Saya Otonashi

''This article is not about a character from BLOOD+. For the original movie, see BLOOD: The Last Vampire (Anime).''

Saya Otonashi is the main protagonist of Blood+.

The Zoo
At the Zoo in Bordeaux, France, in 1833, Joel Goldschmidt I and Amshel find a chiropteran mummy they call "Saya" and cut two cocoon-like objects from its body. The cocoons cannot be opened by force but "hatch" once they are bled upon, revealing two seemingly human infants. Intrigued, Joel and Amshel devise a social experiment: they separate the babies and confine one of the infants to a tower to perform tests upon, while Joel names her sister Saya after their mummified mother and raises her as if she were a normal human.

Saya lives in luxury, and learns to fence and play the cello as hobbies. She is routinely given "medicine" (blood) to drink to remain healthy. In the meantime, she is unknowingly being studied by her benefactor, who makes notes about her and her sister in his diary and is the first to discover that the sisters' blood crystallize when mixed, which would later become the primary method of killing chiropterans.

In 1863, Saya follows the sound of her sister's song and finds her locked at the top of a tower, but does not realize that they are sisters. Because the other girl does not have a name Saya names her Diva for her amazing ability to sing and they become friends, with Saya secretly paying visits to Diva and talking to her in the following years. When she learns that Diva wants to get out of the tower, Saya promises to free her.

In 1870, Amshel purchases a twelve-year-old boy named Hagi from his parents. Though Saya believes he is supposed to be her friend, it is actually so that she will mate with Hagi and produce children. Due to her self-centered personality and Hagi's unhappiness at being taken from his family, they are initially antagonistic towards each other. After Saya recognizes his grief and comforts him, they become friends. At around this time, she first teaches him how to play the cello.

Saya overhears a conversation Hagi has with Joel in which her father reveals that her "medicine" is actually blood and that she requires it to survive.

Bloody Sunday
On Joel's birthday in 1883, Saya finally finds the key to Diva's tower and releases her so that she can sing for Joel. She leaves to accompany Hagi, who is searching for her, to go find Joel's favorite flower as a birthday present. While Hagi is trying to get the flower, he falls off a cliff and is mortally injured. A horrified Saya tries to help him. Remembering Hagi's earlier conversation with Joel and misunderstanding it, she feeds Hagi some of her own blood, which triggers his transformation into her first chevalier.

Seeking help for Hagi, Saya returns to the Goldschmidt house and finds instead that Diva has slaughtered everyone, including Joel. Recognizing her mistake in freeing Diva, Saya and Hagi devote themselves to hunting Diva down and exterminating chiropterans, with that mission becoming Saya's only reason for living. They are aided in their goal by the Red Shield, an organization formed by Joel's surviving descendents.

Russian Revolution
In 1918, Saya and Hagi are tracking Diva, who is masquerading as Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, in Russia. They encounter Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, whom Diva has turned into a chevalier, in the guise of a local village girl named Sonia. Once they realize the deception, they manage to kill him/her.

The Vietnam incident
During a Christmas bombing on December 25, 1972, Red Shield agents attempt to prematurely awaken Saya when chiropterans are set loose in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, hoping that she will be able to fend them off. Their efforts go tragically wrong when she awakes in a frenzy and kills the agents.

Saya hears Diva singing and follows the sound to an empty container which Diva had presumably resided within previously. Now joined by Hagi, she fights Karl (one of Diva's chevaliers) and almost kills him, but he cuts off his crystallizing arm to save himself by preventing it from spreading. Karl flees to a small village. When Hagi tries to stop her, Saya cuts off his arm and slaughters humans and chiropteran alike without distinction, in the process fatally injuring David's father. This rampage is witnessed by both American soldier George Miyagusuku and Akihiro Okamura's father (who takes pictures of Saya's attack).

Once she exhausts herself, Saya finally returns to hibernation. With his men lying dead, David's father, dying, entrusts her safety to George, who stores her in the Miyagusuku crypt when he later moves to Okinawa, Japan. After George's family is killed in a car accident, he almost commits suicide but the sound of Saya's heartbeat inspires him to keep living. He adopts Kai and Riku, two orphaned boys.

Japan
In 2004, Saya awakens and is found by George after she crawls out of the crypt. He almost shoots her before she smiles at him; afterwards, he takes her home and gives her a much-needed haircut and a name to live with: Saya Otonashi (音無 小夜, Otonashi Saya). George legally adopts Saya, making her his daughter and Kai and Riku her brothers. She also befriends a fellow high school girl named Kaori Kinjo. Without Hagi there to give her his blood, Saya remains amnesiac, with no memory of her identity or past, for a year. She receives blood transfusions and is watched over by a doctor named Julia Silverstein, who is actually a secret Red Shield operative who monitors Saya's health and amnesia.

In 2005, a chiropteran attacks her school and kills a teacher in front of a terrified Saya, who has returned late at night to reclaim her track shoes. She flees and is followed by both the chiropteran and Hagi, who mysteriously reappears to defend and protect her though she doesn't remember him. He feeds her his blood to trigger her abilities and memories, which causes Saya to slay the attacking chiropteran in front of Kai. His shocked reaction snaps her out of her trance; she scream and faint when she sees her reflection. She is hospitalized as a result. After leaving her bed, she overhears George and David discussing her purpose as a weapon against chiropterans as she is the only one who can kill them, and runs off. She is later brought back home by Kai after another encounter with Hagi, who will not tell her the truth about her past, telling her she must remember on her own. Though at first Saya is reluctant to fight and afraid of who she might be, after George is abducted and turned into a chiropteran and she is forced to kill him in order to let him die as a human, she grows resolved to battling chiropterans.

Return to Vietnam
To protect her brothers from harm, Saya leaves Kai and Riku behind to infiltrate a Vietnamese boarding school as a student in order to investigate the mysterious hemorraghing deaths of young black-haired girls (who, incidentally, resemble her), which the Red Shield believes to be the work of a chiropteran. She is accompanied by Hagi, who goes undercover as a gardener for the school, and remains in secret phone communication with David. In the meantime, she becomes fast friends with her roommate Min, who tells her the legend of "the Phantom"; supposedly, the girl he chooses receives a blue rose, which Saya herself ends up receiving.

Saya is attacked twice by Karl disguised as the Phantom; he has been appointed as the chairman of the school and is the one responsible for the girls' death because of his obsessive fixation on Saya after she fought him in 1972 and cost him his arm, though she does not yet remember him. She finally accepts her past after her class goes on a field trip to a Vietnamese museum and she experiences upsetting flashbacks to the Vietnam War.

After borrowing a dress from Min, Saya attends an upcoming annual ball held at the boarding school as she and Red Shield agents search for a container there; Saya had discovered it earlier in the course of her investigation and it contains a hibernating Diva. At the dance, Saya first meets and shares a dance with Diva's chevalier Solomon Goldsmith: neither realizes that they are enemies at first. They are spied upon by a jealous Karl. She later fights him as he appears to defend Diva from the Red Shield. During their battle, he figures out that she does not remember him, which saddens him and causes him to leave. Saya, Hagi, and the Red Shield are forced to depart quickly, without Saya getting the opportunity to bid farewell to Min.

Once the Red Shield tracks down Diva's container, Saya is paralyzed by hearing Diva singing as she begins to awaken, unable to fend off the attacking chiropterans. She eventually reverts to an animalistic mindset and goes on a murderous rampage as she did in 1972, even mortally wounding Clara, another Red Shield agent. It is in this feral state that Saya fights Karl again, who is overjoyed at this shift in her personality. However, she regains control of herself with Kai's help, who, along with Riku, has come to Vietnam in search of her. She once more engages Karl in battle and this time defeats him, though he escapes. She also fails to stop Solomon and Van Argiano from safely escaping with Diva on a heliocopter. Although reunited with Hagi, Kai, and Riku, the moment is bittersweet as Saya sadly bears witness to the children who have been permanently altered by Delta-67, including Riku's friend Mui.

The Metropolitan Opera House
After Riku's death, Saya confronts Diva in a final duel at the Metropolitan Opera House, which ends as they simultaneously pierce each other with their blood-coated swords. Saya is unaffected by Diva's blood, because it lost its potency when she became pregnant. Diva, however, begins to crystallize, and Saya cries for her and tries to hold her shattering pieces together.

With Diva dead, Saya turns to kill Kanade, Hibiki, and herself fearing that if they lived, they would be forced to become military weapons. Kai pleads with her to live, promising to protect them and make anyone afraid of her understand. Hagi disobeys Saya for the only time in his life, taking her sword and confessing he has loved her from the moment they met. Saya tearfully admits she wishes to live as she kisses Hagi. She and Kai escape the opera house with Kanade and Hibiki in tow as Hagi battles a returned Amshel and the US military begins bombing the building.

Epilogue
A month later, back in Okinawa, Saya finally goes into her next thirty-year hibernation period. At her request, Kai puts her back in the Miyagusuku family crypt to sleep, and he watches over her as he raises Kanade and Hibiki. Several years later, a fresh pink rose with Hagi's blue ribbon is found at the crypt.

Appearance
Black-haired, small, and lithe, Saya is about 5'2" (157 cm) and 89 lbs (40.4 kg), having the appearance of a teenage girl. She looks very similar to Diva, though Saya is slightly tanner and has a different hairstyle and eye color.

Though Saya has long hair while staying at the Zoo, she has a very short, boyish haircut by the time of the Russian Revolution, which she retains as a school-girl in Japan. Through the series her hair slowly grows out to her chin. In the last episode, Kai trims her hair to resemble her Season 1 appearance.

Saya's eyes are a dull shade of red that appear brown and which glow intensely when her chiropteran instincts are triggered or when she feeds on blood.

Personality
At the Zoo, Saya is spoiled by the original Joel, and therefore becomes very immature, self-centered, and rude. She herself realizes this as a result of her friendships with Diva and Hagi, which help reveal and nurture her compassion for others. Overall, however, Saya is a bright, cheerful, and innocent person. After she unwittingly releases the vengeful, bloodthirsty Diva upon her foster family and friends and accidentally turns Hagi into her chevalier, coupled with learning the truth about her life and her own inhuman nature, Saya loses her happy demeanor and becomes much more serious and plagued with doubts and guilt. She dedicates her life solely to correcting the mistake she made in releasing Diva by killing her, then forever ending the chiropteran threat by killing herself; however, in the last episode, Saya tries to save Diva after having dealt her a fatal wound and is persuaded from not killing herself, leading to her confession that she does want to live.

As a result of losing her memories and spending a year in Okinawa as an ordinary girl, with family and friends, Saya develops a sweet and caring albeit somewhat reserved personality. Kai later refers to her as being "a crybaby and a glutton". At this time, she is troubled by her amnesia, but only becomes increasingly insecure and worried as she learns more about her true identity and experiences more loss because of the chiropterans.

A year after Riku's death, Saya exhibits a much darker and embittered disposition, having fully regained her memories but in the process lost hope, as Moses and Lulu both note. She is unwilling to associate or work with others, particularly Kai and the rest of the Red Shield, not wanting to have to experience losing more loved ones. During the last half of the series, she slowly comes to accept their help.

Powers and abilities
As a chiropteran, Saya naturally has enhanced strength, speed, and agility, as well as heightened senses, but because she chooses not to feed freely on humans and refrains from drinking Hagi's blood as often as she can, her abilities are barely above those of a human's. Any injuries she sustains heal almost instantly. She is also long-lived (and possibly immortal), being almost 200 years old yet maintaining the appearance of a teenage girl; however, after she turns Hagi into her chevalier, she spends only a few years awake from periodically entering a 30-year hibernation cycle, before which she experiences a slow in her regenerative abilities and bouts of fainting spells.

As a queen, Saya's blood is capable of crystallizing and killing any chiropteran of Diva's bloodline, including Diva herself, when it enters their bloodstream. When it enters the bloodstream of a human who has lost most of their blood, however, it has the effect of turning them into Saya's chevalier, as demonstrated with Hagi and Riku.

Due to her upbringing at the Zoo, Saya is both a skilled swordfighter and an accomplished cello player; however, she rarely plays the cello in modern times because of her focus on hunting chiropterans. At the start of the series, Saya has largely forgotten both of these abilities and must relearn how to fight with a sword.

Saya possibly possesses a telepathic connection to Diva and vice-versa. She is able to hear Diva's song when normal humans cannot, could verbally communicate with Diva when the latter did not know how to speak, and can sense Diva's presence and possibly that of other chiropterans.

In the first half of the series, Saya sometimes slips into a "berserker" trance in which she becomes much more aggressive and violent, which is mainly how she defeats enemies before she regains her memories. She tends to enter this mode from feeding from Hagi. Due to similarities it has to her frenzy during the Vietnam War, it is possible that this "berserker" trance is a consequence of her being prematurely awakened during the Vietnam War and the subsequent year-long delay in receiving Hagi's blood.

Weaponry
See also Saya's Sword

Saya's trademark weapon is a katana with a groove that branches out throughout the blade. Thus, when Saya cuts her thumb on the top of the katana, it allows her blood to flow into the channel and become distributed throughout the katana.

After Saya's first sword is broken in a fight with Amshel, David gives her a new one that has a red crystal at the base of its blade, symbolizing her membership in the Red Shield organization. The crystal is a piece of George's body, which crystallized when she killed him with her own blood in order to spare him the fate of turning into a chiropteran.

Family

 * Unnamed mother (deceased)
 * Diva (twin sister, deceased)
 * Joel Goldschmidt I (adopted father, deceased)
 * George Miyagusuku (adopted father, deceased
 * Kai Miyagusuku (adopted brother)
 * Riku Miyagusuku (adopted brother, deceased)
 * Kanade (niece)
 * Hibiki (niece)

Chevaliers

 * Hagi
 * Riku Miyagusuku (deceased)
 * Solomon Goldsmith (defected from Diva, deceased)

Manga
In the Volume 4, she has a new hair style.

Blood+: Adagio
Saya wakes up from her first hibernation period in 1915, much to the relief of Hagi and the Red Shield members, who had been puzzled and disturbed by her extended sleep; as she slept, the Red Shield had also discussed whether or not she would become like Diva and how they would kill her in that scenario. In a conference with Red Shield agents, she receives a specially-designed sword and learns that the only way to kill chiroptera of Diva's lineage is to poison them with her blood. She expresses frustration that she must fight chiroptera to Hagi.

In 1916, Saya and Hagi arrive in Petrograd, Russia to track down Diva, who is masquerading as Tsarevna Anastasia Nikolaevna. They join the Imperial Orchestra to investigate; humorously, Saya's demonstration at playing the cello causes her to be ranked as a novice whereas Hagi, whom she taught in the first place, is immediately accepted.

Saya feels extremely guilty when she slays a new friend of hers named Claudia out of the belief that she is a chiropteran: as a result, Saya has an argument with Hagi that gives Diva's new chevalier Grigori the opportunity to capture him so that he can try and fail to convert Hagi to his side. It also makes her botch her attempt to kill Kiska, who has been transformed into Diva's chevalier.

It is revealed by Red Shield agents David and Roman that the letter Saya received that had given her the order to kill Claudia did not actually come from the Red Shield (presumably, it came from Amshel or Grigori). When she, David, and Roman investigate Claudia's home, they find that she is slowly transforming into a chiropteran and Saya is forced to kill her permanently in front of Claudia's brother Vincent; though she suceeds, Roman is killed in the process.

Saya reunites with Hagi and apologizes for losing her temper with him earlier, though she feels that she is too easily forgiven by Hagi. In the meantime, Grigori is discarded by Diva and replaced by the tsarevich Alexei as her chevalier. Desperate, he seeks Saya out and begs to be her chevalier.

Saya and Hagi go to the Imperial Orchestra to search for Diva; there, Victor, a member of the orchestra and also of Grigori's cult that seeks to gain immortality by the blood of a chiropteran queen, cuts Saya and drinks her blood despite her frantic warnings, but dies instead. Hearing Diva's song, Saya tries to follow the sound but is intercepted by people-turned-chiroptera and must slay them. Upon seeing all the death surrounding her, Saya requests a shocked Hagi to kill her after she kills Diva. Saya and Hagi then fight a newly-transformed Alexei, and she kills him in a fit of rage when he tells her that she deserves to die for wanting to kill Diva. With Diva and Amshel having escaped in the meantime and Grigori washed away by the river, Saya and Hagi leave Russia together, reconciled.

Trivia

 * Despite major dissimilarities in the two series, the original Saya of BLOOD: The Last Vampire (Anime) and the Saya of Blood+ do share some similarities (most likely as homages to the former):
 * Both work for or ally with the Red Shield, and have "handlers" in the form of David and Lewis.
 * Both call for their sword from an ally (Blood+'s Saya from Hagi, The Last Vampire's Saya from David).
 * Both infiltrated a school as a student to hunt for chiropterans.
 * Both break their swords during a fight.
 * Both are the same species as the chiropterans they hunt, but are "pure" versions of such.
 * Both were raised as experiments.
 * Both were alive during the 19th century and were photographed during this time.
 * Both have twin sisters who lack their regard for humanity (Blood+'s Diva, The Last Vampire's Maya).
 * During the last half of the series, Blood+'s Saya exhibits a somewhat similar personality as The Last Vampire's Saya.
 * In Japanese, saya means "scabbard" (i.e. the sheath of a sword) or "shell" (such as the shell of a pea). Both meanings are relevant, as Saya is an accomplished swordswoman and she was born from and hibernates within a cocoon (a shell). Likewise, otonashii means "obedient" or "quiet", suiting her reserved nature.
 * Ironically, Kai considers himself Saya's older brother even though she is over one hundred years older than he is.
 * Although Saya and Diva are twins and hatched from their cocoons at the same time, Saya is dubbed the "older" sister and Diva the "younger" because of their personalities (Saya is serious and Diva is immature).
 * Saya's decision to crop her hair short has never been explained in-series but was featured in two different mediums:
 * In the manga adaption of Blood+, she cuts her hair after Diva slaughters the patrons of Joel's birthday party. As she does so, she thanks Hagi for having called her "beautiful" before.
 * In Blood+: Adagio, she has a nightmare in 1915 (over thirty years later) that flashes back to Diva slaughtering people at the Goldschmidt estate and calling her "sister". When she wakes up, she mistakes her reflection for Diva and messily chops her hair off to better differentiate each other. Realizing how badly she butchered her hair, she then sheepishly asks Hagi (who had walked in on her) to "fix it".
 * Saya's gluttony could be because of her reluctance to drink blood freely; because she feeds rarely, she burns through calories more quickly and must consume a great deal of human food to supplant her natural diet.
 * Saya is associated with pink roses.
 * Saya's personality while living at the Zoo is reminiscent of Diva's modern-day personality.
 * Although Saya was the one who first taught Hagi to play the cello, she herself is never seen playing one in the entire course of the series. In Blood+: Adagio, she plays, but badly, judging from the reactions of other characters.
 * Both Riku and Diva (the younger siblings) died. In contrast, both Kai and Saya (the older siblings) survived.
 * Saya's short haircut is donned by Kanade and Hibiki in the epilogue.
 * Although she presumably has a chiropteran form (judging from the remains of her mother), Saya never transforms, either due to preference to remain in human form or inability to transform altogether due to her sparse feeding on blood.