Kyo's Mother

Kyo's mother was a pale-skinned woman of middle years whose light brown eyes held a weary yet gentle expression. Her brown hair fell straight to just past her shoulders, with long bangs that draped over her right eye and softened her face. She dressed plainly and in soft colors, favoring long skirts and simple blouses.

Above all she was a doting, protective mother who loved Kyo dearly, though her love was shadowed by a fear of the monstrous form he could take. Despite being cast out by the Sohma family and by her own husband on Kyo's account, despite her loneliness and the mental strain she carried with no one to lean on, she pressed on and gave her son as much affection as she could manage. She reassured herself that he always returned to human shape, and she masked her dread behind constant displays of warmth.

She married and in time gave birth to Kyo, born as the Cat, which made her guard him obsessively. Frightened of his true form yet unwilling to show it, she wrapped her fear in tenderness and, by Kyo's account, checked that his prayer beads were secure countless times a day. After Kagura provoked him into transforming, she grew even more restrictive, keeping him indoors and away from television.

The family shunned her, and her husband battered her with words for having borne Kyo and supposedly ruining his life. The mounting abuse and the burden of protecting her son finally overwhelmed her, and she took her own life beneath a train. Many Sohmas held Kyo responsible, though the truth involved many pressures, her husband's cruelty foremost among them. Kyo long blamed himself and was troubled by nightmares of her, but he later grasped the isolation she must have suffered and came to wish she had kept living; her memory becomes one of the reasons he refuses the Cat's Room and chooses to go on.