Mizuha

Mizuha (ミズハ) is one of the main characters of the "new era" arc.

Appearance
Mizuha is a girl with a slender build and long, black hair. Most of the time, she wears a black hair tie with a feather attached to it. She says it's her favorite.

Personality
At first glance, Mizuha is a gentle and rather reserved girl.

In reality, however, she has been raised to see herself as perfect and everyone else as imperfect. She doesn't understand why the people around her have trouble with the things she finds to be easy and looks down on them. Her desire to be perfect is strong enough to make her want to end her life before she becomes an adult, thus preventing her body from becoming imperfect with age.

After she finds out the truth about her family and Fushi, she is determined to "obtain" him and become "truly perfect". This new goal also helps her accept the imperfect people around her.

Background
Mizuha comes from a rather well-off family, indicated by the size of the apartment in which she lives with her parents. Her mother is a writer and is very demanding, always pushing her daughter to be the best at something but at the same time forgetting about her successes. This also means that she has close to no free time at all.

It is later revealed by her grandfather that she is destined to be the 18th leader of the Defense Corps founded by Hayase, but she never knew about this because her mother cut ties with him.

The only person that sees Mizuha as a friend (and the other way around) is a girl called Hanna. The rest of the girls are jealous of Mizuha because a lot of third years (and generally attractive guys) fall for her. Mizuha has always rejected them but nevertheless, she is accused of "stealing" them from others.

Plot
Mizuha is first introduced on the last page of chapter 116, where someone is running towards her shouting her name and when she finally turns around, the person gives her back her favorite hair tie.

In the next chapter, it's revealed that this person was Yuuki, a junior to Mizuha. While Aoki and the rest of the Occult club are in their club room and thinking about what a "peaceful world" would be like, Mizuha joins them, explaining that she left the Naginata club. Shortly after she leaves and makes her way home. After she arrives at home, she only has a short moment to relax before her mother comes in and tells her about a girl from another floor of the apartment building entering into an important ballet tournament. She offers Mizuha to try ballet as well, oblivious to the fact that she had already won the tournament when she was ten. After Mizuha tells her about this, her mother proudly takes a picture with her. However, as soon as Mizuha mentions that she wants to take a break, her mother becomes quiet. Mizuha backtracks almost instantly and adds that it'd be only for a day. After her mother leaves, she goes outside onto the balcony of the apartment and thinks that she wants to die.

A few days later, Yuuki notices that the roots that were covering an old building on the school grounds stopped growing all of a sudden. He tries to set up a meetup for the next saturday and asks Hanna to invite Mizuha, but she refuses, stating that Mizuha's mother is very strict and wouldn't let her go. Mizuha overhears this conversation and promptly invites herself.

On Saturday morning, Mizuha says Goodbye to her parents and is about to exit the apartment, but her mother tries to stop her, reminding her that she would have lessons that day. Mizuha says that she has already told her teachers that she'd take the day off and quickly leaves. At the roadside she meets her grandfather, who offers to give her a lift to wherever she wants to go. However, before Mizuha can get into the car, her mother is already behind her and tells her that she would be doing personal studies instead. Mizuha refuses at first, saying that she was allowed a day off, but her mother angrily grabs her wrist and pulls her back. Mizuha frees herself from her mother's grip and succumbs to her will.

Supposedly after the weekend, Mizuha decides to join the Occult Club. Aoki promptly invites her to come over to his house to meet Fushi, but this time Mizuha refuses because of her lessons. After she hears Fushi's name, she grips her left arm and gets lost in thought for a moment. Soon after that, the school bell rings and a boy appears to tell Mizuha that a third year wants to talk to her. Before she leaves, she tells Aoki that his family sounds really nice.

After she leaves, Hanna reveals a bit about Mizuha's middle school time: She used to be very lonely and was probably treated badly by her classmates and teachers because she had to carry a tower of book all by herself. Mizuha and Hanna become friends.

The next time Mizuha appears is during a field day practice session. A girl intentionally steps on her foot, causing Mizuha to fall and hurt her ankle. A group of girls tries to help her afterwards, but instead a boy approaches and lifts Mizuha up to carry her in his arms. This upsets the girls and they start crying. After Mizuha arrives in the nurse's office, Hanna excuses herself to go check on her. She says that she wants to help Mizuha and that she sees her as her friend. Mizuha gets up and asks her if she would cry if she dies. Hanna is a bit overwhelmed and doesn't answer right away which makes Mizuha pull back and excuse herself. She leaves the school and meets Fushi on her way home.

Relationships
Fushi

While Mizuha doesn't "actively" know or remember Fushi, she reacts to Aoki saying his name by gripping her left arm. All of Hayase's successors carried a knocker in their left arm, which indicates that she is related to Hayase's clan. When Hanna asks if she knows him, she answers "No, not really... it just made me feel really nostalgic."

After learning the truth about her family, she decides that she wants to "obtain" him to become "truly perfect". With this, she follows the same goal as Hayase and her female successors. It's possible that Mizuha as well feels drawn romantically towards Fushi despite describing herself as a person fixated on logic alone.

Hanna

Hanna is Mizuha's only female friend. The two became friends in middle school. They seem like close friends, but Hanna is still rather awkward around her and doesn't think they're especially close. On the other hand, Mizuha wears the hair tie that she got from her every day.

Yuuki

Yuuki has an obvious crush on Mizuha and even says so openly in chapter 117: "A peaceful world is where your crush is in the club room" while Mizuha is there. It's unknown if she reciprocates these feelings, however she says that she already has a crush on somebody who is in the same club as her. Since she spends a lot of time with the people from the occult club, it's possible that she likes Yuuki.

Skills
Talented

Mizuha has had many "hobbies" in her life, from playing the piano to dancing ballet and being in the naginata club. The naginata is a traditional Japanese blade, and being in a club with the same name probably means that she can handle the weapon. On top of that, she has only ever quit these hobbies or clubs after winning an important tournament.

Stronger than she seems

While Mizuha is a slim and feminine girl, she also seems to possess a certain amount of strength. For example, she can be seen carrying a tower of books with no visible issues concerning weight and balance. Another time she's carrying several bags to a trash container. She throws the bags up high, around two times her own height, and thus they land atop the other bags in the container. Again, she does this without any visible trouble.