Shimotsuki Ushimaru

Ushimaru had a prominent nose, plus dark blue hair spiking at the front before bunching into a thick mass behind. In earlier days he wore a dark yukata with a pale marking beneath a light jittoku haori decorated with bull motifs. Inked across his back was the Shimotsuki crest, a circular emblem crossed by twin cutlasses. After Kaidou jailed him, bandages wrapped his head and hid his left eye. His features strongly recalled those of his grandnephew Zoro, especially in his youth.

Honor, selflessness, and kindness defined Ushimaru as a samurai. He stood against Orochi's seizure of power and never broke even after Kaidou caged him. When the warlord tried to force the starving prisoners into a deadly contest over a single ration, Ushimaru and the others handed the food to Yamato without hesitation, holding firm to the samurai code. He treated the boy with genuine warmth, nurturing Yamato's wish to become Oden and bearing no grudge over his parentage. Viewing himself as disgraced by his defeat, he humbly withheld his name. In the end his selflessness drove him to lead a doomed breakout against Kaidou purely so Yamato would survive to the day Toki had foreseen.

As daimyo of Ringo, Ushimaru held full authority over the region. Kawamatsu praised him as a master swordsman whose style closely echoed Zoro's, and with Armament Haki, called Ryuo in Wano, he could cut through Yamato's chains and even a massive boulder using only ordinary blades. He fought dual-wielding from a hunched, lunging stance much like his grandnephew's charging attacks, and he also commanded Observation Haki. For an unknown span he ruled with the komagitsune Onimaru at his side, attended the daimyo meeting where Higurashi disguised as Sukiyaki swayed the lords toward Orochi, and later joined the failed revolt that ended with the daimyo imprisoned on Onigashima, where his death came roughly twenty years ago.