Arata Usuba

* Anime
* Manga
* Live-action

**Arata Usuba** (薄刃 新, *Usuba Arata*?), who publicly goes by the name **Arata Tsuruki** (鶴木 新, *Tsuruki Arata*?), is the son of the current head of the Usuba family and the cousin of Miyo Saimori.

## Appearance

Arata is an exceedingly handsome young man of 24 years old. He is of average height and his figure is slender and lean. He has dark green eyes, and mildly wavy chestnut-colored hair that is arranged neatly. He has kindhearted features and always has a smile on his face. Most women would find him irresistible.

He always appears in a high-quality suit that looks quite natural on him. It consists of a white shirt covered with a sand-brown vest and bound with a necktie. He completes his outfit with a dark brown jacket, brown dress shoes and brown-rimmed glasses.

## Personality

Despite his kindhearted appearance, Arata is actually cold and impersonal inside with self-admitted feelings of apathy. This is evident when he doesn't care much about what sort of person his assigned subject of protection is. To him what was important is the fact that she possessed the Gift, which holds a great value to the Usuba family. That and the duty given to him and his family. He sees the Usuba estate as a reflection of himself: the facade is well kept, but there’s nothing on the inside and there is no worth at all, either. Though outwardly, he is an upstanding member of the Tsuruki family and their trading firm, his inner self, the one that belonged to the Usuba family, is entirely hollow. Without his own raison d’être, he feels that he is simply an empty vessel and would never become a proper man of society.

Not wanting people to perceive this lack, Arata keeps up his external self to the best of his abilities. A personality, first impression, and appearance that he has crafted to endear himself to others. All of it is simply a veiled bluff, an illusion to give him a meager sense of pride that he has something that people needed him for. Because of this, he always presents himself to others with an innocuous smile free of malevolence on his mouth. The kindhearted smile on his fine features would disarm all wariness of people facing him. Even when he uses a discourteous way of speaking, it is difficult for others to discern whether it is cheap provocation, if he is testing something, or there is actually no deeper implication. It is impossible to pick up anything from his guileless smile. Yet, the more magnificent his exterior persona becomes, the more the emptiness inside him grows.

## History

Arata is born as the only son of the current acting head of the Usuba family  and the successor of the family. Because his father is Giftless, Arata went to live in the Usuba estate with his paternal grandfather Yoshirou Usuba from a young age in order to learn how to use his Gift. Shortly after his arrival at the house, the family started to decline. There used to be more people, with plenty of furniture and belongings, but both slowly began to disappear as time went on, with the final nail in the coffin coming twenty years ago  when the family's midsized trading company, Tsuruki Trading, was on the brink of bankruptcy.

The company has recovered since and he works for the firm as a senior negotiator. Occasionally, he would also take on additional negotiating jobs when asked by acquaintances. His role is to speak on behalf of the party he represents and gets across what they have a hard time saying themselves. During negotiations, he comes off as very knowledgeable about the topic in question. His negotiation skills are so adept that whether it's through bluffing or clever tactics, he successfully convinces the other party that he is well-informed. He believes he can’t do his job if people snub their noses at him for being ignorant and is convinced that researching who he will be negotiating with is the most fundamental aspect of the trade. As a son of a distinguished family, Arata lacks neither in his education nor other such facets and allows him to do his job successfully. His work often takes him to various places around the world. When he eats in other countries, in addition to delicious food, sometimes he would eat something that is not to his liking. Because he cannot behave rudely to the locals, no matter what the meal, whether it tastes good or not, he will deliberately keep a normal attitude, and he will get used to it.

Despite being an upstanding member of the Tsuruki family and their trading firm, his inner self that belongs to the Usuba family feels empty. Ever since he came of age, he has never once been ordered to work as a member of the Usuba family. In almost all cases, the Special Anti-Grotesquerie Unit or powerful families like the Kudou family end up resolving the situation. It's never his turn to make an appearance. No matter how modestly he and the other Usuba members live, how devoted they are to their code, he feels it's meaningless in the end.

Within the Usuba family codes, it says that if a user of Dream-Sight should appear, she should be protected and supported by the entire family. As a matter of fact, for generations, a chosen Gift-user with the family bears the role of providing them with constant care and giving their life to protect them. After it is discovered that Miyo Saimori, the daughter of his paternal aunt Sumi Usuba, does indeed possess the Gift, that job has fallen to him, finally giving him a mission of his own that he has longed for his entire life.

## Plot

### Volume 2

On a hot summer day, Arata spots a woman holding a parasol with an extremely pale face in the buzzing streets of the Imperial Capital and immediately knows it's Miyo Saimori. He doesn't have any particular business with her this instant, but he simply wants to get a glimpse of the girl he heard so much about. Suddenly, the woman loses balance as she walks over to his direction and Arata half-heartedly extends his arms to catch her. Seeing how frail she is, he pities her and also feels satisfied that he would be protecting this woman going forward.

Some time later, he meets with the Emperor at the Imperial Palace to request his permission regarding an incident. Knowing that preparations would soon be complete, the Emperor authorizes him his actions.

After the Burial Grounds has been unsealed, Arata heads to the Special Anti-Grotesquerie Unit to meet with the commander of the unit, Kiyoka Kudou, as a negotiator for the Ministry of the Imperial Household. He informs Kiyoka Kudou that the Ministry is still investigating the case, but hasn't found a culprit yet. The Ministry's specialists have recovered 70% of the wandering spirits, but are short-handed and therefore are asking the unit for support in destroying the rest of the Grotesqueries. He hands Kiyoka the decree of the emperor, which is also signed by Major General Masashi Ookaito.

## Abilities

### Gifts

**Hallucikinesis**: Arata possesses over this special Usuba Gift. Like the rest of the Usuba powers, the ability is foremost unique in that it specializes in dealing with Gift-users, rather than with the likes of Grotesqueries, and is focused on affecting people's mind. By creating and manipulating illusions, he is able to cause people to be unable to trust their own eyes anymore. He can create multiple phantoms of himself, even numbering over twenty in total, that all move independently, as well as clones of other people. This ability is so powerful that he is able to defeat Kiyoka Kudou with it in a duel, someone who is hailed as the best Gift-user of his generation.

### Techniques

* **Barrier technique**: Arata displays proficiency in creating and manipulating force fields. He can generate an expulsive barrier at will that allows him to repel or eject the enclosed subject out of an area forcefully.

* **Familiar technique**: Arata can quickly create and manipulate multiple familiars for different purposes. He demonstrates this ability when he created one utilizing elaborate camouflage arts to follow the Emperor's car and another marked with the Usuba seal to make it clear it came from Arata and was sent flying to the Special Anti-Grotesquerie Unit station bearing an urgent letter of warning.

## Trivia

* Arata only wears glasses in the anime. In the original novel and the manga adaptation, he does not.
* Arata is a point of view character in the prologue and chapter 3 of the second volume, chapter 4 of the third volume, chapter 1 and chapter 5 of the fourth volume of the novel.

### Name Origin

* The name **Arata** means "fresh, new" (新).

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6  Novel, Volume 2 Chapter 2
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1  Anime, Episode 6
3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10  Novel, Volume 2 Chapter 3
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4  Novel, Volume 2 Prologue
5. ↑  Novel, Volume 3 Chapter 4
6. ↑  Novel, Volume 5 Chapter 2
7. ↑  Manga, Chapter 20
8. ↑  Novel, Volume 1 Chapter 2
9. ↑  Anime, Episode 10
10. ↑  Novel, Volume 4 Chapter 5