Sae Kuroki

**Family:** | Tatsuo Kuroki (husband)

Mrs. Kuroki is the main antagonist of Part 2 of Pumpkin Night and Naruto's mother. As the person in charge of the mental hospital Naoko is placed in, and keeping her trapped in order to hide what her son had done to her, this makes her the main overarching antagonist of the Pumpkin Night series, next to Larry.

She seeks revenge against Kazuya for his part in killing her husband and son.

## History

Sae Kuroki was the wife of Tatsuo Kuroki and the mother of Naruto Kuroki, and is the head of the Hirayama Clinic. When Naoko Kirino was placed in the mental hospital to hide the truth of her disfigurement, Mrs. Kuroki and her family subjected her and the other patients to abuse until Naoko killed more than 20 people at the mental hospital and escaped.

A year ago, Tatsuo and Naruto were killed by Kazuya Makino. This led to her plotting for revenge ever since. A year later, Kazuya was locked up at Hirayama Clinic, she also subjected him to abuse by letting him get beaten up by hospital staff.

When Naoko returned to rescue Kazuya from the mental hospital, Mrs. Kuroki simply watched as she killed all of the guards and planning to break her. She brought out Naoko's former clinical psychologist, Ayumi, the only hospital staff who did not mistreat her, as a now disfigured and tied up patient which succeeded in breaking Naoko, who was apprehended by guards. She was then brought to the "rehabilitation program", which is an electric chair that was used back when Naoko was first admitted into the mental hospital. To Mrs. Kuroki's surprise, however, Naoko was excited at the thought of the rehabilitation program, and didn't even react, even after being shocked for over two hours. Not even drugging Naoko did anything to her.

Mrs. Kuroki confronted Ayumi, who told her that she taught Naoko hope, to which she found out the truth of the incident, and stated that she simply did her job as a doctor. Seeing that Naoko would not give up, Mrs. Kuroki brought out a monstrous patient that acted like a baby called "Baby Face". She observed from a camera feed what Naoko and Baby Face would do, however instead of fighting, Naoko acted like Baby Face's own mother, to which he acted friendly towards her instead until she admitted that she wasn't his real mother, which made him aggressive in order to open the door to the shutter. Mrs. Kuroki was contemplating on who Naoko exactly *was*, questioning her athletic ability and in turn her insanity. When Naoko tried to escape through the broken shutter, Baby Face caught her and beat her, until she called him by his real name, Shingo, to which he believes that she was his mother again, as if his mother was talking to him through Naoko. Mrs. Kuroki was shocked at how this happened, mentioning that Shingo hugging his own mother caused her death, and questioned how Naoko even knew about his past, whether she happened to have remembered hearing about him or not.

Mrs. Kuroki realized that Naoko can supposedly communicate with the dead as she was "resurrected" since the events of Part 1. Left with no other choice, she set off gas to hopefully eliminate Naoko once and for all. However, Yuki's intervention led the gas to the control room instead, where Mrs. Kuroki and other people were in, however the gas was quickly turned off.

As it turned out, Kazuya was brainwashed to become a mindless killing machine at the hands of the mental hospital, which also made him violent towards Naoko, despite the latter being just as bloodthirsty as he is. Naoko didn't fight back due to her shock at Kazuya's nature until Kazuya regained his memories. However, this was Mrs. Kuroki's plan. After studying the human brain, she found out about a drug that stimulates pleasure in the brain called "narotic drugs", which increases more between lovers. She cut off that nerve in Kazuya, which made him aggressive. Unfortunately, Kazuya snapped out of it through Naruto's (or rather his "ghost's") intervention and the beating by Shingo afterwards. When Naoko, Kazuya, and Baby face then plotted to kill Mrs. Kuroki (along with the other patients being released by Yuki), Mrs. Kuroki seemed unbothered was instead in a call. She then decided to take matters into her own hands, by calling in a military unit owned by Farms to kill everyone, including her own staff, at the clinic, starting with Ayumi whose death enrages Naoko. In the meantime she does in her own staff with a pistol, with Yuki, Matsui, and his partner watching the chaos; it is revealed that she's in league with Farms. Her effort to kill everyone in the clinic fails and opted to using a naval unit to bring it down but the alleged ghost of her son convinces her to stop and that Naoko has the "power to change the world", and so she does, pondering about Naoko's special nature.

At the start of Part 3, she appears to be captured by Larry's top men, tied up in a chair, and shown on the screen, his efforts in taking down Naoko and her cronies but partly to no avail, at first. At this point, she seems mentally unstable, seeing the "ghost" of Naruto hanging around Larry and proclaiming that Naoko's forces "can't be beat", with laughing to go.

## Personality

Mrs. Kuroki is intelligent and a strategist, always organized and has a plan for every situation. She is also apathetic, as shown with how she shows no remorse and even enjoys killing her own patients. She's also willing to sacrifice her own co-workers and affiliates if it means achieving her goals. She preferred watching from the sidelines while watching things go into chaos up to this point. However, she does show a bit of remorse as she reminiscences about her dead husband.

## Appearance

Mrs. Kuroki is a woman with spiky hair that reaches to her shoulders, wearing a blouse with a lace-up shirt underneath, a pencil skirt and heels. She also wears makeup.