Quiet, dignified, disciplined and enigmatic, Jin is in every respect the polar opposite of Mugen, a classically-trained (and, forgive this fangirl, heartbreakingly beautiful) swordsman with a precise and lethal fighting style. As Mugen wears red, he wears indigo blue. His age is given as 20. Everything about him says “aristocrat”: his glasses, his pale complexion and stately height, his manners and his devotion to the code of the samurai. The very fact that he's permitted to carry a daisho (matched set of two swords) says he's from a samurai family. His name means “benevolence and compassion”. He carries himself with unshakable self- confidence, and is virtually unbeatable, a devastating duellist with superbly pure technique and a blinding-fast draw. Jin keeps firm control of himself in every possible aspect from his appearance and appetite to his level monotone voice, speaks little, and has but once been heard to laugh: when kneeling at the headsman's block. He seems to be seeking inner peace and balance in warrior’s discipline, and possesses a core of deep calm, but he's a creature of fierce pride and intensity who typically kills with a single stroke. At his darkest he radiates bitter, repressed anger, and observes the world with a narrow, resentful stare; at his best, he's all a samurai should be, capable of great gentleness, courtesy, martial skill and dauntless courage. He's almost two people, the detached and passive Jin who does as bidden, permits his friends to drag him around and unfailingly respects his elders, and the lightning-fast nemesis he becomes when he draws his sword. He only seems truly awake and alive when fighting.

There's a great crime in his past: He trained in a dojo whose claim to fame was that its master--Mariya Enshirou-- had fought a thousand sword duels without a defeat. He was praised as a prodigy and a genius, but something went very wrong: Jin killed his master, was obliged to leave the school and took to the road. Even now others trained by this master have sworn revenge and are seeking his life. What’s one to do when the system one was raised to respect turns and punishes you for doing, as told, your very best? Yet his faith in the warrior’s way remains the only thing he owns--and even that he has begun to question, a deep, surfacing feeling that no one was born to serve and obey all his life--along with his honor and his katana, and it would be worth your life to try taking any of them from him.