Kayo

Kayo is a young servant girl who appears as one of three protagonists in the Bake Neko arc of Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales. She plays a prominent role in Kusuriuri's investigations.

Appearance
Kayo is of average height, but due to her young age she is shorter than even her mistress, Sato. She has tan-brown skin, brown eyes, pink lips, and long, dark brown hair that she styles into a decorated shimada, a type of hairstyle that was usually limited to geisha, but was also worn by teenage girls during the Edo period; from this we can safely assume that Kayo is a teenager given the period of time. She also has a mole under her left eye.

Her outfit consists of a bright yellow kimono with a light blue floral pattern and a purple obi tied around her waist. She wears white socks when indoors, but is also seen wearing house slippers.

Personality
Kayo is a hyperactive girl who has shown to easily get excited or scared depending on the situation, to the point of appearing childish. She is also prone to gossiping, due to her profession allowing her to pick up any piece of information about her employers unnoticed. She has a bit of an independent streak as she dislikes being bossed around by others. While a bit naive and easy to scare, Kayo can be quite brave if someone she is friends with is threatened in some way. She also seems to have a perverted side as she showed interest in Kusuriuri's "marriage charms".

Kayo is shown to harbor a crush on Kusuriuri, as she is later seen blushing when he volunteers to accompany her. Due to her courage and willingness to help, she is one of the few people Kusuriuri treats a little nicer than anyone else. She also has an amiable relationship with Odajima Sakai, a young samurai bodyguard, though it was initially out of sympathy on Odajima's part. In the manga adaptation, they are implied to be friends, though at one point Kayo describes Odajima as "pig-headed". When she was being strangled by an insane Sato, Odajima tried to rescue Kayo himself only to have his life threatened, too.

Ironically, despite being connected to the Sakai family, her employers, Kayo is revealed to be completely innocent of the bakeneko's creation, most likely because she was hired sometime after the death of Tamaki Sakai. She along with Odajima was brought with Kusuriuri to witness the bakeneko's story, and seeing it play in its entirety brought her to tears. This directly led to her decision to leave and start a new life elsewhere.

Trivia

 * Kayo's name means "beautiful generation" in Japanese.
 * Kayo makes a returning appearance in the TV spinoff Mononoke during the three-episode Umibōzu arc, traveling on a ship sometime after the original Bakeneko arc.
 * In the same show, there is a girl named "Chiyo" who appears in the Bakeneko arc, which is named after the original arc in Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales and takes place in the 1920's, several years after the Meiji Restoration era. Chiyo strongly looks like Kayo, and even shares her voice actor (Yukana) in the Japanese dub. It is implied, and speculated by fans, that Chiyo is either Kayo's descendant or reincarnation.
 * In the English dub of the Bakeneko arc, Kayo refers to the old servant Yahei as a perverted man, saying that he always tried to "touch her". But in the Japanese dub she dislikes him because he was nosy.