Kairi (Earth-101001)

Kairi (カイリ) is one of the several major original characters in the Kingdom Hearts anime series.

Kairi is a Princess of Heart and is the only Princess of Heart to remain among the New Seven Hearts. Kairi is the original persona of Naminé. Kairi was born in Radiant Garden and currently lives on Destiny Islands along with her two best friends, Sora and Riku. Kairi eventually trains as a Keyblade wielder to help her allies.

Appearance
Kairi is a beautiful young woman of average stature with brownish-auburn hair, blue eyes, and pale skin. She is always seen sporting a necklace with a silver bead, which contains a protective spell on it placed by Aqua. Kairi displays a fondness for pink, white, and purple, wearing it in all of her casual clothing.

As a child, she wore her hair short, and wore a white and purple sundress with flower designs, with matching slip-on sandals.

At age 14, she wears a white top with a black one underneath, purple shorts underneath a purple skirt with a blue belt, and white shoes. She also wears a black choker, a yellow wristband as well as a purple armband on her left arm and a pair of bracelets on her right arm.

At age 17, Kairi becomes taller while her hair becomes longer and darker, and her body has developed into that of a young woman. Her main outfit is a pink strapless mini-dress made up of three zippers as well as a white top underneath her mini-dress with a black hood. She also sports three bracelets on her left wrist, a black belt with a bag attachment, and lilac Converse sneakers with black laces.

After receiving a new outfit from Yen Sid, Kairi decides to cut her hair now reaching slightly to her shoulders. The outfit is a unique hooded pink-and-black dress, with two small black cat ears. There are black ruffles on one side of her skirt and plaid on the other. She wears thick belted black boots. She wears thin white bracelets on her left wrist and a thick wristband on her right wrist.

Powers and Abilities
As a Princess of Heart, Kairi won't succumb to darkness so easily and her heart possesses none of such within it. If her heart is lost, her body will remain in a dormant state until the heart is returned, making her one of the few beings who cannot become a Heartless. Besides this primary trait, Kairi inherently possesses other abilities to some degree, such as being able to open the Final Keyhole when she and the other Princesses are gathered and the ability to sense darkness.

In combat, Kairi's abilities are limited. However, when she touched Aqua's Keyblade when she was younger, Kairi inherited the ability to wield the Keyblade. She demonstrates this when Riku hands her a Keyblade of her own, allowing her to protect herself from the Heartless without any help. She is shown to be fairly competent with it and is later brought into training with Master Yen Sid to become stronger for the impending batter with Master Xehanort.

Childhood
Kairi was born in Radiant Garden, where she lives with her grandmother. One day, she is chased by a group of Unversed and encounters Aqua, who senses a pure light in her heart, since she is a Princess of Heart. Frightened, Kairi touches Aqua's Keyblade, resulting in Aqua unintentionally bequeathing Kairi her own Keyblade. As she and Aqua are about to be attacked, King Mickey arrives and Aqua evacuates Kairi before returning to fight alongside Mickey.

After the Unversed are defeated, King Mickey and Aqua talk about the light they sense in Kairi's heart, and Mickey suggests that they team up, but is called away immediately afterwards. Kairi then gives Aqua the flowers she picked before the Unversed appeared as thanks for helping her (which becomes the Destiny's Embracekeychain). In return, Aqua puts a protective charm on Kairi's necklace and tells her, "One day when you're in trouble, the light within you will lead you to the light of another, someone to keep you safe". Kairi thanks Aqua and then returns to her grandmother, who begins to tell her the story of the light and the darkness, while Aqua believes their meeting may not have been a coincidence.

After Terra-Xehanort's defeat, Kairi is seen picking flowers in a large garden. She looks up to the bright sky, looking as if she sensed something. As she does, her necklace emits a weak glow.

One year after these events, Radiant Garden became shrouded by darkness and everyone was scattered across the universe; Kairi appears on the Destiny Islands during a meteor shower. Though it was believed that Ansem, Seeker of Darkness had sent Kairi to the islands as an experiment to test any possible connection between the Keyblade wielders and the Princesses of Heart, her arrival was actually due to the protection spell Aqua had cast on her one-year earlier.

Sometime later, Sora and Riku were in the Secret Place and talking about "the new girl at the mayor's house".

Kairi later becomes very close friends with Sora and Riku. As children, Kairi and Sora drew pictures of themselves in the Secret Place. Sora and Riku playfully compete for her attention and Kairi often supports these competitions, although she does not know they were contests for her affection and not just innocent rivalry. She bears no memory of her life before the Islands, and her mysterious past sparks curiosity in Sora and Riku, who are anxious to leave Destiny Islands and see other worlds. This leads the trio to build a raft in the hopes of traveling to other worlds.

Kingdom Hearts
Kairi wakes up Sora from a surreal dream and pressures him to collect supplies for their raft. Later, while watching the sunset, she jokes about leaving without Riku, then tells Sora not to change. However, before they can leave, their islands are attacked by the Heartless, and Sora finds Kairi in their Secret Place. She turns towards him, looking sad and a little ill, and then a huge gust of wind sweeps through a door in the back of the cave and Kairi flies towards him. Sora opens his arms to catch her, but she vanishes right as she is about to be swept into his embrace.

During this time, it is speculated that Kairi's heart chose Sora as a vessel and when she passed through him, her heart was left behind in him while her body vanished to some distant world. She then becomes the game's driving force, as much of the game's story centers around Sora's and Riku's attempts at finding Kairi. However, Riku is hostile to Sora, having been manipulated by Maleficent into believing that Sora no longer cared for either Kairi or himself.

Throughout Sora's journey, he encounters multiple images of Kairi without knowing about Kairi's heart being a part of his. First, when he wakes up in a motel room after his fight with Leon, and sees Yuffie in Kairi's form and mistakes her to be Kairi until she tells him who she is. Later when he visits the Magician's Study behind the door of the Third District, Kairi appears to him and tells him how much the study reminds her of their Secret Place, but she disappears when Goofy calls to him. When Sora crash lands into the late 1880s, she reappears again for a short moment, right behind Tarzan, then disappears again. Finally, before setting off to Hollow Bastion, Goofy and Donald encourage Sora to believe in himself, then Kairi says from within "I believe in you." before pulling him into one of her lost memories about her grandmother telling her younger self a story about the light. These encounters speculate that Kairi was experiencing Sora's journey from within his heart, including befriending Donald and Goofy.

Riku finds her first, but she is in a comatose state, with a vacant, lifeless expression and a limp body. She'd lost her heart and because of her Princess status, her body remained untouched by the darkness that usually produced a Heartless. With empty promises by Maleficent, Riku was convinced that he alone could locate Kairi's heart and restore her to health. When inside Monstro, Riku attempts to kidnap Pinocchio in hopes to use his heart to restore Kairi's. This act confuses Sora as he hasn't learned of her fate. His attempt fails and he is forced to retreat.

Riku then brings Kairi to Neverland, first bringing her to the clock tower. Sora finally encounters her body, along with a painful reunion with Riku; who is very defensive about her and ends up locking her in a room with Wendy so that Sora can't get to her. When Sora reaches the room below her cell, he extends his hand towards her, desperately hoping for a reaction as he is just now discovering the full lengths of Kairi's condition. Unconsciously, her hand twitches before going still again, much to Sora's relief. Riku then takes her away yet again, having new knowledge of where Kairi's heart might be. After the defeat of Captain Hook, Goofy ponders aloud whether or not Kairi had indeed lost her heart, but Donald, not wanting to upset Sora, promptly shushes him. Sora, however, appears to be in denial, pondering over his disbelief that he could fly and whether or not Kairi would believe him.

Their friendship severed, for the time being, Sora continues his journey, destined to clash with Riku in the near future once again over Kairi. Eventually, Sora follows Riku and Maleficent to the world of Hollow Bastion where he too learns of Kairi's fate. However, Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, while possessing Riku, reveals that Kairi's heart has been resting within Sora all along, which explains all the visions he has had of her during his journey. Furthermore, Kairi is one of the Princesses of Heart, a maiden whose heart holds no darkness, and is needed to open the Final Keyhole. He then attempts to take her heart from Sora, but he defends himself to protect it.

After winning a fight and driving Ansem from Hollow Bastion, Sora sacrifices himself using the Keyblade of heart to free Kairi's heart and is turned into a Shadow Heartless. Awakened as her heart is finally restored, Kairi runs towards him, but as soon as her fingers touch him, he vanishes. Refusing to believe that Sora is gone, Kairi prepares to fight the Shadow Heartless that surround her, along with Donald and Goofy. However, once Ansem reappears and Riku's spirit stops him from attacking Kairi, she flees. Devastated, she, along with Donald and Goofy, attempt to escape from Hollow Bastion. But just as they are cornered by the Heartless, she recognizes Sora's Heartless from the crowd and manages to bring Sora back from the darkness by embracing him and promising to protect him. The group escapes Hollow Bastion, revealed to be Kairi's homeworld, and find shelter in Traverse Town where she could be protected by Leon and the others.

Sora finds Kairi in the underground water tunnel after talking with Leon. She states absentmindedly how much this place reminds her of their Secret Place. While lost in darkness, Sora witnessed one of Kairi's memories of her as a little girl wandering around the Hollow Bastion library with her grandmother. Sora mentions this and it is revealed that after her heart was restored, Kairi could remember certain things from her past. Though Kairi wants to help rescue Riku and stop the darkness from emanating, Sora convinces her to stay put, not wanting her to get hurt and also joking that she would be in his way; he also acknowledges that, since their hearts were one, they will always be together. During this conversation, it was revealed that Kairi's voice brought him back from the darkness. Kairi gives in and gives Sora her lucky charm.

After Sora's final battle with Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, the world is breaking apart as the worlds that were destroyed previously began themselves. Trapped on a section of Destiny Islands, Sora runs to Kairi and promises that he will come back to her as soon as he finds Riku and King Mickey. She is then transported back to Destiny Islands without him, wistfully watching the island regenerate around her with Sora's goodbye still fresh in her mind.

After the worlds are restored, Kairi visits the Secret Place and looks at the pictures that she and her friends had drawn over the years. After spotting the picture that Sora had drawn of him giving her a paopu fruit, she is moved to tears and adds onto it, so that it depicts herself and Sora exchanging two halves of a paopu fruit.

Kingdom Hearts: Next Generations
Kairi, now seventeen years old, lives her life normally on Destiny Islands, but one day, Kairi waits for Sora's return at the beach, Axel comes to Destiny Islands and offers Kairi to come with him and see Sora. Suddenly, Pluto appears to warn Kairi. Axel summons a group of Dusks to apprehend, but she escapes with Pluto into a nearby portal. She finds herself in a mysterious corridor, briefly seeing a hooded figure, then arrives in Twilight Town and meets Hayner, Pence, and Olette. She befriends them, immediately fitting in with the three and going as far as to explain for whom she is searching. To her joy, Hayner, Pence, and Olette know Sora, assuring her that she could stay in Twilight Town until his next visit.

Unfortunately, she is found again by Axel and forcibly taken by him, with Olette, Hayner, and Pence unable to stop him. However, Saïx finds Axel with Kairi and takes her to The World That Never Was as a prisoner, stating that she is the "fire that feeds Sora's anger". Kairi is devastated, thinking all hope is lost until she is freed by her Nobody, Naminé. Naminé uses a Corridor of Darkness to allow them to escape the cell, telling Kairi to believe in herself.

The two's attempt to escape is stopped by Saïx and two Berserker Nobodies who offer to take Kairi to Sora. Once she refuses, Saïx gets ready to send the Nobodies to attack the two girls only to be saved by a cloaked figure. Naminé hints at who the cloaked figure is, causing him to pause as Kairi strides towards him to remove the hood. Her guess is correct and it is indeed Riku even though his appearance has changed to that of Xehanort's Heartless, though she takes this in stride and is just happy to be reunited with Riku. He leads her to Sora and is attacked by a group of Heartless. He hands Kairi a Keyblade named Destiny's Embrace, and they successfully fend off the remaining Heartless. She is then reunited with Sora with a touching hug between these two. She stops Ansem (Riku) from leaving and shows Sora that Ansem is really Riku.

The three along with Donald and Goofy face off against Luxord and Saïx to get to Xemnas. Kairi acts as a pillar of support during these battles more than an actual participant - as Luxord's battle leaves them caged by cards and Saïx uses a shockwave to force both her and Riku (using his body to shield her) behind a barrier so he can battle alone with Sora, Donald, and Goofy.

After Sora and Riku defeat Xemnas, Naminé appears and creates a portal, where Donald, Goofy, and the others go through leaving Sora, Kairi and Riku. Kairi walks towards her and Sora follows Kairi. Kairi thanks her as Naminé tries to make Sora remember her, but Sora gets confused. Roxas comes out of him. Naminé and Roxas accept their fate together to live inside Sora and Kairi as they fuse with their original selves. Kairi walks into the portal, but when Sora and Riku follow the portal disappears and they fight Xemnas again.

After they defeat Xemnas, they arrive at the shore of the Dark Margin. Kairi's letter washes up on shore and Sora reads it. The Door To Light appears and the two boys go through it and arrive at Destiny Islands shores as Kairi shouts for them. Sora excitedly swims towards her but Donald and Goofy jump at Sora first and Mickey jumps at Riku. They hug Sora, then Sora shows her the lucky charm and replies to Kairi "W-We're back!" while Kairi replies "You're home" and extends her hand. As Sora takes her hand, he simultaneously returns the lucky charm to her. For a brief moment, Roxas and Naminé are shown smiling back at each other, just as Sora and Kairi are.

Blank Period
While Sora and Riku are talking about the Door to Light, Kairi runs up to them, shouting their names. Kairi hands Sora a letter in a bottle, containing King Mickey's letter. The trio immediately opens the letter and read it.

Sora sits on the Paopu tree while holding the message from King Mickey, staring off into the sunset. After Sora tells Riku that he has made a decision, Kairi walks up to them. Sora tells her that everyone needs him and that he has to go because he is who he is because of them. She then hands him her lucky charm and tells him that she'll see him soon.

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance
In The World That Never Was, Young Xehanort forces Sora into a second sleep, during which he dreams of the various people connected in his heart. One of these figments takes the form of Kairi, who is walking side by side with Riku, away from Sora. She then takes the appearance of Aqua, while the figment of Riku turns into Terra, and Sora takes on Ventus's appearance. Sora is incredibly confused, especially when Aqua and Terra turn around and walk away from him again, morphing back into Kairi and Riku. Ignoring the voice of Riku in the back of his head telling him to wake up and choosing instead to follow the pain in his heart, Sora chases after them as they flicker back and forth between his friends and Aqua and Terra. A long-forgotten memory of meeting Aqua on the islands nearly thirteen years prior is recalled before Sora is ejected from his dream, landing in front of Xigbar.

As Xigbar and Xemnas reveal the true nature of the Organization to Sora, he is outraged by their disregard for the value of people's hearts. When Xigbar brings into question the strength of Sora's own heart, he pauses momentarily before saying with conviction that the Keyblade may not have chosen him, but that he was proud to be connected to those who it did choose. Kairi momentarily appears behind him, Keyblade in hand, alongside all the other friends connected in Sora's heart. The immense power of all the intertwined hearts unnerves Xigbar, who flees, leaving Xemnas to battle with Sora.

Later on, with the knowledge that Master Xehanort is organizing a new Organization XIII, one made from thirteen different incarnations of himself, Master Yen Sid orders Riku to retrieve the seventh Keyblade wielder, Kairi, in order to train her for the battles ahead.

Kingdom Hearts Guardians of Light
Right after being brought to the Mysterious Tower, Kairi is brought up to speed about the threat of the new Organization and the fates of Terra, Aqua, and Ventus. Mickey reveals to Kairi and Riku that Aqua sacrificed herself to help keep the Heartless from attacking Riku back when the Door to Darkness was being sealed. After Yen Sid assigns Riku and Mickey to rescue Aqua, Kairi asks what she should do. Kairi learns that Merlin will instruct her in how to use her Keyblade alongside Lea, whom she is shocked to hear is the original form of Axel. However, both Mickey and Riku assure Kairi that Lea is now an ally, and even helped them save Sora from Xehanort. After Yen Sid gifts Riku and Mickey with new garments to protect them against the darkness, Kairi leaves to undergo her training.

During one of her breaks from training, Kairi writes a letter to Sora when she notices Lea staring at her again. Kairi deduces he is trying to remember what he forgot, though he dismisses it. As Kairi begins to talk about their next training session, Kairi says something similar to what Xion once told Axel before her death, causing Lea to cry from overwhelming emotions. When Kairi expresses concern, Lea apologizes to her. Kairi tells him to stop apologizing and he relents only on the condition she calls him "Axel" from now on, to which she agrees to.

Shortly after, Merlin drops off the new clothes for Kairi and Lea made by the three good fairies. Kairi puts on her new clothes and cuts her hair and goes to speak with Lea about her desire to save Naminé, as she views Naminé as an individual and wants her to enjoy life. Lea then proceeds to talk about Ventus and how they became friends and how Roxas looks identical to him.

Trivia

 * Kairi's name is derived from the Japanese word for "sea" (海), as part of the name theme, she shares with Riku and Sora. Together, their names make up "Land, Sea, Sky".