Tatsuko Ryūzaki

**Tatsuko Ryūzaki** is the protagonist and heroine of the OC-insert fanfiction Secure, Contain, Protect. She is a human who has been given a kitsune mark by Genzo Wakabayashi, a former lover of hers before he was forced to enlist in the Imperial Army and wiped her memories of him. Tatsuko is also the adoptive older brother of Daichi, and by proxy the adoptive younger sister of Tsubasa Ozora and adoptive sister-in-law of Sanae Ozora.

## Profile

### Background

Tatsuko was born on a farm with her two parents as an only child but they lost the land not long after her birth due to the Meiji reformation confiscating it, the family unable to pay land taxes. She was 10 years old at the time, in 1898, when they finally moved to the slums of Nankatsu. There she met a boy named Ryoma Hino who she became fast friends with. She was sold to a brothel at about 14 years old but her parents left when she was 16 because she wasn't making enough money to satisfy their own needs and desires. She protested against Ryoma beginning his involvement with the yakuza and underground but he had to in order to help sustain the both of them, especially after she found essentially a toddler wandering the streets innocently asking if she knew where his parents were. Correctly assuming they left him for dead, his clothes implying he'd been of the upper class, Tatsuko had taken him in as her little brother. He didn't know who his family was, but he knew his name was Daichi.

When she was 18, she met Genzo Wakabayashi, newly returned from studying at Oxford University from a young age. They ran into each other along the Takahashi Main Street when she was taking Daichi out for a walk, him standing under a tree for cover, and she offered him her umbrella. Tatsuko kept insisting until Genzo finally gave in, amused by her persistence. They talked, getting along very well, and they both found each other attractive. They began to encounter each other more and more along the Takahashi Main Street and fell in love with each other, entering a relationship a little over half a year after that first encounter. They were together for three years before the Imperial Army found them and she took the first blow for him. Seeing her bleeding in their home, one he'd went to after his parents insisted on not keeping a sex worker in the house, he handed himself in. She was overtaken with grief and panic when he didn't return but when she saw him again he sadly explained to her that the Army didn't want him near her. They slept together one more time before he wiped her, Daichi, and Ryoma's memories of him so they wouldn't try and find him, endangering themselves.

Tatsuko lived blissfully unaware of this for another year before the story of Secure, Contain, Protect begins when she and Ryoma encounter a mysterious figure collapsed on the ground, who turns out to be a badly wounded male Anomaly.

### Appearance

As one of the most popular sex workers in Nankatsu, her reputation exceeding even the small town, she has been remarked by many to be very beautiful with a small nose, smooth and pale skin, a slim body and "aesthetic shape." She has long straight black hair she cleans frequently, with tall nails and dark brown eyes.

### Personality

Tatsuko is, as noted by Ryoma, too kind and generous for her own good. She is far from ignorant, having experienced physical, sexual, and verbal violence and harassment most of her life, but states she would hate to see someone get into a situation as bad as hers or Ryoma's. She is self-sacrificing and tends to see herself as not worth much more beyond a prostitute people like to play with, unable to escape the brothel now that her body's been sold to it. Generally speaking Tatsuko is a quieter, friendlier young woman but dislikes meeting men she doesn't know outside of work because of their usual intentions she's had several encounters with in the past.