Species: Human
Birthplace: Bonaparte
Birthdate: 402 IE
Royal House: Yamato, grandniece of King Yanuhito
Lieutenant Mitsuko Yamato is a Navy Special Forces officer and a native of Bonaparte, where she received elite training with the planet’s Household Guards. Disciplined, highly skilled, and fiercely independent, Mitsuko was deployed to Hanar shortly after the human-Gelt alliance began rebuilding the colony. It was there she first encountered JT Austin, and the two quickly formed a bond. Mitsuko began training him in close-quarters combat, swordplay, and special forces tactics—skills he would rely on throughout the later stages of the occupation.
Though romantically involved with Giddeus Modesto, Mitsuko’s deep friendship with JT has at times provoked jealousy. She manages the emotional complexities with grace, firmly treating both JT and Connor Duffy as younger brothers. Her camaraderie with Suicide also develops rapidly, grounded in mutual respect and battlefield pragmatism.
Mitsuko plays a key role in the final battle against Lucius Kray, helping deliver the blow that ends his reign of terror. Though she is knocked out of the sky when Riverside is destroyed by a clean fusion blast, she survives the crash and returns to active duty, her role in the fight cementing her status as a hero of the Amargosa campaign.
Author Notes:
Mitsuko was originally conceived as a way for author Jenn Nixon’s Tiva Boon and JT Austin to hook up. The idea was a joke, but creating Mitsuko as an in-universe analog to Tiva prompted the author to create an older, less disciplined version of JT, which opened a lot of story possibilities.
If Suicide was originally modeled after Michelle Yeoh, Mitsuko was patterned after Ming Na Wen.
The planet Bonaparte, the Compact’s only monarchy, was created to flesh out her character background.
Appearances: Flight Blade, Storming Amargosa, “The Cephalopods“