Gabimaru Husbando

Gabimaru is an elite shinobi assassin formerly from Iwagakure and the last holder of the infamous alias, Gabimaru the Hollow. He is also the husband of Yui, the eighth daughter to the Iwagakure chief. He is the main protagonist of Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku. Gabimaru served as Iwagakure's most infamous shinobi until he was betrayed by his village for wanting to abandon his role as a murderer and live a peaceful life with his wife. This resulted in him being handed over to the authorities to be executed. However, after the shogun calls for death row convicts to compete in acquiring the Elixir of Life from an island believed to be Shinsenkyō in exchange for a pardon for their past crimes, Gabimaru receives an invitation from Yamada Asaemon Sagiri to be a part of the competition and accepts in order to reunite with Yui and live the life he so desired. Gabimaru is a young man with a below-average height. He has white, untamed hair that usually covers the right side of his face, red eyes, and is generally seen with a stoic facial expression. He is shown to be significantly muscular underneath his robe and has noticeable scars from his time in Iwagakure. After his body was negatively influenced by Zhu Jin fusing with the Banko, Gabimaru's appearance became ghastly. His hair started sprouting flowers and had a large dark marking that spread from his left eye. These features were later reduced after he managed to stabilize his Tao, now only having little traces of pink flower petals in his hair and a branch marking across his left eye. Upon being freed from Arborification by Sagiri, Gabimaru's hair became shorter and had his original features returned back. After a year passed, Gabimaru's hair is shown to have slightly grown back to its original volume. He wears the standard Iwagakure shinobi outfit, which consists of a black robe with long sleeves that are frayed, a black tattsuke bakama, and a frayed white sash tied at his waist. He also wears a turtleneck dickey to cover the bottom part of his face as a mask when he is prepared to go into battle. He wears ninja gauntlets and sandals with gaiters tied to his legs. Upon infiltrating Hōrai, the left side of Gabimaru's robe became torn after Ran cleaved his hand down on his shoulder, which was later healed with Flower Tao. He later replaces his robe with a new one from a fallen Iwagakure shinobi. As befitting his alias and reputation, Gabimaru is generally calm and apathetic, a composure he maintains even when faced with danger, such as his various execution sentences or being confronted by well-known death row criminals. After being confronted by Warped Keiun, Gabimaru simply focused on retying the restraints on his hands, as demanded by Sagiri earlier, without paying any mind to the fact that he was being hit by a barrage of attacks from the monk while doing so. As noted by Sagiri, Gabimaru is also a complainer when he is calm. After being told by Sagiri that they would have to travel to Edo first before starting the mission, Gabimaru expressed his disapproval that he couldn't make his way to the island immediately, which had almost cost him the invitation Sagiri offered to him. When the two landed on the island, Gabimaru complained about the restraints being a nuisance and the supplies he was given by the shogun as being useless. He prefers to stick with his main objective at hand and not get tangled with anything else that doesn't involve his goals, finding his fight with Keiun to be a waste of time. Gabimaru also has very poor social skills, as he had trouble interacting with Yui when he first met her and was reprimanded by Sagiri and Yuzuriha for pointing a sword at Mei, as well as later being reprimanded by Gantetsusai for causing her to cry with a gaze that was unintentionally frightening. During his time in Iwagakure, Gabimaru was known and admired by his peers for his cruel and ruthless killings of his victims, having been raised from infancy by Iwagakure's leader to have a complete disregard for life and that sentimentality is a sign of weakness. After suffering from amnesia where he reverted back to his old self as "Gabimaru the Hollow", Gabimaru expressed his bloodlust on how he was going to kill Chōbei after getting into a fight with him and decided to kill Fuchi, Gantetsusai and Mei without question if they were his enemies. When faced with a difficult situation in battle, Gabimaru resorts to falling into a murderous, bloodthirsty state where his only focus is to kill who or whatever gets in his way. In his own opinion, whether he chooses to kill people humanely rather than inhumanely would be irrelevant in the end. As an Iwa shinobi he had followed their principles, such as continuing forward with a mission, defeating his opponents no matter what the tactics were, and that his life had no value if he were to die. His line of work has also made him immune to the sight of death. After being married to Yui, Gabimaru underwent a major change. Even though he was influenced by his leader's words of ridding himself of his emotions to become strong, Gabimaru was also influenced by Yui's kind and caring nature and came to believe in his wife's words that true strength comes from embracing one's emotions. As a result of these words being implanted into a part of his psyche, Gabimaru had managed to regain some of his humanity. This overwrote his cruel nature as a ninja, as he would try to avoid unnecessary killing of human lives. However, when realizing that there is no other way out of it, Gabimaru will make the distasteful decision of killing but would feel grief for the lives he has taken. When around Yui, Gabimaru's affection towards her tends to have him act rather nervous, embarrassed, and even flustered, a side that rarely anyone can bring out of him. He also tries to put in the effort to not act so stoic-like when in her presence but finds this to be a challenge since he has difficulty trying to figure out the right face to make. Upon being resolved by Sagiri to redeem himself as a new man, Gabimaru began to experience, and notice, gradual changes to his behavior, particularly allowing himself to embrace his emotions as the Asaemon had hoped. Even though he had his mission to solely focus on, Gabimaru started to show signs of care and concern for others. As Sagiri was in danger of being attacked by a Sōshin, Gabimaru unconsciously rushes in to save her. He later commits the same action when he steps in to protect Mei from the Dōshi, saying that he could not bear to see her cry, along with wanting to repay a debt he owes her after she helped him escape from Zhu Jin's wrath. Gabimaru also broke out of his calm composure and showed genuine anger after hearing the Dōshi talk about Mei as if she was an object. After hearing Mei's wish on wanting to see Rien and Jofuku before leaving the island to start a new life, Gabimaru vowed to do whatever he could to make it happen when the time came to infiltrate Hōrai. Gabimaru also came to understand what it means to feel sympathy, having understood the great lengths the surviving criminals and Asaemons had to endure in order to get past Lord Tensen and escape the island alive. After realizing that Rien was the wife of Jofuku, Gabimaru could not bring himself to destroy her husband's gilded body, since he knew what it was like to love someone dearly, and smiled as he explained his reason to her, which allowed the Tensen to accept Jofuku's passing. Through all his experience on the island, Gabimaru had come to completely reject the teachings of Iwagakure and allowed himself to break out of his emotionless shell. In the process, Gabimaru became able to smile and laugh genuinely for the first time in his life. Although he can be obnoxious at times (mainly viewed by Sagiri), he can be quite considerate to others at the same time. Back when he was with his wife, he advised her not to cover her scar with her hair, telling her that appearances don't matter, and did not want her to see him with a bloody face since he thought it might scare her. He later gave the same advice to Mei which caused her to see the good in Gabimaru. Because he learned basic customs from Yui, Gabimaru would show his gratitude to whoever helped him. He thanked Yuzuriha's team for freeing his head from one of the Sōshin's tentacles and praised Sagiri for her strength as well as thanking her for helping him find his resolve. Gabimaru is also a very faithful husband and is immune to seduction as he did not give into Yuzuriha's advances when she attempted to have him work with her. He is also a terrible liar.