Atsuhiro Sako

Layers hide most of Atsuhiro. A black balaclava, cut open at the eyes and mouth, goes on first, and over it sits one of a rotating set of white masks, each marked with its own geometric design in black. Strip all that away and the man underneath has curly brown hair, thin dark eyebrows, a sharply pointed nose, and narrow half-moon eyes slanted inward, matching his hair in shade. He is built tall and thin, and his skin is pale.

The rest of the outfit belongs to a theater: a black waistcoat over a burnt-orange shirt with the collar flipped up, black dress trousers, a green striped bolo tie carrying an oval blue brooch, muted red gloves, and white boots reaching his knees on black-capped wedge heels. A brown top hat crowns it, banded with red ribbon and trimmed with a pale feather. His earliest scenes add a knee-length mustard overcoat and a gold-topped silver cane.

His body keeps a record of his career. Overhaul destroys his left arm, and Giran supplies the prosthetic he keeps thereafter. Later, pinned by Best Jeanist, he turns his own Quirk on his lower back to rip loose, permanently crippling himself in the process.

Atsuhiro treats every situation as a performance he ought to be directing. He talks constantly, jokes constantly, and carries an arrogance he extends to allies and opponents alike, always angling for the flashiest available version of a moment.

The instinct costs him. Because he cannot resist monologuing, the Bakugo Escort Squad catches up with him, and a victory bow nearly loses him custody of Katsuki Bakugo outright. Underneath the theatrics, though, he serves as the League's steadying voice. He looks after its younger members and pulls them back into line, and loss reaches him: Magne's death sends him at Overhaul, an attack that costs him an arm and that he repays by taking Overhaul's; Twice's death visibly shakes him, and Himiko Toga's suicidal charge at the heroes worries him.

His motive runs back through his family. Oji Harima, his great-great-grandfather, stole from rich heroes and handed the proceeds to ordinary people. Atsuhiro signed on with the League to continue that fight, intent on dragging what he sees as the corruption of hero society into daylight.

Compress shrinks anything inside a spherical zone around his arm down to a marble, undamaged, so long as he is touching it. Weight shrinks along with it, so captives turn pocket-sized and anyone caught this way is out of the fight instantly. Narrowed to a single body part, it maims in a heartbeat and apparently without much pain: it is how Overhaul loses an arm, and how Atsuhiro later mutilates his own lower half. He can compress himself as well and be carried anywhere unseen. His Quirk Factor sits in his arms, so losing the left one restricts him to the right.

Invention rather than raw power makes him dangerous. He stockpiles marbles holding compressed objects and throws them to drop boulders in an enemy's path, or slips one beneath a car and launches the vehicle by letting the rock expand. Compress also tunnels through solid material, which makes him invaluable for infiltration and escape. In the Vanguard Action Squad Invasion he lifted both Katsuki and Fumikage Tokoyami out of a party of five that included Mezo Shoji and his heightened senses, then fled through The Beast's Forest by the treetops until Mezo, Shoto Todoroki, and a battered Izuku Midoriya drove him into the ground. At Kamino he nearly escaped with Katsuki a second time before Mt. Lady knocked him out of the air.

His mind is the other weapon. A former stage magician, he calls himself a master of deception, escape, and illusion, and he backs it up, palming decoy marbles and swapping them so anyone robbing him comes away with nothing. That is how the Bakugo Escort Squad walked off with marbles full of ice he had quietly compressed while dodging Shoto. He also gauges strength after one look and spotted the televised press conference as cover for the Hideout Raid Team. His end comes at the close of that war: he mangles himself free of Best Jeanist, releases Tomura Shigaraki, Spinner, and Skeptic, secures Dabi, admits he has nothing left, and falls to Mirio Togata. Arrested afterward, he and Spinner are the League's only survivors once the Final War ends.