Ruri Hazakura

Ruri Hazakura is the younger twin sister of Ayame Hazakura and possesses the power of life manipulation.

She is cheerful and kind, but she cannot be honest with her sister and often quarrels with her.

She opposes Ayame’s decision to retire as a bodyguard.

She also has a fiancé, later becoming the wife of Kimikage Raichō.

Author Kana Akatsuki stated that the twins were created to explore an emotional question:

if a new seasonal agent is chosen when the current one dies, what happens to the family of the one who is chosen?

A representative line associated with her is:

“So in the end, big sister really does not care about me at all.”

Profile

Name: Ruri Hazakura

Gender: Female

Age: 18 at first appearance, later 19

Birthday: May 26

Zodiac sign: Gemini

Role: Agent

Special skill: Singing

Voice actor: Sumire Uesaka

Ruri and her twin sister are nearly identical in appearance.

She has dark green-black hair, clear fair skin, and a refined beauty typical of Yamato.

She is described as the kind of woman people would want to admire in silence.

As an Agent of Summer, she carries the fresh scent of new green leaves.

Ruri uses “I” in a casual, lively way and comes across as bright, warm, and vivid, like the summer sun.

She is brave, imaginative, and strongly driven by justice, embodying a fundamentally “yang” disposition.

She is pure-hearted yet energetic, and her sense of friendship and affection runs deep.

At the same time, she can be surprisingly calm and observant when reading a situation.

Those who care for her tend to love her like a younger sister.

Even so, she is also childish, sensitive, and self-centered at times.

She is straightforward and hates being controlled by others.

Her emotions often go directly into action, which makes her prone to explosive outbursts.

Ruri throws herself fully into everything and has trouble gauging moderation.

As a result, she often ends up pushing too hard and being disliked, something she is embarrassed about.

Though she cannot act honestly toward Ayame and often drags her around, she treasures her sister above all else.

She does not want Ayame to leave her side, and her dependence on her is especially strong.

When she learned that Ayame planned to retire as a bodyguard upon marriage, she reacted harshly.

She even locked herself in her room in protest until the Spring pair helped thaw her heart.

In the kitchen, she once pretended to be Ayame in order to see what the Spring attendant was like.

She proudly claims she is very good at impersonating her twin, and she used to play the role of Ayame for fun.

Because she is often scolded, she has mixed feelings about her homeland, the Summer Village, much like the other seasonal agents.

Although she can seem selfish on the surface, she is quick to make decisions when protecting others.

She is more thoughtful than she first appears.

Raichō describes her as easy to predict in action but difficult to read emotionally.

He also notes that just when she seems shallow, she turns out to have thought very deeply.

Her carefree nature can be partly a mask.

Before the Main Story

Ruri was born into the Hazakura household, where both parents served the Summer Bureau, together with her twin sister Ayame.

The sisters were raised in happiness, far from violence and far from being treated as tools of the world.

A major turning point came in Dawn Year 11, after the previous Agent of Summer died in the main shrine of the Summer Village.

At the age of ten, Ruri was chosen as the next Agent of Summer.

A residence was prepared for her at the shrine so that she could train and master her divine arts.

However, because she cried so much, her parents pleaded successfully for her to commute rather than live there full-time.

After a living god was born into the family, their home changed.

Laughter nearly disappeared, and even her parents began to quarrel.

To improve the situation even a little, Ayame decided to become Ruri’s bodyguard.

She chose that path in order to support Ruri both mentally and physically.

After about a year of training, Ruri and Ayame traveled to the Winter Village.

There, Ruri was to carry out the ritual called Seasonal Descent, in which the new agent lives with the Agent of Winter for one month.

During the search for the missing Spring goddess Hinagiku Kayō, who had been abducted two years earlier, the winter agent Rōsei Kantsubaki had scarcely shown himself.

Ruri heard about both Hinagiku and Rōsei and seems to have formed thoughts of her own, leading her to approach Rōsei proactively.

However, during divine training together, the animals under her life manipulation damaged a cherished flowering tree belonging to Rōsei.

The two had a huge quarrel and remained on poor terms afterward.

Around adolescence, Ruri was introduced to Kimikage Raichō for an arranged meeting due to the intentions of their families.

At first she was wary, but over time they grew closer, and she developed feelings for him.

Eventually, the engagement became official.

Their relationship would later become one of the most important bonds in her life.

Dance of Spring

In Dawn Year 20, the missing Spring goddess Hinagiku Kayō returned.

The Spring pair recuperated at the Summer villa, where they deepened their friendship with Ruri and Ayame.

However, they were attacked by bandits, and around the same time the Agent of Autumn, Nadeshiko Iwaizuki, was abducted.

At the request of the Spring pair, Ruri helped with the rescue.

Nadeshiko’s bodyguard, Rindo Azami, accepted the cooperation.

Together, the agents and attendants of all four seasons formed a united front.

To save Nadeshiko, Ruri and Rindo headed to the hideout of the criminal group Kasai and entered battle.

During the fighting, Ruri was shot by a sniper and died.

At that instant, the authority of Summer passed to Ayame, making her the new Agent of Summer.

Ayame then tried to follow Ruri in death, but the Autumn pair stopped her.

Ruri was revived through Nadeshiko’s power of life decay.

For unknown reasons, Ayame did not lose the power she had inherited.

As a result, the Hazakura sisters became the first twin gods in history.

This extraordinary event would shape everything that followed.

Dance of Summer

After becoming the first twin gods, the sisters were denounced by powerful figures in the Summer Village.

They were pushed into a desperate situation, and Ruri’s engagement to Kimikage Raichō was annulled.

When the Dark Wolf incident broke out at the Dragon Palace, environmental destruction caused by the absence of Spring combined with public fear to produce the theory of divine punishment tied to the twin gods.

Ruri shut herself away in her room during this period.

Later, in order to overturn both the public hostility toward living gods and the broken engagement, she made contact with the twilight archer and ritual medium Kiya.

After many twists and turns, the conflict was resolved.

In the end, Ruri married Kimikage Raichō.

Alongside them, Ayame and her own fiancé were also married, and the four celebrated together.

Life Manipulation

Ruri’s divine power is life manipulation.

In the story, this power is also referred to at times as divine authority or supernatural ability.

It is the power that calls forth the season of summer.

She can communicate with animals and control all non-human life.

When she chants, living things become her servants.

She can even alter their forms into monstrous versions of themselves.

Her power allows the creation of armies that ignore the ordinary food chain.

Through her animal familiars, she can also gather information and understand the state of the battlefield.

Like other Agents of Summer, she has a feral instinct.

According to Ayame, her instincts never miss.

Chant

Her seasonal chant is rendered in English as follows:

“Sway, sway, sway, flowers swaying, grasses shining, summer, come in wild disorder. Come, come, come, tiger rain of fallen love, summer fireworks, firefly seller, split, split, split, and yet dragonflies are born. We wait for autumn, seated we wait, we wait for autumn.”

Familiars

Ruri’s familiars are the animals she controls.

To her, they are friends.

They tend to be somewhat aggressive.

She communicates with them in a manner similar to telepathy.

Their numbers increase every time Summer manifests.

Because of that, managing them is no easy task.

Ayame Hazakura

Ayame is Ruri’s twin sister, bodyguard, and the person she loves most in the world.

Ruri cannot be honest with her and clashes with her often, but her affection is profound.

Their bond is twisted compared with ordinary sisters.

Even so, it is undeniably real and unbreakable.

Kimikage Raichō

Raichō is Ruri’s fiancé and later her husband.

He is also a bodyguard candidate and the man she loves.

Ruri is the type who cries out to be loved.

Raichō, by contrast, is the kind of man who charges in overflowing with love, which makes him a source of comfort for her.

The two are highly compatible.

After the summer turmoil is resolved, they formally marry.

Rōō Renri

Renri is Ayame’s fiancé and later Ruri’s brother-in-law.

When Ruri learned that Ayame had a fiancé, she went on strike in protest.

Hinagiku Kayō and Sakura Himedaka

The Spring pair taught Ruri both the severity and the kindness of spring.

They grew close during the Spring pair’s stay at the Summer villa.

Ruri and Hinagiku, as fellow seasonal agents, became close enough to call each other by their given names.

Their friendship is warm and genuine.

Nadeshiko Iwaizuki and Rindo Azami

Ruri and the Autumn pair are bound by mutual life-saving acts.

Her relationship with them is very good.

She even gave Nadeshiko a guard dog named Hanagiri.

When the Autumn pair later faced danger in the Bridge Country, Ruri and her husband rushed to help, with the Winter pair accompanying them.

The Hazakura Couple

Ruri’s parents both serve the Summer Bureau.

Her father is gentle and quiet, the sort of man who rarely gets angry.

He can appear overly obedient to authority.

After Ruri became a goddess, distance grew between parent and child, and the relationship remained awkward for a long time.

Even so, when village leaders blamed their daughters, her parents firmly protested.

That moment showed that their love for their family had never disappeared.

Among the many troubled parents in the series, they are generally considered relatively decent and normal.