Tetchō Suehiro

Tetchō Suehiro (末広 鉄腸,) is a member of the Hunting Dogs special units and has the ability Plum Blossoms in Snow.

Appearance
Tetchō is a young man with wild brown hair that strays in numerous directions, with bangs falling in front of his face. He also has two thin pieces of hair that are longer than the others in the back. He wears the standard Hunting Dogs uniform. Beneath his left eye, he has three distinctive markings.

Personality
Compared to his peers, Tetchō has a much more serious personality, though he still fits the bill as an eccentric fellow. For instance, he has the habit of combining similar-colored food and eating them. For example, he puts shichimi spice on strawberries, sugar on white rice, and sauce for noodles on yōkan. He is also shown to eat a hard-boiled egg with its shell still on, observe an ant colony for eight straight hours, and perform muscle training intermittently, even during meetings.

As a Hunting Dog, Tetchō takes his role seriously and has a strong penchant for justice. Thus far, he seems to be the least cruel among the Hunting Dogs, voicing out his dislike for people who torture others during their investigations, including Saigiku Jōno. As such, he is willing to use his status to get the wanted members of the Armed Detective Agency and their accomplice Lucy Maud Montgomery a free trial after the owner of Café Uzumaki wants to protect them, showing that he has sympathy for people who just want to help those they know.

Ability
Tetchō's ability, Plum Blossoms in Snow (雪中梅,) allows him to increase the size, shape, and length of his sword. However, this has only been demonstrated with his saber and is unknown whether or not he can do this with other weapons.

Skills

 * Physical Prowess: Tetchō is said to have the strongest ability in the Hunting Dogs in terms of physical prowess.
 * Negotiation Expertise: He is quite adept in negotiating with others during interrogation, preferring communication over force in extracting his needed information out of his targets. Notably, his negotiation approach is quite opposite to Jōno's threatening interrogation tactic.

Decay of Angels Arc
Tetchō arrives together with his fellow Hunting Dogs as summoned by the government to track down the Armed Detective Agency, who have been identified as the Decay of Angels. As his capsule lands and opens in front of the military police, Tetchō reveals himself posing, while Jōno coldly asks him to go away. He and the latter then help Teruko Okura's release from her capsule out of anxiousness for their vice commander.

With the four Hunting Dogs assembled, they discuss the possible routes that the Agency might take to escape from them. They theorize two choices: a southern highway, where the Agency could hijack a getaway car; or the northern train station, where they could blend in among the passengers. In the end, Teruko instructs them to split into two teams, where Tetchō and Jōno take the southern road, while Fukuchi and Teruko take the northern station. With their superhuman speed, the two teams head out.

Tetchō slashes through the trees along their way and eventually reaches their destination. As Jōno voices his dislike for him, he humors Tetchō to stop breathing and his heartbeat given Jōno's keen listening senses, compelling Tetchō to hold his breath in. Jōno then detects the Agency near their spot, to which Tetchō prepares for their encounter. Eventually, Jōno infiltrates their vehicle, pulling out Kenji Miyazawa and Jun'ichirō Tanizaki from inside. Tetchō then prepares his attack on the two detectives, until Doppo Kunikida rams the vehicle into Tetchō to retrieve his comrades. In the Agency's attempt to escape from the Hunting Dogs, Tetchō activates Plum Blossoms in Snow and severs their vehicle into two with his sword.

With the Agency injured, Jōno asks Tetchō to kill Akiko Yosano, whom he calls as the "Angel of Death". As he prepares to kill the doctor, Tetchō is hit by an undetected attack from above. To their shock, Chūya Nakahara arrives and attacks the Hunting Dogs from a chopper with his ability to rescue the Agency.

Despite their high altitude, the Hunting Dogs continue pursuing their targets, with Tetchō using his ability to stab Kenji inside the chopper and hang on the aircraft, noting that nothing shall escape his blade. With the rotors soon to collapse from Tetchō's blade, Kunikida jumps off the chopper and lands on him mid-air. Tetchō notes on his foolishness for thinking they can escape with his action, but Kunikida corrects him and asserts how his ideals shall never falter, detonating a hand grenade on Tetchō and himself.

After Kunikida is hospitalized and put on watch, Tetchō and his fellow Hunting Dogs are requested for dispatch having found the Agency, with Michizō Tachihara rejoining them as the undercover fifth Hunting Dog and cornering Yosano that leads to her arrest.

As Tachihara returns to the Hunting Dogs' headquarters, he spots Tetchō nearby, having observed an ant colony for eight hours. During their meeting, Tachihara reports that the Agency has been last sighted two days ago at the bank, after which eyewitness reports have stopped coming. As Tetchō is reprimanded by Jōno for muscle training during the meeting, Teruko thinks that the criminals are still within the country and may have conveniently found a base and a leader. To investigate, Tetchō and Jōno head to Café Uzumaki.

They bicker with each other over the title of the "strongest Hunting Dog"; Jōno thinks that such title should belong to someone with impressive investigation and capturing skills, unlike Tetchō's physical strength that earned him such feat. Jōno then challenges him that whichever of them can find the Agency first shall grab hold of the title. Jōno begins questioning the café manager about their waitress Lucy, whom the manager dismisses as a negligible employee, possibly quite insignificant to their investigation on the wanted Agency fugitives. Jōno then lauds the manager's coffee and holds him in admiration, though Jōno confesses that he can see through his lie.

As the manager becomes evidently suspicious, Tetchō stabs Jōno's foot for tormenting the manager during interrogation. Tetchō then takes over the questioning, promising him not to charge Lucy with a single crime if he were to confess her location. Aside from her safety, the manager quips that he also wishes the Agency to be saved, so Tetchō vows on his sword that they shall receive a fair trial. The manager then implores them to save Lucy and reveals to them that she has headed to the Sky Casino.

Two weeks after Fukuchi's return from Standard Island aboard the Boswellian, Tachihara reports to his fellow Hunting Dogs about the bizarre infection-like incident within the Mafia, specifically with an inhuman Ichiyō Higuchi turning Gin Akutagawa and Ryūrō Hirotsu into her kind, as well as witnessing an undead horde of mafiosi. Though Teruko insults how idiotic he reacted, she believes his story, as it coincides with recent disappearances of various mafiosi. Jōno conjectures it might be terrorism using an ability, which Tetchō thinks is the Agency's next terrorist act. Jōno notices Tetchō's seriousness, which he jests will earn a mark on his calendar.

Tachihara subtly implies that the Agency cannot possibly be terrorists after recalling how the detectives kept on mentioning being falsely accused numerous times. Hence, he requests them to allow him to reinvestigate the case. Jōno turns to their commander for his approval, though Fukuchi rejects it, claiming that Tachihara's ability is needed in addressing the infection case. Nevertheless, after Tachihara opens his alternative plan using the flash drive he previously broke at the Sky Casino, Fukuchi reluctantly allows him to investigate. Jōno reminds Fukuchi that the flash drive may be another fake planted by the Agency, but Tetchō remarks that Fukuchi nonetheless believes in the possibility that the Agency may not truly be terrorists as he previously said to the UN delegates.

Later at an airport, Tetchō gathers with Teruko and Jōno, and they review their operation: One Order shall be brought to the airport, while 18 fake transport operations are to be deployed, with their commander having claimed that Ranpo Edogawa shall see through the counterfeits and deduce the real weapon. Seeing it as quite bothersome, Jōno recommends taking someone close to the Agency as a hostage to threaten them with, such as the eavesdropping Aya Koda near them. As Jōno threatens and frightens her, Tetchō stabs him with his stretched sword and stops him from further antagonizing her. Jōno asks Tetchō not to stab him every single time and challenges him to a swordfight, but Fukuchi arrives and stops them, afterwards issuing his final preparation orders before the operation.

Appearances
{{Appearance
 * Chapters =

Decay of Angels Arc
}}
 * Chapter 60 - Dogs Hunt Dogs, Part 2
 * Chapter 61 - Dogs Hunt Dogs, Part 3
 * Chapter 62 - Dogs Hunt Dogs, Part 4
 * Chapter 67 - The Sadness of Those Without Wings, Part 1
 * Chapter 68 - The Sadness of Those Without Wings, Part 2
 * Chapter 69 - The Escape, Part 1 (silhouette)
 * Chapter 71 - Bungo Hound Dogs, Part 1
 * Chapter 72 - Bungo Hound Dogs, Part 2
 * Chapter 76 - Skyfall, Part 3 (image)
 * Chapter 77 - Skyfall, Part 4
 * Chapter 81 - The Strongest Man, Part 2
 * Chapter 88 - As Though Tumbling Down
 * Chapter 89 - Hero War, Gang War
 * Chapter 89.5 - Hero War, Gang War, Part 2 (flashback)
 * Chapter 92 - The Empty Port, Part 1
 * Chapter 92.5 - The Empty Port, Part 2 (cover)

Quotes

 * "There is evil that goes unpunished and good that goes unrewarded. Without my blade, how could anything in this mortal world ever hope for balance!?"
 * (To the Café Uzumaki manager) "A world where a girl's sincerity is rewarded is one we must protect."
 * (To Michizō Tachihara) "Ants are a perfect model of leadership and loyalty, so I've been watching them for around eight hours. Do your best, ants."

Etymology

 * The name Tetchō means "Iron Stomach", consisting of the kanji (鐵) (tetsu) meaning "Iron" and (腸) (chō) meaning "stomach".
 * The surname Suehiro means "end" (末) (sue) and "broad" (広) (hiro).

Trivia

 * The birthname of the real-life Tetchō Suehiro is Yūjirō Suehiro (末広 雄次郎).
 * Tetchō brandishes his sword the most among the Hunting Dogs and has a rather formal personality. This greatly reflects the real Tetchō Suehiro's samurai lineage.

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