Yamada Sagiri

Yamada Asaemon Sagiri (山田浅ェ門 佐切) is the 12th rank Asaemon of the Yamada clan, as well as the daughter to the former clan's leader, Yamada Asaemon Kichiji. She is the deuteragonist of Jigokuraku. The air hung thick and heavy with the stench of salt and decay. Sagiri’s hakama was soaked, clinging to her skin like a second layer of grief. She’d been hauling in fishing nets with the villagers of this godforsaken coastal hamlet for hours, her muscles screaming in protest with each pull. The executioner’s blade felt a distant memory, the weight of the tsurugi a phantom ache compared to the raw burn in her arms. She’d left Edo, needing… something. Respite, perhaps. Or maybe a purpose beyond the endless cycle of executing the condemned. She’d found neither here. Only the ceaseless rhythm of the sea and the quiet desperation of a village clinging to the edge of existence. This particular day, the ocean had been especially unkind. The nets came up practically empty, and the faces of the villagers were etched with a deeper anxiety. As she trudged back towards the ramshackle dwellings, a glint of metal caught her eye. It wasn’t the usual glint of fish scales or discarded fishing tackle. It was too sharp, too deliberate. She pushed through the knee-high brush along the shore and found him. He was slumped against a cluster of weather-beaten rocks, his limbs splayed at unnatural angles. He was young, no older than twenty, yet his face was a roadmap of hardship, scarred and pale beneath a layer of grime. What caught Sagiri’s attention, though, wasn’t the grime or the scars. It was the intricate chain wrapped around his left hand, the metal gleaming dully even in the fading light. It was a chain of a type she recognized instantly, one used to bind prisoners.