Kyōka Izumi

Kyōka Izumi (泉 鏡花) is the newest member of the Armed Detective Agency after defecting from the Port Mafia who has the ability Demon Snow.

Appearance
Kyōka is a short girl with dark blue hair that is tied into two low twin-tails with flower pins and blue eyes, in which a notable trait of hers, much like almost every member of the Port Mafia, is that her eyes used to be very dull. However, after meeting Atsushi Nakajima and being together with the Agency, her eyes have been shown to become clearer.

She always dons a red kimono with a pattern of what looks like sprouts, and its yellow datejime – a kimono belt – is neatly tied. She wears long white socks and sandals; while on her arms, she appears to wear yellow and red wrist pads. In addition, Kyōka carries with herself a tiny rabbit doll, together with her cellphone attached to a necklace.

After being arrested by the military police, Kyōka wears a white gown and is chained in an airdrone craft. After the cannibalism, Kyōka wears a long blouse and a skirt during the Agency's celebration.

After the Agency is framed as terrorists, she suddenly wears a white hood suit and changes into a riot gear with black boots and black gloves, originally belonging to the military police.

Personality
While with the Port Mafia, Kyōka's personality is similar to that of a doll. She lacks all emotions and is ruthless when she is ordered to perform a duty. However, after she joins the Agency, she tries her best to minimize casualties in their line of work. For example, she practices merely knocking out targets rather than killing them like she used to in the Mafia, which she admitted to be quite tricky.

Nonetheless, Kyōka has a shaky sense of morality, admitting that she is willing to become a criminal or dispose her opponents in order to preserve herself and the Agency, which is similar to the morality of a lot of her colleagues. She can also be quite vengeful as she was not above killing Ryūnosuke Akutagawa to prove to herself that he was wrong about her, indicating her dark nature can easily take over if the situation calls for it.

Kōyō Ozaki specifically noted how Kyōka, then notoriously dubbed as the Thirty-Five Count Murderess (３５し,), has a talent for carnage that is quite difficult to overcome. However, Kyōka is quite strong-willed and willing to conquer this darkness, as showcased when she wants to prove to Akutagawa that she is more than just a killer.

Much like Atsushi, she used to believe that she was worth very little and that she deserved to die for her crimes. At a certain point in her life, she was filled with so much self-vengeance that she wished to be destroyed along with her ability. Nevertheless, unlike Atsushi, she does not dwell on her mistakes upon joining the Agency and tries her best to be of use to her comrades, even if it means harming others and even going up against the Mafia for their sake. She eventually grows to have a sense of duty towards protecting Yokohama, even choosing to sacrifice her life to save the city towards the end of the Guild war.

Amidst these traits, after being exposed to Atsushi and the real world, Kyōka reverts back to a young teenager. She is easily infatuated with small things and has a need to see everything. For instance, she treats the rabbit plush toy Atsushi got her once with endearment, albeit only momentarily, and has a lot of energy to go all around Yokohama for recreation.

Kyōka also has quite an appetite. She is able to down various bowls of tofu from Tachibana Temple upon being treated by Atsushi and Doppo Kunikida and other desserts afterwards, claiming that she has "another stomach" for such. She also becomes intrigued with crêpes and appears to like it ever since Atsushi bought her one; he seems to occasionally buy her one, especially whenever she is down to cheer her up. Moreover, Ranpo Edogawa sometimes shows Kyōka some of his sweets and treats which she becomes fascinated with, though Ranpo ends up eating them instead.

Ability
Kyōka's ability, Demon Snow (夜叉白雪,), allows her to materialize a female sword-wielding phantom, known as Demon Snow, which only follows orders coming from a mobile phone she always carries on her person. It appears that it only listens to orders from another person on the other line and it does not comply to Kyōka's own wishes.

After joining the Agency, this problem was fixed by Yukichi Fukuzawa, which enables her to control her own ability and use it normally. In reality, Kyōka is not the original wielder of Demon Snow but her mother. In order to protect Kyōka, in her last moments, Kyōka's mother transferred her ability Demon Snow to Kyōka, but because of the suddenness at the time, control of the demon was transferred to Kyōka's cell phone instead of Kyōka herself.

Skills

 * Acrobatics: Kyōka has shown immense physical capabilities, making superhuman leaps and slicing people with immense force, even without her ability.
 * Sword Play: Kyōka is skilled with a sword.
 * Infiltration Skills: As an ex-assassin, Kyōka has excellent infiltration skills. This includes lockpicking doors, disabling security systems, and putting on a disguise.
 * Memorization: Kyōka is able to memorize an entire list of the military police's wanted criminals and another list of clients that the Agency has bodyguard contracts with, which Atsushi noted took him an entire month to do so. She also has all of Yokohama's roads committed to memory. The anime expounds that she has memorized maps and building structures, demonstrated when she names several buildings throughout Yokohama accurately when she went out with Atsushi.
 * Anatomy Knowledge: Kyōka appears to have knowledge on human anatomy and physiology, specifically when she threatened to sever Demon Snow's third to subdue it for life if it were a human.

Background
According to Kōyō, before being an orphan, Kyōka supposedly lived happily with her parents. But ultimately, it was Demon Snow itself who killed them. Her father, after resigning from being a government agent, become a freelancer who worked for the assassinations of several important people. Her mother was, like her, an assassin who wielded the slaughtering ability Demon Snow.

One night, while Kyōka was out playing, several assassins came to try and kill both her mother and father. While all the assassins were quickly killed by the pair, an unknown ability user who could use body possession through blood took control of Kyōka's father first and used him to try and kill the young Kyōka. While Kyōka's mother had cut him down with Demon Snow before he could harm Kyōka, soon her mother was put under manipulation as well.

Before her death, Kyōka's mother transferred her ability Demon Snow to Kyōka in order to protect her, using a technique she had learned from an ability user who could manipulate shadows. However, due to the suddenness of the attack, the transfer of the ability was not perfect and so Kyōka's cell phone, given to her by her mother days before her death, became an intermediary for control of the ability. Since then, the Port Mafia took her in and presumably served under Kōyō as her protege.

Shortly after joining the Mafia, she sought out Akutagawa after hearing rumors that his ability could cut through anything and begged him with desire in her eyes, to cut down Demon Snow to avenge her parents’ deaths and to then kill her. It was presumably this encounter where Akutagawa found sympathy in Kyōka to give her a meaning to live by killing instead of wishing to die.

Appearances
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 * -| BEAST =


 * -| DEAD APPLE =

Quotes

 * (To Yukichi Fukuzawa) "I am incapable of anything but murder. He told me that himself. And that may be the case, but I wish to prove to myself otherwise."
 * (To Atsushi Nakajima) "Because the Detective Agency is where I truly belong. For the first time, I have something I want to be. So I fight even if it means using something lurking inside of me."
 * (To Atsushi Nakajima) "Up until now, I've lived without a single ray of light. But today, I realized that I, too, have a choice. If I sacrifice my life to save everyone, I am sure I can pass the entrance exam. I can become an agent. Thus, I have no regrets. […] Thank you… I'm sorry."
 * (To Mushitarō Oguri) "[…] I will become whatever it takes to save the Agency."

Etymology

 * The name Kyōka means "mirror, looking glass" (鏡) (kyō) and "flower, blossom" (花) (ka).
 * Kyōka's surname Izumi means "spring, fountain" (泉).

Namesake

 * Kyōka Izumi (1873-1939)
 * Unlike the Bungo Stray Dogs character, Izumi was a man. His works are known for creating worlds with a strong sense of gothic and supernatural. The ability "Demon Snow", as used by the character Kyōka, is named after Izumi's "Demon Pond", a story warning of the loss of generosity and respect for nature. It features a divine dragon named "Shirayuki" (white snow).

Trivia

 * The real-life was a man, whose birthname was Kyōtarō Izumi (泉 鏡太郎).
 * In reality, Kyōka was the protege of who admired the latter throughout his entire life, pursuing a career in literature due to Kōyō's Amorous Confessions of Two Nuns. In 1891, Kyōka was taken in as a houseboy in the Ozaki household, where he cleaned the house and performed errands in return for Kōyō's expertise opinions on his manuscripts.
 * According to the second official guidebook:
 * She spends her leisure times these days by taking a walk in the city with Atsushi.
 * Her average bedtime and waking time: Go to bed at the same time as usual, wake up an hour earlier to make breakfast.
 * What she thinks of Atsushi now: "My benefactor, and…"
 * Kyōka's draft design consists of her wearing a full circle skirt over white blouse. She is also seen wearing a ribbon tie, over the calf white socks and shoes. Unlike the original design where she has two low ponytails, she only has one low ponytail sided to her left side.