157 years ago, on the 25th day of the 8th month, Meiji 1 (October 10, 1868), Nakano Takeko fell. She was only around twenty-one. Around her were girls and women from Aizu — some still children, some mothers, some already widowed by a war they never asked for. The youngest was barely sixteen. The oldest near forty. The records say around twenty-three died. “Maybe more,” one report adds — as if their lives were only numbers. A few names survived. Most were swallowed by silence. They called themsel