Nakime

Nakime is a recurring character and a supporting antagonist in the Infinity Castle Arc of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. She is a demon who owns and controls the Infinity Castle and serves directly under Muzan Kibutsuji.

Some time after Hantengu's death in the Swordsmith Village Arc, Nakime attains the position of Upper Rank Four (の) in the Twelve Kizuki.

Appearance
Nakime is a pale woman with a grayish complexion, who has sharp, blue-stained nails and notably red lips which sharply contrasted the tone of her skin. She has shiny, waist-length hair of a dark brown color, which she wore falling down her back in slight waves that cut off sharply at the ends, with two chin-length strands left to frame her face and long bangs that obscured her large eye set in between them, swept to either side of her nose.

Nakime dons a plain black kimono with a white lining, secured with a striped pale brown-striped obi, white socks and no shoes. She was always seen holding a four-stringed wooden biwa with a large bachi pick.

Since becoming an Upper Rank, Nakime took to wearing her bangs as to not obscure her face, showing that she possessed a single large, pink-colored eye with the kanji for "Four" etched onto its iris. The upper portion of her face was also revealed, and appeared to be a darker gray color than the rest of her skin with prominent veins surrounding her one eye.

Personality
Nakime was a mysterious yet cold biwa player who displayed little emotion. She didn't speak unless necessary and, when she did, she was always straightforward and blunt, making her responses as short as possible. Unlike other demons, she shows herself to be genuinely loyal to Muzan and obeys his orders without hesitation or question.

History
In the past, Nakime was an obscure amateur biwa musician struggling to make ends meet. The man she married to was hopelessly addicted to gambling who squandered her earnings and savings while contributing nothing to improve their lives.

One night, she was scheduled to play her biwa at a particular stage but discovered that her husband stole her only kimono that she used for biwa performes and gambled it away. Enraged, Nakime murdered her husband using a hammer. Shortly after she killed her husband, Nakime realized that the appointed time to play was fast approaching, and she was forced to wear a worn-out, tattered kimono. The crowd did not appreciate her shabby looks and gave her disapproving looks. With the traumatic sensation of committing the murder for the first time still fresh in her mind, her hands shook in nervousness as she played her biwa.

But surprisingly, the sound coming from biwa as Nakime played with utmost tension, was so beautiful that her audience loved her performance and shouted for encore. Both her customers and the stage owner were pleased with the unexpected outcome and Nakime was paid handsomely. Since then, Nakime developed a disturbing habit of killing people before performing for large audiences. Every time the sound of her biwa was highly commended and her performance would receive extraordinarily positive feedback.

During a fateful day, when she had a routine appointment to perform at stage again, she randomly chose a new person to kill and the target happens to be Muzan. She tried to kill him but failed. Muzan was impressed with Nakime's searching skills and pleased with what she did, so he spared her life and offered to make her a demon. Nakime accepted his offer, became a demon and climbed the ranks and became one of Muzan's top servants.

Rehabilitation Training Arc
Following the death of Lower Rank Five Rui, Nakime was ordered by Muzan to summon the remaining members to the Infinity Castle.She summons them in order: Enmu was the first to be transported to her space, followed by Rokuro, Wakuraba, Mukago, and finally Kamanue. Once all members were present, she takes them all to a platform that stood before her and a disguised Muzan.

Nakime sat and silently observed as Muzan proceeded to admonish and kill each member of the Lower Ranks. After he spares Enmu and gives him his blood, while providing a chance at receiving more, Nakime shortly after transported Muzan to the top of the castle near the surface, while manipulating Enmu's position to take him to an undisclosed town through supernatural doors.

Swordsmith Village Arc
Nakime once again plays her biwa to summon the Upper Ranks to a meeting after Daki and Gyutaro's deaths.When Akaza asks her where Muzan is, she replies straightforwardly that he has not yet arrived. She is also questioned as to where Upper Rank One is, to which she replies that he has always been inside the castle, as Kokushibo was the first to arrive.During the meeting, she once again sat quietly as Muzan berated the Upper Ranks for their continual failures to find the Blue Spider Lily and kill the Ubuyashikis. After he gives the Upper Ranks final instructions to push themselves harder, Nakime summons doors to close off Muzan's presence, ending the meeting.

After a short confrontation between Akaza and Kokushibo ends with both demons leaving on their own accord, Nakime plays her biwa again to transport Gyokko and Hantengu to their assigned mission. When Doma is left last and attempts to invite her back to his residence, she bluntly refuses Doma's offer and immediately sends him back to his temple.

Hashira Training Arc
Nakime, now the new Upper Rank Four replacing Hantengu, is shown to be with Muzan. Using small eyeball familiars, she has been tracking down the Demon Slayers and determining their locations and hideout. Expressing her honor at Muzan's compliment for her rapid growth, she uses her technique to locate Kagaya Ubuyashiki.

Infinity Castle Arc
When the Demon Slayer Corps arrive at the Ubuyashiki mansion to try and stop Muzan, they are all transported into the Infinity Castle and separated from one another by Nakime.

Obanai Iguro and Mitsuri Kanroji are the first to encounter her, but find it extremely difficult to land blows on her due to her control over the environment.

After Kokushibo's death, Nakime is the only remaining Upper Rank and the final member of the Twelve Kizuki.

During the beginning of Tanjiro and Giyu's fight with Muzan, the latter reveals to the Demon Slayers that Nakime has successfully "defeated" both Obanai and Mitsuri by crushing them both to death using the rooms of her castle. However, he is taken by surprise when the supposedly dead Hashiras launch a surprise attack on him, still very much alive, and angrily asks Nakime what she's doing. Muzan is shocked upon learning that Yushiro has completely taken control over Nakime's vision, and with it, the Infinity Castle, which he begins to use against the Demon King as revenge for his killing of Tamayo.

Muzan immediately begins countering Yushiro, using his own mental powers in order to take back his final Upper Rank, which kicks off a fierce battle of wills between the two demons. This mental fight causes the castle to completely spiral out of control as both wrestle for dominance, and, just as Muzan appears to have taken the upper hand, Obanai and Giyu launch an attack on the Demon lord. He has no choice but to counter, which causes his hold on Nakime to slip as he tries to defend himself and ward the Hashiras off with his own attacks.

Soon realizing that he can't take back Nakime and fight the Demon Slayers at the same time, Muzan uses his powers to kill his final Upper Rank by crushing her head, which prevents Yushiro from using the castle against him and allows him to fully focus on killing the remaining Hashiras and Tanjiro. As Nakime doesn't immediately disintegrate, Yushiro manages to use her body to push the castle above ground in an attempt to protect the Demon Slayers.

Overall Abilities
Despite not displaying much in terms of fighting ability, as the holder of the fourth highest position in the Twelve Kizuki, Nakime is nonetheless an extremely powerful demon. She was capable of using her unorthodox Blood Demon Art to thwart the efforts of Obanai and Mitsuri at beheading her and stall the two Hashira for most of their battle, with neither of the two skilled combatants being able to so much as scratch her.

Talented Biwa Player: Nakime was an expert at playing the biwa, garnering attention from others when she performed while she was still a human.

Demon Abilities
Eye Detachment: Later, upon obtaining the rank of Upper Rank Four and presumably receiving more blood from Muzan, she displayed the new ability to create and detach several eyeballs from her body. This allowed her to spy on others from a long range. With this new ability, she was able to successfully find and locate the positions of nearly all members of the Demon Slayer Corps as well as the hidden mansion of Kagaya Ubuyashiki, who had gone to extreme lengths to hide its location from even the highest-ranking members of the Demon Slayer Corps.

Physical Abilities
Immense Speed & Reflexes: Nakime was shown to possess a level of speed comparable to the Hashira, namely of Obanai and Mitsuri, reacting to and successfully evading the former's Venom Fangs of the Narrow Head technique and the latter's attacks.

Blood Demon Art
Infinity Castle Manipulation: Nakime's Blood Demon Art takes the form of an extra-dimensional space that houses a fortress of immense scale. As its owner, Nakime possesses absolute dominion over the space, being able to manipulate and alter it at will by simply strumming her biwa. In her fortress, there are countless rooms with seemingly endless variety, like an open room filled with giant pillars where the fight against Kokushibo took place; a small garden where the fight against Doma took place; a corridor leading to several other rooms where the fight against Akaza took place. Nakime sits at the center of the Infinity Castle, with the entire space being distorted around her.

Nakime has also displayed the ability to use her unorthodox Blood Demon Art for offensive purposes. She achieves this by shaping rooms into gigantic pillars and ramming it into her enemies to crush them. By binding and rooting her hair to a nearby wall inside the castle, she could control the castle's positioning as she likes: shifting and changing the positioning of various rooms and walls as if they were her own limbs. However, doing so presumably renders her immobile.
 * Portal Creation: Nakime can also spawn portals to transport people outside her fortress or to anywhere within it in the form of tatami sliding doors. She can use her portals for offensive and defensive purposes as well, displayed when she created a portal to negate Mitsuri Kanroji's attack. One of her main duties was to act as a mode of transport for the other Upper Ranks when they are sent on missions and presumably assist Muzan in moving around the country undetected.

Equipment
Biwa: Nakime is always seen carrying a four-stringed wooden biwa on her lap. A biwa is a short-necked lute which Nakime used in performances when she was a human, being particularly talented in playing it as well. Her biwa is used as a medium for her Blood Demon Art, as she is required to strum to instrument using a single large Bachi pick to use it. As a demon, it's possible that her Biwa and Bachi are fashioned from her flesh and blood, similar to other tools and weapons used by demons.

Trivia

 * The name "Nakime" contains the kanji for " to call, to cry" (鳴) and "woman, female" (女).
 * Nakime has many similarities to the former Lower Rank 6, Kyogai. They both use Blood Demon Arts that allow them to freely manipulate a specific structure at will, have a musical instrument to use their individual techniques, and have been given their epithets based on these instruments.
 * She was one of Muzan's favorite Upper Ranks, since he believes her ability is useful.
 * Nakime's name was mistakenly translated as "Nasume" in the official English release of Volume 12.
 * Nakime's English voice actress, Amber Lee Connors, is married to Howard Wang, the English voice actor for Sumiyoshi Kamado.
 * She is the only Upper Rank to be killed by Muzan.

Quotes

 * (To Akaza) "Upper Rank One was called first. He's been over there the whole time."
 * (To Doma) "I decline."

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