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▶ CHARACTER
NAME: Sousuke Yamazaki
CANON: Free!
CANON POINT: Post Dive to the Future
AGE: 19
BACKGROUND: https://free-anime.fandom.com/wiki/Sosuke_Yamazaki

PERSONALITY:

Sousuke presents himself as a boy with an exterior that is hard to crack. He tends to keep quiet and has a presence that can come off as quite intimidating. While he can carry on a conversation for the sake of politeness, he often won't initiate them, unless he has something to say. However, once he warms up to someone, Sousuke can be pretty friendly. Mainly seen with Rin Matsuoka, given that they've been friends since they were children, it can be seen through his interactions with both Aiichiro Nitori and Momotaro Mikoshiba that he can be friendly with someone over time, as by the end of Eternal Summer, he helps Nitori develop his stroke and jokes with Momo a bit. Given this nature of his, Sousuke can be protective of his friends and will intervene when necessary.

His confrontations with Haru during the series are indicative of this. At the start, it seems as though he threatens Haru because while not knowing the reasoning behind the relay stunt the previous year, it can ruin Rin's chances of swimming in the international stage. In fact, his confrontation with Haru deals with Haru's inability to accept a path for his future. Haru's indecision is affecting Rin and that is not fine at all. Not only that, but the fact that Haru is someone with immense natural talent, with the capability to go as far as Rin can with his swimming, but he ignores his drive, whereas Sousuke is someone with the drive and ability, and yet his injured shoulder prevents him from advancing forward. There is a large amount of jealousy, yet Sousuke can accept Haru as Rin's rival, what he could not accept was Haru not making a choice on what he wanted to do.

Heavily determined, Sousuke permanently injured his body to achieve his dreams. Even if his dream changed from swimming in the international stage with Rin to just swimming one more race with him, Sousuke did whatever it took to accomplish it. Once he sets his mind on something, Sousuke will follow through to the very end not matter what. It's his determination that led him to helping Nitori. He recognized the desire to swim with Rin in him, and seeing the other boy training for long hours struck a chord with him. As such, he trained him so that Nitori would not have to suffer like he did.

As a child, he never viewed himself as being Rin's friend, even though he did things such as visit Rin at home while he was sick and play with him when they were supposed to be on cleaning duty. Highly competitive with Rin, Sousuke viewed them as being rivals, especially considering that he could never understand the importance of the relay. But there is no denying the important role Rin had in Sousuke's life: nearly everything he did, he did for Rin, for the chance to swim with him. Rin is the one who drives Sousuke to not only continue with swimming but to swim his best. It's because of Rin that Sousuke starts to understand friendship.

Following Eternal Summer, Sousuke grew immensely. He has become more open, becoming friends with not only more of the Samezuka team, but with the current and former members of the Iwatobi swim team. He has made strides in befriending them, helping them and turning to them for advice. Not only that, but he’s taken charge of his own life and future. Inspired by not only his friends and the advice he’s received, Sousuke took the initiative to get corrective surgery on his injured shoulder. The surgery ended up being a success and now he’s ready and able to get back into training and competing in swimming.

In the end, Sousuke can just be your average teenage boy. He comes off as intimidating at times, but once you get to know him, he can be rather nice and dorky. Determined, he can be a hard egg to crack, but once you do, he'll be protective of you and do what it takes to keep you alright.

POWERS/ABILITIES: Sousuke is an ordinary human with abilities well within the realm of human limitations. Prior to his shoulder injury, Sousuke was a nationally ranked swimmer, but asides from that there’s nothing special.

Except the boy being able to get lost on his own school campus.

INVENTORY: An omamori that reads “Certain Victory”; his swimsuit and goggles; his training jacket; Salonpas spray

MOONBLESSING: Sanguis

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