𖦹. Taiju Shiba

Taiju is a deeply brutal, sadistic individual, regularly resorting to violence at the slightest provocation and with a cruel disposition towards nearly everyone, particularly his foes who end up in the receiving end of his brutality. Even then, he was known to be a devoted Christian, praying every year on Christmas.

A prideful individual, he has absolute and justified confidence in his fighting ability, being capable of besting several powerful fighters with relative ease and with the strength and fighting skill to back it. An effective leader since a young age, he has been able to capitalize on both his strength and height, greater than that of his peers to exercise power with impunity. Rather than use indiscriminate violence to achieve his goals, Taiju learned how to utilize it in more precise and strategic ways, delivering savage beatings to adversaries in ways that allowed him to garner support, granting him a special kind of charisma. His ability to weaponize brutality is best evidenced on the Black Dragons themselves, whom he was capable of reforging into an extremely dangerous and feared gang of street fighters, giving them a niche as bodyguards for hire for wealthy individuals.

Rivaling Taiju's embracing of violence, is his complicated relationship with his siblings. Taiju regularly engages in physical abuse towards both Yuzuha and Hakkai as a means of raising them and exerting discipline. Taiju hits them and mistreats either of them, over relatively minor offenses such as oversleeping, whenever he feels neither of his siblings lives up to his expectations, or simply because he's in a foul mood, amongst many other instances of abuse for many years. Typical of an abuser, he tends to mix false words of affection and deflection, while denying blame for his actions, and in fact claim that his siblings are responsible for forcing his hand.

In truth, Taiju does love his siblings at heart, but their complicated family circumstances, twists his actions and intentions into a warped sense of caring. Having lost their mother since a young age, and with a mostly absent parent, forced Taiju into the role of caring for his siblings. Feeling alone, fearful and lost about how to best raise Yuzuha and Hakkai caused him to pressure himself to harsh degrees, which coupled with his experience in embracing and utilizing violence as a tool to use in life, interwined in a dangerous mix which transformed Taiju in the sadistic abuser he is known in the present day.

Following his confrontation and defeat against the Tokyo Manji Gang, made Taiju realize the errors of his ways. Having seen Takemichi who through sheer force of will, courage in the face of adversity, and kindness for others despite his weakness at fighting, helped Taiju understand that violence isn't truly the omnipotent solution he believed it to be, as Takemichi was able to change Hakkai and make him stronger as a person, something Taiju failed at. He ultimately bid farewell to his siblings, declaring he was not going to reform, but accepting that violence isn't everything and that he was not needed around either Yuzuha or Hakkai.