Shizuku Yaegashi

Shizuku Yaegashi is a main character from the "Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest" series. She is the best friend of Kaori Shirasaki and the childhood friend of Kouki Amanogawa and Ryutarou Sakagami. After both Eri's betrayal and Hiyama's death, Shizuku (along with Ryutarou, Suzu and Kouki) traveled with Hajime Nagumo and his companions to clear the last remaining of the Great Labyrinths to kill Ehit. After Ehit's demise and having returned to Japan, Shizuku became one of Hajime Nagumo’s wives. Shizuku is an exceptionally beautiful young woman to the point she is considered a goddess in school alongside her best friend Kaori with waist-length black hair that is usually tied up in a ponytail with bangs hanging over her forehead and red eyes. She has a trained yet curvy body. Even Kaori noted she had never seen a girl as pretty as Shizuku when they first met. Shizuku's beauty is also notably more mature compared to Kaori due to her tall height and well-endowed figure to the point Gahard a womanizer Emperor is deeply infatuated with Shizuku. Shizuku is a hardworking, kind and caring girl who passes her time on practicing her swordsmanship. She is regarded as a cool and stoic beauty, but actually has a girlish side that likes cute things, such as the color pink, as well as cute animals like cats and bunnies. She has often hid her true feelings and would put up a brave face, as a front so other people did not worry about her. In the Frost Caverns of Schnee, it is revealed that Shizuku didn't originally want to learn swordsmanship and only practiced it so that so that she wouldn't betray her family's expectations and be praised them for her talent. This lead her to suppress her girly nature, which included her dreams of being a princess and falling in love with a prince who would always save her. Due to this, she harbors a degree of dissatisfaction due to being unable to act as a normal girl and her constantly being forced to look after others instead of having someone take care of her. After falling in love with Hajime, she has come to terms with those feelings. Shizuku has an extreme aversion towards bugs, such cockroaches, as demonstrated in the final trial of the Haltina Labyrinth, or her frightened reaction towards Hajime's Arachnae golems. Since her childhood, Shizuku is extremely sharp and wise with an excellent grasp of people's subtleties and relationships. Her kind and compassionate personality won't let her ignore trouble around her giving her a lot of hardships. She's also very smart and capable enough to process things without much explanation which impressed even Hajime Nagumo. Cattleya considered Shizuku to be the brain's of Kouki's party and the most dangerous because she could calmly analyze every situation and come up with an optimal solution, unlike Kouki, who simply charges into a situation without thinking while also letting his emotions control his actions. One of Shizuku's most notable traits is her loyalty towards her friends or people she finds interesting. She stayed as Kouki's childhood friend despite her desire to cut ties for the sake of avoiding the bullying of other girls that were in love with him and would try to steer him on the right path when his habit of interpreting things to his own convenience would lead him astray. In the case of Kaori, she would always try to help her whether it was protecting her or helping her in her pursuit of Hajime's feelings. She even attempted to help Hajime when their classmates would try to bully him and scorn him as she sympathized with his situation due it being similar to her own in the past. After Hajime fell into the Abyss, Shizuku promised Kaori that she would help save him or at least allow Kaori to see his fate despite doubting his survival. Unlike Kouki, Shizuku did not blame Hajime for not warning them earlier of Ehit's true nature as an evil god that led to Eri and Hiyama's betrayal and subsequently the deaths of Meld, Nia, Kondou and the near destruction of Heiligh Kingdom by the Demon's invasion. Like her teacher Aiko, Shizuku agreed with Hajime's views of how Kouki would never accept it and even angrily deny Hajime's warning due to his misguided justice and bad habit of twisting and interpreting things to his own convenience, and also agreed with Hajime's harsh but correct criticism that he is not obliged to specially put in extra efforts just to suit their convenience and that it is their own carelessness and naivety to blame that they have all nearly died by Eri's treachery. Unlike Kouki who still stubbornly tried to pin the blame on Hajime. Shizuku held tremendous love for her family and having an unbreakable family bond with Shuuzou, Kouichi and Kirino who would celebrate wholeheartedly whenever Shizuku achieved something. Shizuku took to heart all of her grandfather and parents teachings and philosophy, such as treating all disciples of the Yaegashi Dojo as foster family, never abandoning them no matter who much trouble they caused or became lost and misguided such as Kouki. Shizuku had started diligently practicing Yaegashi-ryu martial arts and swordsmanship solely out of family love and not wanting to disappoint her family's expectations. She even went as far as to suppress her true desires to be a normal, feminine girl. Due to her bond with her family, Shizuku was the first to sympathize with Hajime's desire to return back home to Japan for a family reunion with Shuu and Sumire, even if it means abandoning the people of Tortus to their own fates under the Evil God Ehit's malicious oppression. As she correctly guessed that it is Hajime's love for his family that drives his will to fight and survive in Tortus. As during the trip to Verbergen, Shizuku tried to get Kouki to sympathize with Hajime, telling Kouki he cannot force his idealistic justice upon Hajime as what drives Hajime to overcome countless experiences of brutal suffering and hardships ever since he fell into the depths of the Great Orcus Labyrinth, is not a grand and noble desire for justice, but for the sake of the people he loved, including the girls in his harem. Due to her exceptional wisdom and emotional intelligence, Shizuku is generally one of the most realistic among her classmates. Unlike the idealistic Kouki, optimistic Ryutarou and the oblivious Kaori, Shizuku usually acts as the voice of reason and caution among her class instead of blindly rushing in. Out of all her classmates, Shizuku was one of the only two who immediately knew the full gravity of their situation after they were summoned to Tortus to help fight for Humanity's survival against the Demon Race. Unlike the majority of her friends and other classmates who were swept up in the glamor of having been summoned to another world and being praised by the natives of Tortus, Shizuku immediately figured out that they would soon face the prospect of taking the lives of other sentient beings, and understood that they will likely have to do so in mass, due to now being involved in a war. While she was shocked when Hajime killed Cattleya, she knew she didn't have the right to judge him for his actions because she understood the situation, unlike Kouki who couldn't accept what Hajime had done, even though he had no right to complain after already failing. She even resolved herself to be ready to kill her enemies to better protect her friends, knowing full well it would make her a murderer. Due to her more realistic worldview, as well as her previous cordial relationship with Hajime in Japan, she often took over the role of meditating conflicts between the Hero party's members, especially Kouki and Hajime, due to their clashing outlooks and worldviews. Despite her kindness, wisdom and patience in taking care of her friends, Shizuku's tolerance ultimately has limits, when Kouki gave into Eri's brainwashing to escape the reality of his failures and mistakes, stubbornly clinged to his delusions and blaming Hajime even after being freed of the brainwashing, Shizuku violently slapped Kouki non-stop, venting all the years of her pent up frustration towards Kouki's childish and misguided righteousness, angrily criticized all of Kouki's irresponsible and delusional behaviour as a spoiled brat who refused to face reality. When Kaori was trying to learn about anime and manga to get closer to Hajime, Shizuku got dragged into it by Kaori. This made her surprisingly knowledgeable about them herself. She even came to understand an otaku's greatest weakness: they develop many embarrassing chunni habits that haunt them forever. Using this knowledge, she was able to bring Hajime to his knees by threatening to spread all kinds of chunni nicknames about him around Tortus and Japan if he didn't treat Kaori nicely.