Akaza/Relationships

## Relationships

### Father

When he was human, Hakuji loved and cared for his ailing father, but since they could not afford his medication, Hakuji had to resort to stealing in order to afford his father's treatment. When his father discovered that Hakuji had been arrested and beaten for his crimes, he felt guilty and committed suicide. In his letter to Hakuji he mentioned that he "didn't want to live on if it meant stealing from people" and he felt remorseful for troubling Hakuji to care for him.

Hakuji grew frustrated and angry after his father's death, and proceeded to violently fight throughout the town, resulting in his exile. Hakuji would take his rage out on the townspeople, trying to make sense of why his father needed to die as opposed to anyone else, showing the immense emotional pain he was in over his father's death. Later on when Hakuji becomes engaged to Koyuki, he traveled all the way back to his hometown despite being banished, and visits his father's grave to inform him of his engagement.

After becoming a demon and like with his fiancée, Koyuki, Akaza faintly remembers and treasures the memory of his father. This is mostly seen in his physical appearance as a demon, where the black arm band tattoo's he had received due to his crimes to help provide for his father had seemingly grown and spread all across his body. Hinting that Akaza still faintly remembered his father from his human life and felt subconscious remorse at continuing to live a life of sin and crime as a demon and going against his father's last wishes for him to live an honest and good life.

When Akaza remembers his father in the afterlife, he immediately asks him if he is suffering, still showing concern over his health. He falls to his knees before his father and apologizes to him for continuing his life of crime as a Demon, displaying his remorse.

### Koyuki

When Hakuji arrives at the Dojo, he is introduced to Keizo's daughter, Koyuki, and is told that he will be in charge of nursing her. Since he had experience caring for his father, Hakuji performed minor tasks such as changing her towels and bedding, as well as assist her to move around. Although Koyuki needed to rely on his assistance to survive, she constantly felt sorry for taking his free time away from him.

Three years pass and the two grow closer to each other as Koyuki's health improves. One day, Keizo asks Hakuji to become his successor for the dojo and tells him that Koyuki said she liked him causing both of them to blush. When the pair went out to watch the fireworks, Koyuki reveals her feelings of wanting to give up on life, but by meeting Hakuji she became happy and wanted to live out her life. Following her confession, she proposes to Hakuji who agrees to grow strong and be with her for the rest of her life.
However, before they are able to wed, Koyuki and her father are unexpectedly poisoned, and killed by the rival dojo leader. Her death caused Hakuji to go into a blinding rage, to the point where he killed 67 members of the rival dojo.

Following the massacre, Hakuji wandered aimlessly until Muzan discovered him and transformed him into a Demon. After his transformation, he lost his memories and once again seeked to become strong, not wanting continue living in a world without a family, Hakuji — now Akaza — resorted to committing pointless acts of carnage to ease his pain.

Despite losing his memories, Akaza was noted to have subconsciously retained his strong feelings for Koyuki, this is seen where Doma noted that Akaza absolutely refused to kill and eat women during his hundreds of years as a Demon, despite his obsessive desire for more strength and power. This aversion, was likely due to him vaguely remembering Koyuki.

As shown his physical appearance, such as his pink hair, the same color as Koyuki's kimono ,and even his Blood Demon Arts as a demon, his Compass Needle shaped into a snowflake similar to Koyuki's hairpins and firework shaped/based techniques, likely based on his promise to watch fireworks together once she was healed, is due to him partially remembering his past as a human and treasuring his memories of her.

After Tanjiro managed to decapitate Akaza, he was about to regenerate and to strike back as ordered by Muzan. However, Koyuki's spiritual apparition appears before him and thanks him, saying that he has done enough. At first Akaza doesn't remember her, but after remembering his memories. Akaza then uses his own blood demon art on himself, killing him. Akaza's spirit then reverts back to his human form as he cries and apologizes to Koyuki for failing to protect them. Koyuki tearfully welcomes Hakuji with open arms and the two embrace, as Koyuki seemingly accompanies Hakuji to hell.

### Keizo

Following the death of his father, Hakuji goes on a rampage and begins to fight with a crowd of men. As a result of the commotion, Keizo is called to settle the fight and discovers that Hakuji has knocked all of the men unconscious. He attempts to recruit Hakuji as a student at his dojo after being impressed by his fighting skills, and notices the criminal brandings on his arms. Keizo comes to understand Hakuji's situation and promises Hakuji that he will be reborn as one of his students, showing his genuine concern for his well being. He further provokes Hakuji by challenging him to a fight, but when Hakuji attempts to attack Keizo, he is swiftly knocked out by the dojo instructor.

After defeating and seeing Hakuji's potential, Keizo happily invited him to become a pupil of his dojo and instructed him to become the caretaker of his sickly daughter. For the next couple of years, Hakuji proceeded to diligently train under Keizo's instruction and soon became well loved by his teacher to the point where he offered his daughter to marry Hakuji. Keizo's warm acceptance of Hakuji brings joy to his life and he begins to see Keizo as an inspirational father figure as well as a respected teacher.

However, upon learning of Keizo's and Koyuki's murder at the hands of the rival dojo, Hakuji once again falls into a homicidal rage and proceeds to brutally murder 67 members of the dojo. Their death affect him greatly to an extent that he doesn't attempt to fight back when Muzan converts him into a demon, even saying that "I don't care anymore, I don't care about anything."  Displaying his realization that he had lost the most important people in his life, yet again.

As a Demon and much like with Koyuki and his biological father, Akaza continued to treasure his memories with his teacher despite his memories as a human becoming corrupted as a demon. This is seen where Akaza's hatred for weaklings and belief in Social Darwinism is due to him vaguely remembering the circumstances of his teacher's death. Where the enemy dojo had resorted to using an underhanded method such as poisoning his teacher's well in order to kill him was due to them never having been able to defeat him in a straight on fight due to Keizo's immense strength. Resulting in Akaza developing an intense hatred for weaklings, as he believed them all to be the most repulsive and underhanded creatures who do nothing but drag down the strong using such unscrupulous methods.

During his battle against Tanjiro, Akaza gets punched by the swordsman with such an impact that he remembers Keizo disciplining him. The vision of his master causes Akaza to slightly regain his humanity and cease his will to fight. Keizo's spiritual apparition comes forth to remind Akaza once again that "even in death he will not forsake him" but that he must pay for the sins he has committed. Even within Akaza's final moments, Keizo still guided him as a son and pupil, eventually welcoming him to the afterlife.

### Tanjiro Kamado

Upon first meeting Tanjiro, Akaza attempted to immediately kill him without engaging in battle, seeing him as a "weakling" not worthy of his attention. Later on, when Akaza successfully defeated Kyojuro Rengoku, he fled the scene in order to escape the sunrise, but was stabbed in the back with a blade thrown by Tanjiro. During that instance, Tanjiro began to call Akaza a coward for trying to escape while insulting Kyojuro claiming that he was the true winner of the battle.

Enraged by Tanjiro's comments, Akaza's veins can be seen visibly protruding through his skin as he solemnly specifies that he was running from the sun, not from the demon slayers. Later on, when Akaza finishes his meeting with Muzan, he angrily destroys the blade that was thrown at him into pieces. He envisions Tanjiro's face, and promises that he will "spill [his] brains" the next time they meet.

When they meet again in the Infinity Castle, Akaza excitedly ambushes Tanjiro and Giyu where he then proclaims that he's "surprised a weakling like [Tanjiro] is still alive."  As the three of them proceed to engage in battle, Akaza expresses his delight to see that Tanjiro had improved vastly in skill and power compared to when they first met, and goes on to "praise" Kyojuro for dying in order to aid in Tanjiro's development. His comments enrage Tanjiro, who claims that he has no choice but to defeat Akaza in order to protect mankind and expresses his pity towards him, for not feeling any empathy as a Demon.

Baffled by his words, Akaza remembers a faint memory from his past of someone mentioning something similar to Tanjiro. The subtle memory causes Akaza to grow angry with Tanjiro, and he proceeds to launch a rush of attacks towards him. However, when Tanjiro manages to decapitate him, Akaza becomes furious and continues to attack them while trying to regenerate his head.

His mind becomes foggy as he undergoes an inner conflict, and ends up getting punched in the face by Tanjiro. The impact of the punch, causes Akaza to remember his beloved teacher and the morals he was taught as a student. Having remembered all along he wanted someone to kill for the outcome of his life, Akaza decides to kill himself by directing his attack at his own body. Having witnessed Akaza's attempt to destroy himself, Tanjiro realizes that Akaza had smiled at him, and he later senses the scent of gratitude from Akaza's ashes.

### Muzan Kibutsuji

Muzan hears word of a "demon" slaughtering members of a dojo nearby, but doesn't recall sending one to that area so he sets out to investigate. Upon travelling to the location, he discovers a human — Hakuji —soaked in blood and decides to utilize him as a demon for his needs.Throughout his life as a demon, Akaza never felt any sort of awe, hatred or respect for Muzan, instead viewing him simply as someone who gives orders and himself as someone to carry them out. Muzan became fond of him, due to his loyalty, will to become stronger and gave him special permission to not eat women.

Following his first encounter with Tanjiro, Akaza meets with Muzan to report the events which had occurred. He informs the Demon Lord that he had defeated a Hashira, but failed to gather any information regarding the Blue Spider Lily which infuriates Muzan. He proceeds to berate Akaza for being a failure and cruelly tortures him by destroying his skin until he begins to bleed. However, Akaza maintains his composure and continues to bow before Muzan.

At the Upper Ranks Meeting, Akaza immediately kneels before Muzan and refers to him as "Lord" showing his respect towards him. When Doma loiters around following the conclusion of the meeting, Akaza becomes angry at his disobedience and destroys his head.

Following his defeat against Giyu and Tanjiro, Akaza regains his human memories and attempts to join his family in the afterlife. However Muzan tries to intervene and influences him to continue to fight, not wanting to lose another Demon to the Demon Slayer Corps. Despite his attempts to control him, Akaza manages to overcome Muzan's control and stops his body from regenerating.

### Upper Ranks

Akaza's only loyalty to the demons is only seen with Muzan and he does not get along with his fellow Upper Rank Demons. Although he is only dismissive of Gyokko, Hantengu and Nakime, he harbours an envy and hatred with his two superiors, Kokushibo and Doma. During the Upper Ranks Meeting, he ignores Gyokko and Hantengu's attempts to speak to him but is suddenly approached by Doma and nonchalantly asked if he was worried about him, while putting his arm around him. However his bubbly personality does not sit well with Akaza, and he proceeds to command him to move, before destroying part of Doma's jaw.

Akaza's hatred for Doma and Kokushibo can be further seen when he loses his patience and destroys Doma's head, after he asks to join a mission without Muzan's orders. During this, Kokushibo slices his hand off, accosting him for attacking Upper Rank Two. Doma tries to diffuse the situation but Kokushibo only tells him he is punishing Akaza for disrupting the hierarchy, telling Akaza if he wanted to attack Doma, he should do so in a blood battle. To this, Doma explains that such a battle would be pointless as he is far more powerful than he is and alludes that Akaza's hatred towards him was due to the fact that he had surpassed him in rank, despite becoming a member of the Twelve Kizuki long after him. Akaza doesn't deny Kokushibo's words but also threatens to kill him as well.

## References

1. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 154 (Page 6).
2. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 154 (Pages 10-11).
3. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 155 (Page 9).
4. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 156 (Page 15).
5. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 154 (Page 16).
6. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 155 (Page 6).
7. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 155 (Pages 12-13).
8. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 155.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 155 (Page 18).
10. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 157 (Page 1).
11. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 154 (Page 14).
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 155 (Page 14).
13. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 65 (Page 12).
14. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 65 (Page 11).
15. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 146 (Page 16).
16. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 149 (Page 5).
17. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 156 (Page 13).
18. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 67 (Page 8).
19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 98 (Page 19).
20. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 156 (Page 17).
21. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 98 (Pages 5-8).
22. ↑ *Kimetsu no Yaiba* Manga: Chapter 99 (Page 5).