OOC: Application
PERSONALITY:
Susumu has been trained from a young age to suppress his emotions and to avoid forming attachments with others. A ninja is supposed to be a tool, after all. A weapon. His sister Ayumu taught him to rely only on himself and to expect no help from anyone. As a result, Susumu has no one he would consider himself close to (not even Ayumu), and the other Shinsengumi members know very little about him. He's a loner. Although he has good enough acting skills to enable him to socialize with others while working undercover as Sen, when he's not on the job he's really not a people person, and would rather be left alone.
It is rare to see Susumu angry or upset, and even rarer to see him smile. In general, he is a serious, taciturn individual. He hasn't entirely mastered suppressing his emotions, though. Any strong negative emotion, be it doubt, frustration, grief, or guilt, tends to manifest itself as anger if it manifests at all. Tetsu, especially, manages to get under his skin on more than a few occasions, once prompting Captain Okita to remark that it was an impressive feat on Tetsu's part to make Susumu mad. As the series progresses, however, Susumu starts to become more at ease around Tetsu, actually smiling at him and showing concern for his welfare after a battle, indicating he's not entirely made of stone; that 'human' side of his is just kept securely locked away most of the time so it won't interfere with his job. Though he's distant, he's not unkind. (Still snippy, though!)
Susumu is devoted to his work as a Shinsengumi spy, and has complete loyalty and respect toward Vice Commander Hijikata, to whom he reports directly. Susumu takes his job seriously, obeying all orders to the letter without question, and taking failure very personally. He has something of an inferiority complex, believing himself unfit to walk in Ayumu's shadow, and he blames himself for failed missions even when neither Hijikata nor Ayumu place any blame on him. He bears a great deal of guilt, especially after his sister dies in his place on a mission he messed up. But here Susumu also shows impressive resilience. Despite his grief, he is quickly back on the job, seeing the mission to its completion and ensuring that her death was not a waste.
TIMELINE: Manga, between Shinsengumi Imon Peacemaker and Peacemaker Kurogane.
[Necessary lengthy explanation: There are two parts to the manga series. The first five volumes are called Shinsengumi Imon Peacemaker or just Peacemaker, and the later volumes are called Peacemaker Kurogane. The fandom in general is known as Peacemaker Kurogane. But the anime series, also called Peacemaker Kurogane, covers the events of Shinsengumi Imon Peacemaker. They did that just to confuse everyone, I'm sure.]
BACKGROUND:
Very little is known about Susumu's childhood. What became of his parents is not explained. He was raised and trained by his older sister Ayumu, an accomplished ninja and spy. Their relationship was not that of your average siblings, though. They treated each other more like student and teacher than brother and sister, Ayumu even telling Susumu that she did not think of him as her little brother. She raised him to be self-reliant, knowing that in their line of work he could depend only on himself. She taught him to disguise himself as her, telling him, "If you do that... even if you fail, we will succeed. I may die... but you may live on as both of us."
As a young adolescent, Susumu joined the Shinsengumi, as did Ayumu. (Susumu is fifteen in the early volumes of the manga.) The Shinsengumi were a special police force, largely composed of samurai, established by the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1863. Their purpose was to defend the Shogunate against rebels of the Choushuu clan who wanted to see it overthrown, and to keep the peace in Kyoto, where they were stationed. Both Yamazaki siblings joined as spies, but Ayumu's status as such seems to have only been known by the higher-ranking officers - to most Shinsengumi members, she was simply the cook. Susumu handled most of the reconnaissance work himself, receiving his orders from Vice Commander Hijikata Toshizou, a stern and occasionally ruthless man to whom he showed absolute loyalty and deference.
Things start to get interesting for Susumu when a red-haired boy named Ichimura Tetsunosuke (Tetsu for short) joins the Shinsengumi as Hijikata's page. Although Tetsu is close to Susumu's age, he looks no older than twelve, and often acts like a young brat. Susumu finds him to be loud, annoying, and generally not worth his time. Tetsu is unhappy being the 'demon' Vice Commander's pageboy, and when he learns from Ayumu that Susumu is a spy, he decides that he wants to become a spy as well and starts to trail after him. Susumu's initial reaction is to ignore the boy, allowing Tetsu to observe as he receives orders and disguises himself as the female hairdresser 'Sen' in preparation for a mission.
Susumu's mission is to investigate a used goods store called Masuya, where there have been a number of sightings of ronin, or wandering samurai. Hijikata is concerned that members of the Choushuu may be gathering there. Tetsu follows, having tried (and failed miserably) to disguise himself as a woman as well. Realizing that ignoring the boy isn't working and that he could jeopardize the mission, Susumu hauls him into an alley, pins his collar to the wall with a kunai knife, and tells him to knock it off. He orders Tetsu to go back, but then a crowd starts to form outside of Masuya. Some ronin are trying to extort money from a small girl, and Tetsu gets involved, attacking the men. Not wanting the violence to spread to Masuya, knowing that it could potentially spook the enemy and send them into hiding, Susumu moves to intervene, only to be stopped by three of the Shinsengumi captains who happened to be in the area while off duty. To avoid having Susumu blow his cover, the captains deal with the ronin. Susumu makes himself scarce, knowing there's now nothing he can accomplish at Masuya that day. He meets up with Tetsu after things have settled down, and slaps him in frustration. The mission is a failure.
Susumu later reports back to Hijikata, claiming full responsibility for the incident and offering to accept any punishment the man sees as fitting. Hijikata, however, is satisfied with what they have learned. Not only did Masuya Kiemon, the shop owner, fail to report any disturbance, but the ronin who caused it spoke with Choushuu accents. Therefore he is now quite certain that there are Choushuu in Kyoto and that Masuya is harbouring them. No one is punished, and Susumu is left musing about how Tetsu managed to make him so angry.
It is not long before Susumu is sent out to Masuya again, though this time he does not go as Sen. He goes decked out in full ninja gear, under cover of darkness, attempting to spy on the Choushuu from the rooftops. He knows that this will be his last chance to uncover what they might be plotting here, as they are most likely on their guard now. However, he has barely just arrived when he is attacked by a female ninja known to him as the Wind Demon, an ally of the Choushuu. They fight on the rooftops, and Susumu is wounded on the back of his shoulder. She leaves him with the message, "Go back home and tell the Shogunate dogs... wooden soldiers are easy to burn."
Susumu returns to headquarters in disgrace. One of the regulations of the Shinsengumi states, "If a Shinsengumi member engages in a fight with a stranger, be it on duty or not, if he is wounded and can't kill the enemy, allowing him to run away, even in case of a wound in the back, seppuku is ordered." Susumu thus prepares to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide. As he draws his blade, however, Ayumu enters his room. She takes the blade from his hand and begins to clean his injury, despite his insistence that he doesn't need treatment. She then tells him to remember that he is a ninja, not a samurai, and therefore not bound to the samurai code on which the Shinsengumi's regulations are based. Hijikata trusts him, and Susumu is of no use to the man dead. A ninja's shame, she chastises, is leaving a job half done.
There is now no doubt that the Choushuu know they're being watched, making any further attempts to spy on them extremely dangerous. However, the Shinsengumi do not yet have enough evidence to arrest and interrogate Masuya Kiemon. They need to take the risk and infiltrate the shop. Ayumu accepts the job, well aware that it could be her last, and dons the identity of Sen. As she leaves headquarters, Tetsu stops her, curious as to where she's going all dressed up. (He actually mistakes her for Susumu in disguise at first.) Though she doesn't tell him, they talk, and Ayumu realizes that Tetsu has become closer to her than her own brother. She regrets that it's now too late for her to improve her relationship with Susumu - she's fairly sure she's going to die on this mission - and so she asks Tetsu to be his friend, to get along with him and fight with him, and to teach him fun things, in her place.
Tetsu doesn't understand at first, but quickly figures out that Ayumu is involved in something dangerous. He goes to Susumu to try to find out the details. Tetsu is worried, and voices his concerns that Ayumu could die, but Susumu appears indifferent. He tells Tetsu that if dying is part of her job, there's no way to stop her, prompting Tetsu to grab his collar and shout, "You're not human!" (Susumu takes it as a compliment.) After a brief scuffle, Tetsu leaves to sit by himself, when he overhears a report come in about a group of ronin beating up a woman. Returning to Susumu's room, where Susumu has been brooding alone, Tetsu tells him about the report and begs him to go save her, as he's sure it must be Ayumu. Susumu responds that he never thought of Ayumu as his sister, and tells Tetsu to go himself, since he's obviously closer to her. It was Tetsu she gave her parting words to, after all. Tetsu, furious and upset, throws Susumu to the ground, pins him, and begins to cry as he reveals just what Ayumu's parting words were: "She told me to take care of her 'little brother.' She told me to take care of you! You don't have the right... to call her 'big sister.'"
Susumu is shocked into silence by this revelation and remains lying on the ground for some time, even after Tetsu has left, despite the fact that it's raining. Although Ayumu had never displayed any sisterly affection towards him, he now comes to realize that she took this job so that he wouldn't have to. He'd made a mess of his mission, and she accepted the consequences in his place. Eventually, he rises and leaves to seek her out.
He finds Ayumu's body lying abandoned on a deserted road in the pouring rain. She has been raped and brutally beaten; there is a deep slash across her back, one side of her face is crushed and swollen, and the ends of a broken bone protrude from her arm. As Susumu stands silently before her, the Wind Demon appears. She berates him for coming to try to save Ayumu when it's his fault that she's dead. He should've been the one to die. If it hurts him so badly, she says, he should quit being a ninja, as he has no right to go on now. Susumu spares her no more than a glance over his shoulder before sinking to his knees beside his sister, cradling her, and removing his shirt to wrap around her body. Tetsu and the rest of the Shinsengumi eventually find him like this, well after the rain has stopped.
Susumu doesn't attend Ayumu's funeral the next day. Instead, he gets drunk on sake and sits on the roof, which is where Tetsu later finds him. Though Susumu tells him to go away, Tetsu sits down with his back against his and begins to talk about Ayumu, tearfully apologizing for not eating all of the last meal she made him. Susumu tells him to shut up, saying that he should be the one to apologize; that he's a failure as a ninja, but even more of a failure as a brother, and he's "so pissed off that it hurts." Tetsu responds, "You're not 'pissed off.' You're just... sad." Susumu's emotions finally overwhelm him, and he breaks down and cries, berating himself for not once calling Ayumu 'sister.' Tetsu remains with him, and they lie on the roof for several hours before he leaves, promising that he's going to teach Susumu all kinds of fun, interesting things, and also calling Susumu by his given name instead of 'Yamazaki'. When Susumu points it out, Tetsu responds, "I think friends should call each other by name," leaving Susumu to sit by himself in stunned silence at being referred to as someone's friend.
Despite her death, Ayumu accomplished her goal; the Shinsengumi have searched the area in which she was found, and uncovered her bloodstained kimono inside Masuya's shop. They can now move to arrest the man and the Choushuu he is harbouring. Early the next morning, Susumu arrives at the shop, disguised as Sen and wearing the same kimono. 'She' asks to purchase a new one, since the blood won't wash out. Masuya is shocked; he's certain that his men could not have failed to kill Sen, and that this is either an elaborate prank or he must be seeing a ghost. "There's no way you could have lived," he exclaims, to which Susumu (breaking his cover and using his normal voice) replies, "No way at all." The Shinsengumi burst into the shop, and fighting breaks out as the Choushuu resist arrest.
In the ensuing chaos, Masuya and a few of his men hide in a secret basement, its entrance hidden beneath a tatami mat... where they find Susumu already waiting for them. He quickly incapacitates the cronies, then stops Masuya from fleeing by knocking him off of a ladder. However, even presented with the perfect opportunity to kill the man responsible for his sister's murder, and despite the fact that he'd had every intention of doing just that, it is Susumu's fist, rather than his kunai, that connects with Masuya's face. As furious as he is, he cannot quite bring himself to kill. "Half-cocked, as usual," he comments to Tetsu once the fighting's over. Tetsu is relieved by this, and says that he believes Ayumu would also be glad. Rather than snapping at him, Susumu actually smiles. He has completed his mission, and Masuya is taken into custody.
Hijikata interrogates (that is, tortures) Masuya, and discovers the Choushuu's plan - they're plotting to set the city of Kyoto ablaze. A small band of thirty-four Shinsengumi members are gathered, and although Susumu advocates waiting for reinforcements, they prepare to patrol the city in search of the Choushuu's new hideout. Before they leave, though, Hijikata has something he needs Susumu to do. Tetsu is at headquarters, hiding in a closet, having just had a rather traumatizing encounter with the man who killed his parents, and not even his older brother Tatsu can get him to say a word. Susumu pulls the door right off the closet and flings a bundle at Tetsu - a uniform and a sword, neither of which the page had been allowed to have before - courtesy of the Vice Commander and "fit for one rotten brat." Tetsu is unresponsive... but his brother Tatsu is not. Furious, Tatsu runs at Susumu and throws a punch at him, which he blocks. Susumu realizes that Tatsu actually wants his little brother to stay in the closet where it's safe, rather than recovering from his trauma and fighting alongside the others. "You've got to let him go sometime," Susumu says, then adds as he leaves, "Stop running away. Stop hiding."
That night, the thirty-four Shinsengumi split into two groups and set out to search the city. The Wind Demon is watching one group from the rooftops, when Susumu locates and attacks her, telling her he's done playing around. They fight for some time, neither gaining the upper hand, when Susumu hears a commotion below them. One group has discovered the Choushuu in the Ikeda Inn, and an intense battle has broken out. Taking advantage of his distraction, the Wind Demon lands a hit, but Susumu quickly turns the tables, knocking her sword from her hand and bodyslamming her onto the roof. He could kill her here... but instead, he lights a flare he brought with him, firing it up into the night sky and drawing the attention of the other Shinsengumi group (and Tetsu, who is hurrying to join the battle). As everyone arrives, the Wind Demon withdraws from the fight, having taken a hit to the face and lost a tooth. She tells Susumu, "If we meet again... it will be as ninja," to which he replies, "I hope we don't."
The Shinsengumi, including Tetsu, defeat the Choushuu in a bloody slaughter at the inn. As they return to headquarters in the morning, Susumu stops Tetsu, advising him to get a cut on his ear sewn up quickly, and remarking, "You showed some real strength." Tetsu is taken quite off guard at hearing praise from Susumu, and teases him about it before running off (as Susumu throws kunai at his feet).
When we next see Susumu, he and Tatsu are being dragged to the Gion festival by an overenthusiastic Tetsu. When Tetsu runs off, leaving the other two alone, Tatsu apologizes for throwing a punch at Susumu earlier. Susumu holds out his hand, which Tatsu shakes, only to have Susumu say, "What are you doing? Gimme that left cheek," and slap him. They come to an understanding though; that it's good that Tetsu's back on his feet, even if Tatsu still doesn't want him fighting. As Shinsengumi Imon Peacemaker draws to a close, Susumu is last seen watching the festival's fireworks with Tetsu and Tatsu.
ABILITIES:
Static:
Speed and agility - Thanks to extensive ninja training, Susumu can move with great speed, both in combat and while covering distances. He is capable of impressive acrobatic feats, such as midair flips, leaping across rooftops, and dodging attacks. He has excellent reflexes.
Stealth - Also a product of his ninja training. Susumu is able to move about without being seen or heard, and sometimes even seems able to vanish from sight in the blink of an eye.
Combat abilities - Susumu is proficient with several different ninja weapons, including swords, kunai knives, and shuriken. He also proves to be quite skilled at unarmed combat, and is seen using fists and feet as necessary.
Perception - Susumu is a very intelligent and perceptive individual, especially when it comes to discerning people's motives and predicting their actions. He is able to pinpoint the true reasons behind Tatsu's protectiveness of his brother Tetsu, as well as determining Choushuu's likely movements and their repercussions.
Hairdressing - Yes, I'm mentioning this. Susumu goes undercover as a female hairdresser from time to time in order to gather information without arousing suspicion. Although he is not shown styling hair, it stands to reason that in order to pass as a real hairdresser, he must be able to do so with a decent level of competence. The fact that he makes his own wigs in canon is also an indication of this ability.
Unlockable:
Knowledge of various poisons and their effects - Yet another product of his training. Ninja weapons were often coated with poisons, and Susumu demonstrates a working knowledge of them, as well as the ability to identify a poison based on the effect it produces, and vice versa.
Master of disguise - You wouldn't know it to look at him, but with some makeup, a wig, and a change of clothes, Susumu makes a very convincing woman. He is even able to alter his voice and mannerisms to such an extent that even those who know him can become confused, such as when Tetsu mistakes his sister for him. He's not limited to just one alter ego, though. He had a closet at headquarters full of costumes, wigs and accessories, enabling him to adopt any number of identities at a moment's notice.
Susumu has been trained from a young age to suppress his emotions and to avoid forming attachments with others. A ninja is supposed to be a tool, after all. A weapon. His sister Ayumu taught him to rely only on himself and to expect no help from anyone. As a result, Susumu has no one he would consider himself close to (not even Ayumu), and the other Shinsengumi members know very little about him. He's a loner. Although he has good enough acting skills to enable him to socialize with others while working undercover as Sen, when he's not on the job he's really not a people person, and would rather be left alone.
It is rare to see Susumu angry or upset, and even rarer to see him smile. In general, he is a serious, taciturn individual. He hasn't entirely mastered suppressing his emotions, though. Any strong negative emotion, be it doubt, frustration, grief, or guilt, tends to manifest itself as anger if it manifests at all. Tetsu, especially, manages to get under his skin on more than a few occasions, once prompting Captain Okita to remark that it was an impressive feat on Tetsu's part to make Susumu mad. As the series progresses, however, Susumu starts to become more at ease around Tetsu, actually smiling at him and showing concern for his welfare after a battle, indicating he's not entirely made of stone; that 'human' side of his is just kept securely locked away most of the time so it won't interfere with his job. Though he's distant, he's not unkind. (Still snippy, though!)
Susumu is devoted to his work as a Shinsengumi spy, and has complete loyalty and respect toward Vice Commander Hijikata, to whom he reports directly. Susumu takes his job seriously, obeying all orders to the letter without question, and taking failure very personally. He has something of an inferiority complex, believing himself unfit to walk in Ayumu's shadow, and he blames himself for failed missions even when neither Hijikata nor Ayumu place any blame on him. He bears a great deal of guilt, especially after his sister dies in his place on a mission he messed up. But here Susumu also shows impressive resilience. Despite his grief, he is quickly back on the job, seeing the mission to its completion and ensuring that her death was not a waste.
TIMELINE: Manga, between Shinsengumi Imon Peacemaker and Peacemaker Kurogane.
[Necessary lengthy explanation: There are two parts to the manga series. The first five volumes are called Shinsengumi Imon Peacemaker or just Peacemaker, and the later volumes are called Peacemaker Kurogane. The fandom in general is known as Peacemaker Kurogane. But the anime series, also called Peacemaker Kurogane, covers the events of Shinsengumi Imon Peacemaker. They did that just to confuse everyone, I'm sure.]
BACKGROUND:
Very little is known about Susumu's childhood. What became of his parents is not explained. He was raised and trained by his older sister Ayumu, an accomplished ninja and spy. Their relationship was not that of your average siblings, though. They treated each other more like student and teacher than brother and sister, Ayumu even telling Susumu that she did not think of him as her little brother. She raised him to be self-reliant, knowing that in their line of work he could depend only on himself. She taught him to disguise himself as her, telling him, "If you do that... even if you fail, we will succeed. I may die... but you may live on as both of us."
As a young adolescent, Susumu joined the Shinsengumi, as did Ayumu. (Susumu is fifteen in the early volumes of the manga.) The Shinsengumi were a special police force, largely composed of samurai, established by the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1863. Their purpose was to defend the Shogunate against rebels of the Choushuu clan who wanted to see it overthrown, and to keep the peace in Kyoto, where they were stationed. Both Yamazaki siblings joined as spies, but Ayumu's status as such seems to have only been known by the higher-ranking officers - to most Shinsengumi members, she was simply the cook. Susumu handled most of the reconnaissance work himself, receiving his orders from Vice Commander Hijikata Toshizou, a stern and occasionally ruthless man to whom he showed absolute loyalty and deference.
Things start to get interesting for Susumu when a red-haired boy named Ichimura Tetsunosuke (Tetsu for short) joins the Shinsengumi as Hijikata's page. Although Tetsu is close to Susumu's age, he looks no older than twelve, and often acts like a young brat. Susumu finds him to be loud, annoying, and generally not worth his time. Tetsu is unhappy being the 'demon' Vice Commander's pageboy, and when he learns from Ayumu that Susumu is a spy, he decides that he wants to become a spy as well and starts to trail after him. Susumu's initial reaction is to ignore the boy, allowing Tetsu to observe as he receives orders and disguises himself as the female hairdresser 'Sen' in preparation for a mission.
Susumu's mission is to investigate a used goods store called Masuya, where there have been a number of sightings of ronin, or wandering samurai. Hijikata is concerned that members of the Choushuu may be gathering there. Tetsu follows, having tried (and failed miserably) to disguise himself as a woman as well. Realizing that ignoring the boy isn't working and that he could jeopardize the mission, Susumu hauls him into an alley, pins his collar to the wall with a kunai knife, and tells him to knock it off. He orders Tetsu to go back, but then a crowd starts to form outside of Masuya. Some ronin are trying to extort money from a small girl, and Tetsu gets involved, attacking the men. Not wanting the violence to spread to Masuya, knowing that it could potentially spook the enemy and send them into hiding, Susumu moves to intervene, only to be stopped by three of the Shinsengumi captains who happened to be in the area while off duty. To avoid having Susumu blow his cover, the captains deal with the ronin. Susumu makes himself scarce, knowing there's now nothing he can accomplish at Masuya that day. He meets up with Tetsu after things have settled down, and slaps him in frustration. The mission is a failure.
Susumu later reports back to Hijikata, claiming full responsibility for the incident and offering to accept any punishment the man sees as fitting. Hijikata, however, is satisfied with what they have learned. Not only did Masuya Kiemon, the shop owner, fail to report any disturbance, but the ronin who caused it spoke with Choushuu accents. Therefore he is now quite certain that there are Choushuu in Kyoto and that Masuya is harbouring them. No one is punished, and Susumu is left musing about how Tetsu managed to make him so angry.
It is not long before Susumu is sent out to Masuya again, though this time he does not go as Sen. He goes decked out in full ninja gear, under cover of darkness, attempting to spy on the Choushuu from the rooftops. He knows that this will be his last chance to uncover what they might be plotting here, as they are most likely on their guard now. However, he has barely just arrived when he is attacked by a female ninja known to him as the Wind Demon, an ally of the Choushuu. They fight on the rooftops, and Susumu is wounded on the back of his shoulder. She leaves him with the message, "Go back home and tell the Shogunate dogs... wooden soldiers are easy to burn."
Susumu returns to headquarters in disgrace. One of the regulations of the Shinsengumi states, "If a Shinsengumi member engages in a fight with a stranger, be it on duty or not, if he is wounded and can't kill the enemy, allowing him to run away, even in case of a wound in the back, seppuku is ordered." Susumu thus prepares to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide. As he draws his blade, however, Ayumu enters his room. She takes the blade from his hand and begins to clean his injury, despite his insistence that he doesn't need treatment. She then tells him to remember that he is a ninja, not a samurai, and therefore not bound to the samurai code on which the Shinsengumi's regulations are based. Hijikata trusts him, and Susumu is of no use to the man dead. A ninja's shame, she chastises, is leaving a job half done.
There is now no doubt that the Choushuu know they're being watched, making any further attempts to spy on them extremely dangerous. However, the Shinsengumi do not yet have enough evidence to arrest and interrogate Masuya Kiemon. They need to take the risk and infiltrate the shop. Ayumu accepts the job, well aware that it could be her last, and dons the identity of Sen. As she leaves headquarters, Tetsu stops her, curious as to where she's going all dressed up. (He actually mistakes her for Susumu in disguise at first.) Though she doesn't tell him, they talk, and Ayumu realizes that Tetsu has become closer to her than her own brother. She regrets that it's now too late for her to improve her relationship with Susumu - she's fairly sure she's going to die on this mission - and so she asks Tetsu to be his friend, to get along with him and fight with him, and to teach him fun things, in her place.
Tetsu doesn't understand at first, but quickly figures out that Ayumu is involved in something dangerous. He goes to Susumu to try to find out the details. Tetsu is worried, and voices his concerns that Ayumu could die, but Susumu appears indifferent. He tells Tetsu that if dying is part of her job, there's no way to stop her, prompting Tetsu to grab his collar and shout, "You're not human!" (Susumu takes it as a compliment.) After a brief scuffle, Tetsu leaves to sit by himself, when he overhears a report come in about a group of ronin beating up a woman. Returning to Susumu's room, where Susumu has been brooding alone, Tetsu tells him about the report and begs him to go save her, as he's sure it must be Ayumu. Susumu responds that he never thought of Ayumu as his sister, and tells Tetsu to go himself, since he's obviously closer to her. It was Tetsu she gave her parting words to, after all. Tetsu, furious and upset, throws Susumu to the ground, pins him, and begins to cry as he reveals just what Ayumu's parting words were: "She told me to take care of her 'little brother.' She told me to take care of you! You don't have the right... to call her 'big sister.'"
Susumu is shocked into silence by this revelation and remains lying on the ground for some time, even after Tetsu has left, despite the fact that it's raining. Although Ayumu had never displayed any sisterly affection towards him, he now comes to realize that she took this job so that he wouldn't have to. He'd made a mess of his mission, and she accepted the consequences in his place. Eventually, he rises and leaves to seek her out.
He finds Ayumu's body lying abandoned on a deserted road in the pouring rain. She has been raped and brutally beaten; there is a deep slash across her back, one side of her face is crushed and swollen, and the ends of a broken bone protrude from her arm. As Susumu stands silently before her, the Wind Demon appears. She berates him for coming to try to save Ayumu when it's his fault that she's dead. He should've been the one to die. If it hurts him so badly, she says, he should quit being a ninja, as he has no right to go on now. Susumu spares her no more than a glance over his shoulder before sinking to his knees beside his sister, cradling her, and removing his shirt to wrap around her body. Tetsu and the rest of the Shinsengumi eventually find him like this, well after the rain has stopped.
Susumu doesn't attend Ayumu's funeral the next day. Instead, he gets drunk on sake and sits on the roof, which is where Tetsu later finds him. Though Susumu tells him to go away, Tetsu sits down with his back against his and begins to talk about Ayumu, tearfully apologizing for not eating all of the last meal she made him. Susumu tells him to shut up, saying that he should be the one to apologize; that he's a failure as a ninja, but even more of a failure as a brother, and he's "so pissed off that it hurts." Tetsu responds, "You're not 'pissed off.' You're just... sad." Susumu's emotions finally overwhelm him, and he breaks down and cries, berating himself for not once calling Ayumu 'sister.' Tetsu remains with him, and they lie on the roof for several hours before he leaves, promising that he's going to teach Susumu all kinds of fun, interesting things, and also calling Susumu by his given name instead of 'Yamazaki'. When Susumu points it out, Tetsu responds, "I think friends should call each other by name," leaving Susumu to sit by himself in stunned silence at being referred to as someone's friend.
Despite her death, Ayumu accomplished her goal; the Shinsengumi have searched the area in which she was found, and uncovered her bloodstained kimono inside Masuya's shop. They can now move to arrest the man and the Choushuu he is harbouring. Early the next morning, Susumu arrives at the shop, disguised as Sen and wearing the same kimono. 'She' asks to purchase a new one, since the blood won't wash out. Masuya is shocked; he's certain that his men could not have failed to kill Sen, and that this is either an elaborate prank or he must be seeing a ghost. "There's no way you could have lived," he exclaims, to which Susumu (breaking his cover and using his normal voice) replies, "No way at all." The Shinsengumi burst into the shop, and fighting breaks out as the Choushuu resist arrest.
In the ensuing chaos, Masuya and a few of his men hide in a secret basement, its entrance hidden beneath a tatami mat... where they find Susumu already waiting for them. He quickly incapacitates the cronies, then stops Masuya from fleeing by knocking him off of a ladder. However, even presented with the perfect opportunity to kill the man responsible for his sister's murder, and despite the fact that he'd had every intention of doing just that, it is Susumu's fist, rather than his kunai, that connects with Masuya's face. As furious as he is, he cannot quite bring himself to kill. "Half-cocked, as usual," he comments to Tetsu once the fighting's over. Tetsu is relieved by this, and says that he believes Ayumu would also be glad. Rather than snapping at him, Susumu actually smiles. He has completed his mission, and Masuya is taken into custody.
Hijikata interrogates (that is, tortures) Masuya, and discovers the Choushuu's plan - they're plotting to set the city of Kyoto ablaze. A small band of thirty-four Shinsengumi members are gathered, and although Susumu advocates waiting for reinforcements, they prepare to patrol the city in search of the Choushuu's new hideout. Before they leave, though, Hijikata has something he needs Susumu to do. Tetsu is at headquarters, hiding in a closet, having just had a rather traumatizing encounter with the man who killed his parents, and not even his older brother Tatsu can get him to say a word. Susumu pulls the door right off the closet and flings a bundle at Tetsu - a uniform and a sword, neither of which the page had been allowed to have before - courtesy of the Vice Commander and "fit for one rotten brat." Tetsu is unresponsive... but his brother Tatsu is not. Furious, Tatsu runs at Susumu and throws a punch at him, which he blocks. Susumu realizes that Tatsu actually wants his little brother to stay in the closet where it's safe, rather than recovering from his trauma and fighting alongside the others. "You've got to let him go sometime," Susumu says, then adds as he leaves, "Stop running away. Stop hiding."
That night, the thirty-four Shinsengumi split into two groups and set out to search the city. The Wind Demon is watching one group from the rooftops, when Susumu locates and attacks her, telling her he's done playing around. They fight for some time, neither gaining the upper hand, when Susumu hears a commotion below them. One group has discovered the Choushuu in the Ikeda Inn, and an intense battle has broken out. Taking advantage of his distraction, the Wind Demon lands a hit, but Susumu quickly turns the tables, knocking her sword from her hand and bodyslamming her onto the roof. He could kill her here... but instead, he lights a flare he brought with him, firing it up into the night sky and drawing the attention of the other Shinsengumi group (and Tetsu, who is hurrying to join the battle). As everyone arrives, the Wind Demon withdraws from the fight, having taken a hit to the face and lost a tooth. She tells Susumu, "If we meet again... it will be as ninja," to which he replies, "I hope we don't."
The Shinsengumi, including Tetsu, defeat the Choushuu in a bloody slaughter at the inn. As they return to headquarters in the morning, Susumu stops Tetsu, advising him to get a cut on his ear sewn up quickly, and remarking, "You showed some real strength." Tetsu is taken quite off guard at hearing praise from Susumu, and teases him about it before running off (as Susumu throws kunai at his feet).
When we next see Susumu, he and Tatsu are being dragged to the Gion festival by an overenthusiastic Tetsu. When Tetsu runs off, leaving the other two alone, Tatsu apologizes for throwing a punch at Susumu earlier. Susumu holds out his hand, which Tatsu shakes, only to have Susumu say, "What are you doing? Gimme that left cheek," and slap him. They come to an understanding though; that it's good that Tetsu's back on his feet, even if Tatsu still doesn't want him fighting. As Shinsengumi Imon Peacemaker draws to a close, Susumu is last seen watching the festival's fireworks with Tetsu and Tatsu.
ABILITIES:
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Speed and agility - Thanks to extensive ninja training, Susumu can move with great speed, both in combat and while covering distances. He is capable of impressive acrobatic feats, such as midair flips, leaping across rooftops, and dodging attacks. He has excellent reflexes.
Stealth - Also a product of his ninja training. Susumu is able to move about without being seen or heard, and sometimes even seems able to vanish from sight in the blink of an eye.
Combat abilities - Susumu is proficient with several different ninja weapons, including swords, kunai knives, and shuriken. He also proves to be quite skilled at unarmed combat, and is seen using fists and feet as necessary.
Perception - Susumu is a very intelligent and perceptive individual, especially when it comes to discerning people's motives and predicting their actions. He is able to pinpoint the true reasons behind Tatsu's protectiveness of his brother Tetsu, as well as determining Choushuu's likely movements and their repercussions.
Hairdressing - Yes, I'm mentioning this. Susumu goes undercover as a female hairdresser from time to time in order to gather information without arousing suspicion. Although he is not shown styling hair, it stands to reason that in order to pass as a real hairdresser, he must be able to do so with a decent level of competence. The fact that he makes his own wigs in canon is also an indication of this ability.
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Knowledge of various poisons and their effects - Yet another product of his training. Ninja weapons were often coated with poisons, and Susumu demonstrates a working knowledge of them, as well as the ability to identify a poison based on the effect it produces, and vice versa.
Master of disguise - You wouldn't know it to look at him, but with some makeup, a wig, and a change of clothes, Susumu makes a very convincing woman. He is even able to alter his voice and mannerisms to such an extent that even those who know him can become confused, such as when Tetsu mistakes his sister for him. He's not limited to just one alter ego, though. He had a closet at headquarters full of costumes, wigs and accessories, enabling him to adopt any number of identities at a moment's notice.