| Tetsuhito Kagiroi | |
|---|---|
| Tenjho Tenge character | |
Tetsuhito Kagiroi in the manga |
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| First appearance | Volume 12, Page 82 |
| Created by | Oh! great |
Tetsuhito Kagiroi (炬 鉄人 Kagiroi Tetsuhito) is a character in the Japanese manga series Tenjho Tenge. He is a member of F.
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Tetsuhito is the current head of the Kagiroi family and one of Sōhaku Kago’s most trusted subordinates. Despite his young appearance, Tetsuhito is several hundred years old. He has been kept alive and young by Sohaku, who has the power to control death. He usually seen carrying a large machete like sword with him.
He is a descendant of the great warrior nicknamed, Susa.[1] Susa fathered a child with either the wife or daughter of leader of metal workers that he had recently slain. She attempted suicide by drinking iron sand, but no matter how much she drank she did not die until she gave birth to the child. Since then, it has been a Kagiro family tradition for the women to nightly drink iron sand. This gives birth to the family's Iron Bodies.
Tetsuhito's birth happened in an unusual way, as his mother was forced by Sōhaku to swallow a bomb while he was still in the womb. This resulted in her whole upper torso getting blown apart, despite this Tetsuhito survived.[2]
Tetsuhito longs for a worthy opponent, he even thanks God when he comes to the conclusion Masataka Takayanagi is worthy. He has no problem killing anyone, but he claims he won't enjoy if the opponent is weak. He doesn't have much of a moral code as he will beat a woman nearly to death, will attack before an opponent is ready, and will kill people without warning if they seem to be a threat to Sohaku. At the same time, however, he does show some kind of honor as he actually heals Masataka, after he saves everyone. He also seemed to respect the fact that Masataka saved both his enemies and his allies. He seems fairly good at sizing up his opponents, and despite his age has no problems incorporating technology into his fighting. He is pretty observant, or at least more so than Katsumi Kabuto.
All the women in the Kagiroi family drink iron sand, as a result, the members of this family have blood and skin like iron. In general, most blades just bounce of Tetsuhito as a result, even the inactivated Reiki can't cut Tetsuhito. It appears the most it can manage is to burn him. However, Tetsuhito's body is no match for the "true blade" of Reiki.
After Sohaku deemed Makiko Nagi’s body too weak to handle her dragon, Sōhaku transferred the knowledge of the powers into her left eye, then removed it and implanted it in Tetsuhito. This combined with an acupuncture-based spell allowed him to use all the powers Makiko had stolen with her Dragon's Fist.[3] Thus Tetsuhito has nearly all the dragon gates the only exception is the Natsume family's Dragon's Eye. Because of the acupuncture spell, whenever he uses a gate, a pattern appears on his body. Another side effect of the spell is the fact that in the dark one can actually see the ki flowing throughout his body.[4] By seeing the ki flow and with enough knowledge of the gates, someone can predict what power he is about to use.
To account for the visible ki weakness, Tetsuhito employs technology to confuse his opponents and make him harder to read. He uses small orbs that project holographic duplicates of himself. If the images are disturbed the orbs explode.
Tetsuhito was never animated as the anime didn't precede that far. He appears solely in the manga, and gets little attention until his fight with Maya Natsume. It is revealed that the Takayanagi Family has historically been supported by the 12 founding families. Mitsuomi's takeover disturbed this setup, displacing most of the family heads. A new alliance has formed with the assistance of Sōhaku, calling itself 'F'. Tetsuhito is a member of F, and like the majority of F, he holds allegiance to Sōhaku instead of Mitsuomi.
Tetsuhito first appears after Tessen Ishiyumi fights and loses to Souichiro Nagi. He walks into the hospital and heals Ishiyumi injuries through the use of the Hotaru Family’s Dragon's Palm. He later showed up with Katsumi observing the undead Fu Chi'en's assault on the Juken Club. After Masataka defeats Fu Chien by crushing the amulets in his eye sockets and stopping him from wiping everyone else out in the process, Tetsuhito comes down to confront him. Despite the fact Masataka is his enemy; Tetsuhito uses his Dragon's Palm to heal Masataka and Madoka Mawari. Fu Chien, released from Sōhaku’s jutsu, regains his sanity and thanks Masataka. He claims that he will kill the people that brought him back to life to control him. After this statement, Fu Chien is killed by Tetsuhito, who uses one of his dragon's gates to somehow hit Fu Chien from a distance by stomping the ground.[5] Exactly which family’s power he uses is never said. He shows an interest in Masataka, referring to him as a worthy opponent; however, he and Katsumi end up retreating because it was an unprepared fight in the city and they didn’t want to deal with the police.
Tetsuhito appears again later as Maya, Mitsuomi, and Madoka, go to rescue Souichiro and kill Sōhaku. During Tetsuhito initial attack on Maya, she breaks 2-3 of her ribs.[6] Despite Souichiro and Mitsuomi's objections Maya tells them to go ahead and that she can beat Tetsuhito, because Makiko told her Tetsuhito's weaknesses. However, Maya neglects to mention that Makiko explicitly told her she shouldn’t fight Tetsuhito because she can't beat him.[7] Tetsuhito claims he was ordered to detain only Maya and Reiki because Sōhaku fears Reiki’s power. As for the Mitsuomi, Souichiro, and Madoka they are not seen as any threat to Sōhaku without Reiki.
Initially Maya could avoid Tetsuhito’s attacks by watching his ki moving through his body in the dark cave and predicting them. Tetsuhito seemed humored by the fact that Maya researched him, but told her Makiko's information is eight years old and he has improved himself over those years. He now incorporates technology into his fights. Mainly through the uses Hologram bombs, which project images of himself and if the image is broken it triggers the bomb.
Maya swings for Tetsuhito's neck with Reiki, and he doesn't even bother to dodge as Reiki's blade just bounces off his iron body. Being bored with the fight, Tetsuhito continually hits Maya with his iron fist until he felt that she was dead. When he tries to take Reiki from her hands, he concludes rigor mortis has set in so he would have to chop her wrist off. Suddenly Reiki starts to activate and burns Tetsuhito’s hands. This should be impossible as Maya doesn't have the Dragon’s Eye like her siblings. As Maya awakes, she claims her brother Shin Natsume kicked her back from the river styx.[8] Maya soon realizes the ki is not Shin’s, but Aya’s. Aya states that Reiki called to her to tell her that Maya was in trouble.[9] Using her Dragon’s Eye she was able to astral project herself and activate Reiki. Even with Reiki activated, Tetsuhito is able to stop the blade. Using her elemental power, Maya alters her necktie into a wooden blade and stabs Tetsuhito in the left eye, which was transplanted from Makiko.
Since his left eye was Makiko's, it is the key to regulate all his dragon gates. Without it, Tetsuhito loses control of his powers. He blindly reaches for Maya, she just leans to the side out of the way, but without control of his power even a miss shatters her arm.[10] Maya tries to block the next series of punches with Reiki, the brunt of the blows is actually taken by Aya who is shielding her sister. In her desperation after Aya loses consciousness, Maya offers Reiki her life if it will help her to defeat Tetsuhito. During the fight, Tetsuhito’s attacks appear to be causing Reiki to crack. Eventually the blade’s gold casing shatters altogether, and Reiki’s true blade is revealed. With Reiki’s true blade revealed, Maya easily cuts through Tetsuhito's iron body. She splits his arm in half long-ways, and then kills him by severing his torso.
As Reiki shows Aya the events of the past through her Dragon's Eye, she sees events in Feudal Japan. Aya's ancestor was part of an alliance of other 12 Founding Family Heads that attempted to kill Sohaku. They seem to succeed, but Tetsuhito makes an appearance near the end of the arc with Noriko Shindayuu Inue. He smashes his way into Ieyasu Tokugawa's chamber, clearing the path for Noriko. He subsequently slices Ieyasu in half, as Noriko inserts Sohaku's eye into Tokuan Shōjō's body (who was impersonating Sohaku at the time) allowing Sohaku to take control of Tokuan's body.
As Sohaku forces the other family heads into a stalemate, Tetsuhito plays the role of executing any one who objects or gets in the way. As a result Sohaku was able to take control of the government.
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