Sojiro the Willow-Sword

* Anime
* Novel

**Soujirou the Willow-Sword** (柳の剣のソウジロウ, *Yanagi no Tsurugi no Sōjirō*), real name **Soujirou Yagyu** (柳生宗次朗, *Yagyū Sōjirō*), is a Visitor swordsman who calls himself "the last Yagyu on Earth." In his search for powerful opponents, he joins Yuno the Distant Talon on a journey to Aureatia.

## Appearance

Soujirou is a short and slim young man with dark brown hair tied back in a rough ponytail. His bulging eyes and smooth features give him a reptilian appearance, and his posture is notably hunched. He is often distinguished by the red tracksuit top he wears loosely around his shoulders, and the dull practice sword he carries with him.

## Personality

Soujirou the Willow-Sword is a Visitor from the Beyond, who was transported to another world due to his deviant swordsmanship that defied the laws of physics. He is a battle fanatic who never slows down his pace no matter the situation, who revels in the thrill of the fight and constantly seeks out powerful enemies. Despite his Yagyu heritage and obscene talent with the blade, he shows curiosity about other styles of fighting, but ultimately sticks to swords due to finding them the most enjoyable. He does not seem to possess any sense of fear, though he is capable of self-restraint if it means getting to face more interesting opponents.

Soujirou values his own freedom, and claims that he lives his life without any regrets. He places little value in social conventions or personal relationships, and refuses to be influenced by the emotions of others. As a result of this, he's almost completely oblivious when it comes to anything outside of fighting, and had to resort to eating wild plants just to stay alive before Yuno became his guide. He's aware enough of his own ignorance to acknowledge that Yuno's anger towards him may be morally justified, even if he personally doesn't understand it. In spite of his aloof demeanor, he does occasionally express concern and care towards others, such as yelling at Yuno to escape for her own safety while he was fighting against Shalk and Higuare, as well as traveling to Lithia in order to rescue her. Yuno has also noted that Soujirou does possess his own honorable sense of duty and obligation, and isn't simply a battle fiend. He has also gradually learned to empathize with others, such as in his battle with Ozonezma where he experienced true terror for the first time and wondered if this is the kind of fear that Yuno felt whenever her life was endangered.

## Biography

Soujirou first appears in Volume 1 when he saves Yuno the Distant Talon from the army of golems destroying Nagan City. After cutting apart her attackers, he briefly converses with her and offers to take down the Dungeon Golem in exchange for her packed lunch. He also questions her about Word Arts techniques, but learns that Visitors are incapable of using them. Though Yuno tries to warn him of the danger, Soujirou ignores her and charges straight into the burning city to take on the remaining golems.

After he effortlessly cuts through its mechanical army, the Dungeon Golem takes notice and slams its fist down on Soujirou. The swordsman evades the attack and uses its outstretched arm to ascend the golem's enormous body, cutting at its limbs while it pelts him with arrows and cannon fire. The golem ultimately resorts to using Thermal Arts to try and blow him away, but Soujirou takes cover behind its massive neck and cleanly decapitates it with his sword. Blinded, the Dungeon Golem continues to strike at him until he weakens its left arm and causes it to crash down upon the titan's own right shoulder, destroying its core and finally bringing the giant weapon down.

Soujirou returns to Yuno after the fight and comments on how fun it was, noting that the golem's various design elements had given away the location of its core. He makes ready to leave, but Yuno stops him and gives him her packed lunch. She tells him about the upcoming contest in Aureatia and promises to lead him there, all while secretly plotting to find someone strong enough to kill him. Soujirou appears to be aware of her hidden intentions, but accepts regardless, and asks her name before the two of them leave for Aureatia.

When they arrive at the Aureatian outpost of Mage City, the pair meet with Hidow the Clamp. The minister asks Soujirou to kill Taren the Punished, and notes that by gathering prestige in the conflict with Lithia he can secure the sponsorship of one of the Twenty-Nine Officials, which is required to enter the upcoming grand tournament. Soujirou replies that he doesn't care so long as he gets to enjoy some fun fights, and is chastised by Yuno for his impoliteness. Though he ignores most of the following discussion between Yuno and Hidow, the swordsman ultimately accepts her wish to join him on his mission.

Accompanying an Aureatian patrol to the border of Lithia's territory, the two discuss the upcoming war with the commander. Soujirou is openly in favor of the conflict, and says that he'll have to 'kick things off' if the war doesn't start on its own. He then notices Shalk the Sound Slicer and Higuare the Pelagic lying in wait up ahead, and warns the others of their presence. After a brief verbal exchange, Shalk attacks the commander and is intercepted by Soujirou, and the two acknowledge each other's skills before engaging in a lightning-fast clash of blades. Shalk slices open Soujirou's shoulder, but the swordsman predicts his subsequent blows and begins to counterattack.

While the two warriors remain locked in combat, Higuare easily slaughters the rest of the patrol. Soujirou urges Yuno to flee, but is unable to intervene while the mandrake climbs onto her horse and forces her to ride on to Lithia. Still pinned down by his opponent, the swordsman continues to battle Shalk for some time before the skeleton eventually flees for the New Principality.

Rather than return to the Mage City headquarters, Soujirou chooses to head straight for Lithia by himself, walking across the plains until he reaches the city's outer fortifications. He shouts at the soldiers there to get out of the way, but is met by a hail of arrows and gunfire. The swordsman easily deflects the projectiles and prepares to cut his way through when Nihilo the Vortical Stampede suddenly lands right in front of him and begins obliterating the Lithian soldiers. Soujirou asks what she is, and Nihilo replies that she's an ally, but the Visitor recognizes her strength and decides to fight her regardless. The revenant retreats from his attacks and flees the scene after mopping up the remaining soldiers, but not before losing a chunk of her outer shell's head to Soujirou's blade.

The swordsman carries on into the city, and chooses to search for Yuno the Distant Talon rather than hunting down Taren. After following the trail of arrowheads she fired off from her cell, he finds Yuno in the company of Dakai the Magpie, who instantly recognizes him as a fellow Visitor. The two of them share a short conversation about their origins and their shared views on strength and freedom, before Yuno asks Soujirou to kill Dakai.

After taking his stance, Soujirou is the first to make his move. His thrusting blade is deflected and sent flying by Dakai's enchanted sword, but this allows the swordsman to simultaneously seize his opponent's right arm and pin his heel against the ground, keeping the bandit from striking with the poisoned blade held between his toes. Having seen through all of this, Dakai snatches Soujirou's sword out of the air and lands a slice on his undefended torso, only to realize that it's a dull practice sword incapable of even cracking a person's ribs. Twisting Dakai's arm, Soujirou slowly turns the bandit's own blade against him, and lands a fatal slash.

With the war now over, he leaves the city on foot, heading once more for Aureatia with Yuno by his side. The girl asks him about his motivations for rescuing her again, then opens up about the reasons behind the anger she still harbors for him. Soujirou admits that she may be right, but that he still can't understand her, nor anything outside of how to fight and kill the enemies he encounters. To this, Yuno replies that she'll continue to be his guide, and asks him to teach her about the world he came from.

In Volume 2, he appears in the company of Elea the Red Tag, acting as her bodyguard on a trip to Togie City. Though he sleeps through most of the journey, Soujirou immediately wakes up when their carriage is threatened by a wurm, and leaps out to kill the beast in a single blow. As buckets of blood rain down around him, the swordsman remarks that he'd been hoping for more of a challenge.

In Volume 3, Soujirou and Yuno are sent by Hardy the Bullet Flashpoint to aid in the subjugation of the Free City of Okahu. Before they can reach their destination, however, the mission is called off, and the two have to return to Aureatia. When they stop along the way to camp for the night, Yuno asks Soujirou more about his world, and he explains to her that civilization there had already been wiped out several years ago.

In Volume 4, Soujirou fights Ozonezma the Capricious in the third match of the Sixways Exhibition.

## Abilities

Soujirou's swordsmanship transcends normal human limits, and is strong enough that he is considered both a Shura and a candidate to become the True Hero. Even among the Shura, he proves himself to be a particularly deadly contender, facing Shalk, Nihilo, and Dakai in the span of a single day without sustaining any major injures beyond a cut on his shoulder. Yuno considers him someone impossible for mortals like her to defeat, and Elea is confident enough in his abilities to bring him as her sole bodyguard while traveling into enemy territory.

Despite his small stature, Soujirou is strong enough to pin down Dakai's limbs and deflect blows from Shalk's spear with his bare hands. His speed and stamina allow him to keep up with an Aureatian patrol on horseback, run straight up nearly vertical surfaces, and race through the burning streets of Nagan City faster than any explorer Yuno had ever seen. His movements in battle are so quick as to be imperceptible to the human eye, and his sword is capable of breaking the sound barrier and deflecting several bullets fired almost simultaneously. During the attack on Lithia, he easily evaded both Nihilo's movements and the artillery fire raining down around them, and while fighting the Dungeon Golem he was able to emerge unscathed from a swarm of mass-produced golems while being barraged by arrows and cannon fire. He was also agile enough to leapfrog across flying pieces of destroyed golems and reach a city-sized opponent's head before it could complete its offensive Word Arts chant.

His cutting technique is so potent that he can seemingly cleave through any solid substance, regardless of what kind of blade he's using. The sword he wields is a cheap practice blade so dull that the immensely strong Dakai the Magpie cannot even crack ribs with it, but that Soujirou uses to carve apart metal golems with ease. His cuts are described as being so clean that the severed surfaces are left with a mirror-like sheen, and when he landed a blow on Nihilo the Vortical Stampede's outer body, she failed to even notice she'd been cut until she realized three of her eyes were missing. With nothing but a blunt sword, he successfully cut through a wurm's thick scales, the Dungeon Golem's massive stone neck, and even the deep celestial charsteel armor of Nihilo's tank, which had proven invulnerable to all other forms of attack. In the anime trailer, he is shown launching slashes through the air beyond the reach of his sword, with each one retaining sufficient cutting power to bisect iron golems.

When facing down an enemy, his instincts and experience allow him to immediately intuit an enemy's weaknesses and predict their next moves, with an accuracy comparable to precognition or a sixth sense. He was able to repeatedly identify and target the cores of hundreds of golems in Nagan city, and figured out how to kill Nihilo after landing just one swing on her. Most impressively, after seeing a wurm for the first time, he instantly came up with and executed a plan to kill it by slicing its right atrium in the precise location that would lead to a buildup of blood pressure and cause its heart to violently explode. Despite being unable to perceive the attacks of Shalk the Sound Slicer due to the skeleton's sheer speed, he repeatedly parried and deflected them regardless, and simultaneously defended himself against multiple tendrils launched his way by Higuare the Pelagic. In his fight with Dakai he accurately saw through the other Visitor's multi-layered strategy, and exploited his opponent's misreads to devise his own path to victory. Even while fast asleep, the legendary assassin Kuuro the Cautious was certain that Soujirou would perceive any threat and stop him before he could make a single move.