Santa Shikiba

Santa Shikiba (色葉 田田田 Shikiba Santa) is a minor character mentioned in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, and later appears in the sound novel titled Kirigiri Sou.

Santa is the Ultimate Botanist (超高校級の「植物学者」chō kōkō kyū no “shokubutsu gakusha” lit. Super High School Level Botanist).

Appearance
Santa wears a white coat over a plain white shirt, long light-brown pants and white boots. The collar of his coat is adorned with a flower-shaped pin. The lower half of his dark brown hair is trimmed while the upper half is shaped like two horns on both sides of his scalp - giving his hair the shape of the letter "U". He also has a widow's peak and a round nose.

Santa's official art shows him holding two blooming sakura branches.

Personality
Santa Shikiba can be described as an intelligent man with an intense love of botany, as he used his knowledge of botany to create carnivorous plants and research to help destroy the Rhinogredentia from invading the Earth. He also comes across as kind-hearted and noble as throughout his route he cares for the well-being of his three friends, often throwing himself in harm's way and even attempts to sacrifice his life in order to make sure they stay safe, though he can also come across as dramatic given how often he tries to go out in a 'heroic' last ditch effort, only to keep surviving and it's implied some of his mannerisms, such as re-using a line right before another 'death', are inspired by watching one too many action movies.

Kirigiri Sou
With access to the Earth Defense route, you unlock Santa Shikiba's route. In it, Santa Shikiba has discovered the existence of aliens known as the Rhinogrendentia, rat, and plant like creatures that have been the cause of a missing person incident Kyoko was working on. Because of this he creates the Earth Defense force, with the only other member being Kyouka, and uses the mansion as a headquarters for his research and creating plants to repel the aliens. When Kyoko and Kouhei enter the mansion, Santa explains what he has to know and the duo joins them in an attempt to destroy the invaders. However, the mansion is soon swarmed by the Rhinogredentia and they are forced to retreat into the greenhouse with Santa blowing up a group of them and supposedly dying only for him to come back to the group since the explosion wasn't strong enough to kill him or even do much harm.

The plan they come up with is Operation: ABC (Absolute Bombing Cones) gathering Santa's bio-genetic pine cones and gathering as much of the Rhinogredentia in one place as possible before lighting the cones on fire and causing them to explode, lighting the mansion of fire. The plan succeeds and the mansion begins to burn down. However, Santa chooses to stay behind and allow the others to escape, supposedly, dying in the fire.

After Santa's sacrifice, Kyoko grills into Kyouka after she notices she hasn't actually been using her gun all that while. From this Kyouka reveals (that in this route) she has been working with the Rhinogredentia, as the Super Galaxy Level Invader, all the while to destroy the humans as they are the reason why nature is dying. Because both Kouhei and Kyoko knows, Kyouka decides to kill them by using the mothership laser. At this point, Santa re-emerges from the ashes of the house and try to talk Kyouka down in an attempt to reason with her, reminding her of the times they had together. Kyouka has a change of heart, but it's too late to stop the laser which is heading towards Kyouka' sakura tree. Santa takes the laser meant for the tree and is fried, yet, like his other near deaths survives and asks whether or not Kyouka is returning to the planet for the flower growing season in which she tearfully hugs the botanist and cries out for him, whilst Kouhei and Kyoko leave the scene.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
It's mentioned that prior to the Tragedy, he engineered the Monokuma Flower located in the garden on the fifth floor of the Academy by afterward was confirmed to have died as soon as it goes underway. Though how he dies is never shown it can be assumed he either was killed when the Reserve Course students broke in the main course building or during the escalating riots that rampaged Japan and the world soon after.

Trivia

 * His given name is written as 田田田, which is the character ta, meaning "rice field", repeated three (san in Japanese) times. Literally, this nonexistent writing for "Santa" would mean "three fields."
 * "Shikiba" (色葉) means "colored leaves".
 * He enjoys Sakura tea and it's implied he enjoys action movies.

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Санта Шикиба