Naki Kito

To pass among humans, Naki adopts the guise of a stooped old woman, her hair frizzed into a heavy perm above a single connected brow. The disguise comes with a striped button shirt worn long in the sleeve, a chunky strand of pearls, and floral-patterned harem trousers.

Her real shape betrays her Subterranean nature. The head spreads broad and is flanked by armored plating, while each eye holds ringed circles crossed by a line. A drawn-out, puckered mouth is etched with dark streaks, two horns sweep apart in opposite arcs, and her torso coils like a spring hose. Even her feet look wrong, the toes splayed out like fingers.

For over two centuries Naki bound herself to guarding her clan's village from the Tsuchinoko, handing over human lives so the worm would not wake the volcano it nested in. Her family revered the creature, crediting it with the hot springs that supposedly came from satisfying its hunger, and Naki treated standing before it as a privilege. Yet once the family was jailed, it grew clear that her loyalty sat more with the worm than the village; what truly enraged her was Momo wrecking the long plan to fatten the creature.

Proud and haughty, she insists the land belongs to the Kito name and that residents owe them gratitude, even reminding Jiji that her supposed kindness let him live rent free. She cannot stomach an outsider succeeding where her family claimed exclusive duty. After the arrests turn the clan into fugitives, vengeance against Momo consumes her, though she proves pragmatic enough to cooperate with her enemies against the Typhoon Human when survival demands it. Her spite always resurfaces, however, and she is forever rattled by Momo's voice without being able to spot the shrunken girl. She watches over her children but stays stern, often exasperated by their bumbling.

Back in the feudal era Naki marched her relatives into sacrificing village youngsters to a Mongolian Death Worm they exalted as the Tsuchinoko, keeping the volcano dormant. The practice carried into modern times, with the family raising a cursed house to draw victims in, a scheme that eventually spawned the Evil Eye. During the Cursed House Arc the clan corners Jiji's guests, beats Okarun and Jiji, and Naki hammers Momo into the sacrificial chamber. The plan backfires when the boys shove the family down to the lair, where the worm devours them all before Momo slays it and uses its corpse to cool the erupting magma. Naki's arm is broken blocking the Evil Eye, and after the family is finally arrested she slips away, sheds her human mask, and vows revenge for the subterraneans.

She later breaks her sons loose and tracks Momo to an airport using the scent on a left-behind jacket, boarding the same plane. The brawl spills into Bamora's Empty Space, where Naki reveals herself only to find the Typhoon Human threatening everyone aboard. Forced to follow Seiko's plan, she revives a smuggled, dehydrated Death Worm hatchling and rides it to bombard the cryptid with frozen sharks, eventually helping destroy it. Her abilities run to brutal physical power, speed, and pain tolerance rooted in a snake-style martial art; her signature double-fisted blow, dubbed the Jennifer Lopez Anaconda, can hurl an opponent through walls. After the victory her attempt to sacrifice Momo's group rebounds, and an Evil Eye kick launches the whole family clear to the Moon, where Naki, stranded and cursing Momo's name, swears yet again to tear her apart.