Part 9: Tag, You’re It (Kotoha Hashibira)

Kotoha was described to be a beautiful, young woman, similar in appearance to her son, though Doma stated that she had a softer appearance compared to Inosuke.[1] She wore her long, black hair tied up in a bun at the end and had long, and had emerald green eyes similar to her son, Inosuke Hashibira. She wore a green kimono with floral patterns on the kimono and an dark obi with an obijime and obiage.Kotoha was a kind and loving woman, always showing appreciation to those around her. She treasured Inosuke dearly and would always sing lullabies to him when he was a baby, promising to always protect him no matter what. When meeting Doma, she found a fond liking in him due to him helping her escape the abuse she was facing from her family.

According to Doma, she was naive and not very smart. Doma describes her as a "beautiful" but innocent person. It's unknown whether Doma exaggerated her low intelligence due to his patronizing view of humans or if her kind nature coupled with the fact that she was partially blind from the beatings she endured from her husband made her ignorant to Doma's true nature. Quite contradictory however, Doma also claimed that she was also sharp despite her supposed stupidity, and that's how she found out about him being a cannibalistic demon who devoured his followers.

Kotoha gave birth to Inosuke at the age of 27 or 28 and was in an abusive relationship with Inosuke's father, as well as with her mother-in-law who bullied her on a daily basis.[2] One day, during one of his outbursts, she bit her husband's hand, grabbed Inosuke then ran away from the abusive household, fleeing barefoot through the snow. Since she didn't have parents or any siblings to go to, she was running ahead until she reached the Paradise Faith cult, taking shelter as one of the worshippers of Doma - a leader of the cult. Her husband and his mother chased her there but were soon killed by Doma, who found them to be too noisy, abandoning their corpses in the mountains.[3]

She lived there happily with her son until she suspected that the worshippers were being eaten by Doma. After accusing him of lying to his followers, she ran from the temple with Inosuke in her arms and tried to go through the forest, but was trapped by a cliff. In her final moments, she apologized to Inosuke for failing to protect him and tosses him into the river as an attempt to save his life. She was ultimately killed and eaten by Doma, who claimed to have devoured her to the bone.[4]

She loved her son immensely and raised him by herself, often singing songs and promising to protect him. In her final moments, she was apologetic to Inosuke for failing him as his mother and guardian.[7]

At the beginning, Kotoha had thought that Doma was a nice and trustworthy individual, since he had been generous enough to give her and her baby a shelter when she was in desperate need of it. However, this started to take a drastic change when she discovered his true identity as a demon, and how manipulative he was by eating his worshipers. Though she was killed and later eaten by him while she tried to escape with Inosuke, Doma stated that he never intended to eat her in the first place and was planning to have her by his side until her death, since he enjoyed her company.