Otori Miki

Otori Miki is the youngest daughter of Otori Takeo and Shirakawa Kaede, the half-sister of Kikuta Hisao, the younger sister of Otori Shigeko and the twin of Otori Maya. Like her sister, she is shunned by most people (including their mother) due to superstitions concerning twins, as well as her formidable Tribe talents. Though fond of playing tricks and possessing a fiery temper, Miki is considerably less cold-natured and malicious than her twin. She develops a spiritual power that enables her to break certain enchantments.

Over the course of The Harsh Cry of the Heron, as Maya increasingly falls under the influence of a cat spirit that she accidentally absorbed, Miki tries to help her sister retain her humanity while trying to warn their parents about threats from the Kikuta Family and the Arai Clan. However, they ultimately fail, and Maya disappears in cat form after accidentally killing their baby brother. Miki narrowly escapes the destruction of Hagi and is taken to the temple at Terayama, where she is briefly reunited with her father. However, soon after she witnesses Takeo and Maya's deaths at the hands of the Tribe; Miki uses her spiritual powers to return Maya's spirit to human form, but is unable to save her life. She and her half-brother Hisao are sheltered by Terayama's abbot Kubo Makoto until the conclusion of the story, when Miki is reunited with (and finally accepted) by her mother Kaede.

Early Life
Miki and her twin Maya were born about nine years after the end of the War of the Otori Succession, two years after their older sister Otori Shigeko. Kaede's pregnancy was very difficult, and she nearly died in childbirth. Due to the unlucky superstitions concerning twins, Chiyo, Takeo's housekeeper, wanted to take the newborn Miki (who was the second-born of the twins) away and leave her to die in the wilderness. However, Takeo forbade it, and grew to love his younger daughters as dearly as Shigeko. Shigeko also loved her younger sisters; however, Kaede often avoided them, insisting they spend much of their time apart in order to reduce the 'unnatural' nature of their birth, and showing them little to no affection except when writing to them in letters.

Due to Kaede not conceiving further children for the next twelve years, rumors spread that her womb had been cursed by the bearing of unlucky twins, and nearly everyone who met them would avert their gaze, refuse to speak to them unless necessary, or keep their distance, which hurt Maya and Miki's feelings. The shunning only increased when they each developed a straight line across their palms (marking their Kikuta ancestry) as well as highly enhanced Tribe abilities, which they would often use to make mischief. The twins were raised in both the way of the warrior, and in the secret Tribe villages maintained by the Muto family. The Muto (especially Kenji and Shizuka) were the only people besides Takeo, Shigeko and Sugita Hiroshi who never shunned Maya and Miki, though a few members of Takeo and Kaede's household treated them with kindness. Kaede and Takeo often worried on Maya and Miki's behalf; as the younger daughters, they could inherit neither Hagi nor Maruyama unless Shigeko or Kaede had no other children, and no one would support a betrothal with either of them due to their 'unlucky' status. Maya and Miki adored their father; Miki in particular loved hearing the stories of his adventures during the war, and both drew comfort from his presence. They had a reasonably pleasant relationship with their older sister and loved their father's cousin, Muto Shizuka, but both resented their mother for her cold attitude toward them, though Miki less so than Maya.