Kagura Mutsuki

Kagura Mutsuki (カグラ＝ムツキ), also known as the Black Knight (黒騎士) and Black Gale, is a NOL general, and the head of the Duodecim's Mutsuki family, as well as a secret disciple of Tenjō Amanohokosaka and a bodyguard of Tenjō's child, Homura, who was planning to overthrow the NOL for his young master to succeed on reforming NOL. He is an unlockable playable character in BlazBlue: Chronophantasma's console version.

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 NOL 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 NOL 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.

History
The head of the powerful Mutsuki family known as the Black Knight, Kagura is the representative Novus Orbis Librarium 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 planed a coup d'état against the NOL. While his plan did not go exactly as he had thought, Homura was still throned as the new Imperator of NOL.

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.

Ikaruga Civil War
During the war, Kagura was already the acting leader of the Duodecim, commander of the Praetorian Guard and commander of the region. He was responsible for leading the army and his mission was to "Restore peace in Ikaruga". Due to Imperator's command, he was under constant "protection" of the Zero Squadron.

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 Imperator 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 Devil 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 Imperator's order, one to protect Kagura, the other to seal off Ikaruga. This forced the Zero Squadron 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 Duodecim 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.

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 Azure Grimoire active, that is. He is able to subdue Noel Vermillion in her Mu -No. 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 Duodecim. It is often said that had Jin Kisaragi not have won the title, then Kagura would have been known as the 'Hero of Ikaruga'.

Gameplay-wise, Kagura is a stance and charge character. His special moves are a projectile and an anti-air with his Drive, Black Gale, allowing him to enter a stance as a preparation for the remainder of his moves. His Overdrive, Infinite Coupling, allows him to change stances more freely.

Etymology
Kagura (神楽) is a Japanese name that has roots in Old Japanese. 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.

Trivia

 * Kagura's birthday, January 15, is the original date for Japan's Coming of Age day.
 * Kagura possesses more special moves than any other playable character.
 * Although his official rank is General, the English dub has his rank as Colonel.
 * Kagura, like Litchi, has a specific pre-battle dialog when put in a mirror match against another Kagura. Unlike Litchi, the two of them have a different dialog than the other.
 * 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.
 * Strangely enough, Kagura almost mistakes Amane as a woman, only clueing in after he made the measurements. He also analyzes Nirvana's measurements when matched against Carl, wondering if dating her in her Nox Nytores doll-like form is legal or not.
 * Outside Teach Me, Miss Litchi! while analyzing Platinum's measurements, Kagura has no interest in a girls with a loli figure.
 * While analyzing Lambda's measurements, Lambda, like Makoto, also aware of Kagura's dirty side and attempt, attack him.
 * Rachel, Kokonoe and Celica are the only characters whom Kagura did not analyze their measurements.
 * Furthermore, 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.
 * 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.
 * There is an actual bug which involves Unlimited Kagura and Carl or Relius as his opponent, if Kagura uses his Hidden 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.
 * Kagura has learned stealth arts from his brothers who themselves were masters of it. He 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 Zero Squadron.

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