Haine

Haine (ハイネ, Haine) is the God of Hitogashima, Hiruko no Mikoto and "Mother" to the Shadows. She takes the appearance and the name of the first person she copied, Haine. As she has issues moving, Haine had copied Shiori Kobayakawa and transforms to her when needs to explore the island.

Appearance
Haine is a short girl with white hair and blood red eyes. She normally wears a red yukata with a flower blossom pattern and floral obi. Due to her injuries she is incapable of walking without help.

In her natural form prior to meeting to Haine, she took on the appearance of a whale's shadow. Though its likely her actual shadow-form is much larger due as her awakening at end of the third loop consumed the whole island.

Personality
Unlike many other people in the show, Haine is a character who lacks empathy or remorse. She is relentless while feeding off of souls to awaken and strengthen her power. Despite her ancient existence, Haine is oftentimes spoiled and immature, automatically assuming she is entitled to overpower and consume any living person regardless of their morals or abilities. Haine’s childlike behavior can only be assumed to be a reflection of her appearance. She relies heavily on Four Arms to protect her the same time he is defeating Haine’s foes, and expects her firstborn to be the victor due to his overpowered capabilities in combat.

3rd Loop
The parent shadow offers large amount of humans to Haine, who then appears in the sky and shines in red. As the shadow spread and consumes all humans on the island, Haine licks her lips for the good meal. Shinpei asks Hizuru to kill him, so he can return in time and as she does, he starts floating in a ghost-like form. He looks at Haine, who also turns and looks at him, but he then travels back in time.

4th Loop
On the fourth loop, Shadow Ushio replays the death of Ushio for Shinpei and Sou. At the end, Shiori grabs Shinpei's arm, surprising him that they can interact, however, Shiori then turns to Haine, who tells Shinpei that she found him finally and won't be letting him go. However, Shadow Ushio ends the replay and they manage to escape Haine.

Tokiko takes Shinpei, Shadow Ushio and Sou in front of Haine. She explains that Haine is Hiruko, the god of the island and likes to be called and look like Haine, the first person she copied. Lately, she had issues walking and needed a body replacement. Haine then turns into Shiori, making Shinpei realize its Haine who killed Ushio. Tokiko calls Negoro, who brings two coffins for Haine. Tokiko explains that her family for generations have been bringing all the dead from the island for Haine to eat. Haine then eats the first body and prepares to eat Ushio's body, but Shinpei asks Shadow Ushio to print him a nailgun. With it, he frees Ushio, who then takes Ushio's body. Annoyed, they stole her food, Haine transforms Negoro into a more wild and muscular form, but she ends up defeated by Ushio. Shinpei then gets close and points the nailgun at Haine, but the shadow parent shows up and cuts his fingers. He notes that Haine was about to eat Shinpei, but mustn't and Haine confirms, as she was annoyed they stole her food. He promises to take Ushio's body back and shows he has Mio, but tells Haine to not eat her as well as she is important hostage. As the shadow kills Sou and Tokiko, Haine takes Shinpei's eye, but the eye returns back to him. Since Ushio had became quite strong, she decides it would be a waste to kill her and decides to reprogram her so that she can help at the festival. She starts corroding her, but after Shinpei takes the poison and starts dying, Ushio manages to withstand the corrosion and turn it against Haine. Haine tells the shadow to kill Ushio, even if he needs to kill her as well. The shadow jumps in to kill Ushio, but Shinpei dies and takes Ushio and loops back with her.

5th Loop
At the Kobayakawas, Hizuru and the rest appear to kill Shiori, however, she is with the four-armed shadow, who then kills Hizuru. Shiori asks Shinpei if he remembers when she told him she found him and gave him the black mark on his hand. From then on, she always knew where he was. She has been chasing him ever since their eyes met at the summer festival. Haine then reveals she can loop as well. She shadow states that they don't need two observers and the true world will be seen by the one who survives. The shadow then attacks and kills Ginjiro. The shadow then surrounds Shinpei and is about to capture him, but Ushio cuts Shinpei's head. As the shadow is about to smash her, Shinpei's loop is activated and Ushio vanishes with Shinpei. Haine is fine with that, as this was just a greeting and knows that no matter how many times he loops, she will eventually catch up to him.

6th Loop
Haine loops back in Shiori. Confirming what time it was, and the last times of the loops, she realizes the starting point is getting later. The four armed shadow Shide, guesses its because Shinpei's power is waning. Shiori is fine that they keep letting Shinpei loop, as that will give him less and less time, until he reaches his limit, thus they should focus on killing him than keeping him alive. A hour and a bit later, they head for Shinpei at the elementary school. After killing the scouting Ginjiro, Shide takes his rifle and snipe kills Shinpei.

7th Loop
Haine and Shide arrive with more shadows at the school and find Shinpei outside. They think its a trap, but Shinpei states he just wants to fight fair and square. They send shadow Mio to kill him, but Ushio appears and they run with Ushio. Haine then orders the shadows to go and kill Shinpei, while Mio go and take out Ginjiro, who had started shooting at them. They encounter Hizuru in a corridor, who defends Shinpei and kills all shadows that come after him. Hizuru sees that Shide will shoot Shinpei and takes the bullet, saving him, making Haine note that she knew she would do that as she too has the sight and is able to see two seconds into the future. Shide is about to finish Hizuru, but Ginjiro shoots at them, making her wonder what Mio is doing. Haine then sees Mio is fighting two stray shadows commanded by Tokiko and is surprised by her betrayal. She tries to order the shadows that Tokiko isn't their master and to kill her, but the shadows doesn't listen, making her realize that Ushio had severed the connection to them. Angry, Haine merges all shadows into Shide and heads after Ushio.

They reach the gymnasium, where Ushio copies gasoline and Shinpei ignites it. While burning, Haine with Asako jumps at the ceiling, but is shot by Shinpei and injured. Ushio then grabs her and prepares to erase Shiori, but Haine starts begging not to as she wants to take her and her family with her and live with them. Distracted for a moment, gives Shide a chance to grab and pull Ushio into the fire, while also shooting at Shinpei, but purposely missing vital organs, so he dies slowly and after Ushio. However, Ushio reveals to be a dummy and appears behind Shide, punching him and start erasing him. Haine scans the air and erases it from the gymnasium, putting out the fire and creating vacuum that causes the windows to burst, giving them chance to escape. Haine then asks Shide if he is fine and Shide confirms that he will be able to reconstruct, however, all other shadows had died from the fire.

8th Loop
Shinpei returns from a loop and Haine appears in the form of a crow and realizes that Ushio had died. She summons strays, but as Shinpei unconsciously grabs something in his pocket, she stops and runs away. Shinpei then see he was holding Ushio's shell necklace. As Haine had previously copied during the first loops as Shiori, she transforms into Shinpei and calls Hizuru's group and Mio's group and informs them about Ushio's death and requests to meet with Hizuru's group at Torajima island, while with Mio as Alain's garden.

At Torajima, Hizuru as Ryunosuke arrives, but recognizes Haine right away. Masahito comes and attacks Ryunosuke, but he easily dodges. Haine explains that she was tormented by eating her friend's brother and expelled part of her self and his data, but there was a slight incident and coordinates in time shifted, so Ryunosuke can control Hizuru from 2 seconds in the future. However, she can see his movements and relay that information to Shide, which removes Ryunosuke's advantage.

Ryunosuke beats up Shide, but he keeps regenerating. Haine wishes to know why Hizuru returned, and recognizing she is displaying Shinpei's personality, Hizuru decides to talk to buy some time. Hizuru explains that she returned for curiosity from the message she got, but saw an opportunity to redeem herself as she blames herself for the death of her brother. Hizuru then tells Haine that Shide has different plans than hers, since in the third loop he said this was his ending, but Shide denies it, stating Hizuru just wants to confuse her. They proceed fighting and knowing that Shide's armor is "nobody", then its an empty void that Ryunosuke can invade. She touches Shide's head and sends Ryunosuke, who then takes over of Shide's armor and creates a shadow of himself. With Masahito exposed, Tokiko then join the fight. As things don't go well, Ginjiro and Tetsu help Tokiko get away, who then informs Shinpei and he restarts the loop.

9th Loop
With the loop restarted, Shide got to fight Hizuru again, but this time knew all of her tricks and easily defeated and stabbed her in the chest with the spear. When Shinpei comes, feeling Ushio from his pocket, Haine decides to retreat with Shide.

Haine asks Masahito if during the search earlier, there was a stray that ignored her call, since its been two hours since she lost Shinpei's location. Her handprint is still on Shinpei, but he can isolate his presence, just like Masahito while in the mud. Masahito wonders if they gave too many hints to Shinpei and since most stray's are looking for Ushio, if they decide to invade Hiruko Cave, they can easily reach Haine. However, Haine doubts they will attempt that unless they are fully prepared. Haine suspects that Shinpei is hiding as maybe the Ushio that's with Shinpei is the only one who can locate the Ushio in the sea and are trying to get to her before Haine. Shide eventually finds them, but Shinpei manages to reach Ushio and bring her memories back, who then kills dozens of shadows. Haine observes as a raven. Ushio attempts to attack Shide, but Mio stops her. Shinpei asks Shide if he can guess from where he came, but as Shide had no idea, Shinpei realizes that being in the stray, the handprint doesn't reveal his location. Shinpei then points a gun at his head and Haine tells Shide to stop him, but using Ryunosuke's powers, Shinpei dodges Shide's gun and shoots himself.

10th Loop
Shinpei loops back with Ushio while the group is still in the stray and go outside. Haine realizes they are in the Hiruko cave and they head towards them. They manage to catch up to them the moment they broke through the black barrier, but Ginjiro stays to fight Shide while the barrier is closing and prevent him from reaching Shinpei.

Shide and Haine later catch up to the group and Shide attacks Ushio, but she defends the group. Haine observes the fight and gives Shide information on how to dodge. She notices that when Shinpei's left eye is closed, she can sense Ryunosuke from him and realizes that he obtained the power to fight them himself. While dodging attacks, Haine sense Mio behind her and dodges again. Feeling the presence of all shadows and its printed objects, Haine then attacks a printed nailgun, but Sou then shoots her from the side. Haine realizes that the printed nailgun was a trap and that Sou uses Ginjiro's original nailgun. Mio then also attacks her and Haine is unable to warn Shide, and he ends up punched and killed by Ushio. However, another Shide then appears. Ushio rushes towards Hiruko and punches it, causing the black mud to fall off from Shide and Mio then stabs him in the head and kills him. Mio expects to disappear, but as she doesn't, she realizes that Haine must be still alive.

Shide reveals to be still alive, however as Hiruko lost her both eyes and had shrunk, Shide states he has no longer use of her. He sees that Ushio had taken Hiruko's eye and realizes his wish can still be granted if he steals it. He can't let Hiruko die as he will loose his armor. He opens a portal to Hiruko's world and jumps in with it, inviting Shinpei and Ushio to come and fight him.

Shinpei and Ushio go into Haine's world, Tokoyo. Initially they are separated, but Shinpei finds Ushio, but Haine comes out of her. Ushio explains that when Haine ate Ryunosuke, she her personality split between Haine the young girl and Hiruko, and this is the girl that was friends with Hizuru. Haine explains that in this world time doesn't flow and they realize that Ryunosuke isn't shifted ahead of time. She reveals that Shide wants to take Ushio's eye and then he can go in a higher dimension, where he will have control over time and space. Ushio then recalls reading his mind and that he intends to just "turn off" and destroy the world. To escape this world, they need to kill Hiruko and Tokoyo will disappear.

As the world is connected to Hiruko's memories, Shide uses her memories of the WWII air raid and starts bombing Tokoyo, but Ushio protects them. As Haine also has memories of it, she manages to stop the raid and Ushio attacks Shide, but realizes he is empty inside. Shide then reflects her hacking and seemingly defeats her, but Ushio eats a fragment of the original Ushio and restores herself to a younger Ushio version. She then reveals to Shinpei that Shide's real body is in the real world. But soon seems to have fallen unconscious and Haine determines she cannot continue to fight. They make a plan to defeat Shide with Ushio turning into hacking shells for the shotgun. Eventually with the help from Haine, they manage to shoot Shide with the bullets and erase him. As Ushio attempts to erase Hiruko, she transfers them to Hitogashima. Haine realizes thats the human world from 300 years ago and sees her human self heading towards the Hiruko, who is a whale at that time. Shinpei stops Haine and tells her to not disturb the god and Haine runs away scared, thinking she saw a ghost. Ushio realizes that Hiruko wants Ushio to erase the whale, otherwise it will all repeat. As Ushio erases the whale, Hiruko also disappears. Haine then starts disappearing and thanks them all and asks Ryunosuke that if she is reborn if they can be friends again. As Ryunosuke agrees, they both disappear.

Etymology

 * Her original name, Hiruko (ヒルコ, 蛭子) translates as "Leech Child".

Trivia

 * Her inability to walk is likely a reference to the shinto mythos regarding Ebisu/Hiruko, who was born without legs.
 * Her ability to regenerate from damage without absorbing data is likely due to the fact she is the Mother of the Shadows. So she only needs the initial data to regenerate endlessly.