Kiyoko Yukihira

**Kiyoko Yukihira**, formerly **Kiyoko Shinra**, was the former matriarch of the Yukihira family, and it's later revealed that she was the former heiress of the Shinra Clan before her elopment to be with her husband.

She died at age 92 because of natural causes.

## Appearance

Kiyoko appeared as a gentle-looking elderly woman, with healthy skin and a welcoming smile.

In pictures when she was younger, she had shown to be a wild beauty much like her daughter, with her hair being a darker shade of gray akin to silver and her eyes were a striking gray.

## Personality

Kiyoko was generally remembered as a kind and gentle old woman who was missed by everyone after her death. She was a passionate cook and had opened up Restaurant Yukihira after her retirement, and would often share her leftovers with the needy and homeless, which earned her respect from the people in town. Despite this, she could be very strict if she needed to.

According to her grand-nephew Byakko, she was remembered in the Shinra Clan as a very dangerous woman to anger, and his father had giant scars all over his body after the last fight he had with her before she eloped.

## History

### Early Life

Kiyoko was born the eldest girl in the Shinra Clan and became the family heiress at an early age because of her advanced sealing ability, in addition to her superior magical and spiritual power. Like many other Japanese wizards, she was enrolled in Mahoutokoro at age 7 and graduated early at age 15, with equal grades as Ageha Himejima, who she had a one-sided rivalry with.

### Elopement

When she was 18, she met and fell in love with a mundane man named Kazusato Yukihira. Because of the Five Principal Clans' disapproval of outsiders, much less the mundanes, her brother heavily disagreed with this and they fought each other nearly every day.

After a particular fight, she heavily injured her brother to the point where there was no place on his face and body that didn't have a scar. She then ran away that night to be with Kazusato and left the Shinra Clan for good, leaving the title of the family's heir to the next suitable candidate.

### Life Afterward

After eloping and marrying Kazusato, she became **Kiyoko Yukihira** and decided to enroll in Kyoto University to follow her dream as an archaeologist. At school, she befriended her former, one-sided, rival Ageha who had also been disowned due to her practices of Buddhist Magic.

After graduating, she became an official and semi-renowned archaeologist within the Japanese community. After an excavation to Cornwall, she discovered the Excalibur's Scabbard and switched it with a fake historical relic and took the real one back home with her, unknown to anyone but her husband and best friend.

Around two decades later, she gave birth to her daughter Tamako and retired as an archaeologist, though she did write several books about archaeology and religions, as well as visiting as lecturers at Kyoto University. She then opened Restaurant Yukihira as an additional source of income for her family.

She would later have two grandsons through Tamako and her son-in-law Jouichirou, Shirou and Souma. When Shirou was 12 years old, he got into an tragic accident and, in an attempt to save his life, she used the Excalibur's scabbard on him, but due to her lack of information on Western Magic, she accidentally sealed the scabbard into his body, something she attempted to revert for many times afterward.

### Death

In 20XX, several years before her daughter's death, Kiyoko died in her sleep because of natural causes. According to Kṣitigarbha, she got in a fight with Gozu and Meizu on her way to the Japanese Underworld and broke both of their noses.

## Relationships

* **Ageha Ikuse**: Kiyoko's best friend and rival. The two had known each other since they were little children, both being born into the main houses of the Five Principal Clans and the top-ranked students at Mahoutokoro. After meeting each other again as grown-ups as disowned members, the two became best friends and kept in touch with each other through mails. Because of this, the Yukihira and the Ikuse are close friends and often had dinners with each other before the latter moved away.
* **Kazusato Yukihira**: Kiyoko's husband. The two loved each other so much that Kiyoko stood up against her family and eloped, abandoning the position as the future head of one of Japan's most influential wizarding clans. While Kazusato, much like the majority of mundanes, was uncomfortable with her magical side, he was never against it or wanted her to change herself.
* **Yukihira Family**: Kiyoko loved her family very much and doted on everyone, especially her grandsons, as much as she possibly could. Despite this, she chose not to reveal her true background to anyone but her husband, a choice that became permanent when she discovered her daughter Tamako was born a squib.

## Abilities

**Master Magician**: As a wizard and former heiress of the Shinra Clan, one of the Five Principal Clans who hold an almost royalty-like status within Japan's supernatural community, Kiyoko was undoubtedly a master magician. His nephew Byakko stated that she was one of the clan's most potential heirs, having defeated hundreds of other candidates when she was 11 with her magical power.

* **Shinto Magic**: As a member of the Shinra Clan, she was trained in the magic system of Shinto mystics from an early age and quickly became proficient in her family's style of magic. And because of her clan's inclusion of Shugendō into their magical style, she was also somewhat trained in traditional *Shinbutsu-shūgō* magic, or Japanese-Buddhist Magic.
	+ **Metal Phase**: Due to her clan's piety and devotion toward the Shinto gods, she and other members of the clan were blessed with the power to control over metal and what it symbolizes, such as the mind, intuition, and rationationity.
* **Sealing Magic**: She had shown to be extremely skilled at Sealing Magic, as the room she locked away in her and her husband's old house in Kyoto was filled with cursed magical artifacts, such as charmed jewelry, cursed vessels, or haunted dolls. many of which are believed to have either gone missing or destroyed by the supernatural world. Despite this, her knowledge of Sealing Magic only extended to Eastern Magic, as shown with the Excalibur's scabbard she accidentally sealed within Shirou's body in her attempt to save him.

**Master Onmyōji**: As the former Shinra Clan's heiress of the Five Principal Clans, who have been running the Japanese Bureau of Mystery since Ancient Japan, Kiyoko was most likely heavily-trained in her clan's specialized *onmyōdō* techniques, which heavily involved the usage of the Metal Phase granted to her by the Shinto gods.

## Equipment

**Magic Wand** (魔法の杖, *Mahō no Tsue*): As a wizard, Kiyoko had a personalized magic wand which she used to perform her magic. Hers was a creation of the Shinra Clan's private wand-maker, made with ash wood and had the solidified blood of the White Tiger Báihŭ as the core. It had been cremated alongside her body when she died per her final wish.

**Talismans** (お守り, *Omamori*): Like other wizards in South East and East Asian countries, Kiyoko had most likely utilized talismans alongside her wand to perform her magic. As traditions from her time as the Shinra Clan's heiress, her talismans were drawn on white paper with a metal pen, using specialized ink mixed with a few drops of her blood as conduct for her magical energy. According to Shirou, he had never seen her out of the house without a small box of paper *ofuda* alongside her.

## Trivia

* She had a pet cat who disappeared after her death that could possibly be her familiar.
* While she was a talented cook, she was terrible at all kinds of houseworks and broke at least 3 dishes while doing the dishes every week.