Who She Is: Aikawa is another of the Japanese spiritual warriors who come to Cheju in search of the cursed skulls. She stays close to Kojima, watching out for him and following his every order. She also does her share of Kyoichi-watching. ^_^

Appearance: She reminds me a little of Arashi from Clamp’s X. Maybe it’s the long, dark, super-straight hair cut in that blunt, straight-across style (my hair is cut like this, by the way). Aikawa wears traditional Shinto clothing and keeps her eyes closed most of the time.

Skills: Aikawa has many, many abilities, though most of them are somewhat difficult to explain. She can summon a wide variety of creatures from different realms (someone at the Island forum knows all about the realms, and is far better at explaining this), use a dagger every bit as well as Pan can, and do plenty of powerful incantations. Is she more powerful than Pan? It’s possible. Of course, Pan walked away from their fight with fewer injuries, but he seemed to be very tired and somewhat injured himself.

Personality: So many deep characters! There are many shades to Aikawa’s character so hopefully I can get through some of them. Aikawa first appears to be a very calm, quiet woman who has a certain affection for Kojima and almost seems to be the “mother-figure” of the group. She is the voice of reason, the one who tries to keep things peaceful. It isn’t until she encounters a Burning Desire demon in an alley that we get a small glimpse of her power. She obliterates the demon with a mere thought (without even turning around) in such a fashion that even the demon-slayer Pan complements her on her work. It is also in this scene that Pan reveals the truth behind Aikawa’s eyes. He blatantly states “You’re not even blind!”

Later, we get another glimpse of Aikawa’s dark side when Pan fights Kojima (as I said in another profile, it wasn’t much of a fight). While Aikawa obviously cares very much for Kojima, she still behaves calmly and logically, showing no anger toward Miho (who had just tried to kill Kojima by shooting him) because she is perceptive enough to realize what had happened before she got there. She says to Kyoichi “Kojima was wrong first.” Then she calmly speaks to Miho, convincing her to put the gun down. But, as Aikawa is leaving with Kojima in tow, she looks to Pan and opens her eyes for the first time. It’s only a peek, but it’s enough to let us know there is much more to Aikawa than we have seen. Her line “I will repay Kojima’s debt, in full,” made us realize that even though she behaved calmly, she was deeply hurt by Pan’s attack on Kojima.

In her very next scene, Aikawa reveals more of her power by summoning creatures to heal Kojima’s wounds. Kyoichi even thinks to herself “Perhaps Aikawa is more powerful than any of us.”

But all of these incidents only give us hints and clues. It is Aikawa’s bloody battle with Pan that brings out all the layers of her character simultaneously, and leaves us with a relatively clear image of the person she was.

The battle begins when Pan rushes to attack Aikawa, Kyoichi, and Monk Seinan, at which point Aikawa commands the others to leave Pan to her. The fact that the others take orders from her without question tells us that Kojima may not have been the leader after all. Anyway, Aikawa opens her eyes, pulls out her own mystical dagger (it’s a lot like Pan’s, I forgot the name of it), and smiles as she begins the fight. It is unquestionably the bloodiest battle in the series, as these are apparently the strongest characters. Pan slashes and stabs with all he has, and Aikawa doesn’t hesitate to summon demons of all kinds, even the contract god who appeared in volume one, Penjulae. Of course, Pan makes short work of all of them, eventually leaving it down to a battle of daggers and incantations between the two of them.

While this scene seemed to focus more on revealing Pan’s status as a zombie (it was Aikawa who discovered this, by the way), it also developed Aikawa tremendously. First of all, we find out just how powerful she is. Not only does she figure out Pan’s secret, but she has an incantation ready that can hurt him, even though he’s dead. Also, Aikawa’s gender is called into question. She removes the top part of her clothing, leaving her chest completely bare. Either she has extremely small breasts, or she’s not completely female. However, Aikawa is continuously referred to as “she” and “her”, even after this revelation, so I stick by this as well. Perhaps she is not completely female, but rather mostly female. Or perhaps it was just an illusion of some sort? Who really knows? In my personal opinion, I think she is a female, albeit a terribly underdeveloped one. I know there is probably some mystical explanation for her gender, but I really like to think of her as a woman. If you have any ideas on this, please contact me.

Another thing we see about Aikawa here is her devotion and love of Kojima. In perhaps one of the saddest scenes in the series, Aikawa has what appears to be a hallucination while suffering from one of Pan’s mystical attacks. The hallucination is a memory (or so it seems) of a time shortly before she and Kojima left Japan for Cheju. She is making a wish at a shrine, when Kojima appears and asks her what she wished for. She says that she wished for everyone to return safely from Cheju, and Kojima tells her that she should wish for something more personal. He makes a wish too, the same one that she said she made (for everyone to return safely) and says something like “There, now you can wish for something for yourself.” Aikawa makes another wish, and as Kojima takes her hand (telling her that he’ll protect her), she thinks “My second wish was the same as my first. My only true wish is that you, Kojima-san, return safely.”

Seeing a flashback like this after seeing what has become of her beloved Kojima is really quite heart-breaking. Despite Aikawa’s almost brutal attacks in her battle with Pan, she is still a gentle soul who loved and wanted to protect someone close to her. Perhaps she really didn’t concern herself much with the actual mission. Perhaps she only came to Cheju to help out Kojima. She obviously wanted to fight Pan because he had injured Kojima so severely, but who can blame her for wanting to avenge the man she loves?

Even after her fight with Pan ends (Pan leaves her in a bloody mess, missing limbs, etc.) she still crawls and drags herself to where Kojima’s dead body lay. Horrified that she failed to protect him, she uses her remaining power to obliterate Kojima’s body, as well as her own, right in front of Miho. Her last words were a final lesson for Miho (and the readers) about racism, hatred, and the dangers of not being able to forgive: “Before we are Japanese, we are human. Farewell. Sayonara…”