
Heizo Iwami (1916-December 2016), also known as Takeru Kurusu, was a Japanese businessman and yakuza boss who served as the founding President of Iwami Shipbuilding and as Chairman of the Yomei Alliance until 2016, preceding Kanji Koshimizu.
Biography[]

Iwami in 1946
Heizo Iwami was born in Hiroshima, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan in 1916. He became a successful, Onomichi-based shipbuilder, founding Iwami Shipbuilding and producing Imperial Japanese Navy warships during World War II. He was contracted by the military for a top-secret effort to built the Yamato Mark II, although the war passed before the ship could be deployed, and Iwami had the ship hidden in an underwater drydock to hide the evidence of its construction; Admiral Minoru Daidoji had used misplaced war funds to finance its construction, and unsuccessfully attempted to force Iwami to destroy it. Iwami instead used the ship as leverage to force Daidoji, who became a powerful political boss after the Allied occupation of Japan, to give him influence in the country's politics. After the end of the war, Iwami adopted a young Toru Hirose, who became his chief assassin. While Iwami became a well-known businessman, he adopted the alter ego of "Takeru Kurusu" for his yakuza business, and the police were unable to find out much about the shadowy Kurusu over the next half-century.

Iwami in 1976
In order to keep the "Secret of Onomichi" concealed and establish a foothold for Iwami Shipbuilding's dirty work, Iwami founded the Yomei Alliance, whose activities were confined to Chugoku, and which remained neutral in the wars between the Omi Alliance of Kansai and the Tojo-kai of Kanto. In 1976, Iwami ordered Hirose to murder all those within the Yomei who were aware of the "Secret of Onomichi" in response to the Saio Triad's attempted use of the secret to blackmail the Yomei Alliance. Iwami proved to be both a wise man and a cold-blooded murderer whose position in Hiroshima was secured only by the eternal burying of the "Secret of Onomichi"; still, Iwami believed that the sustenance and stability of Hiroshima depended on maintaining the secret.

Iwami in 2016
By the 2010s, Iwami, pushing 100 years old, decided to groom his captain Kanji Koshimizu as his successor to the Yomei chairmanship, as he wished for his son Tsuneo Iwami to keep managing the legal side of the Iwami Group. In 2015, the ambitious Tsuneo instigated a gang war in Tokyo to empower a puppet ruler of the Tojo-kai, Katsumi Sugai, who could help him seize control of the Yomei. Heizo was one step ahead of his son, dragging Kazuma Kiryu into the fray through Tojo heir Takumi Someya's kidnapping of his ex-wife Kiyomi Kasahara and ensuring that Tsuneo's attempt to swear an oath with Someya was contingent on Kiryu serving as an official witness. Kiryu refused, lest he work behind the back of the imprisoned chairman Daigo Dojima, leading to the oath talks collapsing. When Tsuneo Iwami decided to kidnap Haruto Sawamura to lure his father Yuta Usami into discovering his Saio Triad roots and turning against his father, Saio leader Big Lo, Heizo sent Koshimizu to kidnap Haruto first, but Toru Hirose kept the baby sheltered and ultimately informed Yuta of his parentage, as Heizo also wished for the Saio to be destroyed so that the "Secret of Onomichi" could remain safe. Ultimately, Hirose killed Joongi Han and Koji Masuzoe to preserve the secret, but, when he refused to kill Kiryu and his own Hirose-gumi men on their accidental exposition of the Yamato Mark II in the harbor, Heizo Iwami arrived and executed Hirose for his treason.

Iwami bracing for his death
The emergence of the Yamato Mark II from its underwater hiding place caused a media frenzy, and the Iwami Group denied having any knowledge about the warship. The dying Daidoji decided to sever his ties with Heizo in favor of allying with Tsuneo instead, giving Tsuneo the go-ahead to stage a coup. Tsuneo confronted his father in his office, berating him for trying to cheat him out of his birthright, and he then had Koshimizu shoot Heizo in the head with a silenced pistol and make his death look like a suicide. Partly due to Kiryu's intervention, Tsuneo was defeated and arrested before he could become the next Yomei chairman, a title that passed on to Koshimizu as intended.