Houjou Seigo

**Houjou Seigo** (北条静護, *Hōjō Seigo*?) is a character introduced in *Toaru Kagaku no Railgun: Astral Buddy*. Formerly a researcher at Clone Dolly Ideal, he was working with Mitsuari Ayu on her plan concerning Yuuri Senya, along with Houjou Arei.

## Etymology

His given name **Seigo** (静護) means "silent protector". Based on Nogi Yasuhito's hints, his family name **Houjou** (北条) is a reference to the feudal Houjou clan.

## Appearance

Seigo has slicked-back, dark-colored hair, with a tuft hanging over the middle of his forehead. He has multiple scars across his face, with diagonal ones on both his cheeks (the right one extending across the bridge of his nose) and horizontal ones above his eyebrows. He wears a white suit, dark tie and dark trousers, with a white coat worn over them.

## Personality

Seigo has shown to, so far, be efficient, cordial and business minded when performing his duties as a doctor and during his first few appearances was shown to be kind and considerate enough to his patients when caring for them when they're hurt, showing himself to be a highly skilled doctor.

However, it was later revealed that the true reason to his cold and deadpan demeanor was the fact he could not feel emotions and was slowly losing his senses, causing him to then "play the part" by acting, lying and pretending he "feels" things in order to avoid suspicion. This loss of physical sensation and emotion is severe enough that he has even begun to forget the memory of these experiences, as seen where he frequently tries to remember his previous experiences with these sensation (Such as the sensation, taste and experience of drinking coffee) in order to not forget them, but even remembering has begun to become difficult for him as even that has begun to fade.

However despite the slow disappearances of his senses and feelings, he has still displayed several emotional connections and quirks of his personality. Having seen still retained or tried to at least keep his care for his younger sister, as seen where he was scolding and worrying for her during her assignments and teased her for her lack of care in maintaining her appearance in public, showing that he still cares and loves her.

Other than this, Seigo has also shown a certain level of Guilt due to the failed experiment and deaths of Mitsuari Ayu's friends during their time in the Clone Dolly Research Lab during the botched experiment. With this sense of guilt being his driving motivation in assisting Mitsuari in her "projects" due to wanting to make up for what he did and later even went as far as personally protecting her from a falling lightbulb from crashing into her by using his own body as a human shield, again heavily injuring himself.

He has also displayed a certain level of obsession with his and other people's appearances, as seen where he constantly wonders and thinks what type of clothing would making him more serious looking and later annoyed his sister due to his constant pestering and over analysis of his sister's messy appearance due to not wearing her suite properly and later was seen allowing Mitsuari Ayu to scribble bee's on his face and put pony tails in his hair in her attempts to make him look "cute" and later asked her if he could pull the look off, only later to be seen taking serious comedic offense at Mitsuari instead insulting his ugliness.

## Background

In the past, Houjou Seigo worked as a researcher at Clone Dolly's third lab, Ideal. During the incident which occurred there, he was possessed by the out-of-control AIM aggregation and as a result, lost his sense of pain and taste, with his emotions gradually fading.

Sometime afterwards, he got a job as a doctor at Heaven Canceller's Hospital and did his job well despite his quirks. He was later approached by Mitsuari Ayu, who had come across a remnant of Ideal in the form of an Indian Poker card, and asked him to help with her plan surrounding Yuuri Senya and the 'Ideal' power that the lab had sought, with the possibility that it could heal him.

## Abilities

Houjou Seigo is capable of performing rapid self-surgery on his face without a mirror.

### Ideal Power

Ever since the incident with the botched experiment involving the out-of-control AIM aggregation created from the amalgamation of various Personal Realities and him being "possessed" by it, the doctor has seemingly developed a specific "connection" with the aggregation's source, Yuuri Senya.

This in turn was said to have then given him a myriad of various different Esper abilities and powers.

* **Black Tuxedo:** Due to having stayed by her side for so long and learning and analyzing her power the most, Yuuri Senya was capable of reproducing Hokaze Junko's Rampage Dress and through his connection to her, the Doctor can also make use of this Esper power.