Kanao Tsuyuri

thumb|Kanao's quiet and serene demeanour.|left At first, Kanao was an indecisive and quiet girl due to the abuse she endured in her past before meeting the Kocho sisters. She became unable to make decisions by herself and repressed her emotions as a defense mechanism, to the point that she believed she lacked emotions and desires. In order to help rectify this problem, Kanae gave her a coin to flip to decide which path to follow when she didn't know what to do. For many years, Kanao continued to show little emotion or desire. However, after seeing what demons did to Aoi Kanzaki, Naho Takada, Sumi Nakahara, Kiyo Terauchi and Shinobu's loved ones, Kanao developed a strong hatred against demons directly from her own will. Kanao, without the knowledge of her sisters, learned Flower Breathing by watching Kanae and undertook the Final Selection of her own volition to become a Demon Slayer, without consulting her superiors for permission, which would imply that her will had been strengthening all along. Shinobu, oblivious to this fact, was afraid that Kanao wasn't acting on her own volition and thus instructed Kanao to simply cut off the heads of demons without thinking since she seemingly had no will of her own. Kanao repeatedly bids farewell to Tanjiro. Between Kanae's death and the Rehabilitation Training, Kanao recovers slightly, but still relies on her coin to make most of her decisions. She displays a somewhat mechanical response in conversations; when Tanjiro Kamado approaches her to bid to her farewell, she repeats "goodbye" when he attempts to continue the conversation. However, he eventually manages to start bringing her out of her shell and she starts to make more of her own decisions, in turn relying less on her coin. She gains the ability to speak unambiguously and gradually becomes able to express her emotions and wants more openly, as seen when she begins to show her own desire to fight, expresses immense relief when Tanjiro recovers from his injuries, displays joy when she tells Shinobu that she wishes to train alongside her, and expresses shock and distress at Shinobu's plan to defeat Doma. "Why were you even born?" In her battle against Doma, Kanao takes uncharacteristically sadistic glee in pointing out his own lack of emotions. Fueled by hatred and spite due to the deaths of her beloved elder sisters by his hand, she attacks him verbally to the point where he drops his normal carefree demeanor. She demonstrates extreme determination and a deep love for her sisters, crying for the first time in the wake of Shinobu's death and expressing that she had wished to go home together with her elder sister. She has now been shown to express a greater sense of camaraderie and care for her fellow Demon Slayers other than her sisters, the residents of the Butterfly Mansion and Tanjiro, as seen when she becomes visibly angry and sympathetic on Inosuke Hashibira's behalf when Doma begins gloating about his mother's death. She shows immense rage at the demon's taunts, insulting him and telling him to silence himself, which is a complete step up from the original emotionally distant relationship she had with her comrades. During the final battle against Muzan Kibutsuji, Kanao was shown to have completely regained the ability to properly express her emotions and make her own choices. Over the course of the battle, she shows visible feelings of anger and terror towards the Demon King as she and her fellow Demon Slayers take him on. Even after the battle is over, she continues to show emotion, proving herself to genuinely care for both Tanjiro and his sister Nezuko Kamado after watching the latter's desperate attempts to reach out to her now transformed brother, which even reached the point of risking her one remaining eye to inject Tanjiro with Shinobu's last vial of the human-conversion drug to save him.

Kanao is a young woman of short stature, with large and gentle eyes of a dark lilac color that turns to a lighter color at the lower of the irises and a purple center along with notable bright light reflecting, that are framed by thick eyelashes, and pink lips in contrast to her pale complexion. She has medium-length, thin raven-black hair, tied into a side ponytail on the right of her head and fastened by a green butterfly ornament with a pink trim on the outer side of the wings, and decorated with white speckled spots, that once belonged to her adoptive sister Kanae. She has straight cut bangs, a straight fringe, and two loose, chin-length strands that curve downwards from above each of her ears. Kanao wears a slightly purple-tinted variation of the standard Demon Slayer uniform, consisting of a button-up jacket with a stand-up collar and long sleeves, featuring silver buttons and a shirt pocket on the left breast, with the kanji for |Metsu}} engraved on the back of the uniform. Beneath the jacket, she wears a white long-sleeved collared undershirt. Rather than the traditional tattsuke-hakama pants, her uniform is customized with a knee-length pleated skirt in the same tinted color, secured with a white belt around her waist. Over time, however, the skirt was noticeably shortened to only cover her thighs, a modification implied to be the work of the notoriously lecherous uniform tailor, Masao Maeda. Draped over her uniform, she wears a short white cloak, fastened on one side by a dark pink triple knot. On her feet, she sports distinctive knee-high lace-up white boots with tan soles, heels, and toes. During the Final Selection, she wore a light pink yukata stop a white undershirt and a magenta pair of hakama pants. She also wore white ankle socks and pink sandals. When she was a young child living in poverty, Kanao had severely disheveled hair, and a tattered and dirty pink kimono with lighter circular patterns. It is also worth noting that despite likely being a preteen around 12 years old, she was abnormally short and had the appearance of a younger child due to severe malnutrition stunting her growth. Sometime between then and her next appearance in the Infinity Castle, the color of Kanao's hair changes, with the ends being slightly tinted purple, fading to a neon pink halfway down her ponytail. After her battle with Doma, Kanao begins to wear Shinobu's hairpin rather than Kanae's, as her's was shattered during the battle. She also loses much of the vision of her right eye due to her using Flower Breathing's final form to take out the Upper Rank with her eye gaining a defined pupil with a dark ring around it and becoming deprived of its gradient.

Overall Abilities
thumb|Kanao clashes with Doma, the second most powerful Upper Rank. Kanao is the Tsuguko of Kanae and Shinobu Kocho who has been personally trained by the both of them in the art of combat. As such, Kanao possesses extremely refined physical abilities, sharpened skills, and prowess that potentially marks her as a future member of the Demon Slayer Corps' Hashira. Tanjiro Kamado, another promising candidate, even states that, during their first meeting together, he could already sense that Kanao was the closest to the Hashira out of the existing Demon Slayers, just by smelling her scent and feeling her aura, which further confirms her skills. During her battle against Doma, the second most powerful Upper Rank, he acknowledged her abilities to have surpassed that of Shinobu's. Kanao's undaunted will and spirit when facing Doma. Indomitable Will: Kanao possesses an undaunted will and spirit in battle, hardened after seeing the harm inflicted onto her adoptive family by demons. Her resolve went so far as to learn Flower Breathing just by watching Kanae and undertaking Final Selection of her own volition to become a Demon Slayer. Even after witnessing her adoptive elder sister, Shinobu's gruesome demise at the hands of Upper Rank Two, she refuses to give into the demon's taunts and remained focused on the battle. Her battle against Doma whilst she was alone demonstrated her unwavering spirit as Kanao resolutely continued to attack the powerful demon with everything she had. Even after enduring and narrowly avoiding numerous potentially lethal blows, and even having her katana stolen at one point, Kanao bravely continued to perform to her best ability as a promise to Shinobu that she would succeed in beheading Doma once he was poisoned. Later on, Kanao would join the battle against the Demon King Muzan Kibutsuji. thumb|Kanao analyzing and assessing Doma's techniques in the midst of battle. Keen Intellect: As an experienced Demon Slayer, Kanao possesses exceptionally sharp analytical observation along with adept insight and perception skills in battle. She is proven to be very cautiously astute, able to use her eyes to precisely analyze, anticipate and predict the movements of her opponent, and predetermine their next move in advance by watching them closely. Her analytical and observation skills played a role in taking down Doma, as she was able to accurately analyze and observe his techniques, moves and attacks, quickly move accordingly, and assess his abilities. Her analytical and observation skills played a vital role in her battle against Doma. During the climax of her conflict with the Upper Rank demon, when he was cornered, in his final act of desperation, the demon unveiled his last technique and a massive attack out of desperation. She was able to quickly tell and recognize the Upper Rank’s final gambit, noting that his technique lacks precision and was clearly his last-ditch effort to defend himself with the little energy he had left, and used it to her advantage to take him down for good. Kanao also was shown to be quite intuitive; right before Shinobu's death, she was sharp enough to immediately read, discern, and quickly understand her sister's hand sign language not to breathe in Doma’s freezing air.