Gozuki

Gozuki was the leader of the newly-formed assassination squad of the Empire, the Elite Seven, which appears in the prequel series Akame Ga Kill!: Zero.

Appearance
Gozuki was a middle-aged man with blond hair and green eyes. He had a small beard. He wore a white shirt with black pants and a red scarf.

Personality
Gozuki was a prideful and ambitious man. He was a very strict teacher and sometimes even a cruel one, as seen when he purposely separated Akame from her sister Kurome, despite their protests, and made Akame kill Martha. His main reason for his actions being that he didn't want children in his group to rely too much on each other and that he wanted to make his pupils the best possible killers. He also claimed that he wouldn't forgive his adopted children if they failed their tasks. He constantly strives to make them stronger, both physically and mentally.

However, despite his initial professional stance on remaining detached from his "children" emotionally, he still seemed to have genuinely developed a sense of care and love for them, seeing as how he regretted Cornelia's death and reprimanded Guy for his overconfidence. He even noted to himself that the entire selection and training process was harsh. His pupils in turn return these affection in varying degree's. Later, upon Natala, Kurome and Gin joining the seven, Gozuki was also shown to have developed a level of paternal affection for them as well; this is seen where he was enraged upon seeing Gin's mutilated body at the hand of Merraid Oarburgh and later admitted that he also now saw the newcomers as his "kids" as well.

However, he is still not above using both emotional and psychological manipulation in order to insure their loyalty to the Empire and was not above using their sense of paternal love for him in order to accomplish this.

Later upon his death at the hands of Akame, Gozuki reveals that he truly and genuinely loved the original Elite Seven members as his own children and genuinely regretted the fact that he couldn't tell them his true feelings beforehand and later expresses that he didn't deserve to die seeing his "children" due to knowing full well the amoral and cruel things he had done to them, showing that he truly did love them.

History
Gozuki was responsible for the development of the members of the group, honing their skills in battle and teaching them to be competent assassins for the Empire. Eight years prior to the start of the series, he gathered an estimated 100 children in Gifnora Forest inhabited by Danger Beasts, seven of the strongest survivors of this test would become his students. He refers to his trainees as his children, and they called him "Father" in return. He also gave each of them a Shingu and later assigned them a human target to kill during their first mission. These targets were purposely selected to be difficult opponents for their respective member of the Elite Seven.

Later, he comes to the aid of Green, Guy, and Najasho who were being overwhelmed by Babara. He orders them to retreat and fights Babara by himself. It is then that Gozuki is revealed to be one of the Rakshasa Demons. During the battle with Babara, he demonstrates great skill with Murasame which he used in combination with his body manipulation. During the fight, he manages to inflict a small cut on Babara's body and explains Murasame's abilities to her. Babara then detonates her own body, but Gozuki and his pupils are unharmed.

Gozuki later orders the Elite Seven to investigate the Tombs in search of a Teigu. He agrees with Akame's suggests capturing a gravekeeper to gather more info. He also warns Green to watch over Akame to prevent her from doing anything rash. Later, he comes along with the Elite Seven when they enter the gravekeeper's tombs.

After the battle on the Tombs that only four Elite Seven members remaining make it out alive, he requested to recuperate its strength by transferring the surviving original member of the Group of Terror into Elite Seven. He also notes that Akame and Kurome will be the strongest assassins if they are working together as siblings.

Equipment and Skills
Gozuki was a very strong and formidable fighter, having been a member of the Four Rakshasa Demons and placed as the leader and trainer for the Elite Seven and as such has displayed superhuman levels of strength, speed, reflexes, endurance, and durability that allows him to easily slaughter hordes of opponents easily. Gozuki has also displayed superhuman levels of senses as seen when he was able to easily sense odorless poison smoke was poisonous due to his skin feeling "prickly".

Due to him primarily spending his time in the wild, hunting Danger Beasts, Gozuki has shown to possess immensely sharp senses and instincts, allowing him to immediately detect when someone is spying or following him.

Hand to Hand Combat
Due to being one of the Four Rakshasa Demons, it's likely that Gozuki was also trained in the Imperial Fist Temple and as such possess extremely high skills in hand to hand combat that allows him to easily kill skilled opponents unarmed. Gozuki, like the other Four Rakshasa Demons, has also displayed the skill to immediately instinctively detect and identify spies and other people who operate in the shadows by simply looking at their body language, eyes and facial expressions despite them being immensely skilled in acting as seen when he was able to easily find and identify Revolutionary Spies, Underworld informants and the information operatives who worked for the Oarburgh Clan without difficulty.

Body Manipulations
Due to having been one of the Four Rakshasa Demons, Gozuki had also devoured the Kraken Broth of the Imperial Fist Temple and as such gained the unique ability to freely manipulate his body in a variety of unique ways in order to use as deadly weapons in battle. So far Gozuki has displayed the ability to stretch and elongate his arms and legs to extend the reach of his kicks, punches and sword swings, the ability to sharpen, manipulate and increase the hair growth in both his body and scalp in order to use them to stab and kill his opponents, the ability to stretch and sharpen his tongue for sneak attacks, the ability to sharpen and extend both his finger and toe nails to become as sharp as blades in order to stab and pierce his opponents and the ability to stretch and bend his torso in order to avoid being stabbed and shot in his vitals.

Swordsmanship
As he was the one who trained both Najasho and Akame in the use of the sword and being the wielder of Murasame, Gozuki was immensely skilled and lethal in the usage of the sword, having fully incorporated his swordsmanship with his bodies unique abilities to easily overpower and contend with dangerous opponents such as Merraid Oarburgh, who herself was forced to pull out all of her power to beat him and in the end had to resort to her cunning and the advantage of him not knowing the full extend of her Wrigglers abilities to catch him by surprise and push him back, the latter of whom was genuinely surprise at the amount of effort it took to fight him, further confirming Gozuki's skills.

Teigu
Gozuki was the wielder for the One-Cut Killer: Murasame, a Teigu that had the power to kill by simply inflicting a single cut on its victims. Gozuki used this weapon to its fullest extent and had successfully killed multiple powerful opponents, such as Babara Oarburgh and Gilberda of the Oarburgh Clan using the sword's special ability.

Other Skills
Due to having trained all seven members of the Elite Seven in each of their unique fighting styles, Gozuki is also likely skilled in many other fields of combat that he trained the Elite Seven in (Sharpshooting, Whip-Combat, Wrestling, etc.).

Trivia

 * Despite being her biological father, Gozuki had no part in his biological daughter's, Mez, upbringing and was noted to have instead left her in the care of the Imperial Fist Temple instead.

Gozuki Гозуки