Zato

Story

Zato became an orphan early in his life but was adopted by the Assassins Guild. Over the years, he witnessed the gradual growth and decline of the guild after Slayer resigned. Frustrated with this state of affairs, Zato used a forbidden spell to summon a shadow beast, Eddie. He lost his vision in the process, but his newly acquired powers allowed Zato to climb to the guild leader's position quickly. He immediately started working on making the guild a place that could be home to ones much like himself. He personally provided shelter and training to two orphans, Millia and Venom, who grew into fine assassins and served as his closest assistants, even becoming friends and then lovers with Millia.

However, not everything went smoothly. During one of the large-scale operations that involved many of the guild members, Millia betrayed them to escape the life of killing. As a result, many of the assassins, including Zato, were caught and imprisoned. Shortly after his incarceration, Zato was visited by Testament, offering him an opportunity to compete in the Second Holy Order Selection Tournament. Zato agrees as this presents an opportunity to free himself and then pursue Millia for revenge. While the tournament turns out to be a trap organized by Testament to revive Justice, Zato manages to survive. He’s not free but at a high cost. Usage of his ability led to Zato’s mind and body deteriorating, allowing Millia to defeat him easily. With Zato gone, Eddie quickly follows without a living host to keep him alive.

After his death, the Conclave took Zato’s remains and used him to research the Art of Ressurection. He is successfully revived and locked away in a dimensional prison. He rejects Eddie’s call to break out since he has no reason to escape until Zato senses Millia nearby. When he’s free, he encounters Venom and Millia but quickly sets out to share his intel while entrusting Millia’s safety to Venom. Along this path, he meets up with Gabriel and runs into Bedman, fighting him in the process and saving multiple other fighters from him. Once he can share intel about Conclave using Art of Resurrection, Zato and other assassins focus on re-establishing the guild, all of them agreeing that eliminating Bedman would aid in this cause. Venom enlists the help of Robo-Ky and defeats Bedman, while Zato, Millia, and Slayer lead guild members into battle against the Ariels. With their help, Jack-O manages to merge with Justice successfully. 

During the conflict with Happy Chaos and I-No’s ascension, Zato is called by king Daryl to provide his valuable skills and experience. Together with Millia, they uncover crucial information about the White House. When Chaos tries to establish his power by launching all weapons of mass destruction, Zato significantly decreases the scale of the problem by stopping many of Illaryan missiles. Once the conflict is resolved, Zato takes Millia to see Venom, who has been running a bakery after the Cradle incident.

Personality

When he was alive, Zato was known as a very stoic and pragmatic man who would approach everything with a calm and calculating mindset. After dying and endlessly experiencing the full spectrum of human experience in the underworld, Zato is utterly incapable of feeling anything again once he is resurrected, except when Millia is around. Despite his terrible condition, Zato still shows a solid moral compass, as he seeks forgiveness for his past actions.

Appearance

Zato is a man with blue eyes and long blonde hair. He wears tall boots with red soles and small red ribbons, a black, sleeveless bodysuit with armor-like padding, a large belt, a red and black blindfold, and black arm sleeves.

Playstyle

Zato is a very complex puppet character with exceptional offensive capabilities. His main strength lies in controlling Eddie independently of Zato’s actions, creating a highly oppressive layered offense. If Zato can set up a favorable situation, it can easily lead to 10-20 seconds of non-stop mix-ups and pressure that are extremely hard to escape. Should he land a hit, it often leads to highly damaging combos and either wall break or another grim okizeme situation. While his normal moves are reasonably average, Zato remains a threat at longer ranges due to excellent Eddie tools. In particular, he has a unique option with Oppose, an Eddie move that makes Zato virtually invincible for a short period.

In exchange for great offense, Zato has underwhelming offense, relying on either his jabs or universal mechanics to escape pressure. With some of the lowest effective HP in the game, he also doesn’t have much room for mistakes. Lastly, Zato is one of the more challenging characters to learn and play, requiring a good amount of dedication and practice from players who want to utilize his kit correctly.