#veiled edge

"ao" and "kuro" are not their birth names. kuro was the one who named them both after the shogunate destroyed their village. and yes he picked based on eye color.

after the game, into the meiji period, they adopt the names Katsu Aoki (勝 青木) and Aoki Kuronosuke (青木 黒之介), respectively. Yes, they make fun of each of their new names a lot.

ao is mixed (japanese mother, foreign father). his mother used to work in nagasaki before running back home once she discovered she was pregnant, then died due to complications during birth. the mother's side of the family was quite destitute, and could not provide adequate support for him. (and even if they could, they would not.) he was given the bare minimum for a human being, and did not receive much education whether informal or not, so he missed many developmental milestones. kuro was not aware of his existence until after the shogunate's attack, where he found him hiding in some stables.

kuro's family was equally dealing with hard times, but given how many of his siblings had perished before him, he was treated much better than ao. if you asked him, he would not be able to recall the names or faces of the people from his family.

ao's proficiency with the spear was at kuro's recommendation, because he was very short and thus having a longer weapon would make up for his lack of reach.