Akane
A young nightmare painter who shares part of Painter's patrol schedule. Bright, talkative, dressed in a green skirt and white blouse, she carries her long painter's brush like a baton and works the perimeter in cheerful company rather than brooding solitude. STD:YNP:Ch 1
Known facts
- painter-school-classmateWas one of Nikaro's classmates in painter school three years before the story, and the one student who was kind to the small-town newcomer when others mocked him.STD:YNP:Ch 15
Events
- STD:YNP:Ch 1 Strolls the perimeter ahead of Painter with Tojin, laughs and calls a friendly greeting before walking on.
- STD:YNP:Ch 5 Adjusts her hair at her usual back booth in the Noodle Pupil, steps up to the bar briefly to collect festive drinks, and carries them back to the painters at her table.
- STD:YNP:Ch 11 Steps out of the flat across the hall in a short skirt and filmy blouse; gives Yumi the benefit of the doubt as Nikaro's visiting sister until Yumi guilelessly identifies her as one of his concubines, at which point she stalks off informing Yumi that her brother has trouble conquering a bowl of noodles.
- STD:YNP:Ch 14 Catches Yumi in the apartment lobby in street clothes and gently offers to take her clothes shopping, breaking through enough of Yumi's composure that she bursts into tears.
- STD:YNP:Ch 15 Walks Yumi through her first clothes-shopping trip — measurements, dressing rooms, an attendant army of clothes — patiently coaching her into the blue dress she could not bring herself to choose, then announces Yumi is coming to lunch with her friends.
- STD:YNP:Ch 16 Sweeps Yumi into the back booth and presents her to the clique with a flourish, hanging her oversized painter's bag on the coatrack-statue at the door.
- STD:YNP:Ch 17 Glances over from the back booth to check on Yumi during the long off-table conversation with Design; Yumi returns an *I'm fine* gesture and continues eating in distracted bursts.
- STD:YNP:Ch 19 Knocks at the apartment door offering dinner, will not let Yumi hide herself away, and is shooed off with Painter's prompted lie about upper-school entrance tests — but promises to bring noodles by anyway.
- STD:YNP:Ch 21 Leads the rescue party with the calm, practical line about resting muscles between reps — the closest thing the group has to a chief organiser.
- STD:YNP:Ch 21 Eats her noodles with the dainty ease Yumi cannot quite copy, manages the conversation around Yumi's panic over new restaurants, and lets a fond hand trail down Tojin's arm.
- STD:YNP:Ch 25 Arrives in the alley below with Tojin, drawn by Yumi's scream.
- STD:YNP:Ch 26 Scrambles up the fire escape, reads the scene as Nikaro sending his sister out to cover for him, covers for the witnessed woman with a quick training-exercise excuse, and steers Yumi off toward the noodle house to stage an intervention.
- STD:YNP:Ch 26 Orders Yumi warm broth, keeps an arm around her shoulders, and opens the intervention by warning her gently that they need to have a talk about her brother and the things he has done.
- STD:YNP:Ch 27 Keeps her arm on Yumi's shoulders through the whole story, lets the others tell the worst of it, and frankly concludes that Nikaro is unreliable and the stable nightmare is just another self-importance lie — but admits to having always believed he was good enough for the Dreamwatch.
- STD:YNP:Ch 29 Arrives behind Tojin with her painter's bag, explains they tailed Yumi from the apartment, and — reading her face — is the one who actually asks whether she saw a nightmare.
- STD:YNP:Ch 29 Drops her bag in panic, smashes the ink jar inside it, falls, and crawls toward Tojin as the nightmare looms over them — never sees Painter who steps between them and the creature.
- STD:YNP:Ch 30 Keeps checking on Yumi every few minutes, frames the night as a brave-but-extremely-stupid attempt to clear her brother's name, and counts the arriving Dreamwatch as everyone else's problem now.
- STD:YNP:Ch 33 Tries to push back — *We never thought he was nothing, Yumi; he wasn't our friend just because of what we thought he could do for us* — and is the last of the clique to look down rather than meet Yumi's eyes when the speech finishes.
- STD:YNP:Ch 35 Passes Painter on the street at the edge of Kilahito and stops, alarmed at the sight of him crying. *Where have you been? Where is Yumi?* He cannot face her, grabs his sack of rocks, and runs.
- STD:YNP:Ch 39 At the Noodle Pupil when Painter bows to apologise; questions the size of the threat — *if there are a hundred nightmares, then we won't do much to stop them* — but agrees to call in Ikonora and her circle to help.
- STD:YNP:Ch 40 Walks the line of waiting painters with Painter; gently asks whether he might need help, accepts his promise that he will seek it if nothing comes of this, and embraces him before the shroud begins to froth.
- STD:YNP:Ch 40 Calls encouragement along the circle as it nearly breaks, holding back nightmares beside Tojin so Painter has the seconds he needs to paint each one back into the human shape it used to wear.
- STD:YNP:Epilogue Cowers in the chaos as the sky opens; Painter takes her ink as he passes on his way to the blank wall.
Backreferences
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 1
- factTojin
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 3
- factCapstone Paintings
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 5
- factThe Noodle Pupil
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 11
- factNikaro
- factYumi
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 14
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 15
- factNikaro
- factYumi
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 16
- factNikaro
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 17
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 19
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 21
- factTojin
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 25
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 26
- factNikaro
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 27
- factNikaro
- factNikaro
- factNikaro
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 29
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 30
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 33
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 35
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 39
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 40
- summarySTD:YNP:Epilogue