Soukaku — Zenless Zone Zero

Materials connected to Yanagi’s official “Oni Guardian” teaser reveal that Soukaku’s life before New Eridu was bound to an armed conflict involving the oni. A young Soukaku experienced severe hunger and depended on an older oni whom she addressed as “Sis.” The community’s scene summary places their shared hardship within the rebellion; this is a more specific account than Soukaku’s relatively sparse in-game citizen records provide.

During that conflict, Soukaku encountered Tsukishiro Yanagi, then a Defense Force operative. The account of their meeting connects Yanagi’s intervention with food shared during a desperate situation—an important contrast with Soukaku’s later cheerful insistence on having enough to eat. Those background events come from the historical character teaser and its secondary documentation, not from a claim that the game’s current city records reconstruct every detail.

The older oni Soukaku called “Sis” succeeded her father as the rebellion’s leader after his death. Yanagi’s military assignment brought her into conflict with that leader. Accounts of the “Oni Guardian” teaser describe a grim agreement intended to end the fighting and spare the remaining oni: the leader died, and her oni blood was transferred into Yanagi. Yanagi subsequently took Soukaku into her care. Soukaku’s bright everyday life with Yanagi therefore rests on a history of loss that the younger oni does not fully understand.

Soukaku’s Close Trust Agent Intel approaches that history indirectly, recording an otherwise unidentified “sister” and an earlier Defense Force operation involving Yanagi and the oni. In the optional “Not a Nightmare” Trust story, Soukaku can describe her sister’s disappearance and the frightening dream, but cannot put the entire past together. These glimpses distinguish what the player can piece together from what Soukaku herself understands.

Soukaku remains part of Section 6 as the game’s continuing storyline brings the unit into confrontations involving dangerous Hollows. The Version 1.3 special episode “Virtual Revenge” centers on Yanagi and a threat within a virtual combat environment, while the following main-story chapter, “A Storm of Falling Stars,” gives Section 6 a larger role. These are team episodes rather than evidence of a separate, conclusively finished Soukaku character arc.

In the optional Trust commission “Not a Foodie,” Soukaku admits that she nearly struck a rookie Section 5 agent while fighting an Ethereal. Yanagi intervened before anyone was hurt, but the frightened rookie’s reaction leaves Soukaku wondering whether people find her terrifying. A subsequent trip in search of New Eridu’s supposed culinary delicacies becomes less about rare flavors than reassurance: Soukaku admits that fancy food seldom tastes very different to her and that she values the Proxy’s company and friendship more than the meal.

“Not a Nightmare,” another optional Trust commission, reveals a more painful fear. After dreaming that Yanagi killed the older oni she calls “Sis,” Soukaku leaves home for a night because she is frightened by both the dream and her own need for Yanagi’s comfort. She recalls that she and Sis once went hungry together, that Sis disappeared, and that Yanagi then gave her a new home. The Proxy helps Soukaku see that relying on people is not shameful. The commission portrays her affection for Yanagi as genuine, while leaving Soukaku without a complete understanding of the history behind her nightmare.

In the optional Version 1.4 event Into That Pale Wasteland, Soukaku is distressed that children evacuated from a Hollow cannot find the caretaker who stayed behind. She tries to cheer them with sweets and asks the Proxy to investigate, arguing that losing one’s family would be devastating. This is a concrete demonstration of her concern for others rather than merely another joke about eating.

The mission’s recovered evidence points to a much darker fate for the caretaker and to wrongdoing involving the orphanage. Yanagi resolves to pursue the matter with authorities but asks the Proxy not to burden Soukaku with the full details. Soukaku receives an account emphasizing the caretaker’s courage and expresses a determination to protect New Eridu’s people. This is optional event material and should not be treated as proof that every possible player action occurred in a single mandatory storyline.