Daizen Matsushige

Daizen is a stout man of average height, with brown eyes, a prominent nose, and short, unkempt hair shaved close at the back. Behind the counter he wears a white shirt, black trousers, plain sandals, and a green apron pinned with a badge, while for fighting he favours a blue suit fastened by a single oversized button. A cross-shaped scar marks his chest, a memento he keeps carefully hidden.

Daizen plays the part of an upstanding citizen to perfection, running his shop and doing favours for the neighbourhood's elderly women until they think fondly of him. The kindness is a mask. His supposed affection for cats is a lie, and while he pretends to fret over Mikazuki, he actually pelts the animal with stones. At heart he is cruel, vain, and quick to pin his own crimes on others, indignantly insisting he will not stand for false accusations even as he plots murder to burnish his reputation.

Years of theft and killing left Daizen a genuinely dangerous fighter, one who covered his tracks by posing as a witness to his own crimes. When someone began targeting former shinobi, he worked out that he was the mark, studied how the attacks were carried out, and prepared countermeasures, shrugging off sleeping gas and luring his hunters in close. He handles himself well at close range, holding his own with a single kunai against two swordsmen. His real specialty is Wind Release, a skill sharp enough to earn Kotaro Fuma's respect, and his wind blades can carve a deep gouge into solid wood or open cuts across an opponent's face. His careful facade finally collapses when the brothers Hibiki and Kodama ambush him one night to avenge their father. Daizen anticipates the attack and nearly kills them both, only for Mitsuki to step in. He denies everything, even producing a scarless chest thanks to a prosthetic, until the cat Mikazuki claws the false skin away to reveal the truth, and his final dash for freedom is cut short by Mitsuki's Wind Release: Breakthrough.