Keith Kisaragi

	This article is about a character in Rose Guns Days.

Overview

Image Gallery

Sprites

Keith Kisaragi
Identification Details
Japanese	キース・如月
Nicknames	Yuzuru Kisaragi (如月 柚流) (real name)
General Information
Born	February 15
Gender	Male
Blood Type	B
Likes	Children, wildflowers, spinach
Dislikes	The cold, adults with corrupt hearts
Nationality	Japanese
Occupation	Sniper
Affiliation	Battalion, Primavera
Portrayal
First Appearance	Rose Guns Days: Season 3

Keith Kisaragi (キース・如月, Kīsu Kisaragi) is a skilled sniper and Alan Aramaki's best friend, and together they form a hitman duo. He first appears in Season 3. 

Profile

He fought alongside Alan in the war, was captured with Alan, spent time in a prison camp with Alan, and returned home with Alan; he's Alan's unrivaled partner.
Despite his childish appearance, he was also a genius sniper with the blood of the Matagi.
His skills were invaluable in doing Primavera's dirty work.
He and Alan had the ambition to go big and make a name for themselves.
So they felt comfortable with Battalion, who were very helpful to them.

(Translated from the official 07th Expansion website.) 

Appearance

Keith has black hair and red eyes. He wears a beige parka over a yellow shirt, an orange scarf, black pants and long brown boots. By 1950, his hair has turned white.

Personality

Keith is normally easygoing, but when working as a sniper he becomes very cold and calculating, and can be quite boastful about his abilities as such. He values his relationship with Alan and always laughs at his jokes when nobody else will.

Keith is jaded from the mistreatment and abuse of power he saw between the Japanese as a POW, and thus distrusts most adults except Alan. However, he values family and children greatly, but not so much the idea of being with a woman, at least initially.

In Last Season, his personality changes where he becomes very bitter over losing both Stella and Yuuji and tries to enact revenge on the GDS to ease his pain. He becomes much colder, but also a lot more emotionally reactive and impulsive, thinking nothing but how to immediately eliminate anyone he considers an enemy.

Background

Keith was a member of the Matagi, an old clan of Japanese hunters. He later met Alan, becoming an unstoppable soldier and sniper duo during World War II, fending off the Soviets and surviving the harsh Siberian winter for three months until they were captured and sent to a Siberian prison camp. After being released and repatriated a few years after the war ended, Keith and Alan were recruited by Maurice Monobe to join Primavera's Battalion.

He likely suffers from PTSD due to his experiences in Siberia, and he overdresses for the weather as the cold is a trigger of his.

Relationships

• Alan Aramaki (close friend, co-worker, rival)
• Maurice Monobe (boss)
• Stella Maiougi (lover)
• Richard Maiougi (friend)

Alan Aramaki

Keith and Alan have been extremely close since they met during the war, and vowed to survive together, considering themselves like a married couple. Keith feels that he wouldn't have been able to even survive the war had Alan's sunniness not influenced him to let his guard down sometimes. As a sniper duo, while Keith is the one to fire the final bullet, he acknowledges that he really can't do much else without Alan, who is his spotter and handles other logistics.

Stella Maiougi

He and Stella gradually form a relationship with one another as they take care of Yuuji together. Stella is the more forward one in terms of advancing their relationship, such as telling the other girls at Primavera that she's his boyfriend without him knowing, which makes Keith flustered. After her death, Keith is devastated and vows to take immediate revenge against her killers. He and Richard become convinced that their revenge is what Stella would have wanted.

Richard Maiougi

Keith meets Richard via Stella, and eventually their bond grows close enough that they consider each other family. They share each other's grief after Stella's, and eventually Yuuji's death. Keith becomes Richard's right-hand man and one of his closest confidants, carrying out his orders and sharing his extreme views.

Story

Season 3

Keith is first introduced alongside Alan in 1949 when they're hired by Butler to assassinate a reporter harassing one of his subordinates. He later meets Stella and as the story progresses builds a relationship with her and Yuuji. Keith and Alan are later sent to assassinate Davis Degawa, a man trying to oppose Primavera's plans to create a distribution network across City 23.

While out on a walk with Stella and Yuuji, they suddenly get attacked by mysterious men. Unbeknownst to them, Gabriel was sending American soldiers in disguise to assassinate Primavera and GDS members as part of "Operation: Great Justice." Yuuji gets wounded by a sniper and Keith and Stella hide behind cover while struggling to find a way to save him. Stella decides to use herself as a distraction and winds up getting killed, with Keith counter-sniping the enemy sniper in a rage.

A heartbroken Keith takes Yuuji to the hospital and resolves to raise him in place of Stella.

Last Season

After mourning Stella and attending her funeral, Keith and Richard meet with Gabriel and become convinced that the GDS are responsible for her death. Keith's desire for revenge becomes greater when Gabriel presents forged documents pinning Meijiu and Zilong as the masterminds, and Alan's absence leads Keith to believe he was killed. Keith briefly regains hope when Yuuji recovers from his wounds and regains consciousness, however Yuuji is soon killed with Chinese poison.

Keith is eventually ordered by Richard to take up a sniping position and assassinate Meijiu and Zilong when they're invited to a meeting with him. Alan and Meixue catch on to this plan and interrupt the meeting, with Keith wounding Meixue when she protects Meijiu. He starts using Meixue as a trap to lure Meijiu out from behind cover, continuing to shoot her as time goes on. Meixue eventually dies, and Alan braves showing himself in the open to retrieve her body. Keith is surprised to see his best friend suddenly alive and misses his shot. Keith starts to believe that Alan was actually a traitor and siding with the GDS.

Alan later meets Keith at the docks to settle their dispute. They fight and Keith ultimately loses, getting shot in the stomach and left to die.

Keith recovers from his wounds and continues to work with Primavera in 1950, soon meeting Leo when he returns to Japan. Keith is asked to assassinate Leo in the event he doesn't agree to join Richard.

Leo, the Wandering Dogs and Wayne later meet with Rose in Shizuoka and Keith attempts to kill them, forcing them behind cover and shooting a car's fuel tank to try and cause an explosion. Leo manages to save everyone after shooting and destroying Keith's sniper scope.

Keith and Maurice later kill James when Richard aims to erase those who will betray or defy him. During the final chapter Keith takes up a sniping position on top of a bell tower. Alan and Xiaolan go up to engage him, which soon turns into Keith and Alan having one last showdown. They wind up grabbing each other and falling out of a window, and Keith survives the fall at the expense of Alan dying. Keith sadly tries to wake him up.

Trivia

• "Kisaragi" (如月, Kisaragi) refers to the second month of the Japanese lunar calendar, and was considered the first month of spring. It is mostly equivalent to—and used as a poetic name for—the Gregorian calendar month of February.
  • The etymology is debated, but one theory purports that the name comes from "着更衣" (Kisaragi or Kinusaragi), which literally means "wearing an extra layer of clothes."
• In the original Japanese text, Keith uses the first-person pronoun ore-sama (俺様), which is considered a very arrogant way of referring to oneself and rarely used seriously in real life (although seen often in fiction). However, in moments of emotional fragility, he uses the more humble boku (僕).