Ben Hyuga

Yuri's feelings for his father play a large role in his life for the first game. Not so much in the second, though the Colonel does get mentioned a few times. I always liked the way Yuri could never figure out how he felt about his father. It was very real to me to have a child who hated and loved their parent at the same time, particularly considering the Hyugas' situation.

Ben Hyuga was an army officer for the Japanese military stationed in China when Yuri was growing up. He and his mother were often left alone while his father was elsewhere for work. They still had a very loving relationship; in flashbacks we see Yuri greatly admiring his father and Alice mentions that it is because his parents showed him so much affection that Yuri could become so kind himself. But this is an RPG and it never pays to be the hero's parents in those. Ben is out of town when Yuri's mother is killed by cursed villagers driven mad by a magic being preformed elsewhere. Yuri's power of fusion awakens to protect him, but only after his mother is murdered. His father never returns and in one fell swoop he loses both of his parents.

Yuri doesn't learn what happened to his father until Shadow Hearts. He is, at first, very resentful toward his father for seemingly abandoning his mother and masks his endless journey with the mission of searching for the man. Yuri is of two minds regarding Ben, neither of which he wants to admit. A part of him is aware that his father is probably dead. The other wishes desperately that he is alive.

Foxface, a demon from Yuri's soul that manifests from his doubts, takes the shape of Colonel Hyuga wearing a mask. It adds another layer to the mess of fears Yuri tries to ignore. A part of his problem that he doesn't want to admit is his shame and guilt about having been unable to protect his mother. Consciously, he lays the blame on his father. But what he feels is that he is the one who failed. He considers himself weak and shameful; he covers it up with his bravado. Everything is traced back to the death of his mother and his father's disappearance.

Yuri's feelings aren't resolved until he learns what happened to his father. Zhuzhen reveals that he and Ben were once comrades in arms in the fight against Dehuai, the same mage who attempts to kidnap Alice. As in the present, in the past Zhuzhen traveled to Shanghai to stop Dehuai's first attempt to end the world and generally be bad for the environment. There, he met Colonel Hyuga, and together they at least temporarily stopped Dehuai. It cost Ben his life and, though no one knew it at the time, also his wife's. The magic that Dehuai was casting was the same that drove the villagers of Yuri's hometown mad.

Learning this, Yuri can put many things to rest. He can forgive his father and he can stop wondering why he left. He can take pride in him and admire him as the man he adored so much as a child. Yuri decides he will walk in his footsteps and finish his mission: he will stop Dehuai for good.