Kunie Wakatsuki

Kunie Wakatsuki
Anime Manga
Kanji	若槻 国絵
Rōmaji	Wakatsuki Kuni-e
Characteristics
Race	Human
Gender	Female
Age	20
Height	5'9"
Weight	148 lbs
Birthday	March 10
Hair Color	Platinum Blonde with Orange Streaks
Eye Color	Brown to Orange to Gold
Professional Status
Affiliation	Demon Slaying Corps
Occupation	Demon Slayer Ember Pillar
Personal Status
Status	Active
Relatives	Katsuri Wakatsuki ( Mother, Deceased † ) Hiroto Wakatsuki ( Father, Deceased † ) Shinjuro Rengoku ( Adoptive Father ) Ruka Rengoku ( Adoptive Mother, Deceased † ) Kyojuro Rengoku ( Adoptive Brother, Deceased † ) Senjuro Rengoku ( Adoptive Younger Brother )
Debut
Anime Debut	Episode 22
Manga Debut	Chapter 44
Portrayal
Japanese Voice	Lynn (Nico - Devil May Cry 5)
English Voice	Faye Kingslee (Nico - Devil May Cry 5)

Kunie Wakatsuki (若槻 国絵Wakatsuki Kuni-e) is a Demon Slayer and the Ember Pillar in the Demon Slaying Corps. She is also revealed to be a former Tsuguko and the adoptive daughter of former Flame Pillar Shinjuro Rengoku, making her the adoptive sister of the current Flame Pillar Kyojuro Rengoku and Senjuro Rengoku.

Appearance

Kunie is a tall woman standing at 5'9" with a muscular build. She has warm, tanned skin that is littered with scars. She has a huge scar the crosses her right cheek, over her nose and ending near her left cheek. She also shows her legs, sporting a large cross shaped scar on her right, and two huge scars on her left. Her eyes are dark brown and orange with a gold gradient from the bottom. She has short platinum blonde hair and three red orange streaks on her bangs. She also wears deep red warding makeup on her eyes and lips. Kunie wears Ochre tassel earrings.

She wears a modified maroon version of the Demon Slayer Corps Uniform, the gakuran being sleeveless and in place of hakama, Kunie wears shorts. She also sports armor: Kuzasuri around her waist, kote plated with orange and gold plated iron on her arms and suneate on her legs. She wears maroon tinted black tabi socks. Her Kote and Suneate are held together by orange twine. Kunie's haori sports a black, red and orange gradient, overlayed by a transluscent smoke pattern and the bottom parts of the haori are decorated with flame line patterns. The lower hems of the haori are tattered and torm, giving the haori itself a flame-like appearance. it is fastened with ochre tassels.

Personality

Kunie is introduced as a very lax and almost indifferent to grave situations, calling out the rest of the Pillars for overreacting and getting off of bullying children. Despite being a Pillar, Kunie seemed to not want to take much initiative herself in the situation, only calling the others out as the situation escalated. Her increasing disdain towards the situation revealed that Kunie is much more level-headed than the other Pillars. For their actions and preconcieved notions, she expresses disappointment at their inhumane excitement towards punishing Tanjiro, Nezuko and Giyuu.

Later, it does get revealed that Kunie is a generally laid back woman who doesn't stress over the little things. Confident in her own abilities and the capability of others, she is encouraging and goes about her pep talks very casually and intimately with whom she is talking to. Despite her position, she is very open to talking to others and seeing them as her friends and equals rather than others lower than her. Kunie has a warm compassion for others and it also shows in how she avoids trying to be the cause of hurt for others. When push comes to shove, she is incredibly protective of others, and will show a dangerous ferocity as a warning to not cross her. She is also shown to be self sacrificing, forsaking her own wellbeing if it meant making those she loves happy. This; however, is also met with contempt from her loved ones as she is willing to hurt herself for them, something they don't want her to do.

Depite her lax attitude, it doesn't change the fact that Kunie is also very perceptive, being able to pick up cues and other nuances with ease. Since she is always seem to be relaxed and smiling, one would think most things go over her head, only to find that she's taken mental notes and has assessed a situation. Her approaches to some situations are rather interesting, as she almost never fails to approach danger ridiculously casually, even what is supposed to be life threatening. She is not without fault though, as her own assessments may be biased in her favor and she misjudges things. However; she will recede with grace most of the time.

Underneath her lax personality is a troubled girl ridden with a fear of failure. Kunie has mastered shoving her own fears and negativity to the side, revealing that she doesn't like to do deeper introspection nor properly address her own problems, and instead, walk away from them and try to forget them. She also does not seem to like to dwell on too much negativity and tries to lighten up the mood constantly. She is also revealed to hang her own failures over her head when her negative thoughts and feelings do catch up to her. Due to her upbringing, she keeps her suffering even from herself to not bring others down, lest they are affected as well when she fails.

However; after Kyojuro's death, Kunie fell into a depressive state, realizing that she cannot always run away from her own problems nor mask them with whatever antics she comes up with. While she eventually becomes relaxed again, she takes on a more serious tone, only lightening up when she knows that her new disposition will bring others down. She is then shown to have a vengeful side, vehemently vowing to kill the demon that killed Kyojuro, the same way she avenged her own mother. When vengeful, she is one-track minded, focusing all her energy in becoming strong enough to overwhelm her enemy. Her vengeful side is also deeply rooted in her own feelings of failure, which she has yet to make peace with.

Abilities and Powers

Natural Abilities

• Heightened Sense of Hearing: Kunie's sense of hearing is unlike that of Mikumo and Zenitsu, being able to hear circulation and the intensity of it. She uses this to monitor any problems with others' breathing techniques and pinpoint any strange occurences in one's blood circulation.
• Master Swordsman: Being one of the PIllars of the Demon Slayer Corps, Kunie is one of the most powerful and skilled swordsmen in the Organization. Her fighting style is known within the Demon Slayers to be incredible and difficult to keep up with.
• Total Concentration Breathing: Being a Pillar herself, this is a given that Kunie is in a constant state of Total Concentration Breathing.
• Unique Weapon: Kunie's weapon first appears as a double-edged longsword, and this is its default form. However; when she sees fit or the sword is struck in the middle with a powerful blow, the longsword splits into two odachi that she dual wields. Kunie can switch between her longsword and twin swords if she so wishes, her maverick methods making her a feared swordsmen within the Demon Slayers.
• Muscle Control: Similarly to Sanemi Shinazugawa, Kunie is able to control her own muscles to contract and stop bleeding, as well as easily shift her body to be able to execute techniques with either more speed or power if needed.
• Enhanced Strength: Kunie's larger frame and muscle control give her enhanced strength. Not only does she have generally enhanced physical strength, but she had enough strength to be able to wield two combined odachi forming a double edged longsword and also being able to have the grip strength for it especially for attacks in quick succession.
• Demon Slayer Mark: Kunie's Demon Slayer Mark manifests as deep red flame like patterns across her cheeks and legs. Her nails also notably turn the same deep red when her Demon Slayer Mark is activated. Her Mark activated when fighting against Upper Moon 3 Akaza.

Swordsmanship

The Breath of Embers is a personal Breath Style created by Kunie. It is branched from the Breath of Flames. The Breath Style is known to be the Breath Style with the most number of techniques (next to the Breath of Water and the Breath of the Sun) due to the user having two modes for her unique weapon: combined blade and twin blades, amounting up to 12 overall techniques for the Breath of Embers. The Breath of Embers, due to Kunie's larger build, can have numerous powerful blows with large range in very quick succession. When using Twin Blades, Kunie's attacks have more speed but less power.

To see the whole list of Techniques for this Breath Style, you can find the information in this page: Breath of Embers

History

Kunie was born to two Demon Slayers. Her mother, Katsuri, was an active Slayer while her father Hiroto retired to become a trainer. It was soon after Kunie's birth that Katsuri had retired to focus on raising her daughter, and became a trainer in the Breath of Flames. Both her parents being Breath of Flames users, Kunie was taught the Breath Style from an early age.

The family lived in the mountains, distant enough from a local village to keep watch over demons that may terrorize it. Kunie grew up meeting students of her parents. To further her own training, she would spar with these students. Kunie often heard the mistakes in breathing these students would make, and she would teach them how to properly breathe. This was when her parents realized she had an innately enhanced sense. Due to being a child, her training came around slowly, as her parents made sure that she still had some semblance of a childhood. She was brought down to the nearby district from time to time to mingle with people and the local children. For a while, Kunie's childhood was good, and she didn't have to worry about much except for the Demons that she would be facing eventually.

When she was 8, her father met an accident during the harsh winter then, which had permanently affected his health. While he came out alive, his condition was worsened by the winter, and when spring came, he was already quite weak. His students had to be transferred over to Katsuri. This stunted Kunie's training, but she took the initiative to train herself. She had to be more responsible in her training and at home, also while trying her best to care for her ailing father. Hiroto died two years later due to complications in his health.

Mourning took a terrible effect on Kunie's training, making her lose concentration. Feeling she was falling behind and beginning to disappoint her mother, Kunie shoved her feelings away and continued training. Her grief and anger had pushed her to train harder, and her newfound motivation, despite being for the wrong reasons, had her greatly improve even at just the mere age of ten years old. She became a much more difficult opponent to spar with, even if she was just a child.

Her mother Katsuri still took in students, and a notable student was this angry and troubled girl of around 15 years old. She was curt and had a short temper, but Kunie could hear that she was coming from a place of hurt and that she wanted to learn a Breath Style to get strong. Kunie had met numerous students like this one, but never this angry. The hurt was fresh, and it showed when she proved to be difficult to this student. Katsuri had a difficult time handling this student, and not too soon after, the student left, angry she couldn't get strong enough in a short amount of time, and taking her anger out on Kunie, who was a child and she saw as "special". Her home life was quiet once more after the student's departure.

Katsuri suddenly fell ill, not knowing what had happened to her so suddenly. Even though she recovered, she was not at full strength, and her constitution was now much weaker. Afraid that she and her daughter were now susceptible to an attack by demons, she wrote to an old friend of hers and Hiroto, Shinjuro Rengoku, about their situation and her daughter, hoping that he would still have the compassion to take Kunie in if the time ever came. Kunie, worried about her mother's now bad health, was scared at the prospect of being left alone, and that she still could not fend for herself being too young to be sent into the Final Selection still. To ease her panic, Katsuri gave her very specific instructions if the worst came to worst.

The worst did come, as one night, there was suddenly an attack on the Wakatsuki home. A large demon had appeared out of nowhere and while Katsuri was able to fend it off enough for Kunie to escape, she was injured due to distraction. Knowing she wouldn't survive the night, she gave one last reminder to Kunie to find Shinjuro and to run. Kunie's last memories of her mother was a kiss to the forehead before being told to run. After the demon killed Katsuri, it fled into the night. While Kunie was still running, she ran into a slayer that had heard of Katsuri's demise and a large demon running rampant in the area. While he stopped to ask questions, the panicked Kunie exclaimed that she had no time and she had to make it to Shinjuro Rengoku. To her shock, he was the Slayer in question. Shinjuro had recieved a copy of Katsuri's letter from her Kasugai Crow, and came as soon as he was finished with another mission. Seeing Kunie and her panic, with specks of blood on her clothes, reality dawned on him that Katsuri may have just died. Just to make sure he didn't assume the worst for an old friend, he went to the wrecked Wakatsuki home, with Katsuri's dead body strewn about alongside the dead bodies of her other students. Immediately, he came back for Kunie, and to fulfill his old friends' dying wishes, he took her in.

Kunie did not immediately start training. She was still being cared for by Shinjuro's still living wife, Ruka. Though she wanted to push to train already, Shinjuro, at the time, was still a more patient and compassionate man. He had her adjust to her new living conditions and introduced her to his sons, Kyojuro and Senjuro. The household was very warm and welcoming to Kunie, actually being patient with her and letting her take the time to mourn. She bounced back fairly soon due to having a support system, and within a few months, she was basically part of the family. Around a year later, Shinjuro had taken in Iguro Obanai after saving him. After some time; however, Iguro had left to train elsewhere, and Kunie still did her best to keep in touch with him.

As Ruka's health declined, so did Shinjuro's mental state. He became harsher, and a lot more difficult to handle. Kunie and Kyojuro were beginning to take verbal abuses from Shinjuro while still trying to train and take care of Ruka. Between her and Kyojuro, Kunie was sent first to the Final Selection at thirteen years old. Before leaving, Ruka's final words to her was that she was thankful to have Kunie in her life as a daughter, and that she knows very well that Kunie would come home. When Kunie returned home, Ruka had just passed away. Her pain of losing her own biological parents came crashing back down on Kunie, and seeing the now dead Ruka had made it worse. After the funeral, Kunie took back to training, her pain making her exert herself and feeling like she was a failure. Now, Shinjuro's mental state had worsened and was now hurling abuses to his own sons. By the time Kyojuro was to leave for the Final Selection, Kunie was already developing her own offset of the Breath of Flames. Soon after, Kunie returned to her old residence to pay respects to her parents and their deceased students before setting off to avenge them. However; she came face to face with the demon that killed them years ago, only to find that it was the student that walked out on her mother in anger. Embittered by the former student, who was now a powerful demon, Kunie fought her, and despite having sustained many injuries and most of her wounds, she survived.

Her rise in ranks was gradual. Due to developing her own Breath Style, Kunie had to focus on slaying demons and refining her swordsmanship. She even had to adjust her weapon to suit her new style. Once she refined her new Breath Style at the age of 15, she soared in ranks due to her skill and increasing strength. At the time, she was still driven by pain and anger, not even realizing how strong she already was. While she never came into contact with the Lower Demon Moons, she had reached the Kill Count of 50 when she was short of 17 years old. She had become a Pillar Candidate, and a few months later was inaugurated. It didn't sink in her until Kyojuro happily and enthusiastically congratulated her. Realizing she had reached the top within the Demon Slayer Corps, Kunie had relaxed considerably.

Trivia

• Katsuri, Kunie's mother, had suffered some form of disease brought about by insect bites.
• Despite growing up for the latter part of her childhood and into her adulthood in the Rengoku household, Kunie lives in a farther off district. This seems to stem from her soured relationship with her adoptive father, Shinjuro.
• It is noted by Kyojuro that Kunie is fond of throwing parties in her residence.
• Kunie's sexuality was revealed in a Taisho Secret that she has rejected every male suitor in her teen years, and prior to meeting Mitsuri Kanroji, more often than not approached and tried wooing other women.
• Kunie has a bit of a smoking habit, which her Tsuguko Kanzaburo Endo has ceaselessly reminded her that she should stop lest it affect her breathing.
• A Taisho secret of Kunie's is that she is known to be a bit of a spender.
• Adding to the Taisho secret of her spending, one of her favorite things to spend on are performances that are held around her district.
• Kunie's Kasugai Crow is male and his name is Kogo. He dons a golden ribbon.
• It is said by the hunters working with Kunie that she has a very interesting approach towards fighting demons, especially being able to use her surroundings to her advantage.
• Kunie's intuition and perception is good enough that currently, she is able to get the jump on demons using traps.
• During the Tanjiro's trial, Kunie was one of the Pillars that was incredibly taken aback by Nezuko's resistance to even Sanemi's marechi blood. She did not voice that she was convinced that Nezuko won't eat humans in order to avoid conflict with her fellow Pillars.
• Her haori was passed down from her own mother. It was tattered only after Kunie exacted vengeance.
• Most of Kunie's scars had come from her confrontation against the demon that killed her mother.
• Kunie's fighting style is mostly wild and unpredictable, in fact, when fighting you could say she is all over the place, like embers.
• Kunie's makeup is a concoction suggested to her by Gekko Daikan as a mix of herbs for warding. She shares this concotion with Kanzaburo.s
• Pry this from my cold dead hands that Obanai and Kyojuro are childhood friends (thank you chapter 188) so yeah, this means she, Iguro and Kyojuro are all childhood friends and they see each other as siblings™ and I will not be stopped.
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