Kaya

Bright eyes stand out on this small-framed girl, who tucks her pale hair back behind her ears. It falls straight to her shoulder blades beneath even bangs, though at her debut it is cut shorter and paired with a plain tunic. Life with the Blouses upgrades her wardrobe: on the farm she wears a dark long-sleeved dress under a light, cross-tied shawl, and for formal occasions she adds a frilled white shirt with a ribbon bowed at the collar, matching the other Blouse girls.

Kaya keeps her feelings below the surface, speaking little and warming to people slowly; the other orphans at the Blouse stables treat her easy rapport with Gabi and Falco as something worth remarking on. Sasha's bravery left her a guiding principle, to help anyone in need the way she was once helped, and she honors it even for two children of an enemy nation, hiding their identities and offering to find them a route home.

That kindness has a breaking point. The moment she learns Gabi killed Sasha, Kaya grabs a knife and lunges for her.

When Titans overrun Wall Rose territory in 850, Kaya's village empties, but her mother's crippled legs keep the pair trapped at home. A Titan devours the woman while Kaya stands frozen, and only Sasha Blouse's arrival saves the girl; after Sasha's horse bolts, the soldier sends Kaya ahead on foot and stays behind to hold the creature off. Kaya reaches survivors from Dauper and directs them back to aid her rescuer.

Four years later, now among the war orphans the queen supports at the Blouse farm, she mourns at Sasha's grave. Soon after, she overhears two runaway children arguing, works out exactly who Gabi and Falco are, and takes them in anyway. At her ruined village she presses Gabi to explain what a housebound woman who never left the island did to deserve being eaten, dismantling the girl's rehearsed accusations; when Falco admits the invasion grew out of Marley's own infiltration of Paradis, she tells him a country's crimes are not his to apologize for. Hoping the Marleyan chef Niccolo can smuggle the pair home, she brings them along to his restaurant, where Niccolo instead exposes Gabi as Sasha's killer. Kaya seizes the offered knife and is barely stopped from stabbing her, held back sobbing by the Blouses.

The Yeagerists imprison everyone from the restaurant in Shiganshina, and Kaya is freed only when Marley attacks the island. Fleeing through the battle with her adoptive family, she voices a wish to kill both children she once protected, unaware Gabi can hear her. Fate answers by cornering Kaya alone before a Titan, and it is Gabi who saves her; Kaya repays the debt by claiming the girl as family when soldiers grow suspicious. Guided by Niccolo, the two make peace with the "devil" each of them carries, and Kaya sees Gabi off with a real farewell. Three years after the Rumbling, she passes a Yeagerist ceremony walking beside the Blouses and Niccolo.