Ken and Noshiko

Ken supported Noshiko in her decision to move to Beacon Hills and slay the Nogitsune

### Ship Name

Kenoshiko, Noshiken

**The relationship between Human Ken Yukimura and Celestial Kitsune Noshiko Yukimura**

Ken and Noshiko are college sweethearts who met in Japan in the late 1980s or early 1990s. They quickly fell in love and married in Japan before moving to New York, where they had a daughter, Kira Yukimura, in 1994 or 1995. The three of them lived as a typical human family for sixteen years until the family began to go through changes, starting when Kira had discovered a strange aura that appeared around her in flash photography, which she kept secret. Several months later, Noshiko learned that the Nogitsune she had summoned and subsequently imprisoned in 1943 had been set free as the result of a ritual performed by three unsuspecting teenagers who lived near the Nemeton where it was imprisoned. Believing she needed to clean up her mess, Noshiko and Ken agreed to move back to Beacon Hills, California so that Noshiko could defeat the Nogitsune once and for all.

When Kira's electrokinetic powers manifested for the first time in autumn 2011 in a burst of foxfire that caused a city-wide blackout, shortly after the Nogitsune possessed her good friend Stiles Stilinski, Ken and Noshiko were left with little choice but to tell their daughter the truth—Noshiko is a nine-hundred-year-old Celestial Kitsune, and Kira herself was a Thunder Kitsune. Ken and Noshiko went on to help Kira navigate her new powers, believing she may be the only way to stop the Nogitsune's reign of terror for good if Noshiko, who had been sacrificing her tails to summon demonic creatures known as Oni to help locate and fight the Void Kitsune, was not strong enough to do so. Though they agreed that killing Stiles was the only way to accomplish this goal, Kira was ultimately able to defeat the Nogitsune with help from the McCall Pack, all without harming Stiles in the process.

Once the Nogitsune had been slayed, Ken and Noshiko were ready to return to their old life in New York, with Ken teaching as a professor at Columbia University and Noshiko acting as homemaker. However, when Kira made it abundantly clear that she needed to stay with her pack, the two reluctantly gave in and stayed in Beacon Hills. Shortly after Kira gained her first Kitsune tail, which was imbued in a piece of obsidian, Noshko gave Ken the stone so that he could modify it into a weapon, specifically a *shuriken*, or throwing star.

Ken and Noshiko once again banded together when Kira's powers seemed to be growing out of control, with Ken luring Kira into a trap at the high school so her mother Noshiko could spar with her and get a feel for her power level. When Kira was successfully able to slice Noshiko's *katana* with her own, Noshiko realized that the Fox inside of her was taking control because her human and Kitsune sides were not in balance.

After this led to Kira killing a Chimera while in a blackout-trance, Ken and Noshiko agreed that Kira needed outside help and arranged to have Kira assessed by the Skinwalkers, a trio of female shapeshifters in Shiprock, New Mexico, who they believed could teach her to control her powers. It is assumed that the two continue to live in or around Beacon Hills.

**Ken and Noshiko are known as Kenoshiko or Noshiken by fans.**

## Early History

Ken and Noshiko met in Japan while Ken was studying to get his master's degree in history; since Ken's specialty was World War II, he was immediately drawn to Noshiko, who, as an ancient Japanese shapeshifter, saw the war firsthand when she was sent to the Oak Creek internment camp in 1943. The two bonded over their respective loves for history, and Noshiko eventually told him about her Celestial Kitsune nature. *("The Fox and the Wolf")* The two were ultimately married in Japan, where Ken took Noshiko's last name in honor of her family heritage, since Japan required married couples to have the same name, and Noshiko was the last remaining member of her bloodline. *("Galvanize")*

Eventually, the two moved to New York, where they had a daughter, Kira Yukimura, in the mid-1990s. Ken taught history at Columbia University while Noshiko took the role of homemaker as they raised their daughter together, keeping Noshiko and Kira's supernatural identity secret for much of Kira's life. *("Muted")*, *("Insatiable")*

## Throughout *Teen Wolf*

* Season 3B
* Season 4
* Season 5A
* Season 5B

In *Galvanize*, Ken and Noshiko hosted a family dinner at their home and invited Scott McCall, their daughter's classmate who recently saved her life from a wild coyote at school several days earlier, in hopes of helping Kira make a new friend.

Eager to impress Scott on Kira's behalf, Ken and Noshiko decided to make sushi for dinner, with Noshiko believing that Scott, as a native Californian, has eaten at impressive sushi restaurants. However, when it became clear that he had actually never had the dish before in his life, Ken immediately offered to make something else, only for Scott to assure him that he would eat anything. Ken and Noshiko then watched as Kira taught Scott how to use his chopsticks, and even catching a piece of sushi that Scott accidentally dropped in mid-air with her own chopsticks before feeding it to him, noticing Kira's romantic interest in the young man.

In an effort to make small talk, the four discussed the Yukimura family's move to Beacon Hills from New York, with Noshiko cryptically stating that she has "several generations" of family ties in the town. Scott went on to guess that Yukimura was a Japanese name, leading Ken to explain that, while Noshiko is, in fact, Japanese, he himself is South Korean, and he simply took his wife's name to preserve her family's lineage due to Noshiko being the only surviving member.

When Scott wondered why they didn't take both names, Noshiko explained that, since they were married in Japan, they had to take the same name as per their law. Ken added that Noshiko's lineage is "quite unique" and that he was even planning to discuss it in his history classes. Kira, embarrassed, groaned and asked him not to, causing Noshiko to scold her by reminding her she should be proud of her heritage. Ken went on to state that it was a profound honor to join Noshiko's family.

Suddenly, Scott began coughing, and Kira, noticing his empty sauce dish, asked him what happened to his wasabi. Scott, overwhelmed by the spiciness of the sauce, coughed out that he thought it was guacamole before chugging his glass of water. Ken and Noshiko, feeling guilty, ultimately ordered a pizza for Scott and Kira to make up for their disastrous sushi dinner. Late that night, the pair were contacted by the Beacon County Sheriff's Department after Kira had been kidnapped and held hostage by known mass murderer William Barrow, who succeeded in getting Kira to activate her latent Kitsune powers in self-defense.

In *Letharia Vulpina*, after the Nogitsune, which was then possessing Stiles Stilinski, orchestrated a fake bomb threat at the high school where Ken worked as a teacher, his wife Noshiko came to the school to talk to him privately in his office; neither of them were aware that their daughter Kira saw them enter Ken's classroom and eavesdropped on them from the other side of the closed door.

When Noshiko saw Ken pull out a large, thick textbook, she admonished him for hiding "them" in a book, as she believed there must have been something more secure he could have used as a hiding place. Ken retorted, "How many high school students do you know who would willingly open a book" as a defense for his choice before opening up the book in front of them, revealing that the center of the pages had been carved out in nine slits, four of which contained long, thin, black ceramic daggers.

As Noshiko stared down at the knives, Ken, noticing her exhausted expression, guessed that Noshiko still hadn't talked to Kira yet about her Kitsune nature and her role in the Nogitsune's reign of terror in Beacon Hills, which Noshiko confirmed. Ken insisted that she needed to tell Kira, especially about what they were about to discuss, but Noshiko remained silent for a moment before reaching forward and plucking a dagger out of one of the slats in the book.

Ken became even more concerned when he reminded his wife that she had already forfeited five of the nine original knives for this cause, and that three of the Oni she had summoned had already been killed by the Nogitsune. When he looked at her gravely and asked her how many more tails she was willing to sacrifice, Noshiko, with a determined expression on her face, insisted that she would sacrifice them all, if that's what it took to defeat her enemy.

She snapped one of the daggers, releasing a greenish-blue puff of magical energy into the air that resembled the color of the Oni's firefly wings, which caused Ken to wince in sympathetic pain; he flinched again when Noshiko proceeded to do the same to a second dagger, which seemed to imply that she only had two more left. Noshiko assured Ken that these new Oni she was about to summon would be much stronger, but Ken did not seem convinced.

Later that night, Ken and Noshiko were seen staring out the windows of Ken's classroom at the high school, where they watched the storm rain down on Beacon Hills. Meanwhile, at the Nemeton in the Beacon Hills Preserve, a new flood of fireflies swarmed out of the cracks in the trunk and formed two new, stronger Oni, confirming that it was indeed Noshiko who was summoning them to kill the Nogitsune. It was later revealed that the daggers Noshiko broke were her Kitsune tails, and that she had sacrificed seven of the nine tails in order to summon Oni she believed would be able to defeat the Nogitsune once and for all.

In *The Fox and the Wolf*, Ken was grading papers in his classroom at Beacon Hills High School when the Nogitsune, having just regained complete control over its vessel Stiles Stilinski's body, confronted him. Void-Stiles wasted little time before demanding to know where Noshiko's last "little knife" was, as he had figured out that they were physical representations of her Kitsune tails, and that she had started with the youngest tails so that every new Oni she summoned with them would be stronger than the one before it.

Loyal to his wife, Ken immediately played dumb and denied knowing what he was talking about, sarcastically offering to direct him to the Japanese mythology section of the school's library. Void-Stiles, unamused, assured him that he would eventually tell him what he needed to know, adding that *everyone* always talked, before conjuring a fly that he forced down Ken's throat so that he could control him into giving him the information he sought.

In an impressive turn of events, Ken still managed to resist telling Void-Stiles the location of Noshiko's last *kaiken*, and he presumably contacted Noshiko to come help him as soon as the Nogitsune fled the scene. Noshiko then called her daughter Kira, who was at Scott McCall's house, and instructed her to run back to their family home to grab her vial of *reishi* before then coming to the school to help her out. Kira and Scott did as they were told and made it to Ken's classroom, where they watched as Noshiko cured Ken of his fly possession with the *reishi*.

Scott was horrified that his best friend Stiles did this to Ken, and Noshiko pulled out her last *kaiken* from inside of her jacket and explained that he had been looking for the dagger, which she had kept on her person ever since Stiles disappeared and was taken back over by the Nogitsune. Kira, realizing that her parents knew much more than they had been letting on, insisted that that they needed to tell them about *everything*, and though Noshiko was reluctant to do so, it was clear that Ken agreed with his daughter.

When Scott and Kira produced a photo found on the Nogitsune's previous vessel's body that looked just like Kira, taken during World War II, Noshiko was forced to reveal that the photo was actually of her; Scott argued that this would mean that Noshiko was at least ninety years old, but Noshiko just smirked and replied, "Closer to *nine hundred*." Horrified, Kira assumed this must mean that Ken was just as old, but he kindly informed her that he was forty-three years old before joking that he was told he looked mid-thirties.

Noshiko confirmed Scott's suspicion that this mess with the Nogitsune had already happened once before and reluctantly explained that she had fought it once before in 1943 while she was held at Camp Oak Creek internment camp. Scott, confused, argued that Ken had told Allison Argent and Isaac Lahey that Oak Creek didn't have an internment camp, forcing Ken to admit that, due to Allison's Hunter family's history of violence toward supernatural creatures, he wasn't sure if she could be trusted.

He then went on to explain that there *was* an internment camp there, but that the records were erased, leading Noshiko to clarify that the camp's existence was covered up by the United States government. According to Ken, he met Noshiko during his research of the Oak Creek internment camp, as it was his passion project/obsession while he was in graduate school.

Noshiko became preoccupied with reassembling the broken blade to the *katana* that the McCall Pack's members had also found on the Nogitsune's former vessel's body at Eichen House, but when she insisted that Kira help her, the young Kitsune refused to do so until she told herself and Scott *everything* that was going on. Though Noshiko wanted to resist, Ken insisted that she tell Scott and Kira what they need to know, and when Noshiko argued that foxes and wolves don't get along, Ken reminded them all that allies should be welcome regardless of who they were, especially during times of war, which finally convinced Noshiko to share her story.

However, when the story began with Noshiko's affair with a Corporal-ranked medic in the U.S. Army while she was in the camp, Kira became frustrated and insisted that they didn't care about her *Casablanca*-story—they wanted to know how to save Stiles, with Scott adding that he knew that she was just stalling, since the Oni would begin searching for Stiles again at nightfall.

Knowing she was caught, Noshiko insisted that Stiles was gone, and when Scott pointed out that they didn't know that for sure and asked her if she was capable of calling off the Oni she summoned, Noshiko grimly stated that once they heard the rest of the story, they wouldn't want her to do so.

Noshiko continued the story, explaining about the revelation that the camp doctor, Dr. Liston, was conspiring with two of the camp's MPs, Merrick and Hayes, to sell medications meant for the internees on the black market, which ultimately resulted in a pneumonia outbreak in the camp that killed a number of internees, including a young child named Michio.

While she talked, Kira and Noshiko began putting the sword back together like a puzzle, though after a few minutes, Noshiko, caught up in the story, clutched a piece of the blade so tightly that she cut her hand on it and began bleeding. Ken handed her a handkerchief and pointed out what she had done, but just as Kira was beginning to panic about the severity of the wound, Noshiko wiped the blood off of her hand and revealed that it had already healed, stating that it was one of the "gifts" that Kitsune possessed, and that Kira would learn to do so as well. She also explained that this was why Kira had never been sick in her life, just like Noshiko, who was unaffected by the pneumonia outbreak in the camp.

According to Noshiko, she had decided she needed to tell her fellow internees what she had learned about Dr. Liston and the medications, but she did not anticipate that by doing so, she would be inciting a riot that would ultimately become violent between those interned at the camp and the military members running it, causing a number of deaths on both sides in the ensuing chaos. Noshiko's lover, Corporal Rhys, was caught in the crossfire and hit with a Molotov cocktail, burning him so severely that he ended up dying, due in part to the fact that the doctor had also sold the morphine on the black market.

Noshiko was so upset about his death that she prayed to her Kitsune ancestors for *kitsune-tsuki*, or possession by a fox spirit, with the intention of having a Nogitsune who fed on chaos, strife, and pain imbuing her body with the strength and power she needed in order to get revenge. Unfortunately, as Noshiko explained, her ancestors had a dark sense of humor and decided to have the Nogitsune possess Rhys' corpse instead.

In Noshiko's story, Void-Rhys returned to the camp and wreaked havoc, viciously killing a number of surviving campers and employees alike, leaving Noshiko with no choice but to fight and kill the Nogitsune in order to fix her mistake. Fortunately, with help from her friend Satomi Ito, a Werewolf, she was able to revert him back to fly form and trap him in the roots of the Nemeton.

In the present day, just as Kira and Noshiko finished reassembling the sword, Noshiko attempted to show her daughter how to use her electrokinetic powers to reforge the blade, disheartened when Kira admitted she may not be able to trust her ever again as the result of the lies between them. Scott turned the topic back to saving Stiles, but this time, Ken was in agreement with Noshiko and insisted that the only way to save him was to kill him and free him from being controlled by this demon.

Unfortunately for the Yukimura pair, neither Kira nor Scott believed them and they insisted that there had to be another way to save their friend before the two set off to do just that, though Noshiko did gift Kira with her sword and the remnants of her power before she left.

Once they were alone, Noshiko assured Ken that she would hide the last *kaiken* somewhere safe, but Ken replied that he wasn't worried about that part—he was worried about the McCall Pack, their daughter included, citing the fact that history hasn't done well with making children into killers. Noshiko reminded him that "these children" (i.e. Allison, Scott and Stiles) played their part long before they returned to Beacon Hills, and revealed that it was their surrogate sacrifice ritual to the Nemeton to save their parents was what let the Nogitsune out of his mystical "cage."

In *De-Void*, Kira stayed the night at the McCall House with Scott, stating that she didn't feel comfortable going home after having learned all of the lies her parents had told her throughout her life, even going so far as to say that she felt like she didn't even know them.

In *Insatiable*, Noshiko spent the morning teaching Kira how to play the strategy game *Go*, insisting that it was crucial to the survival of her friends, before Kira had to go to Beacon Hills High School.

After learning that the Banshee Meredith Walker could be the key to finding Lydia Martin, who had been taken hostage by the Nogitsune, who now had his own body that looked identical to Stiles, Kira returned home to try to find her mother, only to find her father, Ken, instead.

When she asked him where Noshiko was, Ken admitted that he didn't know, but, sensing the tension between them, stated that what he *did* know was that Noshiko had been trying to keep Kira out of the supernatural world for as long as possible, leading Kira to sarcastically retort, "Well, she should've thought about that *before* she had me magically rebuild a samurai sword."

Ken laughed at her retort, but quickly became serious again as he warned Kira that, while he understood that this was all very strange for her, she was going to have to learn a lot very quickly, and Kira replied by bringing up the fact that Noshiko made her learn how to play *Go* and gesturing toward the coffee table, where the game board was still set up. Ken explained that, in his native South Korea, the game is known as *Baduk*, and began listing the various styles of play, including aggressive, passive, and orthodox.

Kira asked him if he could tell which player was who, and Ken immediately answered that Kira was the one with the black stones, as traditionally, the novice player is usually black and goes first. Kira went on to state that the white pieces were placed by Noshiko to represent the Nogitsune, causing Ken to frown, as the white pieces were in an aggressive style preferred by Noshiko. Kira once again stated that the white was meant to be the Nogitsune, but Ken simply frowned and asked if she was sure about that. This led Kira to reunite with her friends to confront Noshiko at Camp Oak Creek, where the Nogitsune was holding Lydia hostage, so she could use her remaining Oni to try to kill him once and for all.

In *The Divine Move*, after dealing with the police in the aftermath of the battle at Camp Oak Creek that resulted in the death of Allison and the escape of the Nogitsune with the remaining Oni under his control, Ken and Noshiko returned home with Kira and Stiles.

The four sat in the living room as Noshiko brought Stiles a cup of hot chamomile tea, which he comically mistook for "magic tea," in hopes that it would calm him. Ken immediately brought up the fact that Stiles wasn't safe there, but Noshiko responded by stating that he wasn't safe *anywhere*. Kira changed the subject to the Oni, specifically the fact that Allison managed to actually kill one prior to her death, which Noshiko admitted she had no idea was possible.

Stiles, feeling guilty regarding everything that the Nogitsune had done, especially while possessing his body, reminded them all that it didn't matter, because the Oni ended up killing Allison anyway, adding that, as far as he could see, the only good news was that it seemed as though he was dying, too. Noshiko empathetically remarked that it was a bold move that the Nogitsune made it separating the two of them into separate bodies, leading Kira to ask them what their move was as she touched one of the pieces to the game of *Go* that she and Noshiko had left laying on the coffee table before they left to emphasize her point.

Ken admitted that at this point, they would need a divine move, which Noshiko explained was a term used in *Go* to describe a "truly inspired, or out-of-the-box move"—since the Nogitsune has had *sente*, or the advantage, until this point, they would need a divine move to turn the game back into their favor. Stiles, looking defeated, asked Ken and Noshiko if they were feeling divinely inspired, and Kira suddenly remembered that her mother had mentioned that she had trapped the Nogitsune in a glass jar back in 1943. Noshiko pointed out that it wasn't actually the jar that trapped it, it was where she had buried it, the Nemeton, which she confessed was a place she didn't really know much about. This led Kira and Stiles to realize that they did know who did-- Alan Deaton.

At the end of the episode, Ken and Noshiko packed up the *Go* game board and pieces before giving each other a significant look that seemed to indicate that they both knew there were only going to be more supernatural battles to come, now that Kira had embraced her Kitsune powers.

In *Muted*,

In *I.E.D.*,

In *Time of Death*,

In *Smoke and Mirrors*,

In *Creatures of the Night*,

In *Strange Frequencies*,

In *Ouroboros*,

In *Codominance*,

In *The Sword and the Spirit*,

In *The Beast of Beacon Hills*,
## Trivia

* Ken is the only human in the *Teen Wolf* series to have knowingly married a supernatural creature; in this case, his wife Noshiko, an ancient Celestial Kitsune.
* The two are somewhat non-traditional when it comes to a married couple, as Ken took Noshiko's family name instead of Noshiko taking Ken's family name. Ken explained that this was in honor of Noshiko's family, as she was the only surviving member.
* Noshiko is at least eight hundred years older than her husband, Ken, as she was born in the 13th century and he was born in the 1960s.
* Ken was entrusted with protecting Noshiko's *kaiken*, the physical representation of her Kitsune tails which were essentially the source of her immense power. Much to Noshiko's initial disapproval, Ken hid them in a hollowed-out textbook on one of the private bookshelves in his classroom at Beacon Hills High School.

## Gallery

*Galvanize**Letharia Vulpina**The Fox and the Wolf**The Fox and the Wolf**Creatures of the Night*