Eri Natsuhara

Eri Natsuhara is a character from Persona 5 Tactica. She is a colleague and upperclasswoman of Toshiro Kasukabe and the real-world counterpart of Erina.
==Appearances==
*Persona 5 Tactica: Supporting Character, Major Character
==Design==
Natsuhara is a young woman who resembles Erina and shares the same red eyes (although during flashbacks, said eyes look brown because of a visual filter). However, her hair is brown and parts of her hair did not cover her right eye. She covers it when being hospitalized, however.
As a grown woman, she holds a cane that she uses to walk, as she is crippled by a failed attempt to evade being attacked by an insane Ichiro Nakabachi.
==Personality==
Natsuhara is an upfront and brutally honest young woman who will always fight back against injustice. However, she can be sometimes be bossy towards Toshiro and often rains him with requests to take care of and has a tendency to call everything he says as "torturous". Despite Toshiro is seemingly annoyed by her antics at times, Natsuhara is in her very core an invaluable friend towards him as he admired her optimism and her upfront attitude on standing up for herself. In fact, when the topic is brought up, one of the protagonist's dialogue options is to compare Toshiro and Natsuhara's relationship with Ryuji and Morgana's.
These traits also pass onto Erina, a manifestation of Toshiro's inner courage. 
==Profile==
===Persona 5 Tactica===
In her first high school, Natsuhara was framed of stealing something and was ostracized to the point that she lost all of her friends because she did not spoke up. Then, her homeroom teacher shown up and told her "silence in the face of injustice is complicity. If your guts tells you something's wrong, why not fight back?." She was able to prove her innocence after instigating a through investigation, but left her school anyways to avoid any more troubles. 
Natsuhara first spotted Toshiro Kasukabe when he was trying to stop a few thieves from mugging another student only to be beaten. At that time, she ends up unnoticed. When he ends up back in the school president office, she approaches the student council room to meet Toshiro. At first he was reluctant towards her, but then she started nagging Toshiro with all sorts of issues in their school. He initially complied to her demands to keep tabs on her, but before he knew it, the two got along well and became confidants. It reached a point where the student council room was like a counseling room of sorts and all sorts of issues are brought up and taken care of by the student body, including bullying, unfairness and even career and relationship advice.
It was around this time where a shady man called Ichiro Nakabachi was suddenly promoted to vice president. Through clever use of blackmail and peer pressure, Nakabachi created a convoluted network of blackmail where he would encourage any students to dig up their fellow student's dark secrets and report to them, then asking the victims to bring more people. Natsuhara and Toshiro first know about this incident when a fellow student called Yuri Kurano reported to them about Nakabachi threatening to leak her record of working in a nightclub. After a thorough investigation and a personal confrontation with Nakabachi, the two managed to confront him atop the school balcony and brought alongside a group of his past victims and recorded proof. Nakabachi was kicked out of the school and was harassed by the student body.
Unfortunately, the harassment became worse, and Nakabachi undergone a breakdown. One winter, an insane Nakabachi stalked Natsuhara and Toshiro to a train station and ran towards Natsuhara trying to push her into the rails as revenge. She slipped into the train tracks while dodging him and was ran over by a train. She survives the incident, but was hospitalized and left despondent. Toshiro tried to encourage her to seemingly no avail and she told her she can't fight back anymore. However she also assures Toshiro that they did the right thing and he should not be remorseful of what he had done, and the first victim who notified them of Nakabachi's blackmail went to visit her, apologized to her, and told her that she was grateful of their actions.
Afterwards, Nakabachi and the students who harassed him into insanity were all arrested. Due to Natsuhara no longer being at school, Toshiro became a convenient target for the student body's ire and was blamed for inciting the harassment, and at one point, he was so disliked that he was unable to return to school. However, one day it suddenly stopped; Toshiro believes that his father had used his status as a prestigious politician to silence them.
The incident heavily traumatized Toshiro and he presumably distanced himself with Natsuhara under the belief that she resented him. It also left him less willing to stand up for himself or justice out of fear of creating a situation similar to Nakabachi's downfall, which left him open to become a pawn for Yoshiki and Marie's political games. However, Natsuhara ultimately left a lasting impression on Toshiro, and her display of courage ultimately shaped Toshiro's inner willpower. When Toshiro was forced to resist Salmael's influence, it subconsciously took the form and personality of Natsuhara, resulting in the formation of Erina.
Shadow Toshiro transforms into a bloodied corpse of Natsuhara as his second form as a psychological attack against Toshiro during the Phantom Thieves' battle against him. It represents Toshiro's beliefs that it was his fault that Natsuhara's life was ruined, as well as his repressed resentment towards Natsuhara for causing him pain.
Because of Erina's rebellion against Salmael's attempt to destroy Toshiro's mind, Salmael was forced to drag him into his own Kingdom instead to kill him as a last resort to preserve human tranquility. This failed too because of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts's intervention.
In a post-credits scene, it was revealed that Natsuhara is still alive after the incident at the train station, albeit physically disabled and now requiring a walking cane to walk. She shows up behind Toshiro and smiles at him, telling him that she finally caught up.
==Gallery==
File:Eri Natsuhara.png|
File:Toshiro and Eri 1.png|
File:Natsuhara & Toshiro in hospital.png|
File:Toshiro Eri Hospital 2.png|
File:Toshiro Eri Hospital 3.png|
File:Eri Closeup Hospital.png|
File:Natsuhara in epilogue.png|
File:Natsuhara in epilogue 2.png|
File:Natsuhara in epilogue 3.png|
==Trivia==
* Erina's left leg is covered by a full-length metal greave and her hair covers her right eye. This corresponds the injuries she sustained during the fallout of Nakabachi's incident; a crippled leg and an injured right eye. Ernesto's revolver legs also correspond to her legs being crippled.
* As shown during the hospital flashback and the second form of Shadow Toshiro, it's heavily implied that her right eye can no longer see after the fallout of Nakabachi's incident.
* In the animated hospital cutscene, Eri is very briefly depicted without the "chibi" art style of Persona 5 Tactica, matching closer to that of the main Persona 5 games. This is the only instance that such a departure of art style occurs in-game.
* Natsuhara wanted to become a journalist after she graduated from school.
* Morgana speculates that due to the nature of the collective unconscious, it's possible that Natsuhara herself was affected by the events experienced in the Metaverse by Toshiro and Erina.
Category:Persona 5 Tactica Characters