Shin (心) is an elite Magic-User, a cleaner for En, and the partner and long-time friend of Noi. His magic allows him to cut people up without killing them.
Appearance
Shin is a tall man of muscular build, with short blonde hair, blue eyes, and pale skin. He is often seen in a formal suit while wearing a heart shaped mask backwards. He uses glasses when he isn't wearing his mask. He has stitches running along his arms and hands from his surgery to gain magic powers. He usually uses a hammer to fight, which is his primal weapon of choice besides his magic.
Shin has a young looking face without any facial hair, but with a noticeable forehead, which wasn't very obvious at the beginning of the manga, though it became more prominent with the progress in art style. He also had spiky hair, but especially in later chapters his hair is closer to a more realistic or at least shorter hairstyle.
As a teenager, Shin used to wear his then very long hair styled in a ponytail. At that time of his life he didn't yet wear glasses, so it can be assumed that with time, Shin's eyesight has gotten progressively worse since then.
Personality
Despite his job as En's cleaner, Shin has a very easy-going personality and is rather approachable by all within the En family. He cares deeply for his partner, Noi, and the two share a close bond as a result. Though Shin is seen to be rather modest around Noi, since he is often embarrassed by her displays of affection, he does return it on occasion.
He does not kill without reason, though it doesn't seem to detract from his enjoyment of the brutal nature of his job, as he is commonly seen grinning during challenging fights. Between himself and his partner, Shin acts as the more observant of the two, and usually remains calm and collected in order to counteract Noi's impulsiveness.
He always eats fast. It's and old habit. Habits from your past life in Hole. It is because those days he was always sleeping with an eye open. He was almost lynched when people found out he has some Magic User blood in his veins.
Magic
Shin's magic allows him to slice up anything. He can slice up living things without the victim bleeding or dying from organ failure, although their flesh still rots. If he were to die, any current victim of his magic would immediately suffer the consequences of their wounds. Since he was born unable to use magic, he cut off his hands and arms in a self-inflicted surgical procedure in order to find the smoke veins.
Shin without a mask
History
Past
Shin was a resident of the Hole. His mother was a magic user killed by the Hole's anti-magic user militia not long after his birth, while his father, who he shared a modest home with, was human. Shin managed to hide his origins and blend in with the other habitants of Hole by working at the joinery his father was employed at as a carpenter, until he accidentally cut himself during work. His boss, after seeing that his blood was mixed with Smoke, indication of someone being a magic user, quickly notified the militia. Trying to protect his son, Shin's father was immediately killed for marrying a magic user, despite the fact that he himself was fully human. After defeating his father's three murderers, Shin went into hiding for about three months, committing various small crimes and murdering the militia members coming after him.
He was found by Kasukabe and Vaux in the operation room in Hole's hospital, where Shin, who was unable to produce smoke, had cut off his fingers and arms using Vaux's medical equipment in order to find the vessels which produced the magic substance which would allow him to fully realize his potential. Aided by Kasukabe, he was finally granted the ability to produce smoke (at the expense of both his arms, which he asked to have stitched back to his stumps) and later escaped to the magic users' realm after having mutilated the rest of the militia with his new-found powers.
During his time in the Magic User realm, he stole food from one of En's restaurants, and met Noi, the restaurant bouncer at the time, she pursued him, confronting the thief demanding to pay for what he stole. Noi healed his arms to kill him in a fair fight, but Shin stabbed the back of her head with his hammer and flew away, promising to make up for what she did for him, leaving a bleeding and angry Noi on the floor to heal.
The time passed and Shin was hired by En to become one of his bouncers (due his mutilation type of magic), him and Noi became closed friends, beating people for En and talking about how dumb he was for his business ideas (like a stupid jingle composed and interpreted by himself for his restaurant) until the day of blue night came and two shady Magic Users Baku and Yaku, who wanted to beat them and then kidnap both to sign contracts with them so they would use them as "Forced Partners" (the contracts signed in the blue moon night obliged sometimes one of the partners to do what the other says unquestionably). They fought and seemly killed their aggressors, but not before the beheaded corpse of Baku shooted one last time a barrage of smoke directed to Noi, Shin took the hit and his back was flayed in the process, finally making up to what she did for him before, giving him a chance to live thanks to his healed arms, Shin told Noi to not heal him so she could become a Devil, with no regrets, she relinquished her devilhood to save him, since that day, he and Noi became partners.
Present
Shin appears for the first time in the chapter 4 of the manga, during a cleaning mission with noi, killing with his hammer some of the remaining Cross-Eyes members in a hideout to take an eldery unnamed Cross-Eyes to En, nothing more than a head, the target was put in a cheap body bag and accidentally splashed all over Noi, to her disgust and Shin's annoyance. Subsequently they met En at a restaurant, dressing for the event (Shin just an average smoking, feeling ok to wear what was normal to him) there, En entrusted them the mission to find and kill Kaiman and Nikaido (Due their Magic User hunts in Hole, they killed Matsumura and injured Fujita, now present in the dinner with Ebisu, another of Kaiman victims).
Leaving to Hole at the Day of the Living Death, they found them and engaged in a fight, Shin was really exited to fight, engaging Kaiman in a one one one fight using his hammer, seriously hurting him, Kaiman swallowed his head and Shin noticed the man inside Kaiman's head, Shin used his remaining strength to chop his opponent head in a single swing of his hammer. Nikaido saw this, and while she was overpowered by Noi, she took the body and head of Kaiman, opened a Magic Door and escaped. The cleaners came back to the sorcerers realm believing that Kaiman survived somehow and needed to find him, Shin was among the rest in turkeys house to make a doll of "The man inside the lizard head", following the doll through the city until they found a box inside an old building, there the doll went berserk and almost killed Fujita and Ebisu, Shin destroyed the doll while Noi nursed the two, they opened the box to reveal a rotten head, Noi fixed it with her magic, showing that the head belonged to "The man inside the lizard head mouth".
Trivia
Shin's mask the right way
- Because of his childhood in the hole at the whim of magic users, Shin has a habit of eating quickly. He can eat faster than Noi.
- During one of En's balls, he unknowingly danced with Noi who was later to become his partner.
- According to En, Shin is Noi's most treasured person.
- Shin usually wears his mask backwards, ironically, making him looking a bit less frightening. He wears it correctly when he gets really serious, however.
- Noi refers to him as "Senpai" even though she's been with En for longer than Shin. It's probably because he has been a Cleaner for a longer time, while she was assigned much later.
- His name is an alternate pronunciation for the 心 (heart) kanji. This is a recurring theme on his character, as his mask is shaped like a human heart and his magic door has "EL CORAZON" (spanish; lit. The Heart) written on it.
- He is Gura-Gura's (former) owner.
- He seems to be very one-note when it comes to fashion; most of time, he's wearing a suit with sneakers or sport clothing when he's working out. Previous to the Blue Ball, he explicitly states he has no more criteria for his oufit outside of it being black.
- He first started using a traditional curved-claw hammer as a weapon when killing the militia group that murdered his father, since he already had it at hand as part of his work attire. There is a chance that is the same hammer he uses today.