It was at this time when she met her lifelong friend and rival Chihana Shiryu, a lower class Shiryu girl trying to enter the military at a very young age. Even though Kanu had everything planned out for her to live an extravagant lifestyle, she struggled to even be a tenth as good as Chihana. Due to this, the girls had become intense rivals as a young age. The lower class Chihana ran circles around Princess Kanu and pushed farther ahead with her dreams while Kanu just couldn't keep up with her pace. It was through this intense rivalry that Kanu finally decided to take training seriously; it took her a few years, but by age 12, she pushed herself to the brink and finally awakened to the Hoshikage eyes. Even with this newfound look at training, she still couldn’t keep up with Chihana, as Kanu instigated many fights between the two and she would lose every time. It caused a rift between them during the Original Legacy days, but they were always able to patch things up somehow. Kanu was heavily affected when Akihito Akitoki fell to darkness and defected from the team, as she was the reason that Akiro and Locke chased after him.