Arata Hikari

Overview

Arata Hikari is the younger child of Yoshino Hikari and the brother of Satomi Hikari. Volume I identifies him as the usurper in the struggle for the throne of the Kingdom of Hikari. His claim comes after Yoshino dies of illness, leaving both children vying for the crown despite Satomi’s position as the rightful elder heir.

The conflict becomes the Hikari Civil War. Arata’s forces rout Satomi in its first battle, forcing her and her royal knight to flee to the Tower. Six months later, after Satomi has rebuilt her army, the two sides meet again. Shun Sato intervenes on Satomi’s side in the Battle of a Thousand Shadows; Arata dies in that battle and Satomi regains the throne.

Connections

Arata’s story is inseparable from Satomi’s restoration, Yoshino’s death, and Shun’s intervention. It is also the direct cause of the later consequences that follow Shun’s breach of the treaty between humans and demons.

Pursuit of the rightful heir

Arata's effort to secure Hikari's throne reaches the Tower long before the armies meet. He sends Black Hand assassins after Satomi and Yumi and treats their flight as a violation of the international peace. The order makes the civil war a threat to the Tower household even while Shun insists on neutrality.

Appearance

Arata is twenty-three years old at the time of the Battle of a Thousand Shadows. He is of average height and build, with short brown hair, and takes the field in gleaming plate armour with a pristine katana at his hip, riding a dark steed.

Command of the war

From a concealed war room in the Hikari Royal Castle, Arata treats news of his sister's river crossing as the confirmation of a plan already in motion. He calls his banners and assembles roughly thirty thousand hardened veterans against her twenty-one thousand, choosing to meet her in open field rather than defend Goguma.

Judging it wasteful to destroy twenty thousand men who could instead be absorbed, he re-engages the Black Hand to end the war with a single dagger strike, stating that he knows exactly where Satomi is and will be. He credits that knowledge to an unnamed mutual friend, and dismisses the Raijin family as no threat if left alone until the war is finished. He does not appear on the field himself until the assassination attempt has already failed.

Stated ambitions

Confronted by his sister, Arata sets out an agenda considerably broader than the throne. He intends to execute the nobles who backed him once the war ends, describing them as treacherous men he has no intention of keeping alive, and rejects Satomi's warning that they are manipulating him as evidence that she underestimates him.

He condemns Yoshino Hikari as weak for growing soft after decades of victorious campaigns and for granting sovereignty to the scholars of Chiseido, and vows to force that kingdom back into submission. He also declares his intention to erase the Raijin family entirely so that no one remains capable of challenging his absolute rule. Satomi understands from this that he means to cross Hikari's borders and wage continuous war.

Coercion of Kenji Osore

Arata's decisive stroke at the battle is not military. He obtains the betrayal of General Kenji Osore by presenting him with a choice between the lives of his wife and young child and the life of his princess, and it is Osore who has been supplying the intelligence behind Arata's movements. When the general puts a blade to Satomi's throat on his signal, Arata orders Yumi Raijin to disarm, and takes advantage of the ensuing struggle to cut Yumi down from behind before raising his sword over both women.

Death

Arata is killed at the Battle of a Thousand Shadows by Ryosuke, acting on Shun Sato's order.

When Shun intervenes, Arata first protests that the Lord of the Tower has broken the treaty and invokes the other kings, then attempts to win the field by other means: he fires a signal arrow that brings a dozen mages onto a ridge to shell Satomi's formation, and he uses the resulting distraction to attack Shun directly. The strike is deflected by Ryosuke.

Against Ryosuke his training is useless. He parries two charges on Raijin reflex alone and is thrown across the ground by each. The third takes both his legs at the knee; a following stroke removes his sword arm. Ryosuke then begins eating him alive. Arata loses consciousness to shock and dies during the feeding, and his body is left on the field. His sister witnesses it.

His death ends the Hikari Civil War immediately. Shun announces it across the battlefield to force the surrender of the usurper's army, and the nobles who backed Arata are detained in Goguma within two days.