Race Human Age Unknown Tao Attribute Water Affiliation Sanka Mountain People (Formerly) Nurugai is the last remaining member of the Sanka and a wrongly convicted death-row criminal. Her assigned monitor is Tenza Nurugai looks down on samurai, viewing them as stupid. Her disdain for them stems from the fact that they were partially responsible for killing her people. Because of this incident, Nurugai feels a strong guilt for leading her village's extermination, even believed that the reason why she is on a dangerous mission is because she was receiving divine punishment for her actions and accepted death.

Spoiler

However, after Tenza makes Nurugai take her own desires into account, Nurugai realizes that she wants to stay alive to return back to her home. After being influenced by Tenza and being by Shion's side, with his task of protecting her, Nurugai's opinion of samurai may have changed and sees that not all of them are bad. After the death of Tenza, Nurugai begged Shion to teach her swordsmanship and his ability to sense Tao to avenge him, stating that she could not stand by and watch as more people she cares for die in front of her.

Nurugai was raised with the Sanka Mountain People in a village where she had lived with her grandfather. Nurugai and her grandfather were in a friendly, familial relationship where she would learn off her grandfather's wisdom. Her village however were considered rebels against the current shogunate, refusing to submit to Tokugawa. Because of this, samurai were sent to locate the hillside tribes they defined as Emishis. One day, Nurugai crossed paths with a party of lost men, encouraging Nurugai to offer her help by seeking rest in the security of her village. Nurugai recognized her mistake when she realised that these men were samurai under the order of Tokugawa, who began a mass killing of her village that would leave her as the sole survivor.