Kazahaya

Kazahaya (風早) is one of the main characters in Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 4. He is technically the first Seiryu of Heaven (天の青龍, Ten no Seiryuu) of the series.

His memories are used to bestow a human trait into the Seiryu of Heaven dragon gem, thus influencing the Eight Guardians in later generations of the franchise. His particular trait is "Compassion" (人を思う, hito wo omou).

Background Story
Despite his appearance, Kazahaya is a god and not human. He is actually the White Kirin (白麒麟, Shiro Kirin), the White Dragon's second in command who reigns over Earth and the center of the heavens. As a deity, he also watches over the Four Gods and keeps them orderly. The White Kirin has served the White Dragon since the beginning of time itself in the parallel world.

The Black Dragon accused humanity to be senseless beings of destruction and sought to purge them from existence. After its defeat to the first priestess, the White Dragon pondered its twin's damning words towards humanity with caution. The White Dragon wondered how humanity would fare without its protection and speculated that time and patience could correct humanity's love for conflict. As an experiment, the White Dragon slept within the Loophole of Time and ignored humanity's plights. Hundreds of years after Chihiro led her peaceful era as Queen, the dragon god would awake and check humanity's activities by mystically reading the world's history. The White Dragon would learn that humanity continued to wage senseless wars each time. It then destroyed the "failed timeline", recreated the mortal realm, and reset the parallel world back hundreds of years. The process has been repeated countless times.

Humanity misinterprets the repeated timelines as déjà vu. The vaguely nostalgic feeling has been euthanized to form a hopeful legend in Nakatsu Kuni, in which the people believe that the kingdom's era of peace is destined to be reborn again. They still believe that they are being blessed by the White Dragon; they are unaware that their dragon god has forced them to relive the same set of centuries.

In each of these timelines, the White Kirin has been ordered to protect the White Dragon's foreordained priestess and ensures that she becomes the Queen. He first chose to remain in his original form. Soon after his arrival in the mortal realm, however, he was hunted like a wild beast by nearby soldiers. The White Kirin used his powers to escape, but he was hurt by their arrows. As he lay wounded in the fields near Nakatsu Kuni's capital, Kashihara, a four-year-old Chihiro found him and did her best to nurse him back to health. She was able to patch his wounds before she was called away back to the palace.

Learning from the experience, the White Kirin then sought to infiltrate the mortal realm as a human. He needed an inconspicuous person who could not be easily recognized or named by those in Nakatsu Kuni's palace. At the time, a deadly epidemic had struck the faraway Shikoku island. An entire village in Iyo had been wiped out. One of those among the dead was a fifteen-year-old man named Kazahaya. He was the son of the village elder and had enough prestige to be enlisted within Nakatsu Kuni's royal guard. The White Kirin used his powers to adopt Kazahaya's appearance, name, and memories. He artificially aged his appearance based on his observations of the people around him.

Kazahaya entered the royal guard soon after. He was taught swordsmanship by Iwanagahime and became acquainted with her disciples Hiiragi, Michiomi, Habarihiko, and Oshihito. Remembering his original mission, he volunteered to be Chihiro's servant and bodyguard. When they first met, he promised he would always be by her side as long as Chihiro never asked him his true identity. She accepted, and he then became of the few people who encouraged her to believe in herself.

Five years before the main story, the palace fell to the invading Tokoyo no Kuni forces. Kazahaya found Chihiro and joined forces with Nagi during their escape. Using his powers, he opened a portal to the Loophole of Time and fled with them to the modern world. He altered Nagi's memories to hide his true identity and kept the seal on Chihiro's memories intact. Adapting to the modern world quickly, he then became a school teacher to support their home at modern day Kashihara. Kazahaya was aware that corrupted deities would be used by the Black Dragon to pursue them across time. To protect Chihiro's peaceful life of mediocrity, he made a pact with Nagi to fight them for her in secret.

Story Events
In spite of Kazahaya's protests, Hiiragi forces Chihiro to remember her past and forces them back to the parallel world. He appears before Chihiro again in his original form and blesses her with his protection. As he returns to the mortal realm, Kazahaya is intercepted by Asvin's troops. Despite receiving a wound on his left arm, he defends himself against Asvin until Chihiro and Nagi assist him. When the Tokoyo no Kuni army withdraws, Kazahaya helps Chihiro gradually become acquainted with her surroundings.

Throughout the main story, Kazahaya gladly provides exposition for anything that Chihiro may not understand. Whenever he senses danger, he is the one who often shields her from harm. Although he may be gentle with his companions, Kazahaya becomes bold and commanding whenever they face the Four Gods. He is the one who directly informs Chihiro how to conduct herself before the sacred beasts, trying to keep their meetings with the gods as short as possible.

When the party later seeks to receive Genbu's blessing in Kumano, Chihiro is unable to call on the beast due to a crack on one of its sacred urns. Without the urn, the sacred beast cannot hear the priestess within its resting place. After the party retrieves the particular clay they need, Kazahaya is the one who molds another. He creates a perfect replica of the urn at a nearby village in a week. If the player doesn't unlock his story route, he continues to remain as Chihiro's loyal bodyguard for the rest of the game.

Since he is an immortal being, Kazahaya has had to endure meeting and leaving Chihiro and his friends multiple times. He is forbidden from revealing his true self to them for it means rebelling against his true master, something which Kazahaya can't commit himself to doing for the majority of the game. His true ending is the story's canonical ending. Whether he lives with Chihiro or not is up for the player to decide.

Personal Routes
Chihiro may choose to become intimate with Kazahaya twice, and the first time roughly follows the game's default story. Hoping to protect her from the parallel world's dangers, Kazahaya asks Chihiro to hold two promises for him. He wants her to never leave from his side in battle. The other asks her to abandon everyone if Kazahaya tells her to escape. Although she questions the odd wordings of the promises, Chihiro trusts him enough to agree to them. She doesn't want to fight unless it's as a last resort, something which earns his further affections.

As Chihiro becomes closer to Kazahaya, he begins to lament the passage of time and voices his fondness for the past. He cuts himself short before Chihiro questions him. Returning to his jovial self, he instead informs her that he will always come to her side if she calls his name.

When the Raja of Tokoyo no Kuni invades the fields of Izumo, he brings the Black Dragon's sealed form with him. His powers weakens Chihiro and the Nakatsu Kuni army begins to fall to its destructive wrath. Realizing the danger of their situation, Kazahaya joins forces with Asvin to distract the deity and bide time for Chihiro's escape. Chihiro desires to help them until Hiiragi uses his spells to put her to sleep. She is worried sick for Kazahaya and Asvin's safety when she awakens later on the army's flying ship. The ship's course cannot be changed and she feels miserable by her inability to do anything. Distressed, she cuts her hair to call Kazahaya back to her. As she utters Kazahaya's name, he magically appears before her. Chihiro is too happy by his safe return to question how or when he arrived.

Much later, Chihiro and her allies retake Nakatsu Kuni's capital and invade Tokoyo no Kuni to defeat its Raja. During the conflict with the Black Dragon, Kazahaya protects Chihiro from being afflicted by a deadly curse. He urges her to victory and they vanquish the deity to restore the world's peace. Chihiro is anointed as the Queen of Nakatsu Kuni and her friends celebrate her enthronement. Kazahaya pays his respects before suddenly announcing that he has to forever leave her side due to the curse within his body. If he is too close to Chihiro, it could affect her as well and place the land's hard-earned peace into jeopardy. While he barely subdues the curse within him, Kazahaya formally requests her to end his service to the throne. Although the order pains both of them, she has to permit his request as the land's new Queen.

His true story has the same beginnings as his first route until Chihiro visits Sainokimi in Kumano. The elderly woman disapproves Chihiro's favoritism for Kazahaya and is suspicious of the young man's past. One of the maids who lived at Kazahaya's supposed homeland confirms her assumptions by reporting she saw the real Kazahaya's gravestone. Sainokimi confronts this truth to Kazahaya personally after Mudgala's defeat and forces him to admit that he is using an alias to serve Nakatsu Kuni. Chihiro has faith in Kazahaya's close ties with her, but she is distraught to learn that he has only been beside her for most of her life because of someone else's orders. Sainokimi is not as easily convinced by his pledge of loyalty to Chihiro since he refuses to indulge the identity of his master. Therefore, she orders him to prove himself by leading troops at Kawachi. Without much ado, he leaves for Kawachi.

Chihiro learns from reports that Kawachi was already a lost cause when Kazahaya left and that Sainokimi had planned for him to die in battle. She is relieved when the troops from Kawachi safely return to her and heads to their camp immediately to hear the survivors' report. Although Kazahaya ordered them to keep it a secret, two soldiers who like Chihiro blab about the horrendous experience. Kawachi's supplies ran out and many of their comrades starved to death. The surviving soldiers were able to escape thanks to Kazahaya somehow finding a breech in the enemy lines. He faced impossible odds as he guarded their retreat, yet he mysteriously returned to their base unharmed. The princess remembers that he did a similar feat in Izumo and finds herself wondering Kazahaya's real identity. When she finds him floating above a spring to cleanse himself, she tearfully asks him for the truth. Kazahaya then reveals his true form to her and is saddened that she finally broke her very first promise to him. Feeling the White Dragon's awakening, he leaves her to attend to his master.

Unlike the previous timelines it destroyed, the White Dragon has grown tired of believing in humanity as they have never learned to coexist peacefully with one another. It therefore deems it fit to eradicate them completely. Kazahaya speaks against his master's will and pleads for the White Dragon to reconsider. Instead of listening to his arguments, the White Dragon deems Kazahaya to have become corrupted with the time he spent with humans. Before his master can put him to sleep, Kazahaya rebels and returns to Chihiro at Nakatsu Kuni. He arrives too late to save Tokoyo no Kuni from its fate, but Nakatsu Kuni's destruction is slow enough to warn Chihiro and his friends. Everyone within the vicinity is ordered to board their flying ship immediately.

With the parallel world and its inhabitants completely gone, Kazahaya uses his powers to protect the flying ship. The people inside the overcrowded ship are safe, but they only have enough supplies to last two days. As they plan their next move, Kazahaya speaks with Suzaku –the god of the ship– to see if they can create a large portal through time. Chihiro stops his mediations and presents her wild gambit to instead confront the White Dragon directly. Thinking that her simple solution might be for the best, Kazahaya guides the main party to his master.

After a grueling battle to prove humanity's worth, the White Dragon agrees to her wish to restore the parallel world and to refrain from erasing further timelines. It pronounces that the time of the gods has ended, and humanity can live their lives with their blessings. Since he is a god, Kazahaya informs Chihiro and her friends that they will no longer remember him in the new world. He says his fondest farewells to them before he ascends to the heavens. No one remembers Kazahaya as they rejoice in the land's serenity.

Prior to the new world's creation, Kazahaya accepts his punishment for betraying the White Dragon. His heart is too sympathetic towards humans, so he is stricken of his godhood and given the chance to be reincarnated into a new form. Due to his memories with Chihiro, Kazahaya chooses to live the rest of his mortal life as a human. He visits her peaceful kingdom as a nameless traveler and personally praises her before leaving. To his surprise, however, Chihiro is the only one who still remembers him. As she embraces him, Kazahaya finally confesses his love and devotion for her.

In his epilogue scenario, Kazahaya asks Chihiro to take a break from her duties as Queen. As she sleeps, she dreams that everyone dear to her has returned to their home in the modern world.

Development
When it was decided that he would be the White Kirin, Ruby Party members struggled to create his name. They thought the word "quick" (早) would be fitting for the sacred beast and wanted to incorporate it somehow with his name. Since Chihiro was made to clash with Nagi, the developers shifted their focus to have the White Kirin be the opposite of Nagi's character. They conceived that a calm character would be a fitting counterpart and followed that train of thought to a natural sound (風が立つ, kaze ga tatsu). Their ideas were combined to create his character's final name, Kazahaya (風早).

Since the kirin is known as a deity of righteousness and mercy, developers were initially lost on what weapon he should use. Shields were considered for his design process, until the idea of using one of its horns like a sword popped up. His story was created with the intent to explain why there is no kirin associated with the Four Gods in the earlier titles (or later generations of the franchise canon).

Character Symbolism
Kazahaya is symbolized by a traditional Japanese color called ama-iro. It is literally translated as "the color of heaven", but it is synonymous with the sky or stormy weather. The latter is specifically referring to windy weather, which can be another pun of his name. His outfit and hair primarily use shades of the color.

His symbolic item is an East Asian flower known as poison bulb, which is commonly known as hamayuu in Japan. Its bark was used since ancient times to create a cottony cloth. Its name is derived from the white cloth created by the flower used in Shinto ceremonies. It is known as a cultural flower of purity in Japan, which remains unspoiled throughout its summer life. The flower language has it symbolize someone who goes far away. Alternatively, it may also mean that the recipient has the giver's absolute trust.

Quotes

 * "It's all right. I won't betray your expectations."
 * "Come to me, O Gold. Thy power be the earth itself."
 * "Let the power of language flow into your strike. It's okay, it's not as hard as it sounds."
 * "Don't worry. There's nothing you can't beat."
 * "Too late for regrets. You have to hit me to make it count."
 * "Are you tired? Let's finish this quickly so you can rest."
 * "You did save me... But please don't push yourself too hard."
 * "I'd like to say I'm happy you came for me, but now might not be the right time."
 * "(chuckles) That was a close one, but we won somehow."
 * "I'll always come to you when you call my name."
 * "You finally said the one thing you shouldn't have, Chihiro."
 * "Say my name one more time. I need to know that the joy I feel is real. Even if I cross thousands of years through time, your voice will always ring in my heart. The gods may forbid it, but no matter how many times the world is reborn, I never want to lose you. My happiness is everything that makes you, you."
 * "I still remember the other world every now and then. I remember the old house, the paved roads to our home, the smell of chalk from school, where war was just a thing we'd see happening somewhere else on the TV, where anyone was free to choose whatever future they wanted to make their living... That place we had in a faraway time..."
 * "Yeah, me too... I remember the good times we had."
 * "If we could go back right now, what would you say?"
 * "Go back? You mean to the other world?"
 * "Yes. If we did have the power to time travel, I mean."
 * "We can't leave this world now. I know we just got here and there's still things I don't understand, but we made a lot of friends here. I can't just forget about them and pretend I can live like I used to. I don't think I would ever be happy with myself. It might be a different story if everything is over with and this land becomes peaceful again. But not now."
 * "(chuckles) I never could win with you, Chihiro. No matter how much I worry for you, you're always looking further ahead than me."
 * Kazahaya and Chihiro


 * "O one who abandons the Heavens, what form doest thou desire? The stag with the purest of souls? The tortoise who lives with permanence? The carp who serve in my domain?"
 * "A human."
 * "Forsooth?"
 * "Those insignificant, slothful, accursed things?"
 * "Thou would choose a blistering life with humans?"
 * "Thy form a hundred years hence will be forgotten."
 * "Even if it is as you two say, I don't mind. The moments I had calling and embracing my loved one completes me more than immortality ever could."
 * Black Dragon, Kazahaya, and White Dragon

Fighting Style
At the start of the game, he is the strongest member in the ally party. He will likely one shot most monsters and can take hits better than Nagi or Chihiro. His offensive capabilities are overshadowed by other characters later in the game, however, so it's encouraged to keep leveling his abilities. His physical attacks allow him to hold his own against Earth and Water enemies, and the sleeping property might help disable foes late in the game. Even if he isn't the strongest character, Kazahaya's high defense and healing abilities makes him a reliable member to have for boss fights.

Kazahaya can boost his vitality, defense, magic power, speed, and will power to Level 5 within the menu screen. Here are his optimized stats:


 * Attack - 88
 * Defense - 90
 * Magic - 81
 * Speed - 80

Special Abilities
The following lists other abilities Kazahaya can learn by using the Five Elements the party gathers.

Magic
Here are the spells Kazahaya can cast in the game.


 * Shippuu Jin (疾風陣) - Moderate Wood magic. Can only perform when Chihiro is not in the party.
 * Koufu Jinrai (吼風迅雷) - Stronger Wood magic. Requires Chihiro to be in the party.
 * Hakuei Zankou (白影残光) - Strong Earth magic. Build four star bonds with Chihiro.
 * Seiryuu Shoukan (青龍召喚) - Summons Seiryu to hit all enemies. Usable after Chapter 5 (except in Futsuhiko and Nagi's stories). Chihiro must have Kazahaya and Asvin in the party with two stars of affection.
 * Souen Meppa (双炎滅破) - Fire magic which hits all enemies. Must have Chihiro and Nagi in the party.
 * Gandan Ranbu (岩断嵐舞) - Earth magic which hits all enemies. Must have Chihiro, Hiiragi, and Oshihito in the party. Chihiro must talk to Kazahaya in Chapter 4 and must have two stars of affection with these characters to unlock it.

Trivia

 * In the Sengoku Angelique skit preformed at Neoromance Starlight ♥ Christmas 2010, Kazahaya stood in as the Kashin Kōji for the cast. His name was "Kashin Kazahaya Kōji".