Take Hirako

Hirako stands at an unremarkable height and carries features that others have called plain, even bland, his face most often set in a blank, unreadable expression. As with the rest of the CCG, he generally appears in a formal suit.

Much like his mentor, Hirako keeps an even keel and brings the same detached, methodical mindset to fighting ghouls. Even so, he opposes pointless death and is willing to question where the CCG's orders lead, whether scolding Chuu Hachikawa for nearly cutting down an elderly bystander or doubting that the Owl Suppression Operation could honestly be called a win. After the timeskip he plays peacemaker, cooling the friction between the Mado and Shimoguchi squads.

His loyalty to Arima runs deep: he guarded his partner's blind side in battle, and once Arima was gone he resigned outright and helped Kaneki slip out of Cochlea.

Hirako drew little notice at the Ghoul Investigator Training Academy, where his marks were ordinary. That changed once he paired with Kishou Arima; his part in wiping out the Clowns and in the 24th ward investigations built his reputation, and after roughly six more years working under Arima he made First Class. Somewhere in that stretch he was at Arima's side during a 4th ward operation, their first brush with Renji Yomo before the Non-Killing Owl carried the young ghoul away.

He joined the 11th ward push against Aogiri Tree as part of the Special Countermeasures Unit, where his group mistook the Non-Killing Owl for the One-Eyed Owl. Itsuki Marude told Yukinori Shinohara to keep the capable but expendable investigators, Hirako among them, on hand for the fight. When Shinohara and Iwao Kuroiwa were locked in combat with the Owl, Hirako threw himself in despite knowing the risk, walking away with a head wound but landing a strike of his own that echoed one Arima had used against the creature years earlier.

During the Owl Suppression Operation he served in Chuu Hachikawa's Squad 3 and helped bring down the Black Dog, afterward chiding Hachikawa for willingly endangering a civilian just before Kaneki ambushed the group and shattered his quinque. When the true One-Eyed Owl surfaced, he regrouped with other stragglers, borrowed Kousuke Houji's weapon after losing his own, and fell back as Arima moved to take his place. After the timeskip he attended the meeting over the Torso and Serpent cases with the Shimoguchi and Mado squads, and his team later subdued an unstable Sasaki, treating him as the priority while the fleeing Serpent went ignored.

Summoned by Matsuri Washuu for the Auction Mopping-up Operation, he ran into Uta, who still recalled him from the 4th ward. When Uta shaped Arima's face and ordered him to stand down, the sight only spurred Hirako to strike, slashing Uta even as knives pinned his arm, and he fought on without flinching under the mockery. When Ui was promoted to lead S1, Hirako was picked to back Arima as the only one who could keep pace. He rode with the Arima Squad into the third Cochlea raid and found Kaneki bent over Arima's body; recognizing the wound on Arima's neck and calling Kaneki a poor liar, he let the squad pay their respects, then drew a resignation notice, declared himself free of the CCG, and readied his quinque. In the aftermath he took the Squad 0 children to breakfast, defended Kaneki when the White Suits sneered at him, and reached an understanding with Renji Yomo despite Yomo's grief over Arima. In the end he turned down the offer to serve as vice-head of the Peace Officer Academy, cared for his grandparents until their deaths, and quietly took work at a funeral home.

Trained by the CCG's most renowned investigator, Hirako proved exceptional in the field. Kaya Irimi judged him the strongest of the investigators fighting her, plain face and all, and he stood among those who felled her, an SS-rated ghoul. Observers noted his combat was effective yet unremarkable in style, and his durability was striking, since he kept fighting even with Uta's knives buried in his shoulder. He wielded Yukimura 1/3, a koukaku sword handed down from Arima and later passed to Sasaki, along with the rinkaku blade Nagomi 1/3.