Daisuke Atou

Atou carried the look of a man past his youth, his hair shaped into an undercut. Once the Auction mopping-up began, he dressed in the standard investigator coat with protective armor worn beneath it.

For a long while Atou wrestled with envy toward the prodigy Arima, until he concluded there was no sense in measuring himself against such a talent. He held instead to the conviction that steady effort could carry even an unremarkable man toward meaningful achievement, and that with training his squad need not fall.

Placed under the Auction mopping-up operation on direct orders from Matsuri Washuu, Atou joined forces with Haise Sasaki and ran into a powerful koukaku ghoul, the partner of Nutcracker. Matsuri then sent Sasaki ahead, leaving Atou's group to handle the threat. He accepted the command, though it stung him to realize that the higher-ranks saw more promise in Sasaki, a mere Rank 1 investigator, than in himself despite his Associate Special Class standing.

Having put the ghoul down, a victory that spoke to his genuine combat skill, he reflected once more on the gulf between the naturally blessed, such as the young Arima, and those like himself who had to earn every step. He clung to the belief that experience might yet close that gap and spare his subordinates. That hope was cut short when Seidou Takizawa fell upon the squad and beheaded him, likening the act to picking pineapples. For all his proficiency, he stood no chance against the surprise strike of an SS-class ghoul.