Katashiro

Katashiro (カタシロ) is the mediator of Akihabara.

Appearance
Katashiro is a slender man who dresses casually, wearing a loose checkered black shirt, loose trousers bunched up at their cuffs, and sandals in addition to a right ankle bracelet and a double necklace. Over these he wears a long white robe that reaches his mid-thighs; its black-lined sleeves end just above his elbows, allowing the checkered cuffs of his shirt to be seen. Attached to each robe pocket (or at least the usual vicinity of pockets) is a patterned ribbon; there are two in total. The bottom of the left trouser sleeve sports a spiral design that resembles an ocean wave as well as blossom prints.

To conceal his head, he always keeps the robe’s hood up and wears a snarling mask. Covering the mask is a long white cloth with black-and-red markings and the kanji【遊戯（·）昧】. The cloth is draped over the hood and extends down Katashiro's back.

Personality
Katashiro is constantly lost in his own thoughts, which are casually worded and peppered with youthful slang that contrasts others' perception of him as a man of intimidating poise. Between his entertainment-based hobbies and his mediator duties (or other 'real life' affairs), he treats the former with far more care and importance than the latter, which he distances himself from; the other mediators and their entourages are, in his mind, "like, totes s-p-o-o-k-y." Similarly, Katashiro objects to being compared with Lemmings due to the pressure the comparison puts on him. Katashiro's nerves around the other mediators and lack of knowledge about local affairs feed Katashiro's concerns about "looking cool" in front of the peer group. Caring about appearances makes Katashiro sympathetic to people put in embarrassing situations.

Katashiro's perpetually concealed face, situational reticence, and short, ambiguous statements lend Katashiro a mysterious air that leaves much to the imagination of others. His colleagues respect him, his and their underlings assume the best of him, and his cautious acquaintances beware him; because they all presume Katashiro is exceptionally competent, they interpret his ambiguous statements according to their preconceived presumptions.

Although these interpretations are sometimes wrong, they are always to Katashiro's benefit. Reticence and ambiguity, when not strategies Katashiro uses to disguise his ignorance are—like said ignorance—natural consequences of Katashiro failing to pay attention to the world around him.

Background
As the mediator of Akihabara, Katashiro is in occasional contact with fellow mediators including: Lisa Kuraki (Shinjuku), Gioacchino Soldati (Ikebukuro), Rushia "Andalucía" Andou (Roppongi), and Kuon Higuro (Shibuya).

Presumably prior to Corpse God's reincarnation, Katashiro works closely enough with The Grocer, whose shop he knows as Amagase, to consider him his right-hand man and one of his people. The Grocer is eventually incarcerated, and he and Katashiro go for some time without mutual contact. When this contactless period begins relevant to Grocer’s incarceration, or whether it is related at all, has yet to be explained.

Months before Katashiro and Grocer reestablish contact, a youth fad about exploring abandoned sites gains traction in Shinjuku and Shibuya. At least thirty people go missing during the last six months alone. What turns the trend into a full-blown “Corpse Hunt Challenge” craze among the youth and content creator communities alike is a video in which the YouTuber Great General Eaves offers a reward for information on a YouTuber friend that went missing while exploring a site. Although optimism about the friend’s survival dwindles over the ensuing months, the challenge’s popularity does not. Katashiro and his crew begin receiving requests to find some of the missing persons, with Katashiro remaining oblivious as to the challenges themselves. Two livestreamers who go missing in the most recent month, cohosts of YouTube channel Zukuzuku-Bonbon, are Akihabara locals.

Shibuya's Successor
When Higuro disappears without notice, Katashiro and his fellow mediators are summoned to interview the replacement Shibuya candidate: Yumeji Agakura. Katashiro is one of the first to arrive at the conference building but lacks the entourage or bodyguards of Andalucía or Lisa, Roppongi's and Shinjuku's respective mediators, which he regrets once he sees that everyone else is armed. He keeps quiet and busies himself with his oolong tea while the women discuss Lisa's reversal on Polka Shinoyama's life. Neither they nor their entourages notice him, nor Gioacchino and his entourage when they file into the meeting room; only once Katashiro speaks on Polka's bounty does everyone realize he is present and then assume he just arrived.

Katashiro fades back into the background for the remainder of the three mediators' conversation, remaining silent even when Andalucía murders her own underling. He is only paying rote attention by the time Yumeji arrives and is asked to explain Agakura's involvement in kidnapping Lisa's man on Higuro's behalf and in Higuro's subsequent disappearance—so, when he draws everyone's attention by laughing at an intrusive memory Solitaire's deepfake video using Higuro’s likeness, he is confused by Yumeji's rigid demeanor. More out of sympathy for Higuro than for Yumeji, Katashiro says that he believes the Agakuras are not responsible for Higuro's disappearance.

Solitaire is brought up later when Kana Agakura claims that Lisa's bodyguard Misaki Sakimiya—who rescued Lisa’s man from and injured Momoya Agakura—is, in addition to having Majiri Agakura's favor, an alleged pupil of Solitaire. Impressed, Katashiro lapses into wondering where he has seen Misaki before and misses Lisa's subsequent hint about the Agakura's connection to a Shinoyama guard, though Andalucía and Gioacchino are not as oblivious.

The meeting adjourns once Yumeji is confirmed as Higuro's successor, though Gioacchino, Katashiro, and Yumeji linger while Andalucía attempts to spite Lisa by invoking Miyabi Hosorogi's name. Katashiro calls Andalucía out on and warns her against such obvious provocation, reminding her that this conference was intended to be a peaceful one. Although Andalucía cannot resist a final barb at the expense of Lisa's humanity, she desists before any tensions can be enflamed anew.

Katashiro exits the building and heads toward an alley, overhearing as he does Momoya whisper to two Youtokorou patrollers that Katashiro is rumored to be on par with Lemmings. The comparison bothers Katashiro so much that he dwells on it even when several men ambush him in the alleyway's depths; in the same minutes he is dispatching the men with brutal ease, he frets about how frightening the other mediators are. His appetite whetted, he asks a covertly watching Gioacchino—who arranged the ambush—if his restaurant is still open. Gioacchino replies that it is fully booked. Katashiro advises that Gioacchino clean up the corpses before he continues on his way, hopeful that he can still grab a bite to eat at one of Akihabara's ninja cafés.

Corpse Hunt Challenge
The next day finds Katashiro peering at an assortment of keychains displayed in a storefront window near Akihabara Station's Atre 1 exit. The keychains feature illustrations that he recognizes as fanart from a website. His entourage attributes his pensiveness to the requests that they have been receiving about finding missing 'corpse hunters.’ This is the first Katashiro has heard of "'corpse hunts' [being] a thing." Much more horrifying, however, is the prospect of 'fake merchandise posing as official merchandise' becoming a thing in Akihabara—and therefore a ‘’national-level evil.’’ Katashiro instructs his entourage to put him in contact with Amagase.

Upon acquiring a tiny walkie talkie, Katashiro retires to a rooftop for privacy, remarks to Amagase that they have not spoken in a long while, and heavily insinuates that Grocer should know why he is calling. Grocer, who states that Amagase is no longer his shop's name, advises that Katashiro must act tonight if he wants to get ahead of the police, Shinjuku, and Shibuya's joint effort to tackle the corpse hunts.

Katashiro droops, for the corpse hunts were not at all why he was calling—so, in the name of rewarding customer loyalty, Grocer generously promises to locate the fake merchandise sellers gratis.

The call ends. Filled with utter gratitude for his "former comrade" and "bosom buddy," Katashiro somersaults with glee in front of his onlooking entourage. He proposes that they accompany him to one of the abandoned sites.

Later that day, Katashiro takes the metro to the outskirts of Shibuya and walks from the station to Arataya General Hospital, the site where the Zukuzuku-Bonbon YouTubers went missing. Once the hospital is in sight, he hesitates, recalling the other mediators' frowning upon meddling in each other's territory during last night's meddling. Meddling here despite the no-meddling policy would surely arouse the Shibuya mediator's suspicions, Katashiro deduces (paraphrased), pleased with himself for such breathtaking insight.

Katashiro decides to proceed for the sake of the missing livestreamers despite knowing nothing about them. He is so busy thinking about the cosplay of a livestreamer whose content he does watch—Proppen—that he neglects to look before he leaps over the fence of the hospital's backyard, consequently landing in the midst of hostile armed men. These men he remembers as belonging to Higuro's entourage so, in a quick-thinking attempt to quell their antagonism, he asks them to pass along a message to the new Agakura mediator. This antagonizes them immediately. A man raises his handgun, which Katashiro snatches and uses to shoot the thigh of his nearest comrade. "Typical Shibuya," he says. "Always have the newest toys."

Rather than wait to determine whether the men are buying his tough guy act, Katashiro acts the tough guy by charging them first. While he fights, he glumly supposes that he had tried to avoid a entirely one-sided misunderstanding. These pro-Higuro men are anti-Agakura and believe he is pro-Agakura because he acknowledged and thus legitimized Higuro's Agakura successor. Well, in that case, he was pro-Agakura and concomitantly the men's enemy from the very beginning, so his acting otherwise had been pointless and embarrassing. ''Great! I'm so unhappy!'' So are the men, who seem to also believe that Agakura sent Katashiro to the hospital, meaning Agakura knows exactly what is going on.

Katashiro does not know what is going on—yet, at least—but what he does know is that increasing the body count is a bad idea; too many bodies means calling in the cleaners, and that almost certainly means a turf war. No, he cannot risk it. Not after "pushing it" with Gioacchino's ambush(ers) the other day. He runs toward the doors and several men give chase, shooting at one when he shoots back. Another man says that it must be true after all that Katashiro allied with Agakura to make Higuro disappear.

This is not true, yet Katashiro playfully entertains the idea of a whistleblower riling the men up. Clearly some sort of 'whistleblower' did whistle the rumor their way; it just so happens that the whistler is a damn liar whistling lies. But who blew the whistle? Katashiro is "like, ninety percent sure it's Gioacchino..." though he does not say so, and he scolds himself for jumping from a prejudiced springboard to a prejudiced conclusion. He is one hundred percent sure that extending the gunfight will risk drawing too much attention, so he escapes the men by parkouring up the walls to the roof of the hospital, where a lad talking of a sanctuary manipulates what looks like a magic circle, whatever they are and whoever the lad may be. One of Higuro's guys too—?

The lad whips to face Katashiro despite Katashiro's lack of noise—and that, Katashiro realizes, is that one face from that one bounty notice. The ¥500,000,000 face of... "Polka Shinoyama," he says, whose suddenly taut expression betrays this as true.

Trivia

 * Katashiro suspects that he has seen Kana Agakura somewhere before.
 * Katashiro believes that it is 'hardcore' for someone to be apprenticed to Phantom Solitaire.
 * Rumors suggest that Katashiro is on par with Lemmings. Katashiro objects that he is nothing like a 'monster' who can shrug off bullets and says "equating [them is] only going to make [himself] feel the pressure, like, for real."
 * Katashiro claims to be familiar with horror game livestreamers like the Great General Eaves and the cosplayer Proppen, yet seems ignorant of the "corpse hunt trend" despite Eaves having kickstarted it with a viral video. It may simply be that Katashiro is only familiar with Eaves' channel in name, that he missed the video, or that he follows Eaves exclusively for his horror games livestreams and ignores his other content.
 * Katashiro resembles Yakumo Amagiri, another exceptionally strong combatant character of Ryohgo Narita's. Both dominate mobs of attackers so effortlessly in combat that they tend to be more preoccupied with their self-conscious internal monologues than with the fights at hand. Moreover, each's self-consciousness stems from how each is perceived by others. Where Yakumo obsesses over being perceived as normal and rationalizes his actions and thoughts as normal, Katashiro and rationalizes his action s mutually stemmed stems  Yakumo obsesses about rationalizing his actions as normal, Katashiro frets about being perceived as 'cool' and second-guesses the personas he sometimes adopts in specific situations.