Nishagora

"Nishagora"

- Fiiinally caught up with you!

Nishagora is a member of Hail Hex, who came after Cravali and Tepasté due to suspecting them to be underlings of the Shrine Maiden.

Appearance
Nishagora has the appearance of a bulky cat-like creature with a set of sharp teeth and a horn-like growth on the right side of her head. One of her eyes has a darkened coloring in both retina and pupil. In the upper section of her face, she has various metal-like filter pieces. Her delver attire consists out of a small short-sleeved overcoat which leaves her entire stomach region exposed and only covers parts of her breasts.

Her belly is adorned with what appears to be markings. She also has various belt-like parts attached to her and her pants hold multiple pockets. She wears gloves on her hands with the right one having a crossbow-like Artifact attached to it while the left one has a shield-like Artifact attached.

Personality
Nishagora was shown to express herself in a threatening way and using bravado in order to intimidate Tepasté. She also had no qualms to think of various ways to torture out information from Tepasté if needed. However, she is also shown to have a softer nature when not trying to be intimidating or angered.

Despite her high rank she is not particularly bright and has to keep important instructions scribbled on her arms to not forget them. She also tends to shut down completely when a discussion flies above her head or she gets lost in thought.

Curse Fleet Arc
The scene shifts back to Tepasté who is running through the 6th layer while worrying about Cravali. But this is quickly interrupted by their pursuer, a member of Hail Hex, Nishagora, catching up with her and threatening to torture her for information as she suspects Tepasté to be one of the "Shrine Maiden's underlings".

A short exchange between the two follows in which Tepasté tries to attack Nishagora with a Kunai-like relic, which is blocked, and begins charging up a gun-like relic while retorting to Nishagora that she won't be able to talk if the torture includes breaking her jaw to which Nishagora simply replies after a short moment of thinking that she will just have her write it down then.

After Riko's group had triggered a trap set by Hail Hex, Faputa takes notice of two presences stacked on top of each other approaching. Shortly after, Nishagora and Tepasté emerge from a section. In a brief moment of all characters taking note of each other, Nishagora notices Riko's whistle and gets enraged by assuming Riko's group must be underlings of the "Shrine Maiden."

Tepasté tries to disarm the situation by noting she has no idea who these children are but by Riko stating she is Lyza's daughter Nishagora becomes angry again as she knows Lyza's daughter was stillborn. Only with further explanation, and mention of the Curse-Warding Box she calms down, begins to note names of people she is reminded of by Riko's circumstances, before seemingly becoming lost in thought.

After becoming active again, she decides to take Riko's group to her boss if they want to follow her and Tepasté. Upon the reveal her boss is a White Whistle Delver, Riko immediately wants to tag along and the rest of the group follows. Before they start following Nishagora, Nanachi thinks of what possibly led to the reaction Nishagora had after seeing Riko's white whistle. After some thinking, involving how all revealed White Whistles apart from Riko are relatively known in shape to an extent, only Riko's whistle has an origin of taking its form that Nanachi assumes only Riko's group, and possibly Bondrewd by peering into Nanachi's vision, knows about.

As such, she theorizes they are possibly looking for a white whistle of a never seen before shape with even its name being unknown. As the group travels, Riko and Co. theorize about the Shrine Maiden as it is something mentioned in Orth's fairy tales and in Hariyomari's song. During their further travel, Nishagora also asks them if they believe in souls to which Nanachi states she wants to believe in the existence of souls. Faputa however flat out confirms the existence of souls and states even layered creatures like Nishagora and Tepasté have them.

Soon after, the group arrives at the outpost of Hail Hex in the 6th layer. As they enter it, they are greeted by a member of Hail Hex who welcomes them. Inside the outpost, Nanachi marvels at the amount of equipment and shortly afterwards they are addressed by the boss of Hail Hex who is cooking food in a big pot. As the conversation progresses this boss tells them that the goal of Hail Hex is to reach the deepest depths of the Abyss and asks what Riko's goal is.

As Riko counts in her mind the many goals she and her group still has she says there's quite a lot. After hearing that, the boss of Hail Hex introduces the Curse Fleet Delver Troupe, Hail Hex, and afterwards herself as Captain of it, Srajo. She praises Riko and shows recognition as White Whistle. However, she also notes that they will have to but Riko through her paces first.

Srajo ends her story about having to deal with Bondrewd as they passed through and compliments the team for coming out without being canned by him, Nanachi points out that this fight might be the reason why Bondrewd was lacking on fighting bodies when they arrived. Srajo presents the team the spiky place in which the testing will take place and reveals the testing is about whether they're the Shrine Maiden's scattered bait or not.

Srajo explains they win by bringing Nishagora down into the ground, independent of how many people it takes them, and if they win they'll get to exchange information. Reg volunteers himself alone but Riko and Prushka will accompany him with a blow of the whistle. As they get into position, Srajo signals the start of the battle and the rest of the team stand as spectators.

Reg begins with naively trying to bring Nishagora down by simply pulling her against one of the spikes but Nishagora hardly moves and stands as if she were rooted to the ground, and instead opts to restrain her and fly into her with a kick, though this also bears no fruits. Reg then gets turned and thrown around by Nishagora and gets back on his feet. The puppet-like members of Hail Hex note that Reg is different from them, to which Srajo tells them to pay attention.

As Nanachi instructs Reg to not take Nishagora's next horizontal blow, Reg jumps and inadvertently reveals to Nishagora that he is immune to the curse. Reg comes down with a headbutt but alas, to no avail once again. Nanachi instructs Reg in advance to protect his head but it is too late and he gets slammed into the floor, at the same time Reg intends on grabbing Nishagora by the arm and instead gets bashed in the head with both hands of Nishagora.

Nishagora becomes excited as it is clear that Reg is extremely durable, giving her an ever-growing desire to keep on hitting him. At this moment Riko blows on Prushka and activates Reg, letting him get away at high speed. Nishagora is impressed and as Reg punches repeatedly to then flying into her, Nishagora realizes that Reg hasn't gotten heavier but the force of the impact is all due to the incredibly high change in speed.

Faputa notices that Srajo is preparing to do something just as Reg is getting the upper hand on Nishagora and his time activated is running out. Srajo then hands down the creature on her neck to Menae and Sherumi, the puppet-like members, and commands them to take the "Wave-proof Stance". As Reg tries to end it quickly by pulling Nishagora down, Srajo blows on her whistle and activates Nishagora the same way Reg does, turning her fur almost all white.

Faputa proposes to get involved but Reg refuses and they let him continue with a warning to not overdo it. Reg charges into Nishagora with a punch but she won't budge a smidge, making him recall the sensation of fighting with Ozen. Nishagora gets upset as Ozen is brought up since she and Ozen are in completely different levels, grabbing Reg by the head and smashing him into the ground and punching down into his stomach while yelling that he's probably only seen Ozen up to her using the Thousand-Men Pins, Health Junkie.

Reg gets to stand back up and kick down on Nishagora, and as they exchange blows and cover themselves, Tepasté, being held by the other member of Hail Hex, calls out to everyone that the water for the bath is now ready. Srajo proclaims that the Test is now over and they must take the children into the bath, Nishagora asks Reg if they should go in together.

Combat Skills
Nishagora is naturally strong and tough, able to keep up with, and overwhelm Reg in a one-on-one fight. She was also shown to damage the ground when she caught up to Tepasté as well as easily deflecting the Kunai-like weapon Tepasté threw at her.

Trapmaking
Nishagora seems to able to make complex, multi-layered traps incorporating things like nets, explosives and stink bombs.

White Whistle Release
Nishagora can enter a more powerful form when Srajo blows her white whistle. In this form Nishagora's hair becomes white and a short coat of fur grows to cover her entire body. This form enhances her already overwhelming strength and toughness, as well as her reaction time. While powered up like this she can take hits from a white whistle boosted Reg without buckling, as well as grab and strike him despite his speed and agility.

Trivia

 * Nishagora expresses herself in her first appearance in a way that's supposed to make her sound "confrontational" in Japanese by elongating the vowels of what she says. This is a reference to the common "fight" trope in Japanese media depiction of characters stretching out their verb endings to seem threatening in exaggerating the character's swagger in expressing strong emotions.