Michael Tate

"The armored samurai will sometimes move, while other times he will not. Whether he moves or not plays a major factor in determining the ending."

- Transcript of Hint 7 about Michael's samurai armor. Michael Tate is a minor antagonist in the 1998 spin-off video game Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within. He was the oldest sibling of the Tate family and serves as the secondary antagonist of the first chapter in the game.

Background
Michael was the oldest child in the family. He was the son of the late Philip Tate and Kathryn Take, the brother of late Ashley and Stephanie Tate and the cousin Alyssa Hale.

After Stephanie found the Golden Statue and became infected by it and she went insane, Michael hides inside his samurai armor to evade her in the second floor. However, the helmet caused him to go insane and become a murderous stalker.

Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within
Before going into Stephanie’s room, Alyssa takes a look at the samurai armor, triggering it to move. At random occasions, Michael will be in the samurai armor wander around the house.

Later in the game, while Alyssa is walking around the Memorial Pharmaceuticals Research lab, after finding a key at the courtyard ground, Maxwell, unknowingly, throws Michael’s samurai armor down from the mirror up in the ceiling and into the courtyard.

Avoiding from being crushed to death by the falling armor, Alyssa immediately recognizes Michael inside the armor, presumably been killed by the fall. Although, it is unknown how he got in there in the first place.

It is unknown what happen to Michael’s corpse after that. But it is presumably destroyed when the lab explodes.

Trivia

 * His Japanese name, Masaharu (雅春), has the kanji of spring (春 Haru) in it. His siblings original names also contain kanjis of seasons in them, Stephanie (千夏 Chinatsu) has the kanji of summer (夏 Natsu) and Ashley (秋代 Akiyo) has the kanji of autumn (秋 Aki). While there is no other character with the kanji of winter (冬 Fuyu), Alyssa's real name (Lynn) in the japanese version is Rin (凛) and the kanji used for it means "cold", such as winter, completing the name play on the four seasons in some way. The fact that the kanji in Alyssa's real name simply means "cold" instead of "winter" could be a reference to how she is not connected to her cousins by blood, but they are still family.