Masaka
A young painter in Nikaro's former school clique — perpetually huddled in her chair with a sketchpad over her knees, dressed in black with a high collar — and, beneath the disguise, a horde proper: *Chinikdakordich, the sixtieth horde of the Natricatich strain*. She refers to herself in the plural and has spent years breeding the face she wears in Kilahito into a single seamless piece of skin. She has come here to hide, to like cute things, and to be done with wars. STD:YNP:Ch 33
A young painter in Nikaro's former school clique, perpetually huddled in her chair with a sketchpad over her knees, dressed in black with a scarf hiding her neck. She glares more than she speaks, and her drawings — soft subjects rendered with cavernous, hungry eyes — make people instinctively step backward. STD:YNP:Ch 16 superseded at STD:YNP:Ch 33
Known facts
- revealed-as-horde-chinikdakordichDesign reveals to Yumi that Masaka is a horde — *Chinikdakordich, the sixtieth horde of the Natricatich strain* — wearing a bred human disguise. Masaka confirms it, asks Yumi to keep the secret because she is tired of being feared and tired of wars, and presents her a flower-handled shell-cracking knife as a gift.STD:YNP:Ch 33
Events
- STD:YNP:Ch 16 Hunches behind her sketchpad at the clique's table, scarf to her chin, glaring up at Yumi until Yumi backs away, then quietly draws her a rabbit captioned as the day's affection.
- STD:YNP:Ch 21 Hovers on the doorstep in turtleneck and heavy eye makeup, mostly glaring.
- STD:YNP:Ch 21 Leans across the table to add hissing emphasis to Izzy's pronouncement that aliens are, very, friendly.
- STD:YNP:Ch 26 Arrives in black with the rest of the clique, settles into the huddle around Yumi, and contributes the occasional flat correction to Akane's metaphors.
- STD:YNP:Ch 27 Whispers the discovery — that they had found Nikaro in the library, day after day, just sitting and staring at the wall — and nods along with Izzy's verdict that no real stable nightmare would have skulked for weeks instead of attacking.
- STD:YNP:Ch 30 Arrives from patrol with Izzy, mutters her objections to keeping the nightmare secret from the city, and chirps that nightmares can in fact be cute — they can be anything.
- STD:YNP:Ch 33 Asks Yumi not to tell anyone what she is; explains shyly that human girls and she both like cute things; offers a hooked flower-handled knife for cracking shells as a gift; then sketches the map of impassable walled circles in the shroud from her scouts' surveys.
- STD:YNP:Ch 33 Sits quietly with the other painters, content; Yumi notices her contentment and recognises in it her own joy at finding a place after being an outsider.
- STD:YNP:Ch 39 Wrapped in her thick sweater and scarf at the Noodle Pupil; softly seconds Tojin's decision. *I think we should go. Just in case.*
- STD:YNP:Ch 40 Hurries up to Painter and Akane at the moment the shroud begins to undulate: *have you ever seen it do that before?*
- STD:YNP:Ch 40 In the painters' line through the long fight; her own divided nature is not announced to the others here — she stays in role as a painter holding the circle.
Backreferences
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 16
- factNikaro
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 21
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 26
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 27
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 28
- factNikaro
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 30
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 33
- factThe Shroud
- factMasaka
- factHorde
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 34
- factTorio
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 36
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 39
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 40