Niwa Hisahide

Niwa Hisahide, typically referred to only as Niwa, was a historical figure in Tatarasuna, Inazuma who lived around 400 years ago. He was a central figure in the "Tatarasuna Mystery," during which he mysteriously disappeared and was eventually blamed with the incidents that occurred.

In reality, he was murdered by Il Dottore as part of a Fatui plot to cause chaos at Tatarasuna for a future endeavor. Il Dottore then used Niwa's mysterious disappearance to hide his culpability, shifting the blame to Niwa instead. This falsified story had a large influence on Scaramouche, then known as the "kabukimono," and set the groundwork for his involvement in the Case of the Eccentric hundreds of years later.

Profile[]

Niwa Hisahide was a member of the Niwa Clan, which is distantly related to the Kaedehara Clan and was one of the three sansaku, or great masters, of the Isshin Art. Niwa's bladesmithing skills led him to become the Armory Officer of Mikage Furnace sometime before the events of the Tatarasuna Mystery.

Appearance[]

At the time of his death, Niwa was a young man. Notably, he had red streaks in his hair, a trait shared by his distant descendant Kaedehara Kazuha.

Quests and Events[]

Archon Quests

• Interlude Chapter
  • Act III: Inversion of Genesis
    • The Night-Bird Falls at the Curtain's Call (flashback)

Story[]

No details are currently known about Hisahide's life before the Tatarasuna Mystery. However, it is implied that he had family members who lived near Tatarasuna, as they were stated to have left the area along with him.

Tatarasuna Mystery[]

Right before the events of the Tatarasuna Mystery, Mikoshi Nagamasa's yoriki Katsuragi discovered a puppet, the entity that would later become Scaramouche, inside Shakkei Pavilion while investigating a cave-in around Nazuchi Beach. He brought this puppet back to Tatarasuna, where the swordsmiths there took him in as one of their own and began calling him "kabukimono." Niwa reassured the kabukimono that he was human, but simply lacked a "heart."^[3]

Around this same time, a mechanic from Fontaine calling himself "Escher" appeared, working with the Akame Clan — another clan of the Isshin Art sansaku — to revolutionize the smelting process at Mikage Furnace. "Escher" was actually Il Dottore, dispatched on a mission by Pierro to cause chaos at Tatarasuna and lay the groundwork for a future endeavor. Taking an interest in the puppet, Dottore decided to make him the key player in his experiment at Tatarasuna and his smelting process, though highly effective, was actually releasing the Tatarigami inside Crystal Marrow into the environment. As workers grew sick and died from the curse's effects, people began to panic and Niwa implemented an information blackout to control the situation.

While the kabukimono left for Narukami Island to entreat the Raiden Shogun's aid, Niwa took a device created by Escher to absorb the filth in the Mikage Furnace, intending to fulfill the sacrifice needed for the device to work. Before that, however, he confronted Escher about his true purpose. He had been wary of Escher from the start and, although he was able to ascertain that "Escher" was an alias and that the man before him was not from Fontaine, was unable to figure out the man's objective. After fatally wounding Niwa, Dottore dropped all pretenses and revealed that he was a Fatui Harbinger who had come to sow chaos and reap the rewards in the future, provoking the man into having hatred in his heart.^[4] After Niwa succumbed to his wounds, Dottore cut his still-warm heart out of his chest and placed it into the device.

The kabukimono returned from his expedition empty-handed, unaware that Ei had already retreated to the Plane of Euthymia while he was barred from visiting the Shogun. Viewing Yae Miko's promise to send aid as a sign that the Shogunate had turned their backs on them, the kabukimono returned only to discover that Niwa had gone missing. Dottore convinced him and the people of Tatarasuna that Niwa had abandoned them to their fates, and that their only hope lay in the kabukimono. Taking the device with him, the kabukimono managed to survive the ordeal of absorbing the filth. Afterwards, "Escher" bid him to open the device, where he found a withered heart — which Dottore claimed was from a subordinate of Niwa's whom Niwa had killed. The kabukimono, believing that Niwa had betrayed him and the people at Tatarasuna, was enraged and came to view this incident as the "second betrayal" that he experienced.

With Niwa's disappearance, the responsibility of shouldering the punishment for the events that transpired at Tatarasuna fell on Mikoshi Nagamasa's shoulders. Unwilling to let his savior face capital punishment, Katsuragi decided to take the blame and punishment on himself, and was executed by Nagamasa.^[3] It is unknown whether their companions — Miyazaki Kaneo, Kinjirou, and Nozomu — were aware of this, as the Rather Aged Notes they left behind in Tatarasuna suggest they truly believed that Katsuragi performed some kind of misdemeanor for which Nagamasa killed him.^[5]

Revised History[]

During the events of Archon Quest The Night-Bird Falls at the Curtain's Call in Interlude Chapter: Act III - Inversion of Genesis, Scaramouche learns the truth behind Niwa's death, taken from Dottore's own memories which Lesser Lord Kusanali previously connected to while she was verifying that he had eliminated his segments. After indirectly confirming from the Traveler that it was possible to change the past, Scaramouche decided to erase his own existence using the remaining divine power he had. While he was able to remove his direct involvement in the events that came to pass, the Tatarasuna Mystery and later Case of the Eccentric still occurred.

The Traveler learns about a new version of the story, passed down through the Kaedehara Clan's oral history: When Tatarasuna's furnace malfunctioned, Niwa and another swordsmith leapt into the furnace, stabilizing it at the cost of their lives. However, the other swordsmith's orphaned and destitute son bore a grudge against the Raiden Shogun and all of Inazuma, believing they had abandoned his father in his time of need. His resentment passed down from one generation to the next until it hit a breaking point a few hundred years later, causing the revised history's version of the Case of the Eccentric. The son's descendant, the head of the Hyakume Clan, carried out a murder spree of the Raiden Gokaden until he was slain by the Kaedehara and Kamisato Clans.^[6]

When the Traveler rereads Aqaba and Sawada's writings, a "foreign mechanic" replaced the Kabukimono as the primary suspect behind the Tatarasuna Mystery while Niwa's involvement and mysterious disappearance were left unchanged, indicating that even in the tampered version of history, Dottore was still responsible for Niwa's death. Regardless, the original version of events is considered the "true story," and Scaramouche's new incarnation, Wanderer, ultimately decides to reclaim his lost memories.^[3]

Character Mentions[]

Character Stories

Character	Stories
Wanderer	Character Story 1 Character Story 2 Character Story 5

Gallery[]

Story Teaser- The "Divine" Will - Genshin Impact

Fairytale depiction during The Kabukimono's Finale

Other Languages[]

Change History[]

References[]