Kimura

Suffering an abusive childhood, Kimura grows up to be violent and sadistic, taking out her issues on others. She finds her way to The Facility, where they enhance her genetic code, giving her impenetrable skin and enhanced durability. With her new powers, she tracks down her abusers and kills them. She is then tasked as the handler for Laura Kinney, AKA X-23, and deems her a victim to torment while she trains her as an assassin.

The Abused Becomes the Abuser

Kimura is the daughter of an abusive, alcoholic father and a negligent mother. She’s also bullied at school. Kimura finally comes into the custody of her loving grandmother, who tries to repair the child’s psychological damage. Following her grandmother’s fatal heart attack, Kimura grows bitter and angry. 

As an adult, she works for The Facility, an offshoot of the Weapon X Program that, years earlier, had experimented upon James Howlett/Logan, AKA Wolverine, and others. The Facility’s scientists mutate Kimura to be physically indestructible, impervious to physical attacks as she had never been to emotional ones; she finds a kindred spirit in Zander Rice, who nurtures a pathological hatred for Laura Kinney, AKA X-23, a female Wolverine clone created by The Facility over a decade earlier. Kimura takes revenge on those who had wronged her in her youth, and is appointed X-23’s handler shortly after X-23’s 12th birthday. Her indestructibility prevents the young clone from injuring her, and Kimura’s own lust for violence prevents her from dealing X-23 anything but punishment for infractions real or imagined, little realizing or caring she had become as sadistic an abuser as her parents and childhood peers.

Indestructible

Kimura has virtually indestructible skin and hair, rendering her impervious to bullets, blades, incendiary explosives, temperature extremes, impact from a fall of several miles, and most other forms of physical injury. Her invulnerability may stem from alteration of her body’s physical density, since she can render at least her fingers, and possibly other parts of her body, intangible; however, this latter ability appears severely limited, in as much as she can be immobilized by handcuffs. 

An accomplished athlete and hand-to-hand combatant, Kimura is proficient in the use of many weapons.

Bitter Foes

Though Kimura is X-23’s handler for a time while at The Facility, a deep hate for the clone is nurtured through her colleague Zander Rice. As such, Kimura abuses her charge, whom she refers to as "X." X-23 eventually goes by "Laura Kinney" and escapes Kimura’s wrath only to come up against her time and time again, due to Kimura’s fixation that the young assassin is her own personal weapon. Kimura also goes up against the New X-Men, who are X-23’s allies.

Colleagues in Crime

While working for The Facility, Kimura is most closely allied with the organization’s head, Adam Harkins, and its agents Zander Rice and Desmond Alexander. Though allied to her Facility colleagues and later her henchmen, she has no loyalty to them, and will kill her supposed allies as a scare tactic to force others into doing her bidding.

A Violent History

When X-23 was sent into a berserker rage by a trigger scent, she unwittingly murdered her surrogate mother, Dr. Sarah Kinney, and fled to San Francisco, where Kinney’s sister Debbie and niece Megan took her in as Sarah Kinney’s supposed daughter. Unfortunately, Facility agent Desmond Alexander had ensconced himself as Debbie’s boyfriend in the eventuality of X-23 seeking this sanctuary, and he alerted Kimura to X-23’s whereabouts. X-23 killed Desmond when he tried to use the trigger scent to force her to kill Debbie and Megan, but Kimura arrived and captured X-23 and the Kinneys; however, before Kimura could kill Megan, X-23 chained Kimura in the Kinney basement and fled with Debbie and Megan after triggering a gas explosion that prevented Kimura from following. 

After this encounter, X-23 left her newfound family and sought out Wolverine, eventually finding sanctuary at the Xavier Institute, home of the X-Men. Months later, Kimura, now apparently a freelance mercenary, accepted an assignment from The Facility’s current research head, Adam Harkins, to abduct Cessily Kincaid, AKA Mercury, X-23’s teammate in the New X-Men. Kimura quickly captured their quarry and enjoyed watching Harkins torture Mercury as he worked to obtain a living sample of Mercury’s shape-shifting skin for use in perfecting the genetically engineered Predator X creatures. Accompanied by telekinetic teammate Julian Keller, AKA Hellion, X-23 invaded The Facility’s research laboratory. Learning of Kimura’s invulnerability, Hellion telekinetically hurled her through the building’s roof and miles away from the scene. In her absence, X-23 and Hellion freed Mercury and, joined by the rest of the New X-Men and the X-Men, defeated the three Predator X’s. 

Days later, Kimura penetrated the Xavier estate’s defenses with the intent to kill X-23, only to encounter telepathic headmistress Emma Frost. After accessing Kimura’s memories to learn of her painful childhood, Frost removed Kimura’s memories of her beloved grandmother and left only an emotional void in their stead, stealing her last shred of humanity, which Kimura had otherwise so eagerly rejected. Frost then telepathically implanted within Kimura a compulsion to hunt down Harkins and her other Facility employers and abuse them as she had abused X-23. Kimura left Harkins with permanent nerve damage and a limp, and was eventually freed from her compulsion after spending months getting her brian rewired. Kimura continued to work for The Facility and partnered with Viper, though Wolverine and Frank Castle, AKA Punisher, interrupted their operation.

X-23 is eventually delivered back to The Facility and into the hands of Kimura. Kimura subjected X-23 to horrific torture, going so far as to cut off her arm to collect genetic material for creating more clones. An agent responsible for bringing X-23 in, Agent Morales, had a change of heart and intervened by shooting Kimura, but she bounced back and ran after them, only to be stopped by a blast door. Eventually Kimura caught up with X-23 and shot her in the legs. When Harkins found out what Kimura had done to the clone, he ordered Kimura to put her back in one piece. Kimura wanted her dead and with Harkins in the way, she shot him in the head. Morales returned, throwing a bomb at Kimura, which slowed her down long enough for Morales and X-23 to escape. Kimura, though injured, of course recovered thanks to her indestructible nature and speaking over The Facility’s intercom system, she warned X-23/Laura that she’d never stop and she would hunt down and kill everyone X-23 loved, including Megan Kinney.

While X-23 was in the midst of finding her own way after helping the X-Men and X-Force, Kimura had become a lieutenant in a twisted drug operation. She wanted Laura as an assassin so she tracked her down for her employer, and deployed Jordan Gastin, AKA Haymaker, to bring her in alive. Once he did, Kimura threatened to kill her drug-dependent workers if Laura did not comply. Though Laura left a target alive, which prompted Kimura to kill one of her own guards, revealing her true nature to Haymaker. Laura’s failure also left Kimura in trouble with her boss, Wilson Fisk, AKA Kingpin. Kimura attempted an escape from Kingpin’s wrath, but Laura interrupted her, spraying her with an aerosol that temporarily suppressed her powers of invulnerability, leaving her alive.

Kimura later secretly helped X-23, now going by the moniker Wolverine, and her clone-sisters Gabby, Bellona, and Zelda take revenge on their torturers at Alchemax Genetics, who implanted nanotechnology inside the sisters, which was killing Bellona. Though Zelda perished, the remaining sisters escaped the Alchemax bunker, though separated. Kimura picked up Bellona in a helicopter and reminded her of their bargain: helping Bellona in her revenge against Alchemax in exchange for the tech inside of her. 

Kimura soon enacted plans to take over the country of Madripoor. Though she had taken control of most of the gangs and the majority of the police force in the sovereign state, its leader Tyger Tiger remained. Kimura knew that she needed her best weapon to take down the competition: Laura. Kimura released the trigger scent that forces Laura to go berserk and apparently kill people in Daylesville, leaving her and Gabby on the run and hunting for the person responsible Kimura then sent out her secret agent, Bellona, to capture her clone-sisters Laura and Gabby. Kimura threatened Laura’s aunt and cousin, Debbie and Megan, to keep her in line and locked Laura up in a torture chamber to trigger her anger until she needed her. A week later, Kimura released Laura upon Tyger Tiger but Gabby had escaped her captors and brought backup from the X-Men: Remy LeBeau, AKA Gambit, Warren Worthington III, AKA Angel, and Jean Grey. They escaped and took refuge in Tiger’s safe house bunker on the sea with Nick Fury and his team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Kimura approached them with her team and offered him his life in exchange for Laura and Tiger. The group faked their surrender and Kimura released the trigger scent again on Laura but it didn’t work since Jean Grey, one of the most powerful telepaths in the world, was on her side. Grey controlled Kimura’s team and turned them against her, keeping her busy while Gabby convinced Bellona to rejoin them. Bellona cleared Laura’s name, admitting to her role in the Daylesville massacre. Kimura caught up with Laura, striking her in the back and a fight followed with Laura gaining the upper hand and drowning Kimura in the sea.