Matsuri Washuu

At work Matsuri favors the same formal dress worn by his fellow investigators. He keeps his black hair short, sports a goatee, and rests a pair of glasses on his nose, though he goes without the frames at private dinners and had gone bare-faced in his younger years, when his hair was cropped even closer. His expression rarely moves, holding a stony blankness that seldom betrays what he feels.

Cold calculation drives Matsuri. He weighs decisions with ruthless logic and spares little thought for the human cost, and his missions carry a notoriously high body count because he prizes results over the lives of those he commands. Impatient and openly contemptuous of anyone he judges poorly, he is a fiercely ambitious careerist fixated on climbing to Special Class and then Bureau Director. His cruelty toward ghouls runs extreme even by the CCG's standards. The annihilation of his clan cracks that hard shell, leaving him frail and insecure until Urie's flattery restores some of his nerve, after which his fixation on the younger man curdles into an unmistakable, obsessive attraction.

Early in his career Matsuri is loaned to German forces, where he earns a name for completing missions at a punishing success rate while bleeding the most manpower, including the operation in Bremen that wipes out the Rosewald ghouls. Aogiri Tree's growth calls him home to a commander's post in Division II, and he honors an arranged marriage to Iyo Washuu that had been settled before his departure. During the Nutcracker investigation he clashes with Haise Sasaki and Juuzou Suzuya, then assembles the S2 Squad and takes command of the Auction Mopping-up Operation, only to realize partway through that the plan has been compromised. Months later he is raised from Associate Special Class to Special Class alongside Suzuya.

Through the Rose extermination Matsuri lends S2 to the Tsukiyama operation, downs the family's rescue helicopter, and barely escapes when his own aircraft is set ablaze, swinging into the Luna Eclipse to identify the One-Eyed Owl. His icy detachment shows plainly when he steps past the bloody aftermath of the fight with Noro and coolly asks whether the survivors can still fight. He later seizes control of the Quinx Squad and works to bind Urie to him with promises of advancement. The Rushima Landing Operation delivers the blow that breaks him: chasing a gunshot no one else noticed, he finds his father Yoshitoki dead, radios in a false report blaming Marude, and collapses in hysterical grief, swearing vengeance.

Made acting Bureau Director in his father's absence, Matsuri survives an assassination attempt by Clowns and V agents under Kaiko, cutting them down despite a wound to the head, before Kaiko himself brands the Washuu bloodline a thorn and slices him to ribbons. He recovers to ambush Furuta in midair and later joins the effort against Kaneki's dragon-formed kakuja, explaining to Urie that the original one-eyed ghoul had been a resentful Washuu driven into the 24th Ward. By the epilogue he has walked away from the directorship to work as an ordinary TSC staffer, compiling his family's history and aiding research on the Dragon Orphans. As the last of the Washuu he divorces Iyo, trades the family name for Suzuki, and, childless, brings the bloodline to its close. His skills span sharp swordsmanship, keen tactical instincts, and a Washuu's inherited physiology, with reflexes, hearing, and regeneration keen enough to shrug off a blade driven through his skull.