Kaori

Kaori was born into a family of admired samurai warriors, but her fate was marriage and homemaking. She had other personal plans, though. Using the elaborate armor of the samurai to conceal her gender, she attended samurai school to become the first female samurai.

Overview
Kaori is one of the best epic attackers in the game. She has gimmicks like Bleed, Sunburn, extra turns, and insane self-support moves.

Pros:

 * Amazing stats, especially power
 * Good trait
 * Can make herself immune to both Freeze and Possession which, combined with her trait, makes her immune to control
 * Two spammable moves with over 60 damage
 * Low stamina costs especially on some of her extra turn moves
 * Has access to two tortures, one of them having no immunities besides the epic Artifact monsters

Cons:

 * Bad relic slots
 * High cooldowns
 * No proper AoE moves, just residual damage
 * Only inflicts Bleed and Sunburn

Something in Japanese

 * Renzoku Waza / Deadly Haiku (Waza for Bleed + Sunburn + self Turn, 13s, 3-turn CD) / (Haiku for 30 Light dmg + AoE Residual dmg + Bleed + Sunburn, 29s, 2-turn CD)
 * Be Water (Self Water Protection + Freeze Immunity + Damage Boost + Turn, 26s, 3-turn CD)
 * Fear no Dark / Star Killer / Whale Hunter (Dark for Self Dark Protection + Possession Immunity + Precision + Turn, 26s, 3-turn CD) / (Star for 65 Light dmg + Sunburn, 26s, no CD) / (Whale for 60 Thunder dmg + Bleed, 26s, no CD)
 * Shikake Waza (45 Thunder dmg + self Turn, 16s, 4-turn CD)

Kaori here is run (mostly) as a spam attacker. Renzoku Waza applies two tortures (Bleed and Sunburn) to an enemy and gives Kaori an extra turn. These two tortures, when combined, acts like Daze as a torture effect. Deadly Haiku does the same thing, but it sacrifices the low stamina cost and extra turn for some damage and the fact that it becomes AoE. Be Water is a very good support move, since it gives Kaori Damage Boost, Freeze Immunity and Water Protection, making Kaori act like any Water monster's nightmare. This move can be used after Fear no Dark so that Kaori can be immune to control due to the Possession immunity combined with the Freeze Immunity and Kaori's trait. Possession won't be much of a problem on Kaori, however, since she is a spam attacker and can simply use one of her extra turn moves to wear off the possession, and the precision isn't of much importance, so you can replace the move with either Star Killer or Whale Hunter, two high damage moves with no cooldown. Her final move, Shikake Waza, is just damage with an extra turn as a side dish, but it has a horrendous 4-turn cooldown!

Recommended Runes: 3 Strength; 2 Strength, 1 Speed / Stamina; 1 Strength, 1 Stamina, 1 Team Speed

Recommended Relics: 2 Exhausting Swords if Kaori runs Deadly Haiku

Counters

 * The two best ways to deny Kaori is to freeze her or remove her stamina. For stamina drain, Haku is your best bet (if he remains in one piece) since he can deal heavy Metal damage while draining stamina at the same time. For monsters that freeze, Nautilus-1 is your best bet (but he must outspeed Kaori), since not only can he freeze Kaori, but he can also gain three extra turns while applying Magnetize to her, so that he can deal lots of metal damage to Kaori and hopefully kill her.