Naoto Kurogane

**Naoto Kurogane**, born **Naoto Terumi** (**Bloodedge Kindred**), is one of the supporting protagonists in the ***BlazBlue*** series. Kurogane was the main protagonist of the light novel ***Bloodedge Experience***, until his debut in ***BlazBlue: Central Fiction***.

He returns in ***BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle*** as one of the Season 1.5 DLC/Arcade Edition playable characters, and the main star of the Season 2.

## Bio

Originally an average high school student with the uncanny ability to see the life force value of those around him, Naoto Kurogane came across a young blonde teenage girl named Raquel Alucard, who bears a striking resemblance to her counterpart, Rachel Alucard. Kurogane followed Raquel and saved her life, but lost his right arm in the process. In exchange for Naoto's help in finding the Azure, Raquel shared some of her life force and brought him back to life as well as giving him a new right arm made from her blood that Naoto can control and form at will.

Naoto Kurogane is eventually sent by Raquel to the BlazBlue possibility (a timeline) when his world is being destroyed. He is unknowingly tasked with saving every possibility including his own and while in the BlazBlue universe he prioritized in finding Raquel. In this universe, the Kurogane here had died by Clavis Alucard's hand. During his travels, he "reunites" with the likes of an older Valkenhayn R. Hellsing and Relius Clover, and even runs into Hazama who, unlike the former two, does not recall ever meeting him. In the end, Kurogane manages to save all possibilities as Raquel had requested of him and he returns back to his home universe. There, he reunites with Raquel, who helps him on his feet.

Naoto Kurogane and his illegitimate sister, Saya Terumi, are the originator behind the births of Ragna the Bloodedge, Jin Kisaragi/Hakumen, and Saya; alongside her other-halves Noel Vermillion/Mu-12, Lambda-11, Nu-13, and Hades Izanami. The original Saya was their “mother” upon being used as a template for Prime Field Devices, meaning that Naoto Kurogane is indirectly their “uncle”.

## Trivia

* Unlike Jin Kisaragi’s counterpart, Hakumen, Kurogane is the only character whose prime counterpart died.
* He is the only *BlazBlue* character on not to have space-based “=“ mark on Japanese text name, nod to which alternate timeline he hailed from, making Kurogane the only character originating from the past in this game. Before him in his home series, he was preceded by Bang Shishigami on retaining their Japanese-based identity naming.
	+ However, Naoto K.’s Japanese in-game name, sans in Story Modes ignores his true Japanese text name, where it instead misspelled having a similar naming as the *BlazBlue* characters, despite Naoto K. himself wasn’t born in the year of main BlazBlue era. In Naoto K.’s case, it is misspelled, “ナオト=クロガネ”.
* He is the second blood fighter after Carmine Prime.
* Any single-related life force syncing into against opponent with his Hunter’s Eye is likely to be removed due to being the intro sequence being too different than regular mainline *BlazBlue* games.
* He should not be mistaken to the first Naoto before him, whose last name is **Shirogane** and she is from the *Persona* universe. Even with his inclusion in this game, both Naotos still don’t have their Western-based Versus/Lifebar/Win/Victory names updated to avoid their first names clashing and being mistaken from each other's identities, unlike in Bandai Namco’s *Tekken Tag Tournament 2* on both Marshall and Forest Laws. Instead, they can only be recognized by their series color on Versus/Victory names.
	+ As of full version Season 2, the new life bar background on each two Naoto can be identified by the series’ color representation.
* Due to his English voice actor, Billy Kametz diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer (the same disease which killed Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther’s original Marvel Cinematic Universe actor) and Charles M. Schulz (creator of Peanuts series) in April 26, 2022 and died in June 9, 2022, the fate of a plan for future Cross Tag contents after 2.0 is unknown.
* Naoto K. has color palettes of the following characters: Sin Kiske (*Guilty Gear*), Es Mitsurugi, Naoto Shirogane, Carmine Prime, Sun Wukong (*RWBY*), and Rock Howard (*Fatal Fury/The King of Fighters*).