Yoshiki Saitou

Yoshiki Saitou is a character from the "Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest" series.

He is one of the students from Japan who got involved in the Summoning Incident and ended up in Tortus along with his other classmates. He and his friends Daisuke Hiyama, Reichi Kondou and Shinji Nakano used to frequently bully Hajime Nagumo, but would have a change of heart following Daisuke's betrayal, followed by his and Reichi's deaths.

After the Demons invaded the Heiligh Kingdom, Saitou and the rest of the students stayed behind to protect it while Hajime and his companions traveled with the so-called "hero" Kouki Amanogawa and his friends.

He and Shinji eventually start a private security company after returning to Earth, and became bodyguards of Liliana S. B. Heiligh.

Appearance
Yoshiki is a young man with a thin build, slit eyes and light-brown hair.

Personality
At first, Yoshiki acts like a typical bully. He enjoys picking on other weaker than him (particularly Hajime), but will meakly back down when confronted by those he considers stronger than him. After being transported to Tortus with his class and being granted Magic, his bullying rose to a greater extent where he started using violence and justified it as a way to train. He had also grown more arrogant in his abilities, and believes that he and his friends are practically unbeatable.

Following the deaths of Reichi and Daisuke during the Demons' invasion of the kingdom, as well as having witnessed Hajime's immense strength and ruthlessness, Yoshiki's courage has completely left him, and has become much more cowardly and reclusive.

After returning to Earth, he and Shinji have greatly reformed and completely ceased acting like bullies.

Yoshiki is desperate in finding a girlfriend, but all of his efforts in obtaining one have failed.

Biography
One Monday morning during his second year of high school, Yoshiki and his three friends Daisuke, Reichi and Shinji were verbally harassing Hajime Nagumo after he barely arrived in time before class began.

When it became lunchtime, Yoshiiki and his class were suddenly engulfed in a large glowing circle that transported. Once it was over, everyone saw that they were suddenly inside a large cathedral. Soon after, they were approach by Pope Ishtar Langbard of the Holy Church, and explained to them that they had been summoned the alternate world of Tortus by humanity's god Ehit, in order to aid in their war against the Demons. When Ishtar revealed that Ehit was the only one with the power to send them home, the students agreed to fight alongside the Humans of Tortus, against the protests of their teacher Aiko Hatayama. The next morning, Daisuke and the rest of his classmates gathered at the palace courtyard to begin their training. They were greeted by the kingdom's Knight Commander Meld Loggins, and were each given a Status Plate artifact before he explained how it worked to everyone. As the students began to activate their plates, Yoshiki and his friends were making fun of Hajime after it was revealed that he had the common Job of "Synergist", as well as possessing average Stats. Over the next two weeks, the students trained in the kingdom in order to prepare for the war against the Demons. During that time, Yoshiki and his friends continuously harassed Hajime by attacking him with their magic, but would stop whenever they were confronted by their classmates Kaori, Shizuku, Kouki and Ryutarou.

Once the students' initial training complete, they traveled to the town of Horaud in order to explore Great Orcus Labyrinth, and battle the Monsters that resided there as a way to gain combat experience. During the their exploration into the Labyrinth, Daisuke accidentally set off a trap that transported everyone transported to the 65th floor. They soon found themselves at a stone bridge and was trapped between a behemoth and an army of skeletal traum soldiers. Hajime managed to hold the Behemoth back his transmutation magic while the others managed to create an escape path through the skeletons. Most of them were able to escape, but Hajime had been presumed dead after being hit by a fireball while making his was back to his classmates, and fell over the bridge with the Behemoth.

Yoshiki was among the students that resumed their training in the Great Orcus Labyrinth, in spite of the dangers they knew it contained. As they managed to become stronger and advance deep into the Labyrinth, Yoshiki and his friends grew more arrogant and expressed their belief that they were invincible (though they remained humble while in the presence of Kouki and his friends). As they reached the 65th floor once more, they once again encountered the Behemoth and traum soldiers. Despite the lingering trauma from their previous encounter, as well as the fact that there were less people of fight it than before, the students managed to defeat the Behemoth and continued their journey down the Labyrinth.

Yoshiki and the other students continued their training in the Labyrinth until they eventually reached the 90th floor. However, they soon realized that they were not being attacked by any Monsters. It was soon discovered that they had all been wiped out by other Monsters that were under the command of a Demon named Cattleya. She approached the students and offered them to join the Demons in the war against the humans, but Kouki immediately refused on their behalf and a battle ensued. Jugo Nagayama was knocked back by one of Cattleya's monsters, but was caught by Yoshiki. Soon afterwards, Yoshiki, Reichi and Kentarou Nomura were turned to stone while trying to protect the Suzu Taniguchi from Cattleya's petrification spell "Dark Gaol". When it became clear that they were at an overwhelming disadvantage, the students retreated to the 89th floor, with Jugo carrying Yoshiki and Reichi away.

Once everyone managed to take shelter in a hidden area, Yoshiki and Reichi were healed back up by Kaori. After everyone was healed, Yoshiki and his classmates began to turn on each other due to the stress they were feeling g from their defeat, but they soon ceased their hostilities in order to avoid detection from the Monsters. However Cattleya discovered their location and blasted away the entrance to their hideout. As Cattleya's Monsters once more battle the students, Yoshiki  and his friends were attacked by multiple tentacles. Though they managed to avoid any fatal wounds, they still took a considerable amount of damage, with one of the tentacles slammed through Yoshiki’s thigh and pinned him to the ground. Reichi and Dasiuke managed to free Yoshiki before leading him and Shinji to Suzu in order to keep them safe with her barrier magic.

Despite the students efforts, Cattleya managed to defeat them after having incapacitated Kouki. She offered the students another chance to join the Demons, but Kouki once more rejected her offer and managed to free himself, but was rendered incapacitated once more by the Monsters. As Cattelya's forces resumed attacking the students and were on the verge of victory, they were stopped by the sudden arrival of a mysterious boy that had accompanied Kousuke Endou (who managed to escape the Labyrinth after Cattleya's first attack in order to find help for his classmates). In the end, Hajime easily managed to eliminate all the Monsters and kill Cattleya and escorted his classmates out of the Labyrinth. When Kaori decided to accompany Hajime on his journey after everyone returned to Horaud, Yoshiki and his friends protested at Hajime, but Daisuke told his friends to back down. At first, they were surprised by Daisuke’s uncharacteristic obedience, but his serious tone brooked no argument, so they too gave up on persuading Hajime. As Kaori was getting her thing from Horaud's inn before setting off, Yoshiki and his friends offered to go with her, but Hajime prevented them from going.

Sometime after the ordeal in the Labyrinth, Yoshiki and the other students heard a strange noise one night and quickly geared up for battle. When they all gathered together to access the situation, they learned from one of the palace maids, Nia, that they Demons were invading the capital, and the noise the heard before was them destroying the capitals outer magic barrier. After some debate, the students decided to meet up with the kingdom's knights in the courtyard in order to coordinate a counterattack with them. Soon after they reached to courtyard, all of the students were suddenly ambushed by the knights. They had been repeatedly stabbed and restrained with mana-sealing shackles. They soon learned that the knights were under the control of their classmate Eri, and the she had used her necromancy magic to control them after she killed. She then expressed her desire to do the same with the rest of her classmates (except Kouki, with whom wshe with to be with romantically), and began making her way towards Reichi, due to him being the closest one to her. Eri mercilessly rammed a sword though his heart, thus killing him. Yoshiki and Shinji yelled at Eri over killing their friend, but the knights pinning them dug their swords in deeper, cutting off their remarks. Soon after, Eri succeeded in turning Reichi into another of her undead minions. The rest students managed to free themselves soon after thanks to the timely intervention of Kaori, but she had been mortally wounded by Daisuke, who was revealed to be Eri's accomplice. Hajime arrived soon after and killed Daisuke before single-handedly repealing the approaching Demon army, but Eri managed to escape with Demon General Freid Bagwa.

Yoshiki had been utterly traumatized by the deaths of Daisuke and Reichi, and secluded himself within his room in the royal palace. Sometime later, he and the rest of his classmates were abducted by one of Ehit's Apostles and imprisoned in Garland's Demon Lord castle. When Hajime and his companions arrived at the castle, a fight soon broke out between him and his classmates against Ehit's Apostles and his retainer Alva. Yoshiki was too traumatized from the deaths of his friends to fight back, and let his classmates fend for themselves. In the end, Hajime managed to kill Alva and the Apostles, but had nearly been killed from the battle, as well has having his lover Yue being possessed by Ehit. Once Hajime recovered, he and the other classmates bega planing their next attack after learning from Ehit that he planned to wipe out all life on Tortus, before traveling to Earth to rule over it. During the meeting, Yoshiki ad the others students learned that Hajime created an artifact that could take them back to Earth and had hoped that he would use it, but Hajime revealed that it had been destroyed by Ehit and that he couldn't make it again with Yue's help. The other students thought Hajime was only focused on saving Yue (which was true), but soon realized that they had to fight Ehit in order to save Earth. Eventually, they all devised a plan to fight the mad god.

The night before the battle against Ehit, Yoshiki and Shinji watched with the other students at Hajime's allies that had agreed to fight Ehit, approach him to express their gratitude (many of them were pretty girls). The two boys were discussing how being associated with Hajime could help them gets girlfriends for each of them.

Physical Abilities

 * Enhanced Physical Abilities: Like most of his classmates, Yoshiki possessed physical abilities stronger than ordinary humans. However, He is considered to be one of the weakest of his classmates. His abilities are pathetically weak to Hajime and his companions. Without his weapon, Yoshiki is useless when it comes to be an actual hand-to-hand combat.

Skills

 * Wind Magic Affinity - It allows the user to use wind magic at a capable rate.
 * Wind Perception - A skill to sense the flow of Wind.
 * Language Comprehension - A base skill granted to all those who got summoned. It gives the user the ability to understand any language and be proficient in it.

Spells

 * Wind Sphere - A beginner-level offensive spell that creates a clod of hardened wind. "Rend my foes O wind."
 * Wind Blade - A single blade of wind that is very sharp.
 * Wind Wall - A barrier comprised of wind the flows in all directions.

Relationships

 * Daisuke Hiyama, Reichi Kondou, & Shinji Nakano - Yoshiki's three closest friends and formerly partners in crime. Alongside them, he bullied Hajime Nagumo as much as possible mostly because they liked Kaori as well in the past. But now, they are terrified of the monstrous Hajime after he murdered Cattleya. After Hiyama betrayed them by aligning himself with Eri and causing Reuchi's death, he and Shinji were mentally cornered and recluse themselves in their room due their friend's betrayal. After their deaths, Saitou and Nakano visited to Kondou's grave and apologized when they were unable to help due to Hiyama's betrayal. Like everyone else, Yoshiki no longer cared about Hiyama when he was never his friend and will remember Hiyama nothing but a selfish, deluded traitor.
 * Hajime Nagumo - Yoshiki, along with his friends, were jealous the fact that Kaori was interested in Hajime, so they constantly bullied him at school and in Tortus in the past. When he along with his classmates were saved by Hajime, he was shocked and scared by Hajime's inhuman strength and ruthless attitude. After failed feigning an apologized for Hajime to return to the so-called "Hero Party" purely to get close to Kaori, Saitou and the Four (except for Hiyama due to his persistence) has easily given up his pursuit on Hajime and his chance for Kaori. After Eri and Hiyama's betrayal, Kondou's death, and witnessing Hajime killing his two friends without hesitation, he along with Shinji were terrified to cross Hajime and kneel before Hajime to sworn they will never get in his way or intend to harm his lovers ever again as they apologizing to him for their previous misdeeds and letting Hajime to keep Kaori for himself, in order to not incur his murderous wrath. In the funeral of asking what really happened in his "fall", Hajime enlightened Saitou and the rest of the classmates that it was Hiyama did it intentionally not accidentally which caused Yoshiki to not have any trace left of sympathy for his former "friend" after the dimwitted traitor used him as a tool. They begin to show respect for Hajime after returning to Earth, but Hajime still finds him annoying and despite him and Nakano became his staunch yes-men.
 * Liliana S. B. Heiligh - Liliana considers Yoshiki and Shinji her friends. They act as her bodyguards whenever she appears in public as a pop idol.

Trivia

 * In the Anime, Yoshiki is not among the students that trains in the Great Orcus Labyrinth. Instead, he and a few other students stay behind in the Heiligh Kingdom's capital as a support team.