Sara

Sara is a beautiful and blind woman who meets the trio near the end of their journey. She is a _goze_: a visually-impaired Japanese woman, most of whom work as musicians. She joins Mugen, Jin and Fuu on their journey for a time, much to the enjoyment of everyone. ~!Sara is in reality a Shogunate assassin, sent to expunge both Mugen and Jin. She unfolds the blades on her walking staff and wounds Jin in a matter of moments. Out of desperation, Jin cuts the ropes holding up the bridge they are on and they both go plunging into the river below. While searching for their friends, Mugen and Fuu locate an unconscious Sara washed up on the bank. Mugen finds Sara's staff by the river and becomes suspicious of her motives when he finds that the planks of the bridge were sliced. Most likely, he discovers the blades on it and deduces what happened to Jin. When she has recovered, he uncharacteristically confronts her about it in a quiet and subtle manner. Sara and Mugen fight by the river and he is seriously injured when she cuts him across the stomach. He goes down, but when she moves in for the kill, Fuu throws herself across Mugen and begs Sara not to kill him. She relents, perhaps because she does not want to kill Mugen in front of Fuu. Earlier Sara had said to Mugen that he was like her in that no one had ever loved him, but when Fuu shielded Mugen, Sara saw that she loved him. A Shogunate contact disguised as a pinwheel merchant urges Sara to finish the job, especially if she wants to see her son again. One of his many pinwheels stop, abruptly, and it hints that her son is already dead, and she realizes it. In their second battle, Sara allows Mugen to kill her even though she had the opportunity to kill him, because she no longer has any reason to live. Her death marks the only time we actually see Mugen regret killing someone. Sara's fighting ability is one of the strongest in the "Champloo Universe", being able to noticeably sunder rocks with her Yari in her fight a