Ayamine Kei (彩峰 慧) is one of the heroines in Muv-Luv and Muv-Luv Alternative. She has also made appearances in various other works by age.
Extra[]
Ayamine Kei is one of Shirogane Takeru's friends, classmates, and potential love interests in Muv-Luv Extra. She has a penchant for skipping class to go hang out on the roof of the school building instead, but always finds her way to the cafeteria on days when yakisoba pan, her all-time favorite food bordering on a way of life, is being sold. She is very taciturn and likes to speak in fragmented sentences to confuse people, especially Takeru, and is a free spirit who ultimately does whatever she wants. As a result, she clashes constantly with the strict and by-the-book class president Sakaki Chizuru, and they'll often purposely try to annoy one another when put in close enough proximity. She's also very good at sports, and is highly sought after for the class's last-ditch effort lacrosse team for the annual sports festival.
Kei's mother was once a nurse who worked at a local hospital alongside Sagiri Naoya. Sagiri, a novice doctor at the time, was close with both Kei and her mother, thinking of her mother as his own mother, and becoming Kei's personal doctor. However, one day, Sagiri committed malpractice on a patient under anesthesia while only he and Kei's mother were in the room. Although the patient was saved, and the incident was kept from the public, her mother took the blame for it to protect Sagiri and was thrown out of the hospital. Sagiri tried to claim the fault was his, but everyone thought he was trying to protect her, a lowly nurse. In the end, however, the only one who never found out her mother wasn't at fault was Kei herself. Although she and her mother were still confident in Sagiri and Kei's relationship, Sagiri began rising through the ranks, and eventually accepted a proposal to the hospital director's daughter. This feeling of betrayal towards her and her mother deeply traumatized her from a young age and was the reason she started keeping herself at arm's length from other people from then on.
Many years later, in both Ayamine and Chizuru's Extra routes, the stories diverge from the Sumika/Meiya routes when Suzumiya Akane sustains a concussion in the lacrosse match from a desperate attempt between her, Chizuru, and Ayamine to take hold of the ball. Chizuru is the one blamed for the incident due to their fierce rivalry, however. Visiting Akane numerous times at the hospital, Takeru begins to wonder why the nurses seem to know Ayamine, and moreover why one of the doctors has been asking about her directly. He learns Sagiri's side of the story, all the while getting more romantically involved with Ayamine. He attempts a few times to get her to talk to Sagiri again without success, until she reluctantly agrees. Later, while accompanying Chizuru to the hospital to see Akane again after explaining the situation to her, Takeru pushes the stray dog Ayamine has grown attached to out of the way of an oncoming car.
Takeru wakes up in the hospital, beat up but otherwise uninjured, and goes to the roof after having confirmed his resolve to take Ayamine back. While stating his case before both of them, he collapses, and wakes up to Ayamine waiting at his bedside, having finally chosen him over Sagiri.
Later in the epilogue while she and Takeru are resting near a tree, the latter mentions that Ayamine was immensley jealous as a lover, even getting jealous of a heroine in a manga Shirogane was reading.
Unlimited[]
Ayamine is a member the 207th Training Unit who is best suited to close-range combat, but she and Chizuru (the squad leader in this world) are still constantly at odds with one another. Ayamine often deviates from Chizuru's orders, while Chizuru is often too inflexible about her leadership, leaving them both at a constant impasse. Her personality is almost identical to her Extra one, likewise.
Her father, Lieutenant-General Ayamine Shuukaku, was an Imperial Army officer who was given an important command role during the evacuation of Gwanju. He was imprisoned and dishonorably discharged after being accused of desertion under fire when he decided to repurpose the military assets under him to protect fleeing citizens rather than assist other United Nations/Far East troops participating in the operation, resulting in horrifying numerical losses for the UN. As a result of this incident, the Ayamine family was dishonored and harassed, with Kei believing at that time that her father was a traitor who had failed both his country and his role as a husband and father.
Because her father was forced into a lose-lose situation, Ayamine herself is dedicated to avoiding flee-or-annihilation situations, and dislikes Chizuru's plans because she refuses to think on the fly or change them midway through a battle. Under an incompetent commander, she explains, fleeing or being annihilated are the only options. Her father's decision leaves her torn all the same, though; Ayamine cannot bring herself forgive a grave offense like desertion no matter what, but wonders if he had a good reason for doing so.
Alternative[]
In Alternative, Ayamine is virtually the same as she was in Unlimited. Shortly before the coup d'état of the Japanese shogunate occurred, Takeru discovered Ayamine had been receiving cryptic unopened letters that had seemingly skipped the base's mail inspection process. After it is announced that rebels have assassinated Sakaki Korechika, Japan's Prime Minister and Chizuru's father, Ayamine begins to seem out of it, and Takeru confronts her as the squad is called to assemble in the hangar.
Ayamine reveals that the letters were all written by Sagiri Naoya, the leader of the rebel faction heading the coup against the shogunate. She tells Takeru that her father and Naoya were in the same squad, and Shuukaku treated him like his own son. She finally admits that she and Naoya were supposed to be married before Shuukaku was imprisoned, and that she feels immensely guilty about not having opened his letters sooner. Even though she didn't want to read "letters about regrets" from him after the fact, she says that if she'd just read them sooner, the people he killed wouldn't have had to die. Like the rest of the squad members who have just as much personal stake in the incident, Ayamine struggles with her feelings throughout. During the Shogun's speech after the coup resolves with the rebels withdrawing, Ayamine is seen wordlessly tearing up the letters from Naoya and watching them blow away in the wind.
End Game Letter[]
Shirogane Takeru-sama,
I caused a lot of trouble for you, Shirogane, but thank you for always taking me seriously.
Thanks to you being so nosy, I've grown a lot as a person.
At first I thought the ideals you pursued were hopelessly pure.
You were definitely an incredible Eishi, Shirogane, but I thought your mind was lacking.
But no matter what happened to you, you always faced it without getting discouraged. Seeing you like that started to make me feel ashamed of myself.
And I realized that feeling ashamed of my father and hating society was really just me running away from my problems.
I became convinced that I really hadn't been thinking about anyone but myself.
I'll try to give everything I have for others for my own sake, the way you do.
It wasn't for very long, but I'm glad I was able to make that decision and take action on it at the end of my life.
As thanks, I'll tell you something interesting.
I love you, Shirogane.
I'm madly in love with you.
I'm not sure when I started feeling this way myself.
But at some point I realized I was always thinking about you, Shirogane.
I realized my eyes would always follow you.
I was really happy on days when you didn't go on your special mission and we could train together.
I always wanted to sit next to you in the PX.
But Kagami is better suited to you.
I get jealous easily, so come alone when you visit the cherry trees.
Goodbye.
The yakisoba bread was delicious.
December 31st, 2001
Ayamine Kei
Etymology[]
- Ayamine means "color" (彩) (aya) and "peak, ridge" (峰) (mine).
- Kei means "intelligent" (慧).
Trivia[]
- Her name can be pronounced as "K"
- She has a special maneuver called Space Tornado Ayamine, which is even more lethal than Sumika's Drill Milky Punch for Takeru.
- Her name is similar to Ayanami Rei, a character from the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime. They shares a few traits, like their "quietness" and the fact that she doesn't get along with one of her squadmate/classmate (Asuka for Rei and Chizuru for Kei).
- She is 170cm, the tallest of the main heroines.
Image Gallery[]
.jpeg "Training (af version).jpeg (551 KB)")
