Uzui Tengen
Using a toy in public.
Tengen is a very tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular man with lightly-tanned skin and white hair. His hair is of an uneven length, the longest strands reaching his shoulders, and is styled with three more notable, shorter clumps arching up to fall as bangs between his eyes and on either side of his face. He has quite thin, maroon eyes that appear to slant inwards, each with one long eyelash flowing to the far side of his face. He is considered very attractive as noted by many women and even by Zenitsu; this has led him to use his looks as a tool for his missions whenever persuasion is necessary.
During his days serving Demon Slayer Corps, Tengen wears a sleeveless and dark turquoise version of the standard Demon Slayer uniform, along with a wrap of burgundy cloth around his calves with his tattsuke-bakama pants tuck in, and white-strapped Zōri. He also wears two thick, golden rings around his upper arms and what appear to be a pair of finger-less blue gloves, secured around his middle finger with a band of white and his wrists with another set of thinner gold rings, this time with two on each side. As well as this, Tengen sports a white head-wrap that covers his hair, leaving only a thin ponytail visible to fall behind his head from between its layers, which is adorned with a large headband of pale gray that's decorated by six light pink gemstones, three large and arranged in a line, and three small and arranged in a triangle to the far left. A chain of smaller, pale blue gemstones hangs from each side of this headdress, framing his face, and he also wears what looks to be red eye make-up around his left eye, consisting of alternating large and small dots that run inwards, towards his eye.
Tengen is an eccentric and flashy individual, always wanting to be "flamboyant", possessing a need for everything to be flashy and outstanding, even proclaiming that he is the god of flashiness and festivals. This is shown when he gets excited imagining how "flamboyant" it would be if Tanjiro Kamado's blood vessels exploded, and tries to forcefully haul Aoi Kanzaki off to the Entertainment District with him so she can unwillingly help him with a dangerous mission, even spanking her. As a result of his exuberant and flamboyant personality, Tengen is very demanding of others, treating the Demon Slayers very harshly during the Hashira Training Arc and insulting them for having no substance when they couldn't survive his stamina training. Furthermore, he also abhors the idea of unflashy things, as shown when the Hashira openly expresses his hate for plainness.
He is usually seen talking boastfully, proclaiming that he is "god" in front of Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke, even calling them trash and declaring that if he tells them to become dogs, they must become dogs, and if he tells them to become monkeys, they must become monkeys. Tengen even demands for the trio to always humor and stoop down to him, imploring him for favours and always doing their best to flatter him. This was also shown in his initial encounter with Upper Rank Six, Gyutaro, proclaiming that he was in tip-top shape despite being severely poisoned.
However, Tengen does possess a caring side that is masked under his flamboyant façade, one he only shows to those that are extremely close to him, most notably his three wives, Makio, Suma, and Hinatsuru, who Tengen is shown to truly care for, praising and encouraging Makio and Suma after their undercover mission and assuring Hinatsuru that she has completed her mission and telling her to get out of harm's way. Furthermore, Tengen also declares that they must value their lives above all others as they are precious to him. After the events in Yoshiwara, Tengen also becomes more friendly towards Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke.
Tengen asks Gyutaro if he looks like he does have talent
"Do I look like I have talent to you?"
Although he can be very boastful and expressive, Tengen also shows a side of modesty and humility. He openly denied Gyutaro's statement that he was blessed with any talent, comparing himself to the other Hashira and especially Kyojuro Rengoku. This implicates a sort of inferiority complex, further proven by the fact that he told himself that he could never become someone as great as Kyojuro. Tengen is also shown to harbor regret over the fact that he has let so many lives slip through his fingers over the years. Kagaya Ubuyashiki praised Tengen for the hard path he chose and for facing forward and fought to protect human lives despite carrying all of his conflicts and contradictions he hides behind his loud and confident façade, which caused Tengen to deeply respect Kagaya from that moment on.
Despite being a shinobi that has traditionally valued completing the mission over all else, Tengen has rejected that ideology after seeing its effect on his family.[4] He believes that his subordinates, whether they be his wives or the Demon Slayers under his command, should value their lives, and the lives of innocents, over their missions or his own.[14][15] Tengen especially hated becoming like his brother or father who were apathetic towards human lives and wanted to desperately abandon what he was taught by them.
Abilities
Overall Abilities: As a Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps, Tengen is a very powerful and skilled combatant. He has displayed incredible physical feats of strength and speed, being the second physically strongest Hashira in the current generation as well as being the fastest runner out of all the Hashira. In terms of skill, he could match the combat proficiency of both Daki and Gyutaro, both Upper Rank demons that have fought and killed numerous Hashira in the past. Tengen was also able to effortlessly decapitate Daki without her realising it, to the point that he didn't see her as an Upper Rank demon at all. Impressively, he was able to fend off the combined efforts of Daki and Gyutaro while being infected by a poison that would kill someone instantly under normal circumstances, even managing to protect bystanders in the process. Tengen has also showcased great skill and precision in using explosives, minimizing damage dealt to the surroundings and maximizing the damage dealt to his opponents. Due to his shinobi training, Tengen has greater tactical skills and sharper senses, most notably his sense of hearing, which helped him greatly during the course of his battle. Even after losing his left hand to Gyutaro, Tengen was able to fight the Upper Rank on even terms due to completing his Musical Score, allowing him to deflect Gyutaro's attacks, cut off his arm and pin him down at the cost of losing his left eye. Nonetheless, due to the poison circulating in his body, he was unable to attempt a finishing blow and needed Tanjiro to do so.
Enhanced Hearing: Tengen has a heightened sense of hearing similar to Zenitsu Agatsuma. This ability allows him to easily hear noises deep underground, and he uses it to immediately discern that there are channels of underground tunnels and caves directly beneath him when he's looking for Tanjiro Kamado and Daki. He also uses his superhuman hearing the monitor all the activity in the Entertainment District in an attempt to find the location of the demons dwelling in the area. Tengen also used his hearing to discern whether people are still present on a floor in a building.
Echolocation: As an advanced application of his hearing, Tengen also possesses echolocation. When trying to find the location of a battle underground, he analyzed the sounds reflected and resonated through the air by the walls of the caverns, and accurately locates and is even able to guess the number of people inside the tunnels by listening to the sound bouncing from their physical bodies.
Musical Score: A technique Tengen developed using his heightened sense of hearing to work in conjunction with his Sound Breathing, where he analyzes combat maneuvers and deconstructs the rhythm of his enemies' attacks into sound and reads them like sheet music to the point every fight becomes like a song. This allows Tengen to gain an understanding of his opponent's habits as well as their blind spots, giving him an edge against them. However, it takes a long time for Tengen to complete the score. Once completed, Tengen was able to fight Gyutaro on even terms despite having lost his left hand, but due to the poison he was pushed to the limit and was unable to strike at the Upper Rank's neck.
Immense Speed & Reflexes: Tengen is the fastest runner out of all the Hashira, and possesses tremendous levels of raw speed and reflexes, often shown when he moves so fast he appears to teleport. His speed also far surpasses that of Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke, who were unable to keep up to, let alone perceive, the Hashira's blisteringly quick movements. Most notably, Tengen was fast enough to behead Daki, an Upper Rank demon, before she could even register what had happened.[18] Moreover, he could fend off both Daki and the true Upper Rank Six, Gyutaro, despite being held back by a deadly poison that would've killed someone instantly under normal circumstances.
Immense Stamina & Endurance: Due to his upbringing being raised to become a ninja and his own father's increased attempts to revive their clan by forcing Tengen and his siblings to train even more harshly and painfully then necessary, Tengen developed powerful resistance to pain, as seen where he bared little to no reaction at having being caught up in a hail of Kunai knives and being pierced by them without even flinching or showing any form of discomfort or pain, continuing to attack Gyutaro as if nothing had happened. Later, Tengen was also noted to have suffered other severe injuries during the battle, such as getting his eye and hand slashed off by Gyutaro, and managed to ignore the pain of such injuries as well.
Immense Strength: Tengen possesses tremendous physical strength even amongst the Hashira, the strongest Demon Slayers of the Corps. He was ranked second in an arm-wrestling contest among all the Hashira, with only the hulking Gyomei Himejima surpassing him. Tengen displayed his strength numerous times, as he was shown effortlessly carrying Aoi and Naho, and soon after knocked Zenitsu and Inosuke unconscious with a single punch to the stomach. Moreover, Tengen is able to fight at blistering speeds while carrying around his giant Nichirin cleavers, swinging them incessantly to fend off his opponents without much trouble and being able to hold both his enormous cleavers at their tip with only two fingers. Furthermore, Tengen was able to match Gyutaro in strength with only one arm after his left hand was cut off.
Indomitable Will: Tengen possesses an undaunted spirit and immense willpower, never faltering even when faced disadvantages and difficult circumstances. Despite being poisoned in the beginning by Gyutaro, he boldly proclaimed he could fight just fine, even attacking both Daki and Gyutaro at the same time, deflecting multiple poison blood blades with a missing hand. Even when his left eye gets slashed out, he pushed through all the damage until the demons were defeated.
Muscle Control: Tengen can control the physiology of muscles to a great extent. During his battle with Gyutaro, Tengen used his muscles to stop his heart to temporarily prevent the poison from circulating, which let him get the drop on Gyutaro who believed he was dead.
Shinobi Training: Before joining the Demon Slayer Corps and becoming a Hashira, Tengen was a ninja from a family of shinobi. Tengen received extremely harsh training that killed all his siblings except for his younger brother who became cold and heartless. However, as a result of his intensive shinobi training, Tengen possesses great technical skill in weaponry such as kunai and explosives. His training also made him extremely pain tolerant and poison resistant, which saved him from Gyutaro's poison and allowed him to fight despite suffering numerous injuries and losing his hand.
Enhanced Stealth: Tengen is extremely stealthy, moving so silently that he doesn't make a single sound nor disturb the air. His stealth allowed him to evade the senses of both Tanjiro and Inosuke, both of which possessesing a heightened sense of smell and touch respectively. Later, Tengen was able to sneak up on and decapitate Daki, an Upper Rank demon, without her noticing.
Poison Resistance: As a former shinobi, Tengen has been shown to possess high resistance to poison to the point where he could continue fighting while under the effects of a poison from Gyutaro that would have killed someone instantly under normal circumstances.
Tactical Intellect: Due to accumulating years of experience as both a ninja and Demon Slayer, Tengen has incredible judgement, making decisions on the fly while in battle with Upper Rank demons to protect bystanders and minimize the damage dealt to the surroundings. Even when he was held back by Gyutaro's poison, Tengen was able to properly determine the most efficient strategy to fight off the Upper Rank demons and even fooled Gyutaro into thinking he was dead by stopping his own heart to prevent himself from dying from his poison, which managed to give Tengen an edge against him.
Fighting Style
Master Swordsman: As a Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps, Tengen is one of the most powerful and skilled swordsman in the entire organization. Unlike most Demon Slayers, Tengen chooses to utilize a dual-wielding swordsmanship style with his Nichirin Cleavers, making use of a nunchucks-esque sword wielding style. Tengen displays his unique and extraordinary swordsmanship skills during his battle, managing to adapt to the Upper Rank's "mantis-like" fighting style and go toe-to-toe with him for an extended period of time despite the Upper Rank having over a century of combat experience. Tengen can also use his sword wielding expertise in conjunction with his anti-demon bombs with great synergy, making him all the more dangerous. He also showed the ability to wield his Nichirin Cleavers with only one arm. In addition to traditional slashes and swings, Tengen has also been shown to spin his blades by their chain; the whirling motion allowing him to block blows and quickly attack in retaliation, with the blades in constant rapid motion.
Breathing Style
Sound Breathing: A Breathing Style that Tengen created himself. Sound Breathing seemingly combines Tengen's heightened sense of hearing, his Musical Score technique, his shinobi expertise as well as his dual Nichirin cleavers and his anti-demon bombs.
Techniques
First Form: Roar - The user lifts their twin swords above their head and slams them down with great force, causing a loud sound resembling thunder as a result.
Fourth Form: Constant Resounding Slashes - The user holds their twin swords apart and spins them rapidly around themselves, enabling the blades to destroy anything it makes contact with for powerful defensive capabilities around the user.
Fifth Form: String Performance - The user holds the chain of their twin swords and rotates the blades at high speed while charging forward. The spin of the blades without changing grip allows for continual slashes while still being in motion.
Equipment
Dual Nichirin Cleavers: Befitting Tengen's flamboyant personality, he carries an equally flamboyant set of weaponry, wielding two gigantic Nichirin cleavers that are amber in color. The blades each have a notch in the cutting edge and are held together at the hilt by a metal chain, making it very reminiscent to nunchucks. The weight of his blades enables them to generate immense explosive force, as seen when they create a blast upon making contact with Gyutaro's blood blades or when Tengen struck them on the ground to propel himself. It is stated that, until Tengen's fight with Upper Rank Six, no demon had ever survived a blow from them. His hilt is circular shaped with 4 slight indentations and gold in color, there's a maroon ring that connects to the center; it has an outer green border. His blades are engraved with the phrase Destroyer of Demons. Due to his swords' huge size, Tengen doesn't use a sword sheath and instead carries them on his back, having them wrapped in cloth.
Explosive Beads: Tengen carries dozens of black small beads that create large explosions and detonate with the slightest amount of friction, capable of harming the bodies of Upper Rank demons.
Kunai: Like his three wives, Tengen carries around dozens of standard black kunai, which he used to threaten Omitsu's husband to reveal information about Zenko's and Hinatsuru's disappearance and to destroy the Obi sash that captured Hinatsuru.
Tengen was born into a family of nine children within a shinobi clan. Three of the nine children died before they even reached 10 years old due to overzealous training. With the remaining six of his siblings, they were forced to kill each other on their father’s orders without them knowing who they fought, as their heads and faces were covered with masks. Tengen realized his father's trick only after he had killed two of his brothers. By the age of 15, seven of his siblings had already died leaving only him and his younger brother who is two years younger.
As children, his father had forced them to undergo harsh and intensive training as an attempt to save the clan, and influenced them to believe that they needed to dispose innocent lives for their benefit, and solely have a wife as means for producing offspring. As his last remaining brother adopted this mindset, and did not feel bad about killing their other siblings, Tengen became appalled and decided to leave the clan permanently. He left the village with his wives without fighting his brother.
The Uzui family practices polygyny, so when Tengen turned 15, he must have 3 wives, who were chosen by the head of the clan. After leaving the village with his wives, he would later teach them to value themselves before the mission, going against their teachings as kunoichi. For a while after he had left the clan, it became habit for him to say he was going to hell, but he stopped after Makio got angry with him, Hinatsuru cried, and Suma bit him. He anguished over whether he should have exterminated the Uzui clan, but he couldn't bring himself to kill his father or brother.
Following the departure from his clan, Tengen and his family searched for Kagaya Ubuyashiki to help fight for the Demon Slayers, and he formally joined. Tengen would later go on to climb the ranks of the Corps and become the Sound Hashira before Sanemi Shinazugawa became a Hashira, and when Kanae Kocho was a member. Notably, Kagaya empathized with Tengen and could only imagine how difficult it had to have been for him to abandon everything about his past to take on a new path and this was this empathy that caused Tengen to become deeply devoted to the Oyakata.
Tengen holds a large amount of respect for his wives and cares about them deeply. When Tengen joined the Demon Slayer Corps, he made sure to inform his wives that they needed to prioritize their lives instead of the mission, and make sure to return home to him. Tengen wanted to make clear that his wives were his top priority in regards to keeping people safe.
During their stay in the Entertainment District, Tengen would often communicate with them via letters and decided to search for them once he stopped receiving them. When Inosuke question if his wives are even alive anymore, Tengen becomes enraged and punches him unconscious, showing that he chastises any disrespect towards his wives.
Later on when Tengen discovers Hinatsuru in the Kirimise, he administers medication to her and asks her if she's alright. When she starts to apologize to him for failing the mission, Tengen reassures her that she did well and embraces her tightly before instructing her to leave the district for her safety. However when Hinatsuru returns to assist in the fight against Gyutaro, she gets captured by the Demon causing Tengen to go into a panic to try to save her. Tanjiro manages to save Hinatsuru in time, allowing Tengen to express his gratitude towards him and mentioning that he "owes him one" for saving his wife.
When Tengen discovers the underground cavern, he slashes the obi within the vicinity of his wives and apologizes to Suma and Makio for being late. He approaches the women and pats them on the head, reassuring them that they've lived up to his expectations as his wives, causing the two of them to tear up upon reuniting with him.
Following the events of the final battle, Suma, Makio, and Hinatsuru immediately rush in to administer first aid to Tengen, but his wounds appear to be too grave for them to treat, causing them to worry. They each become concerned for his well being as Suma begins to wail, Makio begins to panic, and Hinatsuru begins to weep at the sight of his injuries. However when Nezuko manages to heal Tengen from being poisoned, the women rejoice at the fact that he's been healed, and wail as they share a relieved hug with him.
