hides himself from the others, such as by hiding in the ceiling. A member of a famous gold mining clan, family tradition led them to elongate the limbs of their members using metal rings to help them mine better via ; similar to neck rings. As a result, Yatsume's limbs are about 1.5 times as long as normal, with the notable exception of his left arm, which is twice as long and equipped with metal claws. His teeth have also been sharpened into fangs from a young age, although his long tongue is natural. Fifteen years earlier, Yatsume took up fighting and joined the Yaminobu in order to support his clan, who had fallen on hard times due to depleted gold mines, by hoping to prove to the Tokugawa shogunate that their bodies had battle potential. But the Yaminobu were defeated by Kenshin and the Shogunate defeated by the Ishin Shishi. Yatsume wants revenge on Kenshin to uphold the laws of his clan (which state that anyone who sees a member of their clan must be killed) and for the misfortunes of his clan, which he blames on the Ishin Shishi and Kenshin. Before he can fight Kenshin however, he ends up fighting Saitō instead and is brutally maimed in defeat, despite having managed to outmaneuver the man's trademark attack once. Kenshin stops Saitō from killing him and offers to let Yatsume fight him if he still wants to after healing, but suggests that he go up north and use his abilities to help his clan. He is arrested by the police afterwards. Yatsume's model was kumo otoko ("Spider Man"), not the American version, so he has similar roots as Han'nya. Because the "freaks" theme did not go so well with Han'nya, Yatsume is Watsuki's second attempt at it. But the author said he was utterly defeated, citing Saitō as the biggest reason; any character turns into a weakling in front of Saitō, just like Usui did. Watsuki said that the body shaping is one of the ideas he likes, but seems a little unfitting for a shonen manga. Because body deformation is a sensitive issue, he had to be careful how he dealt with it, which might have detracted from the storyline as a whole. He stated that there would be no further attempts at the freaks theme because he believes that there needs to be more "positive themes"