Kagura Mutsuki

Kagura Mutsuki (カグラ＝ムツキ), also known as the Black Knight (黒騎士) and Black Gale, 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. 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 against her).

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) and later also Ragna’s overprotective sibling attitude (once he gets to adjust to Kagura’s perverted attitude). 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”, as well as wanting to make the world a better place without the need for large scale wars due to being more empathic to the people than the government as he discreetly planned against the current organization for years since Tenjō's passing in her honor (and also remaining close to his old friend Bang Shishigami and loyal to Tenjō's son). 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.

History
The head of the powerful Mutsuki family known as the Black Knight, Kagura is the representative World Void Information Control Organization officer in the 5th Hierarchical City of Ibukido who is secretly a disciple of Tenjō Amanohokosaka and entrusted to care for his young child Homura. Kagura planned a coup d'état against the Control Organization. While his plan did not go exactly as he had thought, Homura was still throned as the new Emperor of Control Organization.

BlazBlue: Remix Heart
Kagura first appears when he stumbles upon Taro Sasagae and Mai Natsume accidentally kissing. Intrigued, he struck up a conversation with his relative, crudely asking him who the young girl is. Having been put off when Taro warned him about sex crimes, Kagura asked how Jin Kisaragi was doing, entrusting Jin’s protection to Taro himself before deciding to tour around the Military Academy, lightly joking about getting close to Estella McKenzie.

BlazBlue: Variable Heart
On June 2197 in the 2nd Hierarchical City of Iwatsuchi, being aware of the reasons Meifang Lapislazuli was after Mai, he saves the girl from the attack. He told her the directions needed to get outside of the city, intending to defend her from Meifang. Despite being defeated by the latter, he did managed to buy more time for Kajun Faycott to get into contact with Mai.

Kagura appears in Meifang's flashback on her first meeting with Tenjō Amanohokosaka as a child. Taking Meifang as the enemy, child Kagura attempts to attack her, only to earn a scolding from his master. He earned another beating on the head by Hōichirō Hazuki for his misbehavior.

Ikaruga Civil War
During the war, Kagura was already the acting leader of the Twelve Originators, commander of the Imperial Guards and commander of the region. He was responsible for leading the army and his mission was to “restore peace in Ikaruga”. Due to Emperor’s command, he was under constant “protection” of the 0th Division.

To protect his citizens, he made arrangements so that all refuges from Ikaruga would be transported to Kagutsuchi as construction workers, as the city was still under construction and had no ruler at the time.

Right after Jin was appointed to the front along with the orders from the Emperor to close off Ikaruga and end the war, Kagura challenged him to a sparing match, to verify Taro’s report regarding Jin going berserk because of Yukianesa. He noted that there was something off about the way he handled the sword and that the Jin he met today was nothing like the Jin he knew.

The new orders forced Kagura to change his plans and make a deal with Kokonoe. During the battle the Red Demon managed to slip past into their command center by utilizing teleportation technology and have managed to heavily wound Kagura in combat. This forced a clash between two of the Emperor’s order, one to protect Kagura, the other to seal off Ikaruga. This forced the 0th Division to allow Kagura to be transported to the medical center in the HQ. Before being transported, Kagura left the command in Jin’s hands, as he was the only other member of the Twelve Originators around.

In reality, Kagura wasn’t wounded too badly, it was all a ploy to allow Homura escape from Ikaruga. In the transporter, Kagura forced Homura to take one of the two paths, to remain in hiding and live peacefully, or to listen to what Kagura has to say and fight to reclaim Ikaruga’s former glory. Homura decided to fight, so Kagura revealed to him his destiny, as well as the truth of the world.

After the war, Kagura returned to Ikaruga to deal with the war’s aftermath and reconstruction work. As part of the deal with Kokonoe, he aided her in capturing Azrael, by sending 200 soldiers and 10 restraining field specialists.

BlazBlue: Chronophantasma
As part of his plan of raising the coup d'état against the Control Organization, Kagura had prepared some countermeasures and gathered some individuals who's against the current Emperor. He allies with Kokonoe Mercury and requested Hibiki to bring Jin to the Ikagura Branch.

After the final Event Interference made by the Amaterasu Unit, Kagura tries to find Noel, only to encounter Ragna attempting to take her by force. He defends Noel and outpaced Ragna easily, knocking him down when he's off guard though it was Celica's presence that was negating Ragna's Blue Grimoire. Kagura then took Ragna to the branch, telling the latter that he have a job to do. He tipped off information of Makoto's location to Tsubaki Yayoi, which was later revealed to be a ploy made in order to find her and determine Tsubaki's condition under the Mind Eater's influence.

BlazBlue: Centralfiction
After Ragna recreated the world through the Book of the Blue Blaze, Kagura was in charge of keeping the Control Organization in order with Homura as the new Emperor.

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.

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) (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), allows him to change stances more freely.

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 quote depending 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.