Kai Satou

佐藤(サトウ) 戒(カイ), *Satō Kai*?

* Adult
* Collarless
* Blue Apron
* Young Adult
* Child

**Kai Satou** (佐藤(サトウ) 戒(カイ), *Satou Kai*?) is a self-proclaimed homemaker and one of the 20 participants in the Death Game.

## Appearance

Kai is described as having the beauty of a woman. He has a slender build, shoulder-length black hair parted down the middle, and dark eyes. Kai often has a blank, inexpressive face. He wears a red apron with a yellow pattern given to him by the Chidouin family over a long-sleeved black changshan with orange trimming, brown pants and red slippers. Kai is usually seen holding various kitchen utensils behind his back, specifically a ladle, spatula, and frying pan.

Being a participant of the Death Game, He wears a Collar as do all participants, Dummies, and Floor Masters.

In a Flashback at the start of Chapter 2, Part One Kai is seen wearing what he normally wears except with a blue apron instead of his current one.

As a child and young adult in his Past Episode, Kai wore a similar black changshan with orange trimming and black pants. His hair were also shorter, and seemed a bit more wildly styled. Contrasting with his "dead eyes" (as described by Keiji), as a child, Kai's eyes are represented with pupils and lights inside of them. He also was more expressive.

## Personality

Kai has a seemingly aloof and absentminded nature. He's often quiet, even during intense discussions and accusations. Because of his quiet nature, he isn't considered to be much of a person of interest to the group. Though like the others, he makes it apparent that he wishes to try his best to contribute to their advancement, even if his withdrawn demeanor and weird aura put Sara off.

In Kimi ga Shine Bangai-hen: Seizon Shima, the series spin-off game, more about Kai's personality is revealed. His joking or teasing attempts when speaking with other characters such as Mishima, Nao or Reko don't seem to work at first, due mainly to his deadpan tone and expression as he delivers them, or the sometime dark nature of them. Through his fondness events with Gonbee, we learn that Kai is into yoga and shell necklace making. Kai possesses a liking for telling and hearing spooky stories, hobby he took on as a form of escapism in his childhood.

Even though Kai doesn't seem too bothered talking about his trauma and bad experiences when he was younger, sometimes doing so in a lighthearted manner, he seems uncomfortable or distressed when Mishima starts reading too far into his heart and the parts of him he is trying to suppress through his homemaker life. When speaking with Nao, he admits to not caring for the need to be happy himself, and that he would rather protect those he cares about from afar, even if it means staying in the shadows while they are happy.

## History

### Background

Even though Kai was participating in the Death Game, he associated with the group that organized it. He was trained to be an assassin, but when he proved incapable of taking another person's life, he infiltrated the Chidouin household as a homemaker in order to get close to them and set the Death Game into play.

While working for the Chidouin family, he developed a soft and caring side for them, particularly for Sara, and decided to go against his group. He attempted to stop the Death Game from starting up, or at least protect Sara but ended up failing.

### The Death Game

On the night of the Death Game, Kai hurriedly tried to warn Sara not to go home. However, she and Joe thought he was a stalker and ran in fear. It is implied he followed them home and met with Sara who screamed before falling unconscious. Joe then hurried up the stairs and, seeing both his knocked out friend and a stranger who is believed to be stalking his said friend, he tried to punch him. However, it is unknown what happened in Sara's room as neither Joe or Sara fully remember what happened and Kai never explains. (He was presumably captured as well for betraying ASU-NARO.)

It is unknown whether Kai had a First Trial or not, although if he did have a First Trial then he succeeded. He then met up with the other participants and introduced himself as a homemaker. After everyone else had also introduced themselves, Q-taro reveals the box he had to carry during the First Trial. Inside is a doll head, requiring them to search for its other body parts. Kai searches with Q-taro.

He is found by Sara and Sou in the Blue Room alongside Q-taro, Keiji, and Joe searching. When Sou leaves the room, iron bars trap the five inside the room, and a painting springs to life. He introduces himself as Meister and tells the others he wants to play a game, but they must first decide who the challenger, the one who will wield the gun, will be. After some arguing, they hold a majority vote between the five of them. Kai votes for Q-taro.

After Sara saves the others from Russian Roulette, he thanks Sara last. He explains that she is no ordinary high-schooler and that she shouldn't overwork herself. Sara begins to question Kai, most likely as to why he voted for Q-taro rather than her, when she remembers that Kai is the person she thought of as her stalker.

Kai will participate in the Second Trial after Keiji put the doll's body together and she came to life, explaining herself to be Sue Miley, the Laughing Doll. During this vote, he votes for himself. Because he received the most votes, Mishima is executed. Miley mocks Kanna for how she failed to save her sister during the First Trial but is stopped by Kai who hits her on the head with his frying pan. She begins to bleed and runs off, leaving Sara confused and distraught.

Everyone leaves the Pink Room, save for Keiji, Nao, and Gin. Sara tries to question Kai again but the lights shut off and Sara finds the glowing Keymaster card under a table. He is able to turn the lights back on and asks Sara if she's alright to which she agrees. The two agree to go and investigate the other rooms to see if anything else happened.

A body retrieval announcement drives Nao into a panic where she shoves Mishima's head into the box Miley's head was originally and running off, Gin, Keiji, Joe, and Sara giving chase. Kai catches Nao fleeing and pulls her into the kitchen, offering her secrecy. However, he threatens her with a kitchen knife and requests for her to steal back his laptop from Sou and lends her his frying pan. She retrieves the computer and gives it back to Kai who locks Nao in the kitchen and throws the key to the second floor.

He stands in the cafeteria until Sara, Keiji, and Gin turn the lights on. He informs them that Joe wanted everyone to meet up by the bar and, since the light has been restored, they can all walk together. In the bar, Sara questions a strange man she found who introduces himself as Gonbee, a prisoner incarcerated for theft. After the interrogation, he and Q-taro resumed searching for Nao.

At some point, Kai picked up the Sage card. He additionally had a conversation with Joe, with the topic being unknown.

During the Main Game, both his threat against Nao and his computer's e-mails to the kidnappers are brought to light. After the preliminary vote, he reveals that he's the Sage and that Sara is the Keymaster, all the while both Joe and Kanna claim to be the Sage with Joe claiming that Sara is the Keymaster and Kanna claiming that it's Sou. When questioned what the design of the Keymaster is, he falls silent since the Sage is unable to lie. Sara points this out, revealing that Kai is the real Sage.

Kai states that Joe is most likely the Sacrifice and that everyone should vote for Sou, calling him a dangerous man and promising to tell the others everything he knows if they let him live. Despite his pleas, if Sara doesn't vote for him, he ends up with six votes, ultimately receiving the most votes. Miley reveals that Kai was indeed the Sage.

After Joe's execution, Kai uses the knife from the kitchen to kill himself and avoid his own execution. He tells Sara that the moments she spent letting Miley mock her gave him enough time to do what he needed to and that his suicide is his feeble resistance. He entrusts Sara with his hopes and regrets before bleeding out and collapsing. Kai then expires.

## Relationships

### Chidouin Family

Although Kai was originally sent to observe the Chidouins as an ASU-NARO mole and says this was not a job he was happy to receive at first, he ended up growing very attached to them, especially Sara. He says that the Chidouins felt more like his family than his own. He ended up in the Death Game due to his ambition to protect Sara- when he received an email saying Sara was in the Death Game, he immediately ran to her house to stop her from going home. She didn't listen, however, and both Sara and Kai ended up in the Death Game anyway. Sara believed Kai was her "stalker," which was incorrect. As he dies, Kai tells Sara that he entrusts her with all his hopes and is satisfied with his final act of resistance. On his laptop, he writes multiple messages to her, saying that he cared deeply for her and that he believes the entire Death Game revolves around her, though he does say he still thinks she is a victim in all of this. He also seems to respect her, calling her "Miss Sara" throughout the whole game and in every message on his laptop. Sara had no idea Kai was a part of her household, but did remember when Kai said he served some form of paste with every meal. He says that he had never cared for someone before her family, and wanted to protect her above everything.

### Gashu Satou

Kai's only mention of his father was that the organization "drove him mad." It is unknown what kind of relationship they had - or if they had any at all - prior to Gashu's fixation with ASU-NARO, but it is shown that they operated as a handler-assassin unit before Kai defected.

### Q-taro Burgerberg

Although they had very few interactions due to Kai's early demise, Q-taro felt a one-sided connection with Kai. In Russian Roulette, despite his duty of protecting Sara, Kai will always vote for Q-taro to be the Challenger.

After Kai received the most votes in the first Main Game and was about to be executed, Q-taro jumped on Miley and refused to let go so that Kai could commit his act of resistance. Even after Kai's death, Q-taro was adamant that there was more to Kai and says that Kai didn't seem like a "good-for-nothing" guy to him.

Later, Q-taro wanted Kai's laptop so that he could learn more about who he was.

### Sei

After Sei was adopted, they start off with a bitter relationship. They grow fond of each other. Kai felt devestated by his death.

## Appellations

* Participants A
* Participants B
* Organization members
* Other

 Miley | • Kai Satou
 Ranger | • Kai Satou  • Kai

 Mr. Chidouin | • Kai

<nowiki>

## Trivia

* His likes are listed as cooking and '???' in his character profile.
* The kanji that makes up his first name is 戒, *kai*?, lit. "precept."
	+ In Japanese, Kai can also mean "shell", a fact often joked about by Nankidai and Kai himself. In Māori, kai means "food" or "meal".
* The kanji that make up his last name are 佐, *sa*?, lit. "assistant; help" and 藤, *tou*?, lit. "wisteria."
	+ "Satou" is pronounced the same way as the japanese word for "sugar" (砂糖), adding on to the food theme of his character.
* Keiji and Kai are the same age, which is why Nankidai tends to draw them with an absurd rivalry in his twitter posts.
* Kai's frypan is named Paraifyn (パライフン, *Paraifun*?), the Japanese characters are an anagram of "frypan" (フライパン, *furaipan*?).
* Because Rio Ranger was created by Gashu and was based off of Kai's adopted brother Sei, Kai and Ranger are technically brothers.
* Kai is one of three participants whose First Trials are unknown, along with Gin and Reko

## References

1. ↑ Chapter 1, Part One. *Your Turn to Die ―Death Game By Majority―* (キミガシネ　―多数決デスゲーム―) by Nankidai. August 28, 2017.
2. ↑ Nankidai (July 14, 2019). 生放送ご来場ありがとうございました！7/14 (Japanese) (Video). Pixiv Fanbox. (~1:56:50)
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Nankidai (May 30, 2019). Kimi Ga Shine Character Profile Vol. 1 (キミガシネ　キャラクタープロフィール第1弾, *Kimigashine kyarakutāpurofīru dai 1-dan*?) (Japanese). Pixiv.?) (Japanese). Pixiv.?) (Japanese). Pixiv.
4. ↑ @nannkizum (August 8, 2019). Kai's hair color (tweet). Retrieved on August 8, 2019. “カイさんの髪の色は黒です！”
5. ↑ Kimi ga Shine Official Website (Japanese) (Website). Retrieved on December 31, 2019.
6. ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.16 6.17 Kai's Story. *Your Turn to Shine: Island Existence* (キミガシネ番外編　～生存島～) by Nankidai. March 3, 2022.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Mishima's Story. *Your Turn to Shine: Island Existence* (キミガシネ番外編　～生存島～) by Nankidai. December 20, 2019.
8. ↑ Nankidai (July 14, 2019). 生放送ご来場ありがとうございました！7/14 (Japanese) (Video). Pixiv Fanbox. “The reason why Kai-san and Keiji-san are the same age is, um-- Inside my heart, it recognizes that and that's why probably in my usual twitter posts where they're paired, 'they readily quarrel, right?' It's like that. (カイさんとケイジさんわ同年代なのは, あの--自分のね, 心の中でその認識なので, 多分いつもの twitterの対で, ちょっと こぜりあいしてるよね、みたいな、やてますよね。)” (2:05:54-2:06:07)
9. ↑ https://twitter.com/nannkizum/status/963791455117430786
10. ↑ https://twitter.com/nannkizum/status/971760527469821952
11. ↑ File:Kmgs\_07.jpg