Sakura Sakurakouji

Sakura Sakurakouji (桜小路 桜, Sakurakōji Sakura) is the female protagonist of the Code:Breaker series. Although, Sakura is thought of as cute, delicate, elegant, pure, graceful, modest and well-mannered by boys who believe they should protect her, Sakura is actually a martial arts expert and combat lover. She was supposed to be leading a normal and average high school life, until she witnessed Rei Ogami killing a gang with his blue flames.

From then, Sakura has made it her own personal mission to prevent Rei from killing and she has become more and more involved in the world of the Code:Breakers before she turns out to be more important to it than she seems. Sakura's ability to neutralize all special powers leads the others to call her a "Rare Kind".

Appearance
Like her name, Sakura has a pair of sharp, slightly pink-shaded eyes and her straight, dark pink (sometimes shown as dark purple) hair that reaches the back of her waist. Her hair is usually seen held up with a white hairband throughout the manga, and she hardly ever styles it other ways. When she was kidnapped by "The One Being Sought" she has the same mark that 'he' has on the back of his hand tatooed onto the back of her neck. This mark was later revealed to be for her protection and saved her life.

Sakura is really popular as nearly all the boys at her school are in love with her and she has many admirers that she is the most popular and sought after girl at her school.

Sakura normally wears her school uniform, which consists of a white blouse tied with a red bow-tie around the neck, a black-plated skirt which falls above her knees, a pair of black socks reaching up to her knees, and black school shoes. A yellow, long-sleeved sweater usually goes along with her top in the colder parts of the year. Other than wearing her uniform, she is also shown in pajamas, a yukata and long-sleeved track-wear.

Personality
Sakura has a very caring personality and she is a girl who values human life, and is willing to do anything to prevent anyone from dying in front of or around her. It has never occurred to Sakura that she might be protecting enemies who would kill her in return, as in Haruto's case. Sakura is good-natured, out-spoken, and straightforward. Despite being "slightly" naive, she seems to have a talent of gathering people together. First introduced as the #1 most sought-after with the boys, Sakura is also very popular in school (when Sakura's friends assume that she and Rei are dating and the rumor got out, many of male students at school began attacking Rei in jealousy) and has a close group of friends. Although she is seen as a cheerful, bright-smiling girl in the present, Sakura was shown as an emotionless young child when she was young.

Background
Despite being one of the first few characters to appear in the manga, not much is known about Sakura's background before the age of five. She was adopted by a highly-respected leader of the Yakuza, Goutoku Sakurakouji, who was known as the "Raging Dragon of the East", as his daughter. Sakura is well-trained in martial arts and is fully capable of protecting herself under dangerous circumstances, though she can act recklessly at times, as quoted from Rei.

She is one of the few survivors of December 32. When Fussy Lunch began to kill all of the power users, she managed to seal, through unknown means, their energy, powers, and lives into Pandora's Box.

History
According to recent chapters, Sakura seemed to have a past with "The One Being Sought", who was revealed to be Rei's brother. There were images of her handing a key to him and him pledging, and kneeling before her.

It is highly suggested in the later part of the series that there is more to her and the world of the Codes that she is unaware of, where the Code:Breakers deliberately had her leave to go on a camping trip while they fought the Re:Codes at the Shibuya Mansion.

It was also revealed in chapter 75, "he" said that the room where Pandora's Box was being kept (beyond the door, only accessable with the card key) was exactly the same as it was when their mother died (Rei and "The One Being Sought") and that her death was caused by Sakura. "The One Being Sought" also mentioned that Sakura's memories should be starting to come back.

Later on, Sakura's biological parents are revealed to be the Student Council President, Shibuya, and one of the four founders of Eden. Sakura later encounters a doll created by her mother that restores Rei's powers after they are lost for an abitrary amount of time.

She is also told that she had been the one to kill Rei when they were young and had torn off his left arm. While killing Rei, it is shown that there are countless bodies of scientists around them who were killed by an unknown source. The reason the scientists died is later on revealed to be because Rei and Sakura had killed each other, and their blood mixing had caused an explosion that 'Eden' called "Nirvana".

When she was a child she tried to kill a dragonfly by ripping off its wings until Rei stopped her. She was taught by Rei that killing is wrong. Grateful, she kept hugging Rei. Intrigued by this, Rei became friends with Sakura.

In chapter 131, something triggered a change within Sakura and the activation of her "Rare Kind" power. She becomes very powerful and was able to remove everyone's ability even able to divert them into their lost forms. Even pieces of he Code:Emperor's soul was being absorbed. Rei saved her and reverted her back to normal by hugging her.

Abilities/Powers
Master Hand-to-Hand Combatant: Sakura has been trained in martial arts since a young age, and she has been trained to be able use many techniques despite her young age. She has a third dan in Akido, 4th degree in both Karate and Judo as well, which shows thart she is a powerful opponent. In addition to being virtually immune to all power users, she is considered a formidable opponent that is not to be taken lightly.

Enhanced Strength: Sakura has been said to have a grip strength of over 51 kg (112.2 lbs.) which allows her to be able to have a great power behind her attacks. She is shown carrying a massive piano all by herself.

Enhanced Speed: Sakura is known to have great speed as she was able to sneak up quick to grab Hitomi when he had the Prime Minister though no one noticed. She is also able to run 100 meters in 11.6 seconds, which is impressive considering the world record is 9.7 seconds.

Enhanced Senses: Sakura is known to have amazing sense epecially with smell surprisingly, as Toki had quoted, "That Rare Kind's sense of smell is really strange!" because of how she was able to deduce which Yuuki was real and which was fake (Hiyori in disguise), even though both had the same appearance, voice, and even personality through pure smell.

Rare Kind's Power
She is a "Rare Kind", as such that she is immune to any special powers. She is also able to cancel out others' special powers. It was discovered that when she overuses her ability, she shrinks to the size of a doll.

"He" stated that she was a god as well as a God Of Death, since Sakura can stop any special power no matter how strong it is. She can also kill any special power user by absorbing the source of the special power, life itself.

She is not able to return to her normal size until after 24 hours, and thus a special elixir was created from the blood of a Rare Kind.

She stopped Yuuki from killing himself (by transferring his sound powers to Rei) just by hugging. She has blocked Rei's 'Satan's Blaze' and even stopped Yukihina's 'Absolute Zero'.

Rei Ogami
Sakura first meets Rei Ogami in a park near her school, where she saw him burning people up. As Rei and Sakura have very different ideas about the sanctity of human life, a common theme in the early chapters of the manga are Sakura's attempts to stop Rei from killing people. Although for most of the manga, these attemps never got anywhere, by chapter 92, Rei is shown letting his enemy (Haruto) live, instead of burning him up. Recently, Sakura's relationship with Rei has changed; while she has always been shown to be very comfortable beside him, Sakura has become closer and closer to him throughout the series, and has shown to have feelings for the boy. However, it would seem that she was unaware of these feelings until chapter 98, when the Code:Emperor teased her about hugging Rei. She began to blush once realizing, hinting at the existence of a crush on Rei. She has a close bond with Rei as shown she lost herself and completely changed due to her powers in chapter 131 when only a hug from Rei was able to revert her to normal. In the most recent chapters, she is seen to have started sleeping in Ogami's bed, having declared her love to him. In chapter 180-81, Rei told her to kiss him, and she does so. It is also shown that Rei promised to marry her when they are children.

Sakurako Sakurakouji
Sakurako is Sakura's real mother and is also one of the founders of Eden. Though it has not been showed that she has personally met her, she cares about Sakura and protects her with the help of her dolls like Inoichi.

Sakurako has showed herself just before Sakura went over to the Code:Names. She said, "You're very popular, Sakura, my naughty daughter, but from the point of view of a women, we should only be concerned with love." and then she said, "So to stop it from developing into a fight, let me slice Sakura-chan in half," and cuts Sakura in two using her sword. It turns out to be a test for Sakura and Ogami, although its purpose is unknown.

Takatsu Aoba
Aoba and Sakura were friends from the start. When it was revealed Aoba was "Code:Revenger", Aoba attacked Ogami which saddened Sakura. Sakura then asked her reason for doing so. Aoba replied that she had changed while being with him. Aoba, being a member of the Code:Names, had battles with the Code:Breakers but during their battle with the Angels, Aoba protected Ogami. After that, she is seen with them and take part in the Sports Day with them to fight against the Angels.

Etymology

 * The name Sakura means "cherry blossom" (桜).
 * It can also mean "blossom" (咲) (saku) and "good, virtuous, respectable" (良) (ra).
 * Sakura's surname Sakurakouji means "cherry blossom" (桜) (sakura), "small" (小) (kou) and "road" (路) (ji).
 * Part of the surname Sakura can also mean "blossom" (咲) (saku) and "good, virtuous, respectable" (良) (ra).

Trivia

 * While never specifically called so, Sakura's biological parents being a Rare Kind and Power User would make her a hybrid.