Mamoru Hijikata

Mamoru Hijikata is the male lead in Until Death Do Us Part. His sole desire in life is to perfect his skills with the katana. To that end, he joined the vigilante group, the Element Network, to defeat criminals and test his skills in real combat.

Shortly after teaming up with Ryotaro Igawa, Mamoru is approached by Haruka Tooyama, a girl with precognition who seeks his protection from those who wish to use her abilities for their own greed.

Appearance
Mamoru is a tall man in his late twenties to early thirties with short, shaggy black hair. Due to his blindness, he always wears dark sunglasses and walks around with a walking stick... But actually, those are disguises.

While his blindness is real, his sunglasses project a map of his surroundings, allowing a degree of vision and even giving him an advantage in certain situations. The tip of his walking stick has the same ability, but the walking stick itself is actually a sheath and disguise for the katana within it.

Personality
Mamoru is outwardly aloof and callous, but hidden within him is his attentive and justice-driven side. While he doesn't openly show sympathy and claims he solely saved Haruka because she'd give him a good battlefield to fight on, he is actually deeply enraged by her situation.

Witnessing his parents' gory deaths at the hands of a drunk driver severely impacted a young Mamoru's mindset. Because of this, people who think nothing about how their actions impact others, and in particular those who perform criminal activities for selfish motivations, enrage him.

Witnessing the actions of some of humanity's worst, such as the Transplant Connection's work, has left Mamoru extremely jaded&mdash;something he's all too aware of. It is the source of his brutal ruthlessness that most of the network disapproves of; however, Tatsumi Daiba allows it because he knows Mamoru's background.

In battle, Mamoru is a pragmatist who does anything that will give him victory, as long as it won't kill. He relishes fighting strong opponents or strong tacticians and seeks to hone his skill with the blade to its peak.

History
Mamoru was the only child of a happy couple and lived a normal life. However, this came to an abrupt end when a visit to a park ended with his parents run over and killed by a drunk driver. A few years later, while in middle school, Mamoru encountered the man who killed his parents peacefully sleeping on the side of the road, drunk and not the least bit reformed. Coldly remarking to a classmate that "there really are scum in the world," Mamoru left the man there.

Mamoru was once the top kendo champion in Japan. He was hailed by many of his peers and instructors as being a prodigy. Supposedly during a training session, Mamoru killed his sensei and was arrested for manslaughter.

Sometime after this, Mamoru was recruited by Tatsumi Daiba and "hired" to work for the Elements Network. After his initial training, he went onto a mission in Chechnya in order to gain real battle experience on battlefield. It is here that he crossed paths with the legendary hitman, Jesus, and was engaged in the battle that cost him his eyes.

Other Appearances
Mamoru appears as a supporting character in JESUS Sajin Kouro, where he comes to Jesus's aid several times.

Abilities
Mamoru is trained in many forms of sword arts. In addition to his mastery of kenjutsu, he has also received training with firearms and military tactics. His main weapon is a katana concealed within his walking stick. A special monomolecular film on the blade allows Mamoru to cut through anything. This fact, coupled with his honed reflexes, allows him to deflect point blank gunfire with ease. He has on multiple occasions been able to dodge long range sniper fire by sensing the "killing intent" of the shooter.

Haruka Tooyama
From a young age, Haruka often saw visions of Mamoru fighting to protect her, and eventually those visions led her to see herself as his wife. It is these constant visions that convince her he will be the one who can truly protect her, and she becomes determined to make her visions a reality.

Despite claiming she merely makes a convenient excuse for him to fight, Mamoru has her well-being in mind. His first plan upon finding out her situation is to raid one of the Kakuhoukai's bases, and Igawa notes that he is silently furious over Haruka's situation. He teaches her techniques to manage her fear and some tricks for self-preservation, but purposely refrains from training her to fight directly because he knows that at her core, she was living a normal life before she was tangled into this whole mess.

Romantically, Mamoru's feelings about Haruka are somewhat ambiguous for the majority of the series. He quickly deduces that Haruka envisioned them marrying but is opposed to the notion for most of the series, instead planning on hooking her up with someone her age after her situation was cleared up. He does begin to reciprocate her feelings to a certain degree before the final arc but is still uncomfortable due to the age gap. However, in the end, because Haruka won their "bet," he agrees to marry her after she became an adult.

Ryotaro Igawa
At the start of the series, Mamoru and Igawa were acquainted for a week when Haruka shows up to employ Mamoru's protection. While Igawa initially held reservations about Mamoru and found him hard to work with, the two eventually formed a strong bond.

As Mamoru's technician, Igawa is responsible for helping develop the monomolecular blade with the aid of the network, and also worked on the sunglasses Mamoru wears. Because of this, Mamoru highly values Igawa's abilities and leaves combat support to him.

During the final arc, Igawa decides to join Mamoru's group as Mamoru splits from the Element Network to put an end to Galboa's attempts to seize Haruka once and for all. Despite Mamoru's hesitance to bring in someone relatively inexperienced with real combat, he ultimately agrees.

Inaba
One of Mamoru's teachers in the art of the sword. Though Mamoru was not an official student of Inaba's sword methodology Inaba was inspired by Mamoru's sheer talent and determination. This led Inaba to share the secrets of his martial arts school with Mamoru, including Mamoru's commonly utilized technique for cutting apart bullets.

Edge Turus
Of all the characters Mamoru encounters during the series, Edge is the one he despises the most. Unlike with Orion, who was the first person Mamoru truly wanted to kill, Mamoru doesn't even want to kill Edge because it would deprive him of the torment Mamoru believes he deserves.

Wiseman
Mamoru and Wiseman regard each other with mutual respect for the other's abilities, even if their views and philosophies don't quite align. After his first true defeat at the hands of Wiseman's plot, Mamoru deems the man worthy enough to help him carry out his plan to end Galboa's pursuit of Haruka.

Quotes

 * (To Edge Turus) "Did you think that just because you're the son of a tyrant that ruining the lives of others would never come back to affect you? Fuck me? Fuck you!"