DESCENDANTS OF DARKNESS

Asato Tsuzuki is a 'Guardian of Death' for over 70 years. He has the power to call upon twelve shikigami, mythical creatures that aid him in battle. The manga portrays Tsuzuki's relationship with the shikigami in much more detail. Tsuzuki is the senior partner of the Second Division, which watches over the region of Kyūshū.

In the anime, the story begins when Chief Konoe, the boss, and the other supporting characters begin talking about murders happening in Nagasaki. The victims all have bite marks and a shortage of blood, which leads to the case being dubbed "The Vampire Case".

After some food troubles, Tsuzuki travels to Nagasaki with Gushoshin, a flying creature/helper who can speak, and together they do a bit of investigating. The rule is that Guardian of Death are supposed to work in pairs, and until Tsuzuki meets up with his new partner, he needs someone to watch him. However, Gushoshin gets held back by groceries, and Tsuzuki is on his own again.

While exploring Nagasaki, Tsuzuki hears a scream and has a literal run-in with a strange woman, who leaves blood on his collar. Coming to the conclusion that this is a sign that the woman might be a vampire, Tsuzuki tries to follow her, coming into a church called Oura Cathedral. The church scene is the first encounter between Tsuzuki and the antagonist of the story, Muraki.

Doctor Kazutaka Muraki is painted as a pure figure in his first scene, with much religious and color symbolism. He meets Tsuzuki with tears in his eyes, and Tsuzuki, a bit thrown off by this, manages only to ask if Muraki has seen a woman go by. Tsuzuki leaves when Muraki says no one has been in the church.

From there, Tsuzuki continues through Nagasaki, into the area of the city known as Glover Garden, where he is held at gunpoint from behind and told not to move. His attacker tells him to turn around, and when he does, he discovers a young man glaring at him. Tsuzuki calls him a kid and is nearly shot, saved only by his helper, Gushoshin. From there, Tsuzuki learns that the boy is Hisoka Kurosaki, his new partner, and the rest of the story is heavily based on character development and the relationships between characters.

Later in the Nagasaki Arc (the first fourth of the anime series, and the first collection of the manga), Hisoka gets kidnapped by Muraki, and the truth about his death is revealed to him. Tsuzuki rescues him after his "date" with Muraki, and the entire series begins following the relationship between these three characters, supported and embellished by the rest of the cast. Later in the series, Hisoka decides he wants to capture a shikigami for himself, creatures that live in the imaginary world that help Guardian of Death in battle.

The City of Nagasaki is shown throughout the series. Many tourist sites such as The Peace Memorial, Glover Garden, and Oura Cathedral are shown.

Asato Tsuzuki

Asato Tsuzuki (都筑 麻斗 Tsuzuki Asato?), voiced by Dan Green (English), and Shinichiro Miki (Japanese), is the main protagonist of the story. He was born in 1900, and was 26 years old when he died and became a Shinigami. He is 97 at the beginning of the first book and the oldest employee of the Shokan/Summons division besides Chief Konoe, and the lowest-paid, due to his perceived incompetence. He is notorious among his fellow Shinigami for his slackerqualities and voracious appetite for sweets such as cinnamon buns and cakes. His favorite color is light green, and he has a flower garden (in which he is known to have tulips and hydrangeas).It is revealed starting from the Last Waltz story line that he had a sister named Ruka who taught him how to dance, garden, and cook, though his skills in the latter are lacking. Her involvement in his past is left unclear.Throughout the series, Tsuzuki develops an immediate closeness and affection to his current partner, Hisoka. He has a good friendship with Watari, and a sometimes strained relationship with Tatsumi, who had once been one of his partners. Tsuzuki gets along with most of the employees of Meifu, with the notable exceptions of Hakushaku, who constantly hits on him, and Terazuma, with whom he has a fierce rivalry. Tsuzuki's relationship with Muraki is very tumultuous; although Tsuzuki hates him for his cruelty towards other people, Tsuzuki's desire to sacrifice himself rather than hurt anyone else prevents him from outright killing Muraki.Though he is easily one of the most cheerful members of the cast, he hides a dark secret from his past. Both manga and anime reference terrible deeds he committed in life. It is suggested that Tsuzuki murdered many people, whether intentionally or not; this is brought to Tsuzuki's attention during his demonic possession by Sargantanas, a powerful demon who appears in the Devil's Trill Arc. Doctor Muraki reveals to him from his grandfather's research that Tsuzuki was a patient of the elder Muraki for eight years and that Tsuzuki is, in fact, not quite human. During that time, he stayed alive without food, water, or sleep, and was incapable of dying from wounds, as shown by the many times he tried to commit suicide but failed but for one last time. Muraki suggested that Tsuzuki may possess demon blood [shown by the fact that he has purple eyes], and Tsuzuki found this incredibly hard to deal with.Tsuzuki wields the power of 12 Shikigami as well as o-fuda magic. He also has an incredibly high stamina, able to take massive damage to his body without being killed and healing almost immediately. Though this is later shown to be a trait for all Shinigami, he was the first one shown to have this ability, which appears to be tied to his pre-death abilities.

Hisoka Kurosaki

Hisoka Kurosaki (黒崎 密 Kurosaki Hisoka?), voiced by Liam O'Brien (English), and Mayumi Asano (Japanese) is a 16-year-old Shinigami and Tsuzuki's current partner. He possesses strong empathy, which allows him to feel the emotions of others, read thoughts, see memories, and pick up imprints of clairvoyance off inanimate objects.He came from a tradition-oriented family, and he was trained in traditional Japanese martial arts. His parents were afraid of his spiritual powers, which they considered unfit for their heir as well as something that could unfurl the familiar secret; so as a child he was often locked in a cellar when caught using his empathy.When he was 13 years old he went out under the sakura trees near his home and stumbled across Muraki in the process of murdering an unknown woman. In order to keep him from exposing the crime, Muraki tortured Hisoka (the anime shows non-graphic rape) and cursed him to a slow death that gradually drained his life over three years. The curse is still visible in the form of red marks all over Hisoka's body, which reappear during encounters with Muraki, particularly in dreams. It is implied that they will disappear with Muraki's death. After Hisoka died, he became a shinigiami in order to discover the cause of his death since the doctor erased his memories of it.Hisoka enjoys reading, and spends much of his time at the library by himself. His health even in the afterlife does not seem to be particularly well, as he has a tendency to faint. His lack of training and strength in comparison to Tsuzuki is also painfully apparent to him. However, he is a capable detective, and clever in subterfuge. It's also revealed that Hisoka has a fear of the dark.Although extremely reserved to the point of coldness, Hisoka deeply cares for other people. When Tsuzuki regains his suicidal tendencies, Hisoka comforts him and ends up preventing him from committing suicide once again. Hisoka also has a strong urge to take care of Tsuzuki, even though Tsuzuki drives him crazy sometimes. He maintains comfortable relationships with the rest of his co-workers, with the noticeable exception of Saya and Yuma, who constantly try to play with him like a doll.Besides his empathy, Hisoka has also been trained in basic ofuda and defensive magic by Chief Konoe. Later in the series, he goes to seek out a Shikigami for himself in order to increase his power. Hisoka's first Shikigami is a Spanish-speaking potted cactus named Riko, a defensive and water-type Shiki. Hisoka is also adept in traditional martial arts, particularly archery, and kendo. His favorite color is blue, his favorite hobby is reading and his motto is "save money".

Kazutaka Muraki

Kazutaka Muraki (邑輝 一貴 Muraki Kazutaka ?), voiced by Edward MacLeod in English, and by Sho Hayami in Japanese is the primary antagonist in Yami no Matsuei. His angelic appearance and characteristics serve to contrast with his brutal nature.Muraki's psychological troubles appear to have begun in childhood with his mother and his half-brother Saki. Muraki's mother collected dolls, and she is shown as treating him as though he were a doll as well. Muraki's love of dolls and his collecting of dolls is a motif throughout the manga and anime, paralleling what he does with real people. In the anime, it is suggested that Saki killed Muraki's parents when they were still children (in the Kyoto arc, Muraki has a flashback of his mother's funeral and sees Saki smirking during the procession) and later tried to kill him in a craze. However, in the manga, it is not clear what Saki's role was other than disrupting Muraki's childhood, and Muraki describes himself as his mother's murderer. Whatever the circumstances, Saki was shot by one of the family's guards, and Muraki became obsessed with bringing back Saki in order to kill him himself. Thus, Muraki learned of Tsuzuki while researching his grandfather's notes, becoming obsessed with Tsuzuki's body; both carnally and scientifically. In the manga it is clear what Muraki desires, but the anime had to censor such extremes, and so Muraki's advances toward Tsuzuki were shown as hints of sexual harassment.Throughout the story, Muraki manipulates souls of the dead, often killing the people himself, in hopes of drawing the attention of the Shinigami, in particular, Tsuzuki.Muraki is an expert manipulator, fronting as a good doctor who laments over his inability to save lives, while hiding his private life as a serial killer. As a respected physician, Muraki has many connections throughout Japan among powerful patrons, but in the anime and manga, he is mostly seen in the company of his close friend Oriya and his old teacher, Professor Satomi. Muraki also has a childhood sweetheart by the name of Ukyou, but very little is known about her, other than that she appears to draw evil spirits to her and that her health is poor. During the Kyoto Arc, Muraki discredits his good persona, contrasting himself to Professor Satomi before silencing him. Being a serial killer, Muraki has numerous victims, the most significant of which is Hisoka Kurosaki, whom he raped before placing a curse on him that wiped Hisoka's memory of the event and eventually killed him in the form of a terminal illness. Later, when Hisoka is a shinigami, Muraki forces the boy to recall the night that he cursed him. Throughout both the anime and manga, it's shown that Muraki often refers to Hisoka as a doll.Some readers believed that because of his different colored eyes, he may be a guardian of one of the four gates of GenSouKai (see Wakaba Kannuki). However, in the King of Swords arc (volume three in the manga), a scene where Tsuzuki knocks out the fake eye reveals that Muraki's right eye is not real and that it is mechanical. The origin and nature of Muraki's supernatural abilities remain an enigma: he is human (with certain vampiric traits, such as feeding off peoples' life energy [it is theorised that he is an energy vampire]), he is alive (not a Shinigami), yet he raises a dead girl to be a zombie, seals and opens Hisoka's memory by mere touch, controls creature spirits similar to Shikigami, enters Meifu by himself and teleports Tsuzuki to another location. In the finale, Muraki refers to himself as a Descendant of Darkness like Tsuzuki.