Kikunojo

Kiku presents as strikingly feminine and is celebrated for her looks, having once been hailed as the loveliest swordsman in all of Wano. Long dark violet hair, rendered closer to blue in the anime, spills down her back, framed by squared bangs and shoulder length side locks, above a pair of indigo eyes. Her most arresting trait is her height: at well over nine feet she towers over Luffy, Zoro, and even her own elder brother.

Day to day she favors a yellow kimono patterned with chrysanthemums, an obi that blends pink, cream, and lavender, plus white tabi and black soled zori sandals. Readying for a fight, she binds her hair back with a red ribbon, hitches up her sleeves with a tasuki, and at times slips on a pale Noh hannya mask. For the assault on Onigashima she donned a full suit of Japanese armor. In the era before her leap through time she dressed in the plainer, masculine style of a samurai, only embracing lipstick and feminine garb after reaching the future. During the battle with Kaidou, most of her left arm was severed by one of his strikes.

Although her legend casts her as a male samurai of the Scabbards, Kiku states plainly that at heart she is a woman, and she lives and presents herself that way. She is warm and upbeat, nurturing toward those she cares for, tending Zoro's wounds and watching over Tama as the child recovered from poison. That kindness sits alongside the steel of a seasoned fighter and a fierce drive to shield others.

Her sense of right can push her into rash moves. She lopped off Urashima's topknot, a grave insult to a samurai, after he degraded a crowd of townsfolk who had themselves looked down on her, and she once exposed her swordsmanship in front of Bakura Town's citizens while supposedly in hiding. She grows deeply emotional over loss, weeping at Oden Castle's ruins and again at Kanjuro's betrayal, yet she barely flinched when her own arm was cut away, enduring its cauterization with only a brief grunt before rejoining the fight. Proud of her role as a Kouzuki retainer, she refers to herself with the archaic samurai pronoun sessha.

Born in Wano and raised in the Hanayanagi dancing school, Kiku and her brother Izou were cast onto the streets of Ringo after their father's arrest, forced to perform for cruel adults until Oden found them, fed them, and took them in. She became one of his retainers when he rose to rule Kuri, training and educating herself with Yasuie's backing. Over the years she grieved Izou's secret departure with the Whitebeard Pirates and stood guard over Kuri awaiting Oden's return. When Oden moved against Kaidou and Orochi, she and the Scabbards were captured, and she watched her lord die at his execution after vowing to fulfill his dream of opening Wano's borders. Toki then cast her two decades ahead, together with Momonosuke, Raizo, Kin'emon, and Kanjuro.

Arriving in a changed land, she stayed behind to gather intelligence while the others sought allies, working as a poster girl in Okobore Town. As a samurai and a Scabbard she is a formidable swordswoman of the Gentle Blade school, immensely strong despite her grace, swift even in full armor, and a master of Armament Haki, which Wano calls Ryuo, sharp enough to pierce Kaidou's hand; she also wields Observation Haki. Her signature Zansetsugama unleashes circular flying slashes, fitting her epithet of the Lingering Snow. During the raid on Onigashima she fought Kaidou beside the Scabbards and lost her left arm to him, yet pressed on. After Momonosuke ascended as shogun, Kiku was appointed daimyo of Ringo, holding full authority over that region.