Nu-13

Nu-13 is a Murakumo Unit said to be the Sword of Izanami. She is a playable character in the BlazBlue series. Nu-13’s design is wholly based on the Mecha Musume concept, a design motif that includes 'humanizing' machines or inanimate objects. In the case of Nu, hers is based on swords. When not in battle, she appears as a young girl with sunken red eyes and long silver hair tied into a braid held together by a single blade. She wears a bright jumpsuit and a long flowing cape with red-colored tape seals attached to the end. She wears a magic power regulator eyepatch on her right eye and she is barefoot having blue nail polish on both fingers and toes. In BlazBlue: Phase Shift 4, her said right eye is revealed to be with black sclera, and when shown, emanates blue vein marks that slowly take over her right side. When assuming battle position, she dons futuristic sword-themed armour that features a set of eight disembodied blades that float behind her in a wing-like formation. She now dons a visor with a singular eye and horns at the end. In BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, Noel Vermillion once saw a “younger” version of Nu. She wore a blue dress and had much longer, silver hair, resembling Noel physically. This version is also seen when Nu is affected by Amane’s Astral Heat, but she has her eyepatch in this occasion. When she shuffles Noel’s childhood memories, she wears a white patient uniform and her white hair is loose. In the end of BlazBlue: Centralfiction, Nu wears an off-white dress, she no longer wears an eyepatch but has bandages on her right eye instead. Nu is shown to have a split personality; one that is an emotionless girl that follows orders without question and the other as a yandere who is in love with Ragna the Bloodedge. Being a Prime Field, Nu’s emotions were sealed away, becoming little more than an emotionless machine who kills anyone that obstructs her programming or whomever she determines to be hostile. She was originally programmed to terminate anyone she deems hostile that came near the Gate. When conversing with anyone that isn’t or doesn’t mention Ragna, she speaks like a machine or in an emotionless tone and is only interested in her orders. When around, hearing about or thinking about Ragna on the other hand, her personality changes to someone who is absolutely infatuated with him. In her mind, Nu must have Ragna to herself, and anyone who gets in her way must die, thus making her an obsessive yandere instead of an possessive one (possessive yanderes tend to kill their love interest to avoid losing them to someone else). Nu’s love for Ragna has also given her the habit of using the most sexual innuendo out of the entire cast in the BlazBlue series. This especially the case when around Ragna, as she is usually giving him a “naughty” smile when using innuendo around him. However, what makes Nu different to traditional yanderes is that while she changes to a person who is in love with Ragna, she doesn’t necessarily have a “deredere” side to her personality as she still tends to say dark and graphic things to others and may still act emotionless even in Ragna’s presence. This unrequited love is due to a unique interpretation of what little of Saya’s memories of Ragna she possesses as a direct result of being a clone of his sister, which developed into a romantic affection and the belief that they were destined to be bound together by fate. However, Nu has a unique interpretation of showing affection to Ragna, which involves “killing” each other, knowing that neither herself nor Ragna can’t permanently stay dead due to the Life Link they share. This is because Ragna had destroyed two of Nu’s previous undeveloped bodies in the past before the events of Calamity Trigger which were unable to react let alone speak. This gave her the impression that “killing” each other is the best and only way to show affection to Ragna and it is because of this fact that despite loving Ragna a lot, she tends to still fight him in a rather brutal manner when they engage in battle. Over time Nu’s yandere personality becomes more dominant over her emotionless weapon personality, mostly loosening Hazama’s control over her in the process. In BlazBlue: Chronophantasma, she seems to have acquired habits from the time her soul inhabited Lambda-11’s body, such as counting hits in German when performing Sword Summoner, like she used to do as Lambda. By BlazBlue: Centralfiction not only has she gone AWOL in search of Ragna and a way to merge with him, she shows a lot more emotion even when she’s engaged in emotionless speak. Many characters, such as Nine, have noticed that she’s beginning to act a lot more different than how she used to. As a result, she mostly speaks in a more “humanly” manner rather than the monotone, machine-like voice she had around others in the past. However, Nu’s personality is still largely dark, when put mildly; by this stage, she can be seen as cold, cruel and sadistic, enjoying the pain she inflicts on anyone and everyone that isn’t Ragna or that she thinks is getting in her way. An example of this includes her fight against Mu-12, where she constantly promises that she (i.e. Noel Vermillion) will pay for denying her wishes to be with Ragna and for killing her at the end of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, saying that she will force her to suffer what she had suffered as her soul wandered the Boundary for what felt like an eternity. At heart, however, Nu is a sad and lonely girl who has endured roughly four years of nightmarish torture and experimentation by Control Organization’s science division, clinging to her memories of Ragna to give her hope. It is for this reason that she hates the world and wants to merge with Ragna to form the Black Beast. This hatred extends to Hazama due to the experimentation that he, along with the entire Control Organization science division, did on her, but has kept quiet about it throughout her time serving them until she breaks free from their control. Despite being known to love Ragna very much, Nu can sometimes show anger against Ragna. The first time was in BlazBlue: Chronophantasma when he declares that he would “save” her, causing her much confusion turned frustration, turned murderous rage. Similarly, in The Wheel of Fortune Drama CD she becomes heartbroken and feels betrayed after a long string of confessions to Ragna lead him to attack her out of annoyance because she wouldn’t stop talking. This caused Nu to mentally snap before breaking out in maniacal laughter, beating Ragna into unconsciousness, brutally murdering an already incapacitated Tsubaki and forcing Ragna into the Kiln with her.