Kainui
| Kainui | |
| Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age | |
| Japanese name | キナイ |
| Romaji | Kinai |
| Race | Human |
| Voice actor | Yuichi Nakamura (Japanese) Nathan Wiley (English) |
Kainui is a character in Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age. A dour young fisherman from Lonalulu, he finds himself reeled into a love story from his family's past.
Appearances[edit]
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age[edit]
Kainui has a mixed reputation among the people of Lonalulu. He is respected for his skills as a fisherman, but the townsfolk are quick to describe him as too quiet and serious, and he has few friends. He lives with his mother, an old woman who puts on a picture show for children in which she tells the story of a promising local fisherman who had his soul stolen by a mermaid.
After meeting the mermaid Michelle at The Strand, the party heads to Lonalulu in search of a fisherman named Kai who she fell in love with. The village's fishermen are all occupied dealing with a Tentacular when the party first arrives, including Kai, so before they can fulfill Michelle's request to reunite her with her love, they must first settle affairs at sea. As the town celebrates the defeat of the sea monster with a luau, the Hero eventually finds Kainui avoiding the party by fixing a boat at the dock.
Kainui explains that he isn't the Kai the party are looking for; Michelle's Kai was his grandfather Kainoa, who was the fisherman featured in Kainui's mother's picture show. After his exile to Saikiki Beach, Kainoa was also widely blamed for the deaths of several villagers, and the baby he found - Kainui's mother - was believed by many to have been his and the mermaid's half-human spawn, though Kainui insists this is impossible. Kainui relocates to Saikiki Beach to retrieve a wedding veil that his father was found clutching when he died. He gives the veil to the Hero to pass on to Michelle to hopefully put his family's mermaid troubles in the past for good.
Upon returning to The Strand, the player can choose to lie to Michelle and tell her that her Kai is still on his way to meet her. She is somewhat suspicious of this news, but accepts that she will have to wait a little longer and bestows Lorelei's harp upon the party, allowing them to visit the bottom of the ocean. If the player chooses to tell Michelle the truth, however, she will accompany the party back to Lonalulu to see Kainui for herself and confirm that Kainoa is truly long dead.
At Saikiki Beach, after Kainui speaks to her, Michelle dons the veil and steps onto the sand to visit Kainoa's grave, then returns to the sea and dissolves, as mermaids who have stepped on land are doomed to. Realizing he recognized Michelle from somewhere, Kainui brings the party to his father's cabin, where he had painted a picture of Michelle and left a letter for the mermaid. Kainoa's letter explains that Kainui's mother, the supposedly half-mermaid baby, was the orphaned daughter of the Kahuna's daughter and her husband, and that he could not return to her at The Strand as long as he had this shunned baby to take care of. Kainui finally accepts that his family history, while tragic, wasn't nearly as dark as he believed, and he becomes friendlier with his fellow townsfolk upon his return.
In Act 3, regardless of the player's choice in the first act, Michelle will still be alive at The Strand as if the player had lied to her. If the party visits Lonalulu, an old man will explain that the town's fishing fleet went in search of pearls but found itself in a nest of mermen instead. Kainui helped the rest of the fleet escape by using himself as a decoy, but efforts to save him were unsuccessful, so the old man begs the heroes who defeated the Tentacular to go to his rescue. Kainui can be found at The Strand with Michelle, surrounded by a gang of Malicious Mermaniacs led by a Malicious Merking. Once the duo are rescued, Kai explains that Michelle found him washed up on her shore after his first encounter with the creatures and nursed him back to health just as she once had his grandfather. Michelle still believes that Kainoa is coming to visit her, and Kainui decides to remain with the mermaid for a while. The final outcome of this encounter is uncertain.