Kichimura Washuu

As the investigator Furuta he stands on the taller side, his black hair kept at a medium length and swept to one side, with a small mole beneath the outer corner of his right eye. His usual outfit pairs a suit with a bow tie under a dark overcoat, echoing his partner Kijima, and he sometimes adds a trench coat and dark gloves. Once he rises to Bureau Director he switches to pale-trimmed black robes, and a long scar carved into the left of his face by his brush with Dragon hides beneath his hair.

Operating as the Clown known as Souta, he buries his identity completely: a clown mask covers his face, a brown wig sits over his hair, and heavy padding bulks out his suit so he reads as a large, heavyset man, though his voice gives nothing away.

In his public guise he seems mild and unremarkable, a courteous, quiet subordinate who plays the part of loyal underling and even feigns terror when his superiors are threatened. That politeness is entirely theatrical. The real Furuta holds his fellow investigators in contempt, ready to manipulate, murder, or turn them into living shields, and he takes open pleasure in mocking those around him with careless jabs. His cruelty runs to the grotesque, as when he butchers Shunji Shiono into a pate and serves it to Eto.

Beneath the endless masks sits a man who long ago accepted that his lineage doomed him to a brief, painful life. Convinced by that fate that everything is ultimately worthless, he adopts a nihilistic stance, treating the world as a toy chest to plunder for amusement before it all ends. Only in his final moments does he admit that what he truly wanted was an ordinary life rather than the short, bitter one written for him.

Born the youngest of the Furuta branch as an illegitimate son of CCG Chairman Tsuneyoshi Washuu, he grew up inside the Sunlit Garden and drew the notice of Kishou Arima for his talent. Learning that every man of his branch died around thirty, he resolved to burn through whatever life he had. Childhood affection for his half-sister Rize led him to help her flee the clan, and years later, under the Clown alias Souta, he dropped the steel beams that gravely wounded her while sparing Ken Kaneki. That single act sent both to Kanou's hospital, where Rize's organ was implanted into Kaneki and the series' hero was made.

Posing as an ordinary Rank 1 investigator named Nimura Furuta, he partnered first with Shiki Kijima, coldly using a colleague as a shield and finishing Matsumae with the inherited chainsaw quinque Rotten Follow before staging the scene to cover himself. He then attached himself to Haise Sasaki as a handler for his masters in V, all while advancing his own schemes. Repeated visits to the imprisoned Eto, whom he loathed, centered on prying the identity of the One-Eyed King out of her, and it was there he confirmed himself as the Clown Souta.

During the raid on Cochlea he finally exposed his true nature: an artificial one-eyed ghoul carrying Rize's rinkaku kagune, with which he tore apart Eto's weakened kakuja. Seizing the chaos, he murdered his father Tsuneyoshi and proclaimed himself the Washuu King, taking command of both V and the Clowns. Installed afterward as Bureau Director under the name Kichimura Washuu, he unleashed the child soldiers called Oggai, boasted of manufacturing a hundred Kanekis from Rize, and turned public ghoul executions into spectacle until most ghouls were driven into the 24th Ward.

His undoing arrives through the creature he engineered. After tormenting a beaten Kaneki during the assault on Goat, Kaneki mutates into the monstrous Dragon and cuts him down, though Furuta regenerates almost at once. He retreats to nurse the cocooned, resurrected Rize he calls his precious Dragon and broadcasts a plan to flood the city with flesh-devouring spawn. Kaneki hunts him to a final duel where Furuta pushes his kagune and kakuja to their limit, only for Kaneki's cross-shaped kakuja to break through and deal a fatal wound. Dying, he pictures the peaceful life with Rize he was never allowed, and admits he only ever wished to live like anyone else.