Abby

💜 She applies to the knights, aces the writing test, strategy, and performs well in the physical test enough that she gets in and put into the highest chosen batch of knights that year. Since she applied without a family name and placed the hometown of her mother as her own home + is placed in such a prestigious batch, she was given the full name of Kyoko (of) Sakikitsu. (咲切, blossoming/blooming cut).

💜 Despite her great results in strategy, she chose the offensive/defensive sector as she'll have more freedom there. She shares a bunker with Makoto (of Naegi) who got into the ultimate batch via lucky draw from the regular batches who is in off/def as well, Aoi Asahina from a navy family is also in off/def but focusing on Navy training, and Chihiro (of) Fujisaki who is in the strategy sector. Turns out Makoto is trans, Chihiro was also assumed to be a girl when they were separating the bunks by gender.

❤️ Celestia tries to escape and Kyoko, bc she wanders off on her own to find ways to get to her father and investigating weird things happening on the grounds that she's curious about, keeps catching her; Celestia is under the impression that Kyoko is purposefully stopping her so in her head she's treats it as a game to win to escape from the castle but she keeps getting caught.

💜 Kyoko is similar but more so she's curious why the youngest princess is sneaking about and tries to follow her to find out, bc she's the curious type and gets the feeling that it isn't exactly for good reasons, however Celestia is also rather high alert and catches her too but Kyoko's under the impression that she's been caught. However, curiosity only fully kills the cat when it doesn't get satisfaction, so Kyoko has made it a habit to wander around specifically to tail Celestia. So it's just this loop for a long while

💜 ❤️ Any time Kyoko just decides to ask her, Celestia deflects cheekily which just makes Kyoko more curious and whenever Celestia asks why she keeps going after her since she's just a guard or knight in training Kyoko either doesn't answer or she says it in a vague/basic enough way that lets Celestia misunderstand.

💜 Then they start chatting casually after they "catch" each other, usually Kyoko walking Celestia back to the castle where she usually exits it from. Celestia, of course, is the first to develop a crush which she crashes out over bc fuck she's an idiot, on the damn guard sent to keep her from escaping? She's pathetic (even more so when you take into consideration that she's only realized her sexuality as a lesbian relatively recently after starting to question it when she started sneaking out of the castle to gamble and the first time she builds a somewhat meaningful relationship with another woman she's charmed? Typical lesbian.)

💜 Kyoko doesn't developed a crush until after Celestia casually just mentions she sneaks into dad kirigiri's office all the time to steal his assistant's booze and the route she takes to get there + what times she avoids bc he's always there at those times. And the reason she realizes her feelings is bc Kyoko is thinking of the possiblity of what will happen if she gets her answers from her father, will she leave the guard/knight training? Will her father rat her out for infiltrating? But she lingers and keeps circling back on the leaving the castle grounds a lot more bc she'd hate to leave since she wouldn't want to leave Celestia, so she puts off confronting her dad a bit bc she's having this dilemma that makes no sense up untill a month before the ultimate batch of knights of her year have to make their debut (ie, she will have to debut and reveal who she is in front of the whole kingdom and council which her dad is on) so she has to do it now and it's then that she's realizing she has feelings for Celestia and *that's* why she doesn't want to leave and why she didn't do it that much earlier.

💜 I like to think that she's in their barracks listening to Makoto and Aoi try to cheer her up thinking she's dissociating due to the stress of debut being a month away, and Makoto says something particularly hope-filled that Kyoko decides to just suck it up and sneak into her father's office— Byakuya is also there, standing at the doorway to train Makoto, he's under the impression that Kyoko is being stupid about confessing her love for the princess bc he's caught the two on multiple occasions flirting and giggling amongst themselves. He wishes her luck, she knows what he's assuming so she leaves him with a "if I need luck I can only imagine what forces you need to even consider doing it" which is of course about his own crush on Makoto. Using the information Celestia provides and doing the exact opposite of what the princess tends to do, she barges in while her father is standing at the window staring out of it like old men tend to do, he immediately recognizes her.

💜 She, of course, starts asking questions instead of reuniting happily with her father. Although he's disappointed, he answers honestly, provides what proofs he can that he has on him, tells her which office would have it publicly available or which record keepers would provide it if she shows her birth certificate as proof of identity. Jin tries to bridge the gap, explaining his own experiences growing up under his father, the suffocation of it, emotional suppression, being forced to do something that while he didn't particularly hate it or dislike doing— couldn't see himself doing as his father intended. The death of his wife, her mother, being a wake up to fully break off from his father and their family and taking up the offer to be on council that members of the kirigiri family have always rejected, which caused grandpa Kirigiri due his Jin's abandonment of the family. Due to their positions Jin couldn't do much to combat the custody fight, he's at the very least relieved that Kyoko doesn't seem to have been fully indoctrinated into whatever toxic ideal grandpa Kirigiri has about their family lineage even despite the fact she was also still negatively impacted by it.

💜 Kyoko doesn't take him at his word, deciding she'll take what leads she does have now to investigate, she waits there, still kinda expecting her father to like tell her she has to leave or something when Jin's assistant: Koichi (Kizakura), walks in a tad buzzed. It takes very little for Kyoko to recognize him as the drunkard who, whenever he was around, would cover for her or keep her updated about how long she has until her grandfather returns to go play with Yui or wander around for herself and would also talk about how dumb the "Kirigiri men" are as her father's friend from their youth. Kizakura immediately takes in the situation and in his buzzed stupor says "Bad timing?" And tries to walk out and bumps into the wall. Kyoko leaves.

💜 ❤️ Yada yada nothing happens! She doesn't have to leave, her investigation into her father's claims goes smoothly and quick and he does tell the truth about that but he's also not particularly the greatest guy so she's still iffy on him. It goes so smoothly in fact, she looks for other "cases" to solve, and figures she still doesn't know why exactly Celestia wants to escape (she figured it wasn't just sneaking out after like a week of their game) and Celestia divulges her concerns as if they're nothing to worry about or they're not that serious. She jokes about just poisoning her husband if she's ever made to marry, Kyoko doesn't quite like that and she makes a face that Celestia laughs at.

❤️ 💜 Celestia asks if Kyoko would stop her from escaping, even offers for Kyoko to run away with her, Kyoko doesn't answer so Celestia laughs it off and says it's a silly question. Then she goes on a ramble of what she'd want to do, maybe she'd die on the streets when she does leave but how is that death any different from withering away unhappily around people you hate and people who hate you? Frankly, she'd chance it, plus, she thinks she could make it as a gambler, she already has a few accounts stashed under an alias with gold she's earned from gambling alone. Kyoko let's her talk, the moment was missed, she had been a little late on answering but she'd like to have told Celestia that she would help her escape if it truly was her desire.

❤️ 💜 Whether or not they do run off is another thing, I'd like to imagine that during the knights debut/graduation the King announces that his youngest (Celestia) is finally of marriage age and, as a maiden, she must have a bodyguard/personal retainer to protect her until she marries. So they plan to follow the ceremony up with a tournament where the winner becomes her retainer and an easy path to positions of power like a commander. This is dismissed bc Celestia's like "I already have a retainer." He tries to correct her and she cuts him off again by gesturing towards the ultimate batch at Kyoko and going. "that one's mine."

💜 ❤️ Kyoko's not bold enough to declare herself Celestia's retainer out loud, but she isn't going to deny it or shy away from the proclamation the princess makes so she simply keeps her position in formation. This of course starts a whispering frenzy of how disrespectful the youngest is being towards the king and everyone else bc others wanted to recruit Kyoko into their own guards or commandments bc of her achievements or simply bc she's of the ultimate batch.

🩵 Somewhere in the formation Byakuya is internally thinking to himself things along the lines of "By the gods, what are these sapphic idiots doing?!?" and wanting to hit his head against the nearest shield.

If Kyoko's questioned she'd say something gay like:

👑 Before you've taken your oath to this kingdom and the people?

💜 I'm loyal only to her.

👑 And of the Kingdom? The people?

💜 If that's what she'd like.