official website and in game magazines along with other major heroines, many players mistakenly thought she was the heroine of the game and approached her to gain favorable impressions. This may be due to the fact that she is a good old-fashioned tsundere who is straightforward in a sense among heroines with one or two peculiarities. Thus, players fall into the sneaky trap set by the producers.