Kasha

Kasha is a Yokai Boss in Nioh 2. A Kasha (literally "fire chariot") is a yokai that snatches corpses and spirits them away to hell. Its name originally referred to the mythical chariot believed to transport sinners to the underworld. It is believed that this folklore got fused with the ancient Japanese belief that a cat should never be allowed in the vicinity of a corpse, resulting in the conception of Kasha as a monstrous cat that drives a fiery chariot. Kasha is a servant of hell tasked with torturing the very souls it steals. In Japanese, there is a saying that one is in a fiery chariot, which means that one is suffering great financial difficulty. This saying originates from a belief in Kasha, with the struggle of poverty being likened to Kasha's Torture. Japanese folktales also feature another type of Kasha known as Nekodanka. Most of these tales revolve around a cat who wishes to repay the kindness of a poor temple that has taken it in. This cat will cause something eerie to happen at a funeral, only stopping the supernatural show when its favored temple gets involved in order to improve the temple's reputation. There are many variants of this story, but they are all based on the folk belief that cats have the ability to exert mysterious powers upon the dead. As these tales spread, various funeral rites were introduced all over Japan to keep Kasha away from the deceased.