Raizo

Standing 311 cm tall, Raizo is a giant of a man whose proportions look strangely wide, his head roughly as broad as the rest of him. His face features sharply jutting cheekbones, a long squared jaw lined with rounded teeth, eyebrows shaped like jagged lightning, and a crescent moon scar across his forehead that King once gave him. People tend to describe him as aged and unattractive, no woman taking an interest, and Udon's prisoners doubted he had ever time traveled because they found it easy to assume he had simply grown older. Short black hair sits atop his head with a small spike, branching at the sides into six antenna like tendrils. Somewhere on his body he bears the Kouzuki crest.

His usual dress is a pale blue kimono, its inner edges lined with orange striping that is speckled in dark blue, cinched at the waist by a green obi tied into a bow. Beneath it he keeps an undershirt and trousers of a dark, scaled yellow, drapes a purple nio dasuki across his back, and wears sandals on his feet. Two diamond shaped attachments ride on his back and serve as a kite. Decades earlier his frame was far smaller and the six tendrils shorter, more like spikes.

Serious, principled, and tender hearted, Raizo holds his comrades and the people under his lord dear, throwing himself tirelessly into their aims while accepting any peril to his own life. The one thing he refuses to accept is anyone else risking death on his behalf, which left him devastated on Zou as the Mokomo Dukedom minks were hurt protecting him, and he pleaded for them to hand him over rather than keep suffering. Powerful emotion of any kind, joy or grief alike, tends to make him sob heavily. Loyalty within the samurai code means a great deal to him, so even though he loathed Kurozumi Orochi, he still commended his rival shinobi Fukurokuju for keeping faith with the shogun.

His profession demands diligence and foresight, both of which he has in abundance, and he is willing to lie in wait for the ideal opening even if that takes many days. His sole recorded lapse in vigilance during an infiltration occurred when reuniting with his old friend Kawamatsu in the Prisoner Mine distracted him long enough to be spotted. He treats his craft with gravity and dislikes flaunting it merely to entertain, though he relented for the Straw Hats once their gloom got to him. A persistent longing for romance with a kunoichi, set against his inability to draw women, weighs on him; in his youth one rejection drove him out of the Oniwabanshu and into a vagabond's life in Udon.

Before all else, Raizo served as a shinobi within the Kouzuki Oniwabanshu, leaving the order after a kunoichi spurned him and taking up life as a bandit in Udon. When Oden came through the region, a weary Raizo begged to follow him out of the shadows. He gave himself entirely to his master, and at Yasuie's urging spent years studying so the retainers could carry themselves with dignity. He was among the nine Oden spared from the boiling pot, and he hushed Denjiro's wish to die alongside their lord, vowing instead to fulfill Oden's dream. Toki's power then cast him twenty years ahead together with Kin'emon, Kanjuro, and Momonosuke.

A storm split him from the others, and he washed up on Zou alone, where the Mink Tribe concealed him from Jack's invading Beasts Pirates and bore brutal punishment rather than surrender him. Once reunited with Kin'emon's group and the Straw Hats, he helped bring about their joint pact: Ninja-Pirate-Mink-Samurai Alliance. In Wano he infiltrated the Prisoner Mine to free Luffy, partnered with Caribou, and aided in capturing the mine. He rejoined the rest of the Scabbards, absorbed the shock of Kanjuro's treachery, and charged into Onigashima, plunging his blades into Kaidou beside his comrades. Wielding a Paramecia power, the Maki Maki no Mi, which grants him scrolls that seal and redirect attacks, he caught Kaidou's fire breath and hurled it back. He afterward outlasted Fukurokuju in a contest of paralysis jutsu and flame, then loosed a scroll holding Zou's water, which Jinbe channeled to extinguish the fires throughout the Skull Dome.

With Kaidou beaten and Momonosuke installed as shogun, Raizo fought alongside the retainers against Admiral Ryokugyu, who drained him into a hollow shell before he managed to recover. Appointed daimyo of Udon, he later thanked Yamato for dismantling Who's-Who's hideout and freeing the prisoners held there. A seasoned master of ninjutsu, a user of both Armament and Observation Haki, and a deadly hand with shuriken, Raizo stands among the legendary shinobi of Wano.