Fukuzawa

inoctavo

Ranpo Edogawa is the person for whom Fukuzawa has most upended his whole life. They bonded while working to solve a case in which fourteen year old Ranpo showed incredible deductive skills and impressively poor social skills. Fukuzawa set aside his lifelong habit of working alone to open a detective agency with a skilled business permit for Ranpo. The kid didn't have a special ability, but Fukuzawa claimed he did to help him (and the kid repeated it for all the world). Though Fukuzawa cares for the detectives who work for him, he's generally reserved, and Ranpo has learned more about him and his past as they started it together. In return, Ranpo trusts him enough to follow his orders without using deduction to figure them out.

Fukuchi, Gen'ichirō as Fukuzawa calls him, is his childhood best friend and the person he misses the most, despite the fact they never entirely lost contact. Their ways parted when Gen'ichirō went to the battlefield and Fukuzawa refused to join him, remaining a lone wolf. After the war, Fukuzawa found his own way with Ranpo and the Armed Detective Agency, which deepened the divide between them. He saw his friend, he missed his friend, and he thought they were on their paths. The revelation that Fukuchi leads the Decay of the Angel, masterminded the whole plot, drives Fukuzawa to fight him—only to learn world peace, the end of war, is his friend's true goal. Though they both worked toward the same end, they could not be further apart, especially as Fukuchi masterminds his own death to see his dream come true.

The loss of balance (and relative peace with it) in Yokohama and beyond that the world. The world went to war over special abilities, and while that war is in the past, recent events have shown how tenuous that balance can be. The Armed Detective Agency and Port Mafia are rivals, often at odds with each other, yet when Yokohama and its balance is threatened, they band (to varying degrees) together to face external threats. When their organizations nearly went to war over the Cannibalism virus, both Fukuzawa and Mori took steps to find a solution that wouldn't put their people at risk and avoid the war everyone else gunned for, despite Fukuzawa's orders to the contrary. On a global scale, the world was easily turned against the gifted. Though it was a plot to unite the world and secure peace, Fukuzawa fears the future isn't nearly as secure as any of them might think.

Emotionally, Fukuzawa's weakness are his people, those in his organization that he devotes himself too. Known to remain calm and even during extreme duress, even upon being lured into a trap, it's those dangerously targeting his people that make him lose his cool—snapping a pen in half and becoming enraged when the Port Mafia revealed the secret hideout of support staff without abilities to the Guild. He's willing to cash out favors to put everything on hold when Atsushi is kidnapped and even bribes Ranpo to help, when he normally will not. It's also why he appreciates assassins targeting him, not his people, and how he can remain calm when arrested. He'd already arranged protection for his people.

Mentally, Fukuzawa's weakness is his fair play. He doesn't play dirty, and it limits him. His own ability mocks him for it in Dead Apple while fighting him. Mori nearly kills him when they duel to resolve the Cannibalism virus after Fukuzawa 'won' fair and square. Natsume's intervention saved him. Even when Ranpo shares the warning that a case is designed to cause the downfall of the agency, he cannot let innocent victims die to save himself or the agency. He lets Ranpo investigate the threat to them but carries on. Sometimes he sees it and does it anyway. Sometimes someone's sneaky.

Physically, Fukuzawa's special ability provides him no advantages in direct combat. It puts him at a disadvantage against opponents with special abilities, even more so than Dazai since Dazai can directly neutralize abilities. Given the way he prefers to face dangers himself, he especially places himself in physical harm's way.

For all he places the burden on himself, Fukuzawa wants the Armed Detective Agency to be able to survive him and succeed without him, even after he is gone. He's about twenty years older than everyone else in the agency, so it's only a matter of time. He would prefer they get more experience before needing to do so. He may never get a real retirement (expecting death a more likely end), but either way, if they are safe, capable, and carrying on, he can be happy.

Across time, Fukuzawa generally prefers someone whose priorities/goals match his. The particulars don't have to be the same—can even be at odds—so long as there is a common understanding where they are coming from. When he worked as a lone swordsman independently, he wanted others who were independent and made their own calls, even when they intersected across governments, organizations, and others. As a leader of an organization, prioritizing that organization and its people before his own life and well being, he looks for the same: people in leadership roles committed to those who work for them and their organization's goals.