Ashi

Ashi is the secondary antagonist turned deuteragonist of the fifth season of Samurai Jack on Adult Swim. She started out as one of the Daughters of Aku who were trained to slay Samurai Jack. But later, after being rescued by Jack and seeing the truth about Aku, she decides to tag along on Jack's quest.

Biography
Ashi and her six younger sisters were birthed from the High Priestess, leader of an all-female cult of Aku, and raised as assassins by them to do what no other fighter could do: Kill Samurai Jack. The High Priestess named them the Daughters of Aku and raised them with the most brutal of training throughout all of their childhood and youth, attempting to sculpt them into the ultimate warriors. During her training as a child, Ashi found a hole in the wall to gaze upon the outside world. The High Priestess told her that the world was a creation of their master, Aku, and that it was under threat so long as Jack lived to oppose Aku's rule. She was then thrown back into training and received punishment. When their training was complete years later, they donned the masks and head coverings, and set out to fulfill their mission.

Later on, Ashi and her sisters set up traps for Jack in a forest, and successfully destroyed his motorbike and started an intense battle with the samurai, forcing him to hide and later escape to an abandoned temple. Ashi and her sisters looked for their hiding enemy, tracking him to the temple's underground crypt. Here they had another intense battle with the samurai, but he succeeds in killing one of Ashi's sisters and blew up the temple with the others still inside.

Ashi fought Jack again in the next episode. Unlike their first battle, she found herself and her sisters overwhelmed as one by one Jack killed the other Daughters until only Ashi was left. Seeing her sisters perish and having been bested, Ashi had a momentary breakdown as she ranted and swore that she would kill Jack, even as he dropped her to her presumed death.

Ashi survived the fall and tried to kill Jack again numerous times, despite being chained up, eaten whole by a monster and Jack's numerous attempts to save her life, undeterred from her purpose. Eventually, after escaping the monster, Ashi attempts to kill Jack with her sickle by sneaking up on him, before noticing a ladybug fly by. This triggers a flashback to when she was a small child and training with her sisters, when a ladybug flew into her hand and she observed the beauty of it, before it was unceremoniously squished and killed by her mother, calling it a distraction and "not part of Aku's order." Ashi continued to hear these words until she sees Jack hold the ladybug in his hand and releasing it unharmed. After being saved by Jack from the belly of a colossal beast (despite her constant animosity towards him and continued attempts to kill him) and watching his humble and honorable nature to the most simple of life, she starts to question her ways. Finally realizing that Jack is not the enemy, she drops her weapon and reconsiders her purpose, eventually meditating along with Jack on an island from a distance, which implies that she has made peace with the Samurai.

After Jack revealed the true nature of Aku, she sees the error of her ways and became his ally, going against her mother and her cult. At the same time, she no longer sees Aku as a god but a demon needed to be destroyed. She was then finally convinced after being shown proof by Jack that Aku is truly evil. She helps him save some kids who were being mind-controlled by implanted chips, but is worried when he dissappears, and sets off to find him. At this time, Ashi is finally able to see the true nature of Aku and how wrong her mothers, her cult and her sisters have become. In "XCVI", Ashi is angered when the Dominator gloats about turning the children into weapons due to being naive and vulnerable, to the point that she is able to break free of her restraints since it reminds her too much about how she was turned into a living weapon for no good reason. She is later shown to be relieved when the children wake up free of mind control.

(to be completed)