Hairu Ihei

Ihei is a striking young woman whose straight pink hair, cut into an angled bob, falls to neck length, framing heavy-lidded pink eyes and a perpetually sleepy look over delicate features. She leans toward menswear, choosing a vest and slacks over the skirts most female investigators wear. On duty with Squad 0, she conceals her identity beneath a hooded trench coat.

In everyday moments Ihei seems like an ordinary young woman despite her veteran standing, greeting the Quinx politely and lighting up at finally meeting people her own age. Tomboyish, gentle, and modest all at once, she feels a little self-conscious about how young she is beside her colleagues and would rather be treated as a peer than a superior. Battle reveals a colder side: she stays casual even while killing, dispatching enemies with clinical brutality and leaving grisly remains in her wake.

Ihei's early years trace back to the Sunlit Garden, where she knew a young Kishou Arima and shared a warm, sibling-like bond with him. Lacking a formal education but thoroughly drilled in combat, she began working as an investigator at sixteen and was placed in Arima Squad. She fought at the front and at Route V14 during the Owl Suppression Operation, and later joined Squad Zero's cloaked operatives who helped secure the auction hall and corner Hinami Fueguchi.

In the Rose Extermination she introduced herself to the Quinx Squad, delighted that they were her age while Shirazu blushed under the teasing. She joined the ambush that struck Matsumae and her followers, wounding Matsumae in a dominant showing, then led the vanguard into the Luna Eclipse during the Tsukiyama Family Extermination Operation. There she met Matsumae again, wielding her rinkaku quinque Aus against the ghoul's kagune; after slipping on spilled blood and being run through, she demanded her second quinque, the ukaku T-Human, and began breaking apart Matsumae's shield. Mairo threw himself into the attack and was torn in half, but the momentum let him strike back, and Ihei, smiling at a last vision of herself and Arima as children, was decapitated.

Her story does not fully close there. During the Dragon arc, Kichimura Washuu stuns Koori Ui by producing her severed head in a jar and claiming she can be revived.