Touya

Touya (spelled Tohya in the Japanese light novels ) is one of the players trapped in the MMORPG Elder Tale. He is a Human Samurai-Accountant and has a twin sister named Minori. He was a member of the Shibuya Raid Team and later, the Akiba Guild Hall Raid Party.

His real name is Touya Housaki (鵬咲十夜), and he is a 14-year-old student. His birthday is September 18.

Appearance
Touya's in-game character is very much like his real-world appearance, though he is wheelchair-bound in real life. His in-game character is dressed in samurai armor and he carries around a katana.

Personality
Touya is very outgoing and sometimes rude, a foil to his well-mannered and more reserved sister. However, he has shown to be quite loyal and determined to protect those he cares about. Although they are the same age, Touya shows a bit of 'big brother instinct' towards Minori and is very protective of her. He is also quick to jump to her defense, such as when he chewed out Rundelhaus Code for looking down on her for her low level despite only being two levels higher himself.

He sees Shiroe as both his mentor and surrogate big brother, along with Naotsugu, the latter of whom takes him under his wing and trains him to be a better Tank.

While lightly touched on early in the story, later volumes show the depth of his trauma from the childhood accident that left him paraplegic. Witnessing the man who crashed his car into him die in the accident inflicted deep trauma on him, and the physical and emotional pain was great enough that he began thinking it would be easier if he had died.

Because of this, upon finding that he had a new, perfectly functioning body after the Catastrophe, he saw this as a sort of "second chance" for himself. The Odysseia Knights' flagrant disregard for their own lives and others' incenses him, as he has come to see life as something precious.

Before the Catastrophe
At some point, Touya was involved in an automobile accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down and wheelchair-bound. As a result, he often had to go to painful checkups, although Minori states that he never showed that he was in pain. Because of this, the two siblings became very close. Because it was difficult for Touya to go outside, the two persuaded their parents to allow them to play Elder Tale so that Touya could interact with others in a more normal fashion.

The Catastrophe arc
After logging in, Touya and his sister, Minori, discover that they are trapped in the MMORPG Elder Tale. The two decide to explore the area and are approached by a group of shady players, seemingly asking them to join their guild.

Round Table Alliance arc
The guild they joined turned out to be Hamelin, a malevolent guild recruiting new players under the pretense of trying to help them before revealing their true colors, exploiting the EXP Pots that was freely given to newer players daily by harvesting them and selling them to large battle guilds like the Black Sword Knights and Silver Sword. Unlike Minori, Touya was in the group of kids that was forced to hunt monsters for items that they then gave to the others to tailor. During another successful hunting trip, Isuzu slumps onto him, and he helps her walk as they travel to the Cathedral to pick up members that had died. Using the knowledge Shiroe had imparted to them prior to the Catastrophe, Touya deduces that the reason they were never succeeding and their party members dying was because Shredder was accumulating too much Hate with his higher level, thus drawing all the monsters to him and not allowing Touya to tank like he should be.

Fallen Guardian and Gold of the Kunie arcs
Touya is present when Shiroe announces that he is leaving Akiba, although the guild master doesn't tell them where he was going. Although Touya initially protests, Nyanta tells them to put their faith into Shiroe.

When Enbart Nelles begins his murders, the Round Table Alliance decides that anyone under level 50 would go and assist in cleaning up the remnants of the Return of the Goblin King event. Again, Touya protests this decision and voices his desire to fight the murderer even despite his sister's protests; however, Nyanta deftly points out that Touya only wanted to do this because Adventurers could revive. The Werecat then silences Touya by reminding him that, while Touya didn't want any "special treatment" due to his lower level, the fact that he could revive was already special treatment.

Route 43 arc
Touya's Party travels west in order to acquire Dazaneg's Magic Bag. Along the way, they encounter Roe2, who has almost no knowledge about how this world works or about things like flavors and sauces. She saved them from monsters with her powerful summons, and decides to travel with them when they called her “onee-san”. She herself was setting off to change the bothersome Vampanella subclass that her “onii-san” gave her. The kids notice that she resembles Shiroe, but don’t really question why. At Lander villages, the kids (sans Rudy) would perform for the villagers.

Before they get to the town of Saphir, they meet the Odysseia Knights and Dariella, a traveling Lander writer. The Odysseia Knights possess a portable shrine, so if they die in battle they’ll simply revive at this shrine. It’s rather ominous. The scrubs decide to go along with the Knights for a bit when they arrive at Saphir. Touya talks to Dariella a bit, and points out that she’s hiding some sort of pain, but she evades those comments.

When occurs the Wyverns' invasion, both the scrubs and the Knights go into action. However, as the battle turns south, the Knights reveal their mentality: they sacrificed not only themselves, but the Landers too. To them, Landers were still NPCs that didn’t have a history or emotions. The Knights recklessly kill themselves over and over, slaying Wyverns and each other in pandemonium. The Scrubs are horrified by this, but Roe2 only remarks how humans have such inefficient social structures that defied logic. She says that the Knights were willing to sacrifice “Empathiom” for the Genius. As Touya, Serara, Isuzu, and Rudy charge into battle, Minori asks Roe2 who she really is.

Touya grabs one of the Knights, demanding to know how they could sacrifice themselves and others so easily. The Knight just tells him off, calling him a brat. Touya reveals how he knows of death and suffering, since he saw the driver in the car accident that paralyzed him die. However, his words don’t reach the Knight.

Nureha, who was Dariella in disguise, was impressed that one of "Shiroe's kids" had such intuition that he could see through her near-perfect disguise. Because of that, she decides that since Touya wanted to save this town, she would have it saved for his sake. She orders Roreil Dawn to kill all the Wyverns and Nightshades, and declares that Operation Red Night was canceled.

After the battle, the kids decide to leave the day after. Rudy understood that some Landers would blame the Adventurers for what happened and for not protecting everyone, and didn’t want his friends to be hurt by those words. They bid farewell to both Roe2 and Dariella. Dariella was more distant, and left after a short farewell. Rudy teases Touya, asking if he had a crush on her, but Touya responds it wasn’t that, he could tell that Dariella had been biting her nails out of pain and worry.

Equipment
Like his mentor Naotsugu, Touya's battle style focuses on being a frontline tank and a Hate controller. He usually dons a katana and heavy armor.

Trivia

 * Touya is taking kenjutsu lessons under Soujiro Seta.
 * He shares a voice actor with Pororoca.