Kagekatsu

"Kagekatsu, vowing to give his life to protect Rizna Lanfebit."

- I am a man. I will protect this unfortunate girl at any cost.

About
Kagekatsu is a distinctive Puchi Hanny with formal Samurai attire and attitude that lives in Genbu Castle. It's there that he met Rizna, the lonely girl trapped inside by Genbu's curse. After many years of mental ordeal, Kagekatsu was her first friend and ally in years, and is most likely the main reason she had managed to stay sane throughout her years of confinement. Thanks to him, she became proficient in the use of a naginata, giving her decent warrior abilities to supplement her magic training.

Personality and Appearance
Like other Puchi Hannies, Kagekatsu is a small orange Hanny. However, he can easily be recognized by his samurai persona, as he is always seen wearing a traditional helmet known as a Kabuto, and a fake mustache to make him more intidimating, much like a samurai mask.

He does not only emulate their appearance but their behavior as well, as he displays a strong warrior spirit and a willingness to take any risks to accomplish his goals, in his case the safety and happiness of his ward Rizna. This goal supersedes all others and though it displeases him, he is even willing to terrify her and sacrifice innocents to his cause, as he considers that after all her torments Rizna deserves some form of happy ending.

Kagekatsu is very discerning and clever, being a very good judge of character that easily sees through Rance's heroic tirade and guesses some of his true personality. He also manages to make up different plans on the spot on how best to manipulate those traits to Rizna's advantage all the while constantly emboldening her resolve to escape.

Abilities
Kagekatsu shares most of the abilities of his kind, that is to say the unusual ability to self-destruct in a horrific explosion, but able to reconstruct himself from scratch afterwards. Even without it though, he possesses great knowledge of military posture and skills that he passed on to Rizna while being himself very swift and even somewhat threatening despite his size.

His true skills however are in his leadership abilities and great skill in improvisation, as he manages to easily gather other Puchi Hanny at the drop of a hat to his cause, while also constantly giving advice to a beleaguered and naïve Rizna.

Personal History
Though it is unclear as to why he went to Genbu Castle in the first place, when he first arrived and met Rizna, she had been driven half-mad by her aborted pregnancy and her three years spent as a sex slave. Kagekatsu took pity on the abandoned woman and thanks to his constant support and friendship, she eventually regained her sanity. After learning of how she had been constantly deceived and so was stuck inside the castle, throughout the following years he taught her how to use the naginata, a traditional japanese weapon while slowly convincing her that when humans next arrived, she would have to be the deceiver if she did not want to be the victim once more. He also describes to her the world outside both to give her hope but also to warn her of the trials that lie between her and freedom, namely the Oni Baba and the Murdaruma, terrifying monsters that could prove dangerous to even experienced adventurers (her tormentor had not long survived his escape after all).

During the events of Rance 5D, when Rance, Sill and Athena 2.0 first arrive, he convinces Rizna to deceive Rance and Sill to not say anything about the secret of Genbu Castle, in order to deceive them and make her own escape. After observing them, he guesses many things: that Sill would never accept leaving without Rance, that Rance was a very strong warrior that could prove invaluable in defeating the trials outside the Castle, and that he was extremely sex-driven to the point that he could be convinced to leave Sill behind for a while if Rizna promised him with sex (though he was wrong on a few counts, as he thought that Rance would only do this if he thought she was a virgin, and that he would abandon Rizna if he knew the truth of her predicament, even though Rance abandoning an attractive woman that didn't antagonize him seems... unlikely.)

Kagekatsu explains to Rizna his plan for her to leave with Rance and leave Sill behind, so that they could cross the desert together and defeat the Murdaruma, allowing them to escape to the outside. Though Rizna is initially reticent, as her benevolent nature loathes both the idea of lying to someone else and leaving an innocent to the same fate she suffered, her desire to escape and her trust in Kagekatsu who keeps protecting her from Rance's libido overcomes her hesitation.

Eventually Rance and Rizna escape together as Kagekatsu watches from afar, ensuring that she stays safe and even whispering words of encouragement to her when Rance is distracted. When they reach the ends of the desert as Rizna starts to trust Rance, he realises that she will soon break down and tell him of how Sill is stuck back at the castle, and brutally intervenes by attacking them with the bogus explanation that he was planning on betraying her all along. This "treason" has the intended effect, and Rizna decides that she can no longer trust anyone as even her friend for all these years turned on her.

But when she is cornered by Rance and was forced to admit everything, she grew weary and was willing to let herself be killed by monsters even as she was so close to escape. When Kagekatsu arrives, she tells him that she had eventually guessed his true intentions earlier but that she has grown weary and is disgusted with herself. Kagekatsu thankfully rallies her and convinces her to at the very least go down fighting, making her survive long enough for Rance and company to arrive and help her beat the surrounding monsters.