“igogusa, she had wild, unruly hair. I loved her hair. I never wanted you to use her to deceive me.” nothing to smile about in my life lookin guy can’t defend myself from this one folks. I cannot even. explain. this little man has grown on me so much in the last couple days. his relationship with tsurumi is so layered, throwing away his memories of chiyo and her lock of hair and a piece of himself to become the most compliant and loyal soldier to division 7, who only follows tsurumi’s commands, despite knowing it was all built on a lie and considering his life of being worth little. the whole thing with igogusa lowkey drives me insane with the fact that tsurumi contorted the story to fit his own advantage. and the fact that tsukishima realizes during the battle of mukden. us never finding out if igogusa is alive, or married, killed by her family, or tsukishima’s family, if tsurumi met with her, what he told her if he did, why they stopped responding to each other. and him not even caring to find out at the end!! i wonder if ogata likes tsukishima more cause he also killed his own father lololol the way he is objectively the most “normal” person in division 7 and has to be their straight man.. I like how aware he is that he is just a cog in the machine, a dutiful follower, and that is life is to carry out tsurumi’s whim despite tsurumi’s insanity, and how he treats his own life and loyalty as a sunk cost fallacy. He’s like a stone wall that shows nothing, yet he will help and comfort people who are victims of tsurumi’s schemes, and his relationship with second lieutenant koito; the difference in how him and koito both see the person who groomed them- koito going from craving tsurumi’s attention to realizing and becoming disillusioned, whereas tsukishima uses the fact that he was groomed to be “neutral” and not have to think for himself and stays stuck in that relationship. but them becoming friends was so special to me!! fave part is tsurumi sending koito with tsukishima to the arctic, koito whispering to tsukishima, and tsukishima relating back to tsurumi: “he’s upset 😐” the most interesting dynamic is when he is faced with killing tanigaki and inkarmat, or talks about killing koito if ordered to despite his own anguish after. the haunting part after when tsurumi turns to tsukishima and says, “you’re the only one left on my side,” !!!!!!! phew!! koito begging tsurumi to let tsukishima go in the end, knowing that tsukishima would die if he went up there, knowing tsukushima would throw his life away without a second thought. the last couple chapters were haunting in the way that tsukishima kept pushing himself more and more to fulfill his role, the exhaustion afterwards as he was shaking when reaching for tsurumi’s hand, tsurumi’s obscured face. koito pleading with him to let go. tsukishima still searching day after day for any trace of tsurumi until koito came for him. koito saving tsukishima in the end..