Hunters (Shiki)

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Evil Organization
Full Name	Shiki Hunters
Alias	Hunters
Origin	Shiki
Foundation	Kagura Festival
Headquarters	Village Square
Commanders	Toshio Ozaki
Agents	Tomio Ookawa Sadafumi Tamo Takeo Shimizu Hiroko Shimizu Kazuko Ookawa Munetaka Murasako Munehide Murasako Murasako Chizuko Hirosawa Hasegawa Motoko Maeda Natsuno Koide
Powers / Skills	Tactical Planning Weaponry Vast Numbers
Goals	Eliminate every last Shiki in Sotoba (nearly succeeded).
Crimes	Mass Murder Genocide Mass Destruction Spreading Hysteria Slaughtering unarmed humans, and victims of Shiki hypnosis
Type of Villains	Genocidal Extremists

“	These monsters refer to themselves as Shiki. They're corpse demons. They are the ones behind all the mysterious deaths since this summer. (...) Listen up! It's time! I'm going to hunt them down. (...) I don't expect everyone to agree with what I have in mind, but if you can handle it I could sure use your help.	„
	~ Toshio Ozaki assembling the Shiki hunters.

The Hunters are the main protagonists of Shiki.

They are a group of Sotoba villagers assembled by Toshio Ozaki to exterminate every last Shiki in the village. Over the course of their hunt, their actions grow more and more extreme, as they resort to butchering the Shiki in the most inhumane ways possible, and eventually begin murdering other humans.

Biography

Toshio Ozaki lured Chizuru Kirishiki to Sotoba's yearly Kagura festival, and managed to expose her true nature as an undead vampire to the entire village via her cold flesh and lack of a pulse. After revealing to Takeo Shimizu that Chizuru was the one who murdered his daughter, Takeo confirms it by smelling the exact same perfume on her that was lingering in Megumi's bedroom when she died. Taking revenge on Chizuru, he brutally stakes her before everyone. Then Ozaki gives a speech, asking the rest of the village to join his ranks and avenge their loved ones.

The hunters quickly and efficiently tracked down every Shiki hiding place, and slaughtered as many as they could find. During this crusade, a hypnotized human shot at Ozaki with a gun. Tomio Ookawa seized the man, and accused him of being a human who willingly conspired with the Shiki, just like Seishirou Kirishiki. Toshio Ozaki tried to tell him otherwise, but ultimately Tomio Ookawa murdered the man, and Toshio moved on from the incident, as he was more concerned with eliminating the Shiki.

During the hunt in the irrigation tunnels, another human was slaughtered after being bitten, due to the hunters being unsure of whether or not he had been turned into a Shiki, and misremembering what Ozaki had said before. These same hunters also left the final remnants of the Shiki they discovered to burn in the sun in excruciating agony. The sole empathetic member of the group named Hasegawa ultimately had to put them down. The leader of this group, Sadafumi Tamo, encouraged all of their behavior and was never punished for it.

The final target of the hunters was the Kirishiki family. After breaking into their manor and killing everyone inside, they failed to locate Sunako. Later on they realized that there was a secret basement, but by the time they had discovered it, Tatsumi created a diversion allowing Sunako to sneak away. However, during Sunako's escape, the car she was in driven by Seishin Muroi crashed into a vehicle being driven by Ozaki, exposing them.

Tomio Ookawa and a small group of hunters left Toshio to chase after Seishin and Sunako. This led them the village's temple. After questioning the workers on the temple grounds whether or not they had seen Seishin, they denied it. The hunters accused them of lying and conspiring with Seishin, and proceeded to slaughter them during the argument, committing their most heinous act yet.

Seishin was gravely wounded while fending them off, while Sunako escaped into the forest. The hunters chased after Sunako, but a massive fire distracted them during the hunt. Tomio Ookawa told them to go and deal with it, while he pursued Sunako himself. Tomio was ultimately killed by a reanimated Seishin, while the rest of the hunters escaped the blaze as it burned Sotoba to the ground.

Members

• Toshio Ozaki: Leader.
• Tomio Ookawa: Second in command.
• Sadafumi Tamo: Leader of the irrigation tunnel hunters.
• Takeo Shimizu: High ranking member, and the first one to kill a Shiki during the hunt.
• Motoko Maeda: Loosely associated with them, helps them, but also goes on her own rogue quest for vengeance and hinders them in the end.
• Natsuno Koide: Ozaki's secret ally. Does not participate in the hunt, but helps undermine the Kirishiki Family's plans.

Trivia

• The hunters are meant to parallel real life lynch mobs, whose wrath is born from seeking justice, but end up killing innocent people in the midst of hysteria.
• All three adaptions end with the hunters becoming the final villains of the narrative, as Shiki's purpose across all mediums is to explore the nature of survival, and good vs evil conflicts.