Rune Kodaira

"What's important is that he's doing that for others..no matter how hard he has to work, making others happy will make him happy, too. But...if this is good's power, then...I will never become like that..."

―Rune Kodaira, to Yamato to about Yoichi Oizumi

Name	Rune Kodaira
First Appearance	Chapter 1
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Age	Part I-II: 16 Part III: 19
Birthday	February 4 (Aquarius)
Blood Type	AB
Dôji	Jealous
Affiliation	Evil
Team	The Evil Dôji Branch
Voice Actor	Hitomi Nabatame

Rune Kodaira (小平 ルネ Kodaira Rune), also known as Rene, is Yamato Agari's best and oldest friend. Circumstances in the present have caused a drastic turn of events, turning him against his friend and becoming current master of Jealous.

In the 12th Century, he was a girl called Lady Gekko, a princess that was engaged to the Emperor Kotsutsubo and Yamato's lover. Later on, Ultimo, manipulated by Vice (who using his jealously towards her and his master's belief that all nobles are evil), killed the princess.

His role in the One Hundred Machine Funeral and association with Vice allows him to travels through space-time, and Rune was able age to a 19-years-old within the series, though only for a brief time.

Appearance

Rune has a fairly regular build for his age, but he is relatively short in comparison to others, being only nearly half the size of Yamato. His facial features comprise simply of blond and fairly long hair, which is arranged in a very basic manner, hazel eyes, and thin-rimmed glasses. This combination gives him a slightly feminine quality. Due to the present circumstances surrounding his age, Rune spends a significant percentage of time in school, resulting in his typical clothing consisting simply of the uniform that he wears when attending Senjo Academy.

When attending Makoto Sayama's party, he is seen wearing a dark colored vest, with a long-sleeved button-down shirt underneath, a pair of checkered Capri pants, and derby shoes. With this, he is also wearing a noticeably visible rectangular watch, with ornate designs embedded into the face.

Rune also had a previous incarnation from the 12th century, but unusually, his past self actually takes the form of a girl named Lady Gekko. This incarnation was a princess that bathed 'in the moonlight', wearing an elegant and ornate decorated kimono, while holding up an equally elaborate fan. Rune's build and facial features remain relatively the same in appearance but the feminine characteristics, already apparent in his present self, have been further accented. This is demonstrated by the growth in both eyelash and hair length, and Lady Gekko doesn't wear glasses. Lady Gekko had typical hime-style haircut, the front are sharply cut and grows the rest out in a straight cut.

After time traveling to the 1940s and staying there for three years, 19-year-old Rune remains mostly the same, except his hair grown longer and becoming taller. As Rune cross-dressed as a woman, his appearance become even more feminine and wears a long ruffle dress and large hat. For casual lounge wear, Rune also wears a Kimono with his hair tied up in a bun with two side bangs framing his face.

In Rune's ICON Suit, his clothes take the form of a short, sleeveless spandex leather jumpsuit. The suit is sleeveless, complete with two protective pads on his arms, four on his legs, and flat shoes.

Gallery

Lady Gekko

10-years-old Rune

16-years-old Rune

Rune's outfit for Makoto Sayama's party

Rune's ICON suit

19-years-old Rune

Personality

Rune is described as an excellent student and extremely serious, but a little too inflexible. He was initially observant and skeptical as well being somewhat insecure and retiring, especially during the occasion where they initially saw Ultimo at the Kokubundo Shoppe. This situation only served to highlight that he isn't usually accepting to anything that he considers strange on first inspection, even refusing to believe that Kokubun Taiji just "found" Ultimo in a crater up in the mountains.

For all these faults, he is also quite curious and intelligent being able to conclude and observe numerous things about the Karakuri Dôji before others, including wondering how Yamato was able to know and say Ultimo's name without even meeting him, and why after Ultimo's hug, Ultimo was no longer dirty and broken. At some times, Rune's emotions are very sudden and unpredictable; covering up for Yamato in questionable ways, and taking things to the extremes if needed. When he was younger he used to panic frequently, but now assets every situations with calmness, being one of the few that didn't panic when Roger Dunstan arrived at The Evil Dôji Branch's meeting and even went up to talk to him.

Rune is also very kind and helpful to Yamato, and unknown to others, he is secretly in love with him due their past life together as lovers, but in the 21st Century he doesn't understand why until he remembers his past. His dôji, Jealous, has also noted that ever since Rune and Yamato met in 5th grade, Rune's heart has been yearning for him and holds a very deep love for his best friend. He even drew a picture of Yamato and kept it hanging in a frame in his room.

Rune undergoes a drastically significant personality change after a fateful meeting with Jealous, who makes an momentous note upon the envy Rune harbors within his heart was enough to warrant him becoming Jealous' new master. Rune now appears more confident and cruel ever since the encounter, demonstrated when he made the order to physically trap and restrain his classmates within an artificial web. He also became rather deceitful and colder, went as far to threaten to kill their friends if God Ultimo even considered making use of his Time and Space distorting abilities. Rune also shown to cleverly to manipulate others by exploiting their emotions and desires to his advantages and whims. Although Rune is younger than most of his allies, he showed to be more cunning and insightful than most of them. Rune is able to see things in a more broader perspective than just mindless killing and destruction they are used to, earning Dunstan's praise and states that Rune shows a lot of potential. Being very analytical, Rune was even able to figure out Makoto Sayama is keeping large secret (being Dunstan's daughter) after speaking to a mind-wiped Akira Hidaka, who shows obvious signs that his mind has been tempered with, and theorize that she's being using Regla's memory controlling Noh on herself so Jealous could't even find out.

In his quest to make Yamato "[his]", Rune shown to be incredibly ambitious to win the One Hundred Machine Funeral. While cordial to his allies, Rune ultimately see them as the only way to win the battle, even going behind Vice's back with his schemes. He goes has far as to leaked information of the Karakuri Dôji on the internet in order to recruit more evil masters to his side and control them. Rune is fully aware about his allies' impulses to wreck havoc, therefore believes that he is the only one capable of keeping them in line. However, his plans with Jun Chichibu somewhat backfired by underestimating the boy's unstable mind and overwhelming infatuation for Vice, but was satisfied the boy proved to be useful by making The Evil Dôji Branch stronger.

Relationships

Yamato Agari

The series' protagonist is Rune's best friend in the 21st century, whom he adores and they are very close, with Rune acting as his voice of reason. Rune has known Yamato for six years and will even lend money to him upon occasion. Rune is very patient with Yamato, never ridiculing for his faults like many other characters tends to do and takes them in stride instead. Although Yamato didn't want him and any other his other friends get tied into the Karakuri Dôji's "conspiracy", Rune was the first of his friends to get involved. It was eventually revealed that Rune is in love with Yamato, which has attracted Jealous to him because his subconscious jealousy of Makoto Sayama being the person that Yamato likes. Rune's previous incarnation was in love with Yamato's past self, and this love has continued on to their reincarnations, despite Rune's change in gender. According to Jealous, Rune has been yearning for Yamato since he came to his school six years ago when they were kids, but he never really understood his feelings until his remembesr his life as Lady Gekko, the past Yamato's lover. Sometime around high school, Rune even drew a picture of Yamato and hung it in his room, it is suggested that he stares at it often.

After Rune discovers that he was in love with Yamato, he becomes very warped in his tactics for Yamato to become "his". This includes threatening to kill their classmates unless Yamato complied. He is willing to deceive and force Yamato to make him "his", once tied Yamato to his bed so he could sexually force himself on the latter. He has even told Yamato that he can love him again and should accept his feelings, even suggested that that they should both get married. He goes as far as saying that unless he kills Yamato, and then kills himself, these feelings of jealousy will never be erased. It's also his jealousy towards Yamato's affections towards Sayama and his anger resulting from his bloody fate in his past life (to which Yamato forgave Ultimo for) that keeps him on The Evil Dôji Branch. Despite being Yamato's enemy, his feelings for Yamato causes him to show some vulnerability, seen crying when they fought near Mt. Fuji and was frustrated that Yamato was still cared about him despite his cruel nature.

However, upon learning the "rules" of the One Hundred Machine Funeral, Rune shows his desire to win the funeral and make Yamato "[his]". Despite his overall very uncaring and vicious persona towards everything and everyone else around him, Rune's love for Yamato still remains quite genuine, even though it seems a bit obsessive at times. While enemies, Rune still wishes to hang out with Yamato at school, but also knows that Yamato doesn't trust him anymore and can no longer talk honestly to him like he usually do. In addition, while Rune isn't above harming Yamato in the mist of battle, he would ensure that Yamato will not be kill by his attacks or by the other evil dôji and their masters.

In Chapter 48, Rune, and Yamato have their promised "love battle" in order to settle their on-going, complicated feud. At first, a frustrated Rune was adamant Yamato will never understand his jealously towards Yamato's crush on Sayama, but in the mist of their battle Yamato open up his deeply buried feelings for Rune. Yamato confesses to Rune that he always felt lonely and the cheerful demeanor other people usually sees is more or less a facade. Yamato states that Rune was the only person he's truly open with and confessed that deep down he has always love (it's unclear whether he means platonic love or romantic love) Rune ever since they were children. With confirmation from Jealous that Yamato does love him, Rune was overjoy his feelings was return, but their moment was interrupted by Sayama, who a secret spy for her father Roger Dunstan, and renders Rune unconscious, but with his memory intact.

At the end of the series, Rune and Yamato repairs their relationship and goes back to being friends.

Jealous

Gravely injured and desperately searching for a new master, Jealous finds the greatest source of envy within the area in the form of Rune and decided to make him his master. They are shown to get along quite well and are often shown conversing with each other, but Rune is aware that Jealous is only using him to get closer to Yamato and doesn't mind because he himself is just using Jealous to do the same thing. In Chapter 21, Rune also told Yamato that after the two of them are physically "united", Jealous will be Yamato's Karakuri Dôji and doesn't mind because all he wants is to be with Yamato.

It seems that they are fated to become master and page, as even after Yamato turned back time to the day before the One Hundred Machine Funeral, Jealous finds Rune once again in Chapter 18. According to Hyoe Tokorozawa, Roger Dunstan prepared many "back-up" masters in case one would die, suggesting that Dunstan had always planned for Rune to have Jealous.

Despite having a seemingly professional relationship, Rune understands Jealous very well and vice versa, something that Rune greatly appreciates. Rune even readily allowed Jealous to read his heart, granting him 98% of synchronization and the Level 2 of ICON.

Quotes

• (After remembering the past) "These are...the true memories of my soul!"
• "But now, It's 'Sayama, Sayama, Sayama!' I can't help but be jealous!"
• "Yamato...you will soon be mine."
• (About Yamato) "I knew it Jealous...but I'm sure he'll definitely not kill me. Maybe your heart reading can't realize that. But, that's also the thing in his heart I like most..."
• (To Yamato) "Yamato...It is too late for reason to determine our end. So...I make an oath. Fight me, Yamato. He who wins our love battle possesses the truth."
• (To Roger Dunstan) "Body and spirit are closely intertwined. We can beat them so many times that they weaken - the way when you're sick, you lose heart. The human heart is especially susceptible to temptation. The way I see it...most of the world is already evil."
• "I'm lucky to have Jealous. He understands everything I think without me even saying it. They say it's a good thing people can read each other's hearts, but I can't stand it. I'm going to win the Hundred Machine Funeral and make Yamato mine!"
• (To Yamato) "But you're right. The world isn't about good verus evil. It's about ego versus ego. Which means whoever wins is right.'"
• (After Yamato reachs ICON Level 2) "True goodness? I doubt it! You love everyone but me!!!"

Trivia

• His appearance and height, as well as his position of being the best friend to the main character, is similar to Manta Oyamada, a main character of Hiroyuki Takei's Shaman King.
• Due to the katakana spelling of his name (ルネ), there are many interpretations on how Rune's name is supposed to be viewed, the American release translates his name as Rune. Other translations include Lune, Rene, and Lene, but regardless, the name Rene is written in English on the bottom right of Yamato's portrait in Chapter 10, and also on the pawn pieces during Désir's inner monologue in Chapter 22.
• According to his character profile, his favorite things are sweets with whipped cream on top, and his family is rich.
• In the original version, Lady Gekko was called "Maiden In the Moonlight", referring to her name which means "moon" in Japanese.
• The name Kodaira originates from one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo.