Kaya Irimi

Irimi keeps her dark hair long, with parted strands hanging over the front of her face, and dresses in a relaxed, casual style. At a glance she reads as somber and sparing with words. After the time skip she cropped her hair shorter, and in her younger years it was shorter still. Her hunting mask is shaped like a Doberman's muzzle.

Reserved and self-contained, she usually keeps her thoughts to herself, though flashes of annoyance and blunt honesty slip through. She is notably warm toward Touka Kirishima and Hinami Fueguchi, and her loyalty to Yoshimura runs deep, dating back long before Anteiku existed. When death finally came for her, she met it willingly, treating it as the price owed for her sins. That gentleness was hard-won: in her gang days she was savage and merciless, once wiping out an entire investigator squad and leaving a single, disfigured survivor behind.

Ten years before the series, Irimi ran a notorious 20th ward crew known for their black canine masks, the Black Dobers, who clashed constantly with a rival gang, the Apes, and their leader Enji Koma. She likely scarred Chuu Hachikawa during that era. Meeting Yoshimura drew her away from the violence, and she became a barista at Anteiku, popular with customers and close to the staff. Over the years she took Touka and Hinami under her wing and taught Hinami to sharpen her hearing.

When the CCG descended on Anteiku during the Owl Suppression Operation, she met them as the Black Dog, rallying her old gang and cutting down investigators before clashing with Hachikawa and Take Hirako. Kaneki's arrival spared her a killing blow, and she escaped toward Route V14. She later stood with Kaneki's allies through the Tsukiyama and Rushima operations and joined Goat, where she urged Kaneki to lean on others rather than shoulder every burden alone. She and Koma eventually died off-page, only for Kaiko to deliver their bodies to Akihiro Kanou, who revived them as controlled weapons through Spieldose technology. Restored yet reduced to repeating fragments of speech, she overwhelmed Koori Ui before being stopped, and after that final battle she lay motionless as Nishiki Nishio wept over her. Her ukaku kagune formed winged blades, and her extraordinary hearing let her map enemies by the vibrations of their kagune.