I get the sense this is a reference to some historical event, but I can't figure out what it might be. She had a repainting to camouflage colors in her remodel, apparently, but I don't see anything that would be 'traumatic'.

I might be thinking too deeply about this, but isn't the case here that Tokitsukaze starts scaring others because the whiteness of "death" will spread with touch? Maybe Akitsu Maru was bullied about this in the past? "The girl who spreads death" or something.

That was really poorly explained on my part but I hope you get my point.

Well I might be wrong, maybe there really is some historical background to this.

dsryr30 said:

I might be thinking too deeply about this, but isn't the case here that Tokitsukaze starts scaring others because the whiteness of "death" will spread with touch? Maybe Akitsu Maru was bullied about this in the past? "The girl who spreads death" or something.

That was really poorly explained on my part but I hope you get my point.

Well I might be wrong, maybe there really is some historical background to this.

She actually says 'akki,' but that isn't something covered even in Touhou, and would take a larger explanation than would be worth it to cover why that would be relevant to them being white. Actually, I've been informed this is probably just "Akki" as a pet form of "Akitsu".

Regardless, what the text block says is that there was a trauma already inside her that resurfaced due to someone touching her makeup, which again, makes me think this is something related to paint on the historical ship. (There aren't any earlier appearances of Akitsu Maru in gomA's works.) Looking up the ship's Japanese Wikipedia page shows she was repainted at least once, and she was also, of course, a conversion carrier from what was supposed to be a civilian liner. English sources on Akitsu Maru are not that informative. If my Japanese Google-fu was a little stronger, I might be able to find something better, but I get the impression that there might have been a fire on Akitsu Maru's deck, so what's being hinted at is that she's "wearing makeup" to "cover a scar" in her kanmusu form.