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CHARACTER INFORMATION

CHARACTER NAME: Shinobu Kocho
CANON: Kimetsu no Yaiba
TIMELINE: Chapter 163, after being consumed by Doma and declining his invitation to go with him to Hell.
AGE: 19

REFERENCE: Character wiki

PERSONALITY:

As a member of the Hashira, an elite group of swordsmen within the Demon Slayer Corps, Shinobu holds herself with grace and poise one would expect from someone of her station. Calm, polite, and professional, she is rarely seen without a smile on her face no matter what situation she's in and goes out of her way to be welcoming and approachable. Despite her delicate and lady-like appearance, she is a competent combatant and her expertise in medicine has earned her respect amongst her peers and trainees. It's easy to talk to her and it is just as easy to like her—Shinobu doesn't hold herself as better than others and frequently goes out of her way to help them without expecting anything in return. For those she's closer to, they're treated to a more playful side where she often teases them to ease the tension or bring them out of their shell. However, beneath her kind and tranquil disposition lies a deep well of bitter anger and hatred for the demon who killed her sister, as well as every other demon who has taken away her family and the families of all the girls who have come to live under her care.

Before the death of her sister, Kanae, Shinobu had more brash and outspoken personality, bluntly stating her disagreement and displeasure whenever the opportunity arose. By contrast, Kanae was soft-spoken and kind, compassionate to both humans and demons alike, and had a dream of humans and demons being able to coexist. Shinobu later reveals to Tanjiro that in her dying moments, Kanae pitied the demon who defeated her and wanted nothing more than for Shinobu to leave the Demon Slayer Corps and live a normal life. Shinobu admits that she couldn't understand her sister's sympathy for demons, and that the idea of not seeking vengeance was unthinkable. While unable to fulfill her sister's wish to live a normal life, Shinobu devoted her life instead to finding a way to carry on Kanae's dream, furthering her training and eventually taking her sister's place as a member of the Hashira with the goal of developing a way to avoid killing demons. She molded her personality into the softer, more cheerful disposition that Kanae was so fond of to honor her memory, yet it's clear that doing so has taken its toll on her over time. She confesses to Tanjiro that she's grown tired of keeping up her sunny disposition, and that her attempts to find compassion and sympathy for those who have taken away her entire family weighs on her. As a result, she felt hindered in both her progress to carry on Kanae's dream and her desire to avenge her.

It's a difficult decision—Kanae was the only remaining member of her family and was (and still is) the most important person to her, yet she ultimately chose to entrust Kanae's dream to Tanjiro instead in the hopes that he would be able to find the compassion for demons that she lacks, admitting that the prospect of his success soothes the anger she has carried with her for so long. Despite her optimistic outlook, at her core, Shinobu is a pragmatic realist: she frequently makes the hard choices that will ensure her success in the end, finding ways and alternatives around the numerous obstacles stacked against her and isn't shy about using whatever she has at her disposal to give herself the advantage. Whether it is developing a new combat technique to make up for her lack of strength, or devising and executing a plan to kill the demon who murdered her sister a year in advance, once Shinobu sets her mind on something she will stop at nothing to achieve it—even at the cost of her own life. Her strong will and determination has led her to where she is today, and though there are times when she falters, times where her lack of physical strength makes itself known during her toughest moments, she picks herself back up again and again. Her tenacity is likely her greatest asset, giving her the strength to keep pushing herself forward in spite of the hardships she has endured.

While not as openly kind and compassionate as her sister, Shinobu cares deeply for those around her, often putting her own safety on the line if it meant being able to prevent anyone else from suffering the same fate she did. Strength comes with a price, and if she is able to pay that price to save another innocent life, she will gladly pay it in full.

ABILITIES:

Physical combat
As a member of the Hashira, Shinobu is one of the strongest swordsmen in the Demon Slayer Corps. Although she lacks the physical strength to decapitate demons in one strike, years of harsh and rigorous training have honed her speed and weapon skills to a near superhuman level; she is able to match the speed of most Upper Rank demons and also possesses superior stabbing strength, able to split boulders in half with a single thrust. Shinobu is also shown to be very graceful and agile, making her a very difficult target to hit and subdue.

Swordsmanship/Insect breathing
Shinobu is the creator of the Insect Breathing style, which is a sword style that is inspired by and mimics the movements and lethal stings of various insects. This style mainly focuses on stabbing and thrusting, the goal of which is to create numerous shallow cuts in the target to allow for the injection of a large dose of poison. As it was created by Shinobu, she is currently the only user of the Insect Breathing style and is the only person able to utilize it to its full potential with her weapon, a modified katana with a needle tip that resembles a rapier, allowing her to inject her various poisons into demons. The different forms (also referred to as "dances") of the Insect Breathing style takes advantage of Shinobu's superior speed and medical expertise, relying on her precision to target the areas of the body that would be most susceptible to poison (i.e.: neck, heart, torso, etc). A list of techniques and their descriptions can be found here.

Medical skills
Shinobu was born to a family of pharmacists which facilitated her interest and skill in the medical science field, carrying over to her proficiency as a frontline medic. The Butterfly Estate owned by Shinobu is the current recovery base of the Demon Slayer Corps, with Shinobu spearheading most of their patients' healing and recovery processes. Aside from her medical expertise, Shinobu is also proficient in creating and counteracting poisons, having made her own wisteria-based poison herself that she is known for using in combat. With help from Tamayo and Yushiro, Shinobu was also able to create a drug capable of reverting demons back to their human form and regain their memories, a feat that was widely considered to be impossible. By working together with Tamayo, Shinobu's four-stage drug was capable of significantly weakening Muzan, the origin of all demons and the main antagonist, providing the other demon slayers the chance to finish him off before he could escape. While Muzan was capable of decomposing the first stage of the drug, Shinobu's failsafe second stage was crucial in turning the tide of the battle in Tanjiro's favor, further proving Shinobu's keen intellect in planning ahead to ensure their success.

Miscellaneous/Body modification
In preparation for her inevitable confrontation with Doma, Shinobu began ingesting a highly concentrated dose of wisteria poison every day for a year leading up to their encounter. As a result, she has completely integrated the poison into her body, from her blood and organs down to her cell structure. The poison is non-lethal to humans and other species aside from demons, and it is only detectable by smell if recognized. Taking into her account her smaller stature and weight, her body now contains the equivalent of 37 kilograms worth of poison, which is approximately seven hundred times more than the lethal amount needed to kill an average demon.

CRAU ABILITIES
Shinobu's time in Meadowlark also gave her access to other abilities granted by gods:

Empathy bond. Shinobu is able to share her emotions with others through skin-to-skin contact and can also experience the emotions of the person she is touching. This is not a conscious choice and can be accidental or purposeful. Memory sharing through the bond is also possible.
Insect Manipulation. (Blue Power) At its base level, Shinobu has the ability to take control of an insect of her choice, being able to see, hear and feel through its perspective as a means of gathering information. Initially, she can only take control of one insect for a maximum of five minutes.
Life-force Absorption. (Gold Power) Shinobu can drain and absorb the life-force/energy of her target via touch. She can then use that energy to heal herself or enhance her physical abilities.
Dream Sharing. On random occasions, Shinobu can visit the dreams of others or they can visit hers. With practice, she would be able to gain more control of this ability.
Power Sharing. By generating a small keepsake item (such as a brooch, or a hairpin) and gifting it to someone, that person would be able to use Insect Manipulation. If the giftee keeps the item for about a month (30 days), they would acquire the ability permanently.
Union Attack. Through an exchange of keepsake items mentioned above, characters can fight together while psychically linked. This results in an attack that combines blue powers and is limited to Meadowlark CRAUs.

(Battle spirit is listed on the page but I will be nerfing that entirely since I feel that this is already more than enough for her to work with. Please feel free to let me know if any of her other Meadowlark abilities need to be nerfed and I will be happy to do so!)

PERSONAL EFFECTS: Her outfit, her katana, and hair clip.
PRIZED POSSESSION: The butterfly patterned haori she wears.

CRAU PREMISE:

meadowlark, game premise.

Shinobu woke up in Meadowlark during the aftermath of an event that had affected the entire world's population. She and other new arrivals like her were retrieved at the point of contact in New Tokyo, a very large and technologically advanced version of the Tokyo she hails from, and were then immediately taken to a safe house in New Amsterdam where they were confined for the next four days. Prior to being retrieved, they were administered a "compliance" drug, a substance that made all new arrivals compulsively obey any command issued by anyone else, in order to make it easier for them to be transported from one place to another. None of these things were done with their consent, neither were the medical procedures that were performed on her before waking up, and thus it resulted in a very tense four days in which they were to wait for their required (and forged) documentation in order to integrate into society. It is in the safe house where she met Kisame Hoshigaki and Fenris, the first two individuals she formed a sort of alliance with in the midst of a lot of interpersonal drama, and eventually became friends with upon finally being allowed outside.

Due to the effects of the worldwide event that happened before she arrived, many natives were suspicious of her and others not from Meadowlark's world; they were collectively referred to as Displaced. It was difficult to find her footing in New Amsterdam initially, mainly due to the advancement in technology that she had to grow accustomed to, but she quickly threw herself into helping at the hospitals, which were suffering from a severe lack of staff. With assistance from other Displaced that were from more modern times, she was able to pick things up quickly and assist in various departments, from more severe procedures to keeping a running list on supplies. During this time, she also put together the beginnings of a welcome committee comprised of a group of Displaced who were designated to retrieve future new arrivals. The goal was to help explain their situation and help flush the compliance drug out of their system, in the hopes that no new Displaced would have to experience the same things that she did. Eventually, after obtaining the necessary samples, she had plans to create an antidote to counteract the compliance drug. Both Fenris and Kisame were some of the individuals she reached out to for assistance.

Prior to leaving Meadowlark, she visited New Tokyo with Kisame, having not had the chance to experience the city earlier before they were taken to New Amsterdam. What was initially supposed to be a day trip turned into a sort of weekend holiday, were they grew closer and became physically intimate. Having felt lost for some time in a world so unfamiliar to her own, she took solace in Kisame's presence that reminded her of home.

Afterwards, she returned to her world for a canon update. Shinobu finished her fight with Doma; despite her best efforts, he consumed her and absorbed her body into his own just as Kanao found them. Following the plan that Shinobu had told her about, in which she planned for Doma to consume her so that he would in turn consume the lethal dose of wisteria poison she ingested, Kanao was able to finish Doma off with help from Inosuke. After his defeat, Doma's soul met with Shinobu's in the Limbo, a liminal space between heaven and hell occupied by souls of the newly departed. Shinobu expressed satisfaction that her plan worked, as well as her belief that Kanao and her other comrades will carry on and defeat Muzan (the main antagonist of the series) once and for all. Realizing he had somehow gained emotions, Doma asked if she would be willing to join him in hell, to which Shinobu viciously refused.