Yayoi Matsunaga

Yayoi Matsunaga is a human agent from the NOS anti-nightbreed crime unit and an old friend of Shido. She brings Shido nightbreed related cases for him to solve in exchange for her blood. She also carries a gun loaded with silver-coated bullets at all times that she is proficient with, and is seen as a woman of action. She used to have a sister named Kasumi, who was killed in a nightbreed incident around the same time she met Shido.

Voiced By: Emi Shinohara (Japanese); Mari Devon (English)

Past History
In "Someone Else's Face" Yayoi's backstory and how she met Shido are revealed. She used to have a twin sister named Kasumi. The night before their fifth birthday, Yayoi woke Kasumi up and asked her to look at their birthday cake. Kasumi agreed and lit a match so they could see the cake, singing "Happy Birthday" together. She dropped the match however and started a fire that burned their house down and killed their family. During the fire, Yayoi's face was burned off and had to be wrapped in bandages.

Yayoi grew up looking at her sister's beautiful face and wondering if she would look like that. Wonder turned to hate and envy and she grew vicious to her sister, blaming her for the state of her face. She blamed her sister though because she couldn't stand the guilt as she was responsible for what happened to their family - she had asked Kasumi to light the match.

The sisters came to own a hotel and one day after they were both adults, and Yayoi began to be scared. Kasumi was staying out late at night and coming home with blood on her hands and clothes. Kasumi said nothing about it however, worrying Yayoi more. One day, Shido Tatsuhiko checked into their hotel. While he was being checked in, he witnessed an unpleasant scene between Yayoi and Kasumi when Yayoi appeared and demanded that she come and change her bandages. Yayoi later burned one of her sister's letters out of hate and was angered when Shido stopped her before she was done.

When Kasumi was later changing Yayoi's bandages, Yayoi struck her sister and began to strangle her. She stole Kasumi's locket and stopped, storming off. Shido, having learned that a nightbreed had been killing girls and stealing their faces, had come to assume that Yayoi was doing it to get a new face. He followed Yayoi as she went into a basement and opened a secret room with Kasumi's locket.

When the door opened Yayoi saw that the walls were lined with the faces of the girls that had been killed. Shido confronted her, thinking she was behind it, but she said it was Kasumi. Kasumi, having chased after them, agreed. She told them how she had begged someone to help when the house was burning down around the sisters, begging that she didn't care what happened to her as long as someone saved her sister. A nightbreed answered her plea, saving the girls but letting Yayoi's face be burned because it didn't suit its purpose.

Kasumi ran back upstairs and set fire to the hotel, realizing at last that she had done something very wrong. Yayoi begged the nightbreed to leave her sister and take her, not wanting Kasumi to die. The nightbreed refused because of her ugliness though, but in showing itself, allowed Shido to drive it away. Shido then saved the sisters, but, possibly because of the strain of being the host of a nightbreed for so long, Kasumi died. The bandages were removed from Yayoi, revealing that her face had recovered at last. Yayoi said that she would give her face up if it would bring her sister back and let placed flowers on Kasumi's grave.