| “ | I am the Wind. One day, I shall be free! | „ |
| ~ Kagura |
Kagura is a major antagonist in the anime and manga series Inuyasha. She is Naraku's second incarnation, preceded only by her sister Kanna. Unlike her weak-willed sister, Kagura has no loyalty to Naraku and often attempts to escape from his control (maintained by the fact that Naraku holds her heart in his hand), so she can be as free as the wind she controls.
She was voiced by Izumi Ogami in the Japanese version of the anime, and Janyse Jaud in the English version, the latter of whom also voices Margery Daw.
Origin[]
Kagura was created along with Kanna by Naraku to serve him, although she utterly despises him and wants him dead so she can have her freedom. Unfortunately for her, her heart lies in Naraku's hands, preventing her from openly betraying him.
Appearance[]
Kagura typically wears her long black hair in a tied knot. She wears an elaborate dancer's kimonos that usually come in three layers - she has worn at least two different designs and patterns throughout the series, having her first one shredded from Inuyasha's attack. She has pointy ears, and wears green beaded earrings. Regardless of terrain - whether it be the mountains or in snow, she prefers to remain perpetually barefoot.
Personality[]
Kagura admits that as Naraku's incarnation, she does take after him somewhat, being manipulative and cruel. Though on the flipside, Kagura utterly detests Naraku (whom controls whether she lives or dies), wishing nothing more than to be free. Above all Kagura sees herself as the wind in bodily form, explaining why she loathes being constrained, as the wind is never deterred from its path.
Biography[]
Her first mission was to kill Kōga's wolf tribe, and make it appear as if it were Inuyasha's fault, which Kōga temporarily believed. When she failed due to Inuyasha's Wind Scar, Naraku admitted to manipulating her, and she responded by attacking him with her folding fan. He then reminds her that he literally holds her heart in is hand, squeezing it for emphasis. From her first mission onward, she continues to fight Inuyasha and his allies while feigning loyalty to Naraku.
Kagura later shows an interest in Sesshōmaru, believing him powerful enough to destroy Naraku. When they first meet, Sesshōmaru coldly dismisses her, telling her that if she wants Naraku dead she should deal with him herself. Some time after, she abducts Rin in the hopes of luring Sesshōmaru to Naraku's castle, and it works. When he cuts himself free of Naraku's tentacles, Kagura concludes that he will be the one to destroy Naraku.
Following the Band of Seven arc, Kagura is charged with taking care of Naraku's latest incarnation, the Infant, a task which she hated. After Naraku learns of the Border to the Afterlife, The Infant searches for the border by reading the minds of monks and priests, whom Kagura promptly slays afterwards. She was pleased when Shinsen, a particularly powerful monk, was able to split The Infant in half, apparently killing both. However, Kagura was quickly proven wrong, when the right half of The Infant matured, creating Hakudōshi. She was then charged with working with the child.
Hakudoshi took delight in ordering Kagura around, and she soon began to realize that there was something especially important about The Infant, who was entrusted to Kanna, whom Naraku trusted more. When Hakudoshi sent Kagura to "test" the gate to the underworld guarded by Gozu and Mezu, she discovered that, when the gate opened, it turned all nearby living creatures to stone. Furious, she returned to Hakudoshi, attempting to cut him in half with her folding fan; immediately after, Naraku squeezed her heart. It was at this point that Kagura became more active in her quest for freedom. She also came to the realization that The Infant was Naraku's heart, and that by killing him, her master would be destroyed as well.
At this point, Kagura begins to visit Sesshōmaru more frequently, eventually leading Rin to speculate that she has a romantic interest in the daiyōkai. She begins looking after Kohaku, and protects him as his memories begin to return. During the Final Act, Hakudōshi creates his own plan to betray Naraku, and tries to enlist Kagura's help, imploring her to free an imprisoned Goryōmaru, a demon-slaying monk who had been presumably killed. Kagura had been charged with guarding him, and correctly assumed that Hakudōshi had traitorous intentions. When he and his demonic construct Mōryōmaru began targeting Kohaku for the jewel shard in his neck, Kagura actively protected him, allowing him to escape. She assists her long-time enemy Inuyasha by telling him that the Infant is inside Mōryōmaru, and after Hakudōshi is slain by Miroku, Kagome offers Kagura to travel with them, which she declines because they had been enemies for too long.
Naraku then returns Kagura's heart to her, granting her "freedom", although he also injects her with his miasma. As she is dying in a field of flowers, she wonders if she will die alone, but is then visited by Sesshōmaru. She proclaims that she wanted to see him one last time before vanishing into thin air, becoming the wind.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Aerokinesis: Kagura is one of Naraku's strongest detachments and is not to be taken lightly, with a versatile format of attacking that suits both long and short distance fighting. Because she controls the wind, any long-range or airborne attacks are rendered completely ineffective, and often back-fire on her opponents. Her attacks are swift, accurate, debilitating and deadly. She often fires off several of them in quick succession, forcing her challengers to concern themselves solely with dodging them if they want to escape injury and death. These long-range abilities keep her at a comfortable distance from her opponents from which she can toy with and mock them. However, as is revealed, her powers cannot penetrate Hakudōshi's barrier nor is she as versatile as Byakuya. Kagura can also travel short distances in a mini-cyclone.
- Reanimation: Kagura possesses a certain degree of resurrection as she can revive fallen enemies as puppets for her to use in battle by swiping her fan to create a wind gust that flows into the corpses of fallen enemies to reanimate them.
- Enhanced Agility & Reflexes: For those who do manage to come within striking-distance, a strike is not guaranteed, as she has proven quite nimble and light on her feet, capable of dodging swords and blows with relative ease.
- Immortality: As long her heart exists outside of her body, Kagura can regenerate to a considerable degree and is unable to die by normal means for ordinary demons. This ability was best displayed when she healed from a non-fatal blow from Inuyasha's Wind Scar and when she completely recovered from Goryōmaru's laser shot, which had punched a large hole all the way through her chest. Her healing capabilities would still exist if her heart was in her body; however even while Naraku held her heart her regeneration was extremely slow, and certainly could not act fast enough to counter a burst of his strongest miasma, which ultimately caused her death.
- Enhanced Durability: Kagura is somewhat durable as she shown herself to be able to launch counterattacks even when she is damaged by enemy attacks such as when she was impaled by three of Naraku's tentacles and poisoned by his miasma, she managed to resist long enough to launch a wind blade at him though it was deflected by his barrier.
- Immense Endurance: Kagura has great stamina as she manages to stay conscious and continue traveling on her enlarged plume and walking a considerable distance just after being impaled and poisoned by Naraku and his strongest miasma while her wounds remain open and bleeding profusely. Though because she lack the power overcome the miasma, Kagura ultimately died and her body disintegrated into nothing in front of Sesshōmaru.
Weapons[]
- Traditional Dance Fan: Kagura does battle with a traditional fan both offensively and defensively, although her fighting style and powers border more so on the upfront-attacks. With her fan, she is able to call down a variety of wind-related powers, including and not limited to: summoning a large tornado, shooting out wind-blades, and resurrecting corpses as her personal puppets (Dance of the Dragon, Dance of Blades, and Dance of the Dead, respectively).
- Dance of Blades: Waves her fan directly at the enemy, creating a wind gust that morphs as it travels through the air into a plethora of crescent-shaped blades that can pierce through virtually anything. This is her most common attack.
- Dance of the Dragon: This move summons several tornadoes to attack her enemies. They can pick up and throw opponents into the air as well as ripping them to shreds with massive wind power. It is her strongest attack and seems to be slightly weaker than Inuyasha's Kaze no Kizu, however much weaker than his Bakuryūha, and was deflected by it on one or more occasions. In the manga, it is more simply called Dragon Dance.
- Wind Gust: Waves her fan rapidly to create a simple strong gust of wind to blow her enemies away, good for defensive purposes or attacks.
- Dance of the Dead: Able to control corpses as if they were puppets, to either attack or distract enemies, or protect her from harm by utilizing them as shields. Since her victims are already dead, they are practically invincible, there being few ways to destroy them: slicing them into many small pieces, burning (although this is never actually witnessed) and of course distracting or injuring Kagura as she would then flee and the Dance of the Dead would end. When her control on her victims is released, they foam at the mouth and collapse.
- Feather Plume: Kagura possesses feather ornaments in her hair that she pulls out when aiming to travel quickly throughout the land and as hasty retreat tool because of its special abilities. For the abilities to remain active it seems Kagura has to be conscious seeing as how when she lost consciousness after being wounded by Goryōmaru, the feather she was riding shrank and she fell into the river below.
- Enlargement: Using a feather ornament she wears in her hair, she can enlarge it to become large enough for her to climb on and then manipulate the wind to carry it (and her) wherever she pleases.
- Transportation: It is her main form of transportation, as she does not have the power to teleport like Naraku. From this feather she can observe and follow both friend and foe, as well as attack and defend if need be. It is possible to fall off the feather, as demonstrated by Kohaku when he regained his memories and stepped too close to the edge and fell through it.
Relationships[]
Despite being created from Naraku's flesh, Kagura has great resentment towards her creator; her first mission after creation was to take Kōga's Shikon Jewel shards and kill Inuyasha. However, she nearly died via the Wind Scar, something that prompted her to attack him in vengeance. Naraku nearly killed her by squeezing her heart, which forced Kagura back into servitude to him. Wanting nothing more than to be free as the wind she commands, Kagura sought out any possible means to kill Naraku; however, he is more or less aware of her schemes. Eventually, he tires of Kagura and returns her heart, then injects miasma into her to ensure a short and painful freedom.
Although never stated, it is possible that Kagura and Kanna are very close, as Kagura never had any ill thoughts about Kanna; she did, however, have negative thoughts about Goshinki, Musō, the Infant, and especially of Hakudōshi. Kanna and Kagura's possible closeness is supported in the second movie, in that even after Naraku's "death", they remain together as opposed to parting ways after they both have their freedom. In Chapter 475 of the manga, as Kanna was sitting on a tree, she feels a guff of wind pass her by, which makes her think of Kagura. As Kagura seems to have taken the form of wind on her passing, it is possible that she was making her presence felt to Kanna, as proof of her affection. The only other person she seems to have visited in this shape was Sesshōmaru, in Chapter 410. It is also possible that Kagura's betrayal and death inspired Kanna to betray Naraku, given the slight sadness she expressed when she realized Kagura had died. Kagura's death may have also caused Kanna to question her existence. They are the first two incarnations of Naraku, and both of them live the longest compared to all the other incarnations of the series, many of which are killed after their first encounter with Inuyasha and his friends.
After being charged with caring for the first the Infant, Kagura soon learned she had to take him more seriously. She hated having to take care of him, but was overjoyed when a priest managed to split him in half. However, he quickly regrew from his right half. Kagura then had to put up with being ordered around by him, becoming greatly resentful, especially when he used her to test the Gate to the Borderland and nearly got turned to stone. She was willing to team up with both of Hakudōshi if it meant getting her heart back from Naraku; however, she later regretted the idea, and was happy to see him sucked into Miroku's Kazaana.
As both of them are Naraku's tools, Kagura was often charged with retrieving him after a failed mission. Following the return of Kohaku's memories, Kagura believed she found a useful tool of her own, willing to use him to kill Naraku; to this end, she gave him a shard of demonic energy to find the Fuyōheki. However, when she teamed up with Hakudōshi and needed to take his shard, Kagura decided to let Kohaku go, part of it presumably due to not wanting him to share the same fate (of being a pawn and never found own freedom) as hers, showing she had become protective of him.
When they initially met, they were strangers. But as time went on, Kagura believed that Sesshōmaru might free her from Naraku's grasp due to his great power; therefore, she would search for Sesshōmaru many times and try to convince him to help her kill Naraku, however Sesshōmaru would always refuse. In their first meeting, Kagura openly expresses some attraction to him, remarking on his "fine face" (Chapter 163). Over time, she has developed a better opinion of him, as shown when Rin comments about the possibility of Kagura's attraction.
In Chapters 350 and 351 of the manga, when, after having her body pierced by Goryōmaru's light, and believing herself near death, Kagura flies over to a field of flowers, contemplating over the lonesome end she might face. Just as she is about to fall into despair, Sesshōmaru enters the scene and mentions the scent of her blood. The interactions between the two were never warm, as they were the same in character, both loyal only to themselves and cold towards almost all others. In the anime, as she dies, Sesshōmaru stopped his fight with Mōryōmaru to find Kagura in a field of flowers, intending to save her with the Tenseiga. In the manga, he was pursuing Naraku's smell before Naraku fatally wounded Kagura, but as he met Kagura, in her death throes, he admits, much to her surprise, that he knew he would only find her. However, it was too late for her to be saved. Kagura stated that she was happy she got to see him one last time before her inevitable end. In Chapter 410 of the manga she seems to have lived by Sesshōmaru in the symbolism of a free wind, after he states that it is he who decides whether or not her death had been in vain. In the process, he gains a new technique for the Tenseiga, the Meidō Zangetsuha.
- Inuyasha
Kagura generally views Inuyasha as a pest and is always reluctant in helping him in any way. When she has to face Inuyasha, she never holds back, but she does toy with him and wants to make sure he's in pain. Nonetheless, she does try to aid Inuyasha and his friends whenever she can't contact Sesshōmaru, and later in the series Inuyasha tends to worry about Kagura and her fate, as seen in "The Final Act", he warns Kagura not to die before they can kill Naraku and collect her heart. In the twenty-third volume, when ordered by Naraku to stop Inuyasha from entering his castle while he absorbs Sesshōmaru, she only pretends to fight saying, "I must at least make a pretense of fighting you!" Inuyasha notices that her wind has 'nothing in it', but quickly dismisses it to fight Naraku. Then she guided Inuyasha to another way to the Border of the Afterlife, at the gateway in the Realm of Fire. She guided them to his heart inside a temple that looked a monster, until she felt surprised that he made a trap. Later on, she tells them that Naraku's heart the Infant is inside Mōryōmaru, that he and Hakudōshi are intend to empower Mōryōmaru to replace Naraku. Shortly before her death, Inuyasha extended an offer for her to join his team, but Kagura rejected the offer, as they had been enemies for too long.
Quotes[]
| “ | It's alright now...I was able to see you...One last time... | „ |
| ~ Kagura |
| “ | I am the wind. The free wind. | „ |
| ~ Kagura's last words |
Gallery[]
External Links[]
- Kagura on the Inuyasha Wiki
[]
 Villains
| ||
|
Main Villains Naraku's Incarnations The Band of Seven Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon Four Perils Demons Four War Gods Humans | ||