Kiriha

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* Manga
* Anime

**Kiriha** (桐葉(きりは),, *Kiriha*) is a tsugumomo in the form of a handwoven, pure silk, original design "Sakura (cherry blossom) Pattern" pocketed kimono obi.

Kiriha's true name is **Ayasakura** (綾桜(あやさくら),, *Ayasakura*). When enrolling at Kamioka East Middle School, Kiriha goes by the name **Kiriha Obina** (帯奈 桐葉(おびな きりは),, *Obina Kiriha*). As a male, Kiriha's name is **Kirio** (桐雄(きりお),, *Kirio*).

## Appearance

In her human form, Kiriha appears as a young girl with long light blue hair. She has light skin, red eyes, and pointed ears. She retains the same scent of Sakura that was always present on her as an obi as well.

Kiriha's normal attire consists of a flower-patterned kimono with an obi, tabi with sandals, and two pairs of red orbs used to tide sides of her hair, though she sometimes ties it back in a large pony-tail instead. After her revival, Kiriha's red orbs have been replaced by red wraps. When at home, she usually sports casual clothing consisting of either school clothes or an under-kimono, sometimes only a shirt and panties or shorts at most.

Depending on her owner and the amount of power she posses, her appearance ranges from resembling a small child to a young adult. When under the ownership of her first owner, Kanaka Kagami, she maintained the form of a young woman. When under the ownership of Kazuya Kagami, she took on a younger form of a girl of similar age, and then of a younger age after exhausting her power in a duel.

When gender-swapped, as Kirio he retains most of the same features of when female. Kirio is taller than his original self and thin. He is usually seen with his hair untied, but uses a band to tie it into a ponytail when he does. Kirio appears slightly more masculine than Kiriha, sporting a more angular jaw.

Kiriha's appearance in the mangaKiriha's appearance as KirioKiriha's chibi design
## Personality

Kiriha is a straightforward and eccentric Tsukumogami with a very unusual personality. She's boastful and self-centered, mostly impulsively acting based on how she feels like with little concern over the consequences. Kiriha is bossy and likes to be the one in charge of making decisions, disliking following orders from others. She prefers to have others take care of all her necessities and desires, having them fulfill all her requests even forcefully if she has to. As a result, she comes off as slightly violent and has little patience when things do not go her way. She is easy-going, carefree, and abrasive, displaying full confidence in herself and presenting herself with a determined expression. On the other hand, she is also quite lazy and self-indulgent, disliking having to work on anything from the daily life aside from her duty erasing aberrations, making her somewhat selfish and unconcerned person. She spends most of her free time leisurely, either dozing off or doing other inactive activities like watching TV. She is also very fond of video games, with RPGs, in particular, being one of her favorite genres, and she is quite skilled at them, often spending large periods of time playing such games. However, Kiriha is shown to be bad at fighting games, prompting Kazuya to let her win at them to boost her confidence. Above all things, Kiriha loves sweets and desserts, with pudding, in particular, being her favorite of all. She's extremely fond of pudding, eating several cups a day, and it is the only thing for which she's willing to obey orders for. Despite the fact that she is a mostly selfish individual in the daily life, Kiriha is extremely loyal and is perfectly willing to trade her own life for the sake of those she cares the most about.

Another one of Kiriha's most notorious personality traits is her completely unabashed and shameless disposition. She's perfectly willing to openly talk about sexual subjects or personal intimacies without any restraint and even with people she barely knows. Being seen naked by Kazuya or even exposing her genitals are no source of embarrassment for her, behaving in such situations in a completely natural and unaltered manner. Despite her outrageous behavior with Kazuya, Kiriha actually dislikes being observed in skimpy outfits or indecent situations by other people, claiming that "it's different than when it is Kazuya". Due to her lack of shame, she enjoys teasing and fooling around with those of a more prudish nature, with Kazuya himself and Kukuri being her most common victims. Ironically, Kiriha becomes a lot more submissive and passive with those that have a more aggressive and assertive temperament, like Kanaka Kagami. She takes her responsibility with aberrations very seriously, dropping her unconcerned behaviors and becoming more serious and focused on the mission. Furthermore, she does everything in her power to deal with an Amasogi without destroying it in order to avoid Curse Backlash for the host. This shows that she's still an overall compassionate tsugumomo. On the battlefield, she proves to be a reliable ally, protecting those that are innocent and being decisive enough to make risky decisions when the situation demands. As a tsugumomo she fights alongside her owner, providing advice and support to her user even in the heat of the moment, and insists on making victory the primal objective without being concerned over her own safety. However, Kiriha heavily dislikes the idea of being used as a tool rather than as a partner. This is why she hates to be forcefully ordered with her true name. She even taking such action as offensive and insulting as she believes that an owner that treats his tsugumomo as a tool can replace it or throw it away anytime without concern.

## History

Kiriha was a double-woven obi of pure silk made by the Hanamitani group, a large family of cloth sellers. Originally created during the founding of the business, the white obi was treated as a family treasure passed down through generations, and it was believed it brought good business and a healthy successful life, and back then it was called the "Ayasakura". During the fifth generation of the family, it was handed down to the young Nui Hanamitani, who had just inherited it. When owned by her, the obi manifested into a tsugumomo, who was given the name of Kiriha. As her owner, she would assist and support Nui throughout her life, living a humble life as cloth-sellers, and the two would enjoy their time together for a long time until Nui passed away at the age of one hundred and five. After her long-life companion's death, Nui's relatives arrived in order to decide who would get the right to inherit her as per the family's tradition, but Kiriha refused to choose a new owner and fled instead, claiming that Nui was her only acceptable owner. However, as she attempted to run away, she was quickly caught by Takigi Tagusari, an exorcist from the Tsuzura Temple, who tied her with an obi-binding cord. As the members of the Hanamitani family demanded to hand over Kiriha, the exorcist showed them a letter Nui had sent to the temple, where she wrote that she would give Kiriha the right to decide her next owner and requested the temple to arrange someone suitable. Choosing to follow Nui's will, she agreed and was sent to Tsuzura Temple, where she would become the partner of an exorcist.

She was placed in a package and sent to the temple by truck, where she conversed with the other tsugumomo from within their respective boxes. As Tsuzura Temple is a gathering place for fighters training to defeat aberrations, the fellow tsukumogami consisted only of weapons, and she was mocked for being an obi, a tool largely useless for combat. Upon arriving she was one of the tsugumomo selected to be given to four cadets as their first partners, where she was ignored due to not being a real weapon. Out of four other tsugumomo, Kiriha was picked last by Kanaka Kagami for arriving late. Though Kiriha believed Kanaka was simply forced to choose her due to lack of options, Kanaka told her that she would have picked her first anyway, believing she would be able to accomplish much given enough ingenuity. During their first training session, Kanaka attempted to develop a weaving technique, but failed to do so, concluding that she was lacking something. Wanting to get to know Kiriha better, she took a bath with her where she thoroughly inspected her body, much to Kiriha's confusion and embarrassment. Kanaka's classmates saw them getting intimate and stole her clothes while in the bath in an attempt to bully Kanaka. While she had no problem with merely walking back naked, Kiriha convinced her to use her obi form to clothe her instead.

Several months later, her group is finally assigned their final exam to become exorcists of Tzusura Temple. Their first mission consists of dealing with low-level aberrations, under the supervision of advisors who will be observing their performance on the field. After spending a few hours on the mountains and erasing only a few low-level monsters, their examiners grew suspicious of the low number of aberrations in the area. Their intuition proved correct as the group immediately encountered a Kazenbou, the same one that had killed Kanaka's family and destroyed her home. While Kanaka's classmates attempted to fight it to no avail, one of their instructors injured herself protecting Hiyori, from an attack resulting in a small amount of her blood being splattered across Kanaka's face. Her other instructor Takigi attempted to restrain the Kazenbou using a chain tsukumogami, but the powerful aberration managed to easily render it useless before diverting his attention towards the cadets. From what appears to be an imminent death, Kanaka blocks the Kazenbou punch using Weave Shield and proceeded to split his arm using the Water Shed weave. Enraged over the wound, he launched himself towards Kanaka with full strength. At that precise moment, being put in a life-threatening battle gave Kanaka the motivation she was lacking to complete her techniques and smiled for the first time. During the fight, she didn't stop smiling for a single second and easily dominating him before finishing him off with a Drill Weave, much to the shock of everyone present.

A month after the battle, Kanaka is shown to be more expressive and easily outmatching her team. Kiriha was glad of her newfound cheerfulness, she couldn't help but feel her smiling face had a feeling of danger in it. Following this event, the two would take part erasing aberrations along with Kanaka's team for a couple of years, but she would eventually grow bored, being too powerful for her opponents to give her a threatening feeling, though still keeping a happy facade, with only Kiriha and Hiyori briefly noticing her. One day during their baths, Kanaka's team mentioned about a post in Kamioka opening up, which would involve fighting many high level aberrations due to the unstable circulation of curse in the region. Upon hearing this, Kanaka rushed to the headmaster's office along with Kiriha, requesting to be given the position. Oriobana granted the two permission to go to Kamioka but requires them to persuade the current exorcist, Shinkurou Shishizaki, to leave his position first. Once they arrive the two meet with the God of the Land of Kamioka, Kukuri-Hime-no-Kami, who cordially introduces herself. However, Shishizaki is not willing to give his position, claiming that he can't allow a weakling in charge of the role, though in reality he has a crush for Kukuri and wants to stay with her. Kanaka proposes to settle it with a duel, with the winner earning the rights to be the land's exorcist. While he initially proved to be a fierce enemy, even for Kanaka, after she was able to read his fighting pattern she opted for fighting barehanded, leaving Kiriha on the sidelines instead, and won the fight after delivering an unbelievably precise strike on a weaker spot of his tsukumogami armor. Despite his loss, Shishizaki still refuses to leave and begs Kukuri to allow him to stay. Kiriha shreds Kukuri's clothes and exposes her vagina to Shishizaki, causing him to enter an unconscious euphoric state, requiring others to escort him away, though the deity was less than happy with Kiriha's treatment.

    Kiriha and Kanaka enter Kuruki's temple, with Kuruki having changed into a gym bloomers provided by the local weather god Kane. Kiriha mocks her attire and her and Kanaka rummage through the other clothes provided, prompting Kukuri to demand more respect. The two perform Tsuzura Temple style of arm wrestling to determine who will be forced to wear the clothes. Kiriha loses and is forced to wear a bunny suit. Kanaka joins in and is able to defeat both of them, forcing them into skimpy bikinis. As they have now been assigned to Kamioka, Kanaka and Kiriha end up living at the temple since they have no other place to go. Oriobana would later arrive to give Kanaka a school uniform to go to school and complete her education, where Kiriha would attend school with. During their years in middle school, Kanaka would remain motivated and cheerful thanks to the actively threatening environment of Kamioka filled with highly dangerous aberrations, but she would eventually grow bored again by high school, having become strong enough to easily overpower any of Kamioka's aberrations. To cheer Kanaka up Kukuri tells her of the Frozen stock, a list of aberrations of the extreme levels of difficulty with low priority due to being on isolated locations. These proved to be powerful enough to restore her cheerfulness for a long time, as they were some of the most powerful beasts recorded in the temple's archives. Upon entering high school, Kanaka received advances from numerous boys, all of which were intercepted and drove away by Kiriha. One in particular, Kazuaki Kagami, persisted. However, despite Kiriha's constant harassment, and managed to end up in a relationship with Kanaka, surprising both Kiriha and Kukuri to learn that she was attracted to men as well. Kanaka and Kazuaki married immediately upon finishing high school and she and Kiriha moved out of the shrine. Shortly after, the couple had their first child, a girl they named Kasumi.

When Kanaka was pregnant with Kazuya, she along with **Kiriha**, went out on a mission in the middle of the mountains to hunt Frozen Stock. Kiriha tried to convince Kanaka to rest due to her pregnancy, but Kanaka insisted that she was fine, as she hadn't faced difficulty when she was pregnant with Kasumi. However, during the mission Kanaka was abruptly assaulted by a mysterious black fog, which vanished quickly after uttering a few words. They asked Kukuri for her advice over the strange aberration, but it didn't appear to leave any lasting consequence on Kanaka. This changed upon Kazuya's birth, when he immediately showed signs of strong spiritual presence and attracted curse to himself, signifying him as a Taboo Child. Kukuri has Kanaka transfer ownership of Kiriha to Kazuya in order to suppress his spiritual power, stabilizing the curse in the process. As a result of changing owners Kiriha's body changed to a younger form as well, closer to a teenager once again. At some point shortly after his birth, Kanaka requested Kiriha to protect him if something were to happen to her, which Kiriha accepted.

Four years later, Kanaka was already considering the idea of making one of her children, her successor as Kamioka's exorcist, and a 6-year old Kasumi volunteered for it, much to everyone's surprise. Following this decision, Kazuya's elder sister underwent their mother's exorcist training, as she was trying to spare Kazuya from any form of danger. One day while having Kasumi train by killing several small aberrations, a slightly more powerful one escaped Kasumi's grasp and went after Kazuya. Before anyone could react to save Kazuya, he saved himself by instantly turning several rocks into an amasogi easily killing the aberration, which made Kanaka become aware of Kazuya's high potential and prompting her to have Kazuya trained as well.

After three years of training her son and daughter, Kanaka's fighting ability had already reached heights where even the Frozen Stock provided little stimulation for her, and she was slowly descending into a depression. One day, Kukuri tells them of an aberration that had killed the regional exorcist of Komiya, prompting Kanaka to rush off to fight it as she expected it to be extremely powerful. Her guess was right, as Kiriha noticed it was stronger than any aberration Kanaka had ever encountered. However, attempting to test its endurance, Kanaka immediately destroyed him with a single strike, greatly discouraging and disappointing Kanaka. Soon after, they met Sunao Sumeragi, who attacked them but was easily rendered unconscious. When Sunao awoke Kankaka listened to her story and agreed to become her nemesis in the aberration's place.

After some time Kiriha decided to speak with Kukuri, Kazuya and Kasumi about Kanaka's depression and her exorcist suspension for ignoring warnings. Kiriha stated the simplest solution would be to have her face an opponent strong enough to threaten her, indirectly referring to Kukuri herself, but the deity declined, stating that gods are not allowed to use their full power unless their lives or lands were at stake. Kazuya goes to his mother to cheer her up, telling Kakana that he will one day become strong enough for them to fight on even ground. Kiriha, Kukuri, and Kasumi listened to their conversation outside the room, with the latter two having been brought to tears by Kazuya's words.

One day, Kiriha would find a panicking Kazuya rushing into their home crying for help as a black obi tsukumogami Azami burst through the front door. Azami uttered the commands given by Kazuya to kill him, and attacked the two, with Kazuya revealing that she was possessed by an amasogi. Kiriha was able to save herself and Kazuya from the attacks before meeting Kanaka outside. Kiriha insisted on Kanaka using her, but Kanaka was able to subdue Azami by herself, binding her with "Obi Cords" to restrain her. As Kiriha had Kazuya go to the shrine to explain to Kukuri the situation, Kiriha leaves to get more obi cords for her. However, upon returning she finds a Kanaka that had been accidentally possessed by the amasogi within Azami after lowering her guard. Following the amasogi's desire, the possessed Kanaka rushed out to kill Kazuya as Kiriha chased after her. She's able to intercept her and tries to restrain her with little success, before Kanaka is able to reach Kazuya on a bridge, where he was saved from her attack by a desperate Kiriha. As Kiriha defended Kazuya from a barrage of attacks she was able to connect with Kanaka's inner self. Kanaka showed Kiriha how much her corruption had spread despite the short period of time and reminded Kiriha of her promise to take care of Kazuya given her demise, asking Kiriha to kill her, as she would create an opening for them to land a fatal blow. Kiriha told Kazuya they had to kill Kanaka to which Kazuya begged her not to, but Kiriha forcefully uses a Spiral Weave while tied to Kazuya, landing a hit on Kanaka's heart right in the center of her chest.

As Kazuya saw his mother lay in the river, he began to blame himself, cursing his own existence, resulting in a large gathering of curse as Amasogi formed around them. Kiriha attached herself to Kazuya to destroy the Amasogi before knocking Kazuya out. Kiriha bound the obi and placed Kanaka's body on the land, covering it up, and proceeded to carry Kazuya to the shrine to explain the situation to Kukuri hoping that she could help her stabilize Kazuya. Kukuri explained that they would seal Kazuya's memories from the event to prevent his suicidal grief from crumbling him down, however, in order to do so she would need to seal every memory of her mother as well, including her life as an exorcist and Kiriha's existence. As being forgotten would be akin to death for a tsugumomo, she asked Kiriha one last time if she was okay with that but Kiriha didn't hesitate and accepted. Before sealing his memories, Kukuri put her to sleep in her original obi form, increasing the chances of a reunion between Kazuya and Kiriha if the seal on his memories were to be removed.

## Abilities

Kiriha is an obi tsugumomo that can be used for many purposes in and outside of combat, possessing the ability to manifest several layers of her obi to carry out many tasks. Her obi layers possess a greater strength than that of a regular human, allowing her to use it to carry heavy objects or even people. As a tsugumomo however, her own potential in obi form for combat or other fields are entirely dependant on her owner, and because an obi is a very specific tool with limited uses, employing her as something else like a weapon requires an unconventional and complicated usage achieved only by a creative mindset and a rigorous training. In order to use her as a weapon, Kanaka developed a variety of weaving techniques, making her extremely versatile on the battlefield. She can manifest up to 8 layers of her obi, all of which can take different forms simultaneously, but the ability to manifest all her layers and being able to control them is something that requires an incredible amount of skill and spirit power. She also has the ability to create "substitutes". These have the advantage of not leaving any consequences to Kiriha and draining less stamina, but their strength and sturdiness is considerably weaker so they mostly serve as bait to create openings.

Beyond her powers to be used as a weapon for an Exorcist, she herself is quite skilled as a fighter, though her raw spiritual power is dependant on who her current owner is (peaking when someone like Kanaka owns her and decreasing when it's someone inexperienced like Kazuya). While her martial arts can't compare to Kanaka, she is good enough to be a solid rival of Kukuri in Tsuzura Temple style arm wrestling, as well as being able to compete with fully-fledged high-level exorcists like Sunao Sumeragi even on a weakened form. She's also inherently capable of making use of all the obi techniques invented by Kanaka. Naturally, she displays great expertise on them and can make use of even the most advanced moves:

### Fundamental Abilities

Kiriha's fundamental abilities as a tsugumomo revolve primarily around various Weave techniques.

* **Obi Jab** (帯突き(おびづき),, *Obi Dzuki*): Kiriha fires one obi layer forward to hit her opponent with a simple strike. It has a range of 4.17 meters. If she uses multiple layers she can attack her enemy from multiple angles at the same time.
* **Obi Throw** (帯落とし,, *Obi Otoshi*): Kiriha grabs her opponent and throws thems to the ground.
* **Shield Weave** (たてつづり,, *Tate tsudzur*): Kiriha forms a quadrangular shield with her obi, protecting her from damage. On its own, it is quite sturdy and capable of fending from most simple attacks, as well as being quick to cast. She can also make a double-layered shield, which takes two obi layers and takes a bit more time but is considerably stronger.
* **Hammer Weave** (げんのうつづり,, *Gennō Tsudzuri*): Kiriha uses her obi to form a hammer to deliver a powerful blow to her opponent. Multiple layers increase the strength.
* **Feather Weave** (はねつづり,, *Hane Tsudzuri*): Kiriha uses two layers to forms wings that allow her to fly around, granting her a better mobility on the battlefield.
* **Fence Weave Inner Court Formation** (かきつづりつまごみの陣,, *Kaki tsudzuri tsuma gomi no jin*): Kiriha's ultimate defensive move. She constructs a multi-layered defensive covering that blocks projectiles from all sides and has an absurdly high defensive value, being capable of protecting even those close to her. It was strong enough to protect Kiriha and Kazuya, even from Kukuri's Minazuchi, but it is a very exhausting technique that depletes most of the user's stamina.
* **Spiral Weave** (螺旋綴(らせんつづり),, *Rasen Tsudzuri*): 'Kiriha forms a drill with her obi to deliver a penetrating attack capable of tearing through her enemies. Multiple layers increase the strength.

## Appearances in Other Media

* Kiriha appears in the mobile game **Monmusu Harem** by **Furyu Corp** as an obtainable character, alongside Kokuyou, Kukuri and Sunao for a limited time as part of a promotional collaboration for the Tsugumomo anime. Kiriha is obtainable in both her regular form and child form.
* Kiriha appears in the mobile game **Himitsu no Yadoya** by **GESI** as an obtainable character, alongside Kazuya, Kukuri, Kokuyou and Chisato as part of a promotional collaboration for the Tsugumomo anime.

## Etymology

* The name **Kiriha** means "paulownia leaves" (桐葉).

### Real Name

* The name **Ayasakura** means "color" (綾) (**aya**) and "cherry blossom" (桜) (**sakura**).

### Alias Name

* The name **Kiriha** means "paulownia leaves" (桐葉).
* Kiriha's surname **Obina** means "band, belt, obi" (帯) (**obi**) and "apple tree" (奈) (**na**).

### Male Name

* The name **Kirio** means "paulownia" (桐) (**kiri**) and "hero, manly" (雄) (**o**).