Kikunojo

Kikunojo of the Lingering Snow, more commonly referred to as Kiku, is a samurai from Wano Country and a retainer for the Kozuki Family, serving as one of Kozuki Oden's Nine Red Scabbards. She is also the younger sister of Izou and the daughter of the dancing school head of the Hanayanagi School in Ringo. She was born 42 years ago, but traveled 20 years forward in time at the age of 22. After traveling forward in time, she worked as a tea house poster girl in Okobore Town while gathering information for the planned rebellion. Kikunojo has a feminine appearance and is noted for her beauty, given her past reputation as the "most beautiful swordsman in Wano Country". She has indigo eyes as well as long, dark-violet (dark-blue in the anime) hair that falls onto her back, and is very tall, easily towering over the likes of Luffy and Zoro, as well as her brother, at 287 cm. In the present, Kikunojo has taken to wearing sandals and a yellow kimono with chrysanthemum floral patterns and a pink-and-cream-and-lavender obi, white tabi, and black-soled zōri. When she prepares for combat, she ties her hair into a ponytail with a red ribbon and rolls up her kimono sleeves with a tasuki, and sometimes dons a white Noh hannya mask. For the raid on Onigashima and the battle against the Beasts Pirates, she wore a full set of Japanese armor. Before being transported to the future, Kiku dressed in more masculine clothing typical of a samurai. After arriving in the future, Kiku began showing a significantly more feminine side, such as wearing red lipstick and dressing more in feminine clothing. During the Scabbards' fight against Kaidou, most of Kikunojo's left arm was sliced off by one of his attacks. Despite her reputation as a legendary male samurai as one of the Scabbards, Kikunojo describes herself as being "a woman at heart", and thus lives and presents herself in a traditionally feminine manner. She is a very upbeat and friendly person. To friends, she is helpful and nurturing, as seen when she treated Zoro's injuries and tended to Tama when she was being healed of her poisoning. Kikunojo is shown to be a confident, hardened warrior whose friendly nature translates into a strong sense of justice and desire to protect those around her. This was first demonstrated when she served as an ally to Luffy in his mission to rescue Tama from the Beasts Pirates. Kiku even went as far as to cut off Urashima's top-knot (a sign of great disrespect to someone of the samurai class) after hearing him use dehumanizing language toward a crowd of Bakura Town residents, regardless of the fact that just moments prior the same people had berated her due to low social standing. When Kin'emon contemplated the possibility of one of the Nine Red Scabbards being a spy, Kikunojo rebuked him for being indecisive about the matter and told him that they should identify the spy immediately. Kikunojo's desire to do right can sometimes result in her making rash actions, as she acknowledged when she inadvertently showed her samurai abilities in front of the Bakura Town citizens while living in hiding. Afterwards, she showed more restraint about going to fight enemies, and had to be convinced by Zoro to use her abilities to help save Tama. Kikunojo typically becomes extremely emotional when she loses something dear to her, as she quickly teared up and ran off to be alone after going to the ruins of Oden Castle for the first time since Oden and Toki's deaths. Additionally, she was very emotional when Kanjuro revealed himself to be working for Orochi, and when she reunited with Izou. However, she did not lose any resolve when being grievously wounded herself, not showing any distress after having her left arm severed beyond an initially shocked look and a brief grunt of pain while having her wound cauterized by fire. Kikunojo takes pride in her role as a retainer of the Kozuki clan, and occasionally refers to herself using sessha, an archaic pronoun similar to "I" in the English language, which is used primarily by samurai (the Viz translation has her refer to herself as "this one"). When Momonosuke used the word "Sunacchi", Kikunojo quickly rebuked him for doing so as she believes members of a noble family like the Kozuki should not use coarse words associated with commoners.