Masataka Hikawa, also known as Masataka Ebina (born 1977 - died 2023) was a Japanese policeman who, from 2019 to 2023, infiltrated the yakuza and rose to be captain and acting chairman of the Seiryu-kai of Yokohama. Vengeful over the yakuza's role in his mother's suffering, Ebina utilized his position of underworld power to lure disenfranchised ex-yakuza into the Seiryu Clan and provide them employment on the Palekana-owned Nele Island, where they were exposed to radioactive materials and died slow deaths from cancer. Ebina's conspiracy to round up and kill off ex-yakuza before they could reintegrate into society was revealed by Ichiban Kasuga and Chitose Fujinomiya during the Palekana scandal of 2023, resulting in his arrest.
Biography[]
Masataka Ebina was born in January 1977, the son of Hikawa-gumi yakuza Masumi Arakawa and his fiancée Yuriko Hikawa, daughter of the Hikawa Family's patriarch Sosuke Hikawa. He was born at the same time as Arakawa's illegitimate son, Ichiban Kasuga, as well as Arakawa's adoptive son Masato Arakawa; however, his father was unaware of his son's birth, as the Hikawa Family ostracized him for his affair with Kasuga's mother Akane Kishida. Ebina was raised by his single mother, who struggled to raise him without the support of her family and died while Ebina was in middle school. Ebina ignored his mother's pleas to not hate the Hikawa-gumi and desired vengeance against Arakawa for abandoning his mother. As an adult, Ebina joined the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, rising to an elite bureaucratic position while embarking on a quest to eradicate the yakuza.
In 2019, Ebina learned of the "Great Dissolution" of the Omi Alliance and the Tojo-kai, Japan's two largest yakuza federations, and the immediate transition of 30,000 yakuza into civilians who were beyond punishment. Additionally angered that Arakawa had been murdered by Yosuke Tendo before he could have a role in his father's downfall, Ebina plotted to exact his revenge through rallying large groups of ex-yakuza and disposing of them. Ebina joined the Seiryu-kai in Yokohama and quickly rose to the rank of captain due to his reputation as a good earner; he ran a highly secret operation in which people paid him to dispose of incriminating evidence against them. After Takabe was arrested in 2021, Ebina became acting chairman of the Seiryu Clan. The government's five-year ban on restoring civil liberties to yakuza left many ex-criminals jobless and starving, and Ebina recruited thousands of them into his clan, whether as muscle or as employees at his vault of secrets. He also provided evidence to the court that former Tokyo Omi Alliance chairman Jo Sawashiro had not murdered the previous Seiryu Clan boss Ryuhei Hoshino, resulting in Sawashiro's release from prison and his recruitment into the Seiryu.
Ebina utilized Sawashiro as his right-hand man in attempting to bring about a "Second Great Dissolution" of families like the Kitakata-gumi of Hokkaido, the Yomei Alliance of Choshu, and the Ryudo-ikka of Okinawa, while he also allied himself with Hawaiian cult leader Bryce Fairchild of the Palekana in order to provide employment to struggling ex-yakuza on Nele Island, a radioactive island where the workers would gradually die from cancer.
Ebina at Tojo HQ
In 2023, Ebina blackmailed investigate journalist Chitose Fujinomiya of the Tatara Channel into exposing the criminal pasts of people like Kasuga and other employed ex-yakuza, getting them fired from their jobs. Ebina met Kasuga after the latter stormed Seiryu Clan headquarters in an attempt to prevent the ex-yakuza Shinya Sasaki from returning to a life of organized crime. Ebina greeted Kasuga as a friend, and he revealed that he was hiring ex-yakuza into a legitimate waste management business and that he was organizing a "Second Great Dissolution" to carry out Masumi Arakawa's wishes. Ebina also reintroduced Kasuga to his former captain Sawashiro, who enlisted Kasuga's help with traveling to Hawaii and meeting his long-lost mother Akane Kishida. Ebina hoped that Kasuga would draw her out of hiding and enable Fairchild to kill her and recapture her ward, the true Palekana heir Lani Mililani.
In Hawaii, Kasuga quickly came into conflict with the Yamai Syndicate as it hunted for his mother, joined a sickly Kiryu, battled the Barracudas and the Ganzhe as they attempted to aid Fairchild's search for Mililani, and ultimately returned to Yokohama after the Geomijul informed him that the Seiryu planned to expand into Hawaii. At the former Tojo headquarters, Kasuga learned from Ebina that he had gotten the idea for his waste management business from the Palekana and planned to partner with them, even as he claimed to have no knowledge of Palekana's hunt for Mililani. On returning to Hawaii, Kasuga and Kiryu discovered that Ebina had sent Eiji Mitamura to spy on Kasuga's party, while Kiryu decided to focus on Sawashiro, Ebina's giht-hand man.
Ebina burning Narasaki's body
By then, Ebina was finalizing plans to make a deal with Palekana to store all of Japan's accumulated nuclear waste on Nele Island, which would allow the Japanese government to resume its nuclear industry and also enable Ebina to intensify the eradication of ex-yakuza. Sawashiro, who secretly desired a Second Great Dissolution, worked behind Ebina's back to see it through, helping Kasuga and his friends. The Tatara Channel attempted to weaken Kasuga and his friends by revealing that Kiryu was still alive after faking his death in 2016, and that he had met with Kasuga, supposedly to restore the Tojo. Ebina then announced his deal with Palekana, the dissolution of the Seiryu Clan, the reformation of Bleach Japan, and a plan to pass his yakuza rehabilitation project to the government.
Kiryu begging Ebina to forgive the yakuza
While Kasuga and Kiryu rescued Mililani and Kishida in Hawaii and brought them back to Japan, Ebina's plan was approved by the government, while he, learning of Sawashiro's treachery, held the captain hostage at Millennium Tower. While Kasuga returned to Hawaii to stop Fairchild, Kiryu stormed the Millennium Tower and defeated Ebina, who was largely responsible for his cancer. Though Kiryu sympathized with Ebina's anger against the yakuza, he begged him to give ex-yakuza like himself a chance to atone. Ebina was promptly arrested, and Fujinomiya's revelation of Nele Island's biohazards on her channel resulted in its closure, Resulting in his death.
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