Kagura Mutsuki

**Kagura Mutsuki** (カグラ＝ムツキ), also known as the **Black Knight** (黒騎士 *Kuro Kishi*) and **Black Gale** (*Burakku Geiru*), is a Control Organization colonel, and the head of the Twelve Originators’ Mutsuki family, as well as a secret disciple of Tenjō Amanohokosaka and a bodyguard of Tenjō’s child, Homura. He is a playable character since *BlazBlue: Chronophantasma*.

## Appearance

Kagura is a rather tall, broad chested, young man. He wears a white, robe-like shirt with long sleeves that is open just above his abdomen; two black belts are fastened on the sleeves. Kagura wears wrist wraps that cover his palm to his elbow, two metal cuffs sit above the wraps on his wrists. On the lower half of his shirt, two brown belts are fashioned, below this, a large and loose brown belt hangs, it has a huge golden buckle. Over his shirt, he wears a large, black Control Organization cape that is separated into three individual cloves. The interior of the cape is a deep crimson red, while the exterior is decorated with a golden insignia on the outer cloves; the cape is held onto Kagura’s body via a light brown strap. He wears plain black pants and light brown shoes with metal toe-caps.

When he was in the Military Academy, he looked the same, except he wore a military school uniform slightly opened and wore his scarf loose while wielding a kendo stick, as seen in Amane Nishiki’s Astral Heat.

His swimsuit in*Chronophantasma* has him wearing black swim shorts with yellow designs, with a matching black-and-yellow jacket with a red interior. His swimsuit motif was his black Control Organization cape from his primary outfit.

## Personality

Kagura is shown to have a laidback attitude, taking things very casually, in stark contrast to some characters in the *BlazBlue* series. He is described to be more empathic to the people than the government. In *BlazBlue: Remix Heart*, he is shown to be a pervert as his first line in the manga is about Mai Natsume’s breasts, and onwards in *BlazBlue: Chronophantasma*, he is shown attempting to grope Makoto Nanaya’s breasts and analyzes most female opponent’s B-W-H measurements. However, he has no interest in underage females such as Platinum (he remarks how she should get back to him in 10 years in his Victory Quote) and repeatedly states how he dislikes entertaining men. However, in special cases, some females are exempt from his usual treatment, like Tsubaki, Kokonoe and Rachel (although he still asks Rachel out on a date in his Victory Quote).

He tends to flirt with almost any woman he encounters and tries several times to invite Noel Vermillion to dates but they have all ended in failure due to Makoto’s interference (mostly a punch in the face). On a serious note, Kagura became enraged and tried to kill Arakune when the latter attacked Noel, showing a protective side to him (although it is likely this extends to all women). He is also surprisingly humble as he frequently attributes his many “successes” to the fact that he has “great subordinates”. He also tries to give Ragna advice and words of wisdom to help him understand his reason for fighting and later develops a level of respect towards Ragna after the battle with Azrael.

## Powers and Abilities

Kagura has been shown to have both incredible strength and skill, wielding his rather large zweihander with ease and commonly utilizing a form of dark energy in conjunction with it. According to himself, Kagura is known to be stronger than Ragna the Bloodedge, without his Blue Grimoire active, that is. He is able to subdue Noel Vermillion in her Mu-12 mode. Kagura is even able to resist against Phantom’s Gravity Seed magic to some extent, something which not even Rachel Alucard could resist against. Kagura is also currently known to be the most powerful among the Twelve Originators. It is often said that had Jin Kisaragi not have won the title, then Kagura would have been known as the 'Hero of Ikaruga'.

Most likely during his time under Tenjō alongside Bang, Kagura has also learned stealth-arts from him and his brothers (whom themselves were masters of it). He jokingly points out that those skills are especially useful when one needs to pay a visit to the ladies dressing room. His skills in this art are high enough to allow him to slip past the supervision of the 0th Division.[2]

In terms of combat style, Kagura has bandages wrapped all around the grip of his aforementioned zweihander that allows him to not only wrap it around his arms to reduce the stress of handling it (akin to using it as sports tape), but to also swing it akin to a flail (seen in his j.C). Kagura often makes use of flashy attacks such as stylish kicks and wide two-handed swings, all while using his zweihander as leverage for a variety of other attacks. Kagura as explained to Azrael during the events of *Centralfiction* that he never missed a day of training, showing that he has honed his flashy-yet-effective style from building upon his fundamentals through pure dedication. Also in *Centralfiction*, Hakumen remarks in his winquote that his swordsmanship is nothing short of excellent.

Gameplay-wise, Kagura is a stance and charge character. His only two special moves are a projectile and an anti-air (as well as a third one only in midair in *Centralfiction*) with his Drive, **Black Gale** (ブラックゲイル *Burakku Geiru*) (named after one his monikers but only in katakana with no kanji), allowing him to enter a stance as a preparation for the remainder of his moves, which shows off his proficiency in his art out of being intuitive. His Overdrive, **Vehemence Edge** (ヴィエメンスエッジ *Viemensu Ejji*, localized as **Infinite Coupling**), allows him to change stances more freely.

## TMNT X Pokemon

Kagura is always ready for any challenge with his laid-back personality. He's usually calm during most missions.

## Trivia

Naming
* “Kagura” (神楽) is a Japanese name that has roots in Old Japanese, which ironically is normally a female name. Originally a compound of 神 (*kami* – spirit, god) and‎ 座 (*kura* – seat), it referred to the place used to call down the 神 (*kami* – spirits and gods) to earth, when a 巫女 (*miko* – shrine maiden) would act as a medium for the *kami*. Over time, the term came to refer to the music and dance of the ceremony. “Mutsuki” is the archaic Japanese word for *January*. Its etymological meaning is unknown but in poetry, it is often seen as a month of affection, when family and friends gather together to celebrate the New Year.
* Kagura’s move names are mostly themed on dragons, with his Drive, Overdrive, and “Stance Break” being the sole exceptions. He will also sometimes call out the names of various dragons during his attacks, such as Hydra, Wyvern, Dahaka, Lindwyrm, Vritra, and Nidhogg.

Other
* Kagura’s birthday, January 15, is the original date for Japan’s Coming of Age day.
* Whenever Kagura battles a female character, during the intro sequence he will measure that character’s thigh, waist and bust. Also, he has a different quotedepending on that character, and a special quote whenever Kagura wins against Noel, Bullet, Makoto or Litchi.
	+ However, for Makoto he skips the scanning and simply rushes towards her in an attempt to fondle her breasts, which earns him two punches. While he analyzes Lambda’s measurements, she also attempts to attack him.
	+ Rachel, Kokonoe and Celica are the only characters whose measurements Kagura does not analyze.
* In some of Kagura’s pre-battle animations, he is shown on a date with one of various women. He will proceed to toss the woman into the air before beginning the battle and catch her should he win the match. Should he lose, however, the woman falls onto his unconscious body.
* There is an actual bug which involves Unlimited Kagura and Carl or Relius as his opponent, if Kagura uses his Unlimited Distortion Drive during Nirvana’s Rhapsody of Memories or Ignis’ Duo Bios, it will cause Carl or Relius being damaged indefinitely due to Nirvana and Ignis’ armor preventing Kagura from driving off the screen. This still happens after knocking them out.
* Kagura is shown to have knowledge about some secrets behind Ragna, Jin, and Noel. He has tried to bring the three of the them together to be more friendly to each other, has shown some sort of knowledge about the connection between Ragna and Noel after seeing that Noel had called Ragna for help unconsciously when she was being assaulted by Arakune, and has indirectly called Noel “sibling” after she separates Ragna and Jin from fighting, also saying that it may depend on Noel for Ragna and Jin to become more friendly towards each other.