Eight

Eight is a playable character in Final Fantasy Type-0. He represents the number 8 of Class Zero and fights with knuckles.

Appearance
Eight is a young man with short chestnut hair and eyes. As a member of Class Zero he wears a uniform consisting of a black jacket with gold-padded shoulders and a red mantle. Instead of pants, he wears white capris and boots. Eight's cape is tied around the neck, giving it a scarf-like appearance. Eight uses gloves and fights using martial arts because he hates weapons, believing that they take away lives too easily. His summer uniform has a white short-sleeved shirt with a black print on the side, black capris and cape, and white boots. His dress uniform has a red jacket with black-padded shoulders, black capris with a silver trim at the bottom, black boots and a white mantle.

Personality
Eight is loyal to Arecia Al-Rashia, whom he--as well as all others of her handpicked cadets—calls "Mother." He feels honored of having been picked by her, and when her reputation is on the line he feels he cannot mess up and risk discrediting her. As he puts it himself, Arecia is Eight's reason to keep going, to make her proud. Eight is sensitive about his height, possibly due to being the shortest boy in the class.

Final Fantasy Agito
In Final Fantasy Agito, Eight is a member of Class Fifth and dons a yellow-green mantle.

He can be found in the Fountain Plaza during the morning, afternoon and evening.

Final Fantasy Type-0
Quick on his feet, Eight caught the attention of Dr. Al-Rashia at young age. After adopting him, she escorted him to a facility near Akademeia where he began training and honing his skills. Eight joined Class Zero, a group of students assembled by Arecia, who were enrolled to the magic academy of the nation of Rubrum. Class Zero fights the invasion by the Militesi Empire and as part of the resistance operation "Operation Apostle," Eight and his comrades seek to become the Agito, a messiah prophesied in ancient mythology to appear at the time of Tempus Finis, an apocalyptic calamity.

When the cadets are sent to sabotage the imperial magitek armor program they get orders to cease fire due to a newly wrought armistice mid-mission. The cadets' commanding officer, Kurasame Susaya, travels to the imperial capital as Chancellor Khalia Chival VI's aide and negotiates for the cadets' safety, and afterward explains the situation to them: the empire had proposed peace before the cadets' mission was underway, but they could not contact them in time to halt it. The cadets disagree with the treaty, positing that the empire has no right to ask for peace for being the initial aggressor. They meet Queen Andoria who explains that peace is the Will of the Crystals, and that the cadets opposing it would only lead to Tempus Finis. Eight holds Machina Kunagiri back when his emotions get the better of him, yet, the cadets struggle accepting that what they have been fighting for is against the Crystal's will.

During their free time in Ingram Eight gets a feeling they are under surveillance. Cater chalks it up to their status as Agito Cadets and the imperials' distrust of them. The two spot a mysterious dominion quaestor talking to an imperial trooper, but dismiss the sighting. Queen Andoria is assassinated and Class Zero is blamed for it. The cadets are ambushed at the hotel and the class orderly Aria Luricara is hit by a sniper. Eight urges them to escape and the cadets must fight their way out of the city. Realizing they are unable to contact Central Command raises the possibility they have been abandoned to fend for themselves.

They face off against Celestia, Queen Andoria's aide and a l'Cie, who, at first, holds them culpable for the queen's death, but is convinced otherwise and helps the cadets escape the city to a deserted house in the Old Lorica Region. After an argument over Machina holding Class Zero culpable for his brother Izana's death, he marches off. When Deuce mentions their COMM is working but they can't contact anyone, Cinque points out that the Vermilion Bird Crystal must be fine because Rem--a cadet in their class not augmented by Arecia--can still use magic. Eight speculates something is interfering with their communications, similar to how a crystal jammer cuts one off from their Crystal. Machina finally returns in the morning, and the cadets can move on as Deuce exclaims the COMM is working again and she has reached the dominion.

Kurasame organizes for the cadets to be rescued by airship. Back in Akademeia Eight is the first to greet him, but Kurasame is cold and tells the cadets there will likely be an investigation, and implies they had switched off their COMM to avoid being contacted. The cadets find the accusations ridiculous. They hear Andoria has been succeeded by a king, who has allied with the empire. Eight ponders it wasn't a coincidence that Concordia changed its approach to foreign policy immediately after the queen's death.

When liberating the town of Meroë Eight runs into Class Second students after the mission is over, and it turns out the other class members were merely decoys whereas Class Zero had been given the true assignment of capturing the imperial aircraft before it could take off. The other cadets are annoyed when they discover this, but Eight rebuffs them, calling them "noisy."

After the cadets return from a mission to reclaim Eibon, they assemble in the classroom to hear their next orders from Kurasame, but Machina has gone missing. Kurasame explains to the rest of the cadets the upcoming battle plan against the joint Militesi-Concordian forces. Class Zero is to be sent with the Vermilion Bird Primus l'Cie Lord Zhuyu to fight off the Concordian dragons with an airship fleet, while Kurasame will accompany the rest of Rubrum's legionaries, as well as Akademeia cadets and trainees, to the Militesi border for Lady Caetuna to summon a Verboten Eidolon.

The cadets help Rubrum secure victory on the eastern front by defeating Shinryu Celestia. The western front is falling back and thus Class Zero is recalled as reinforcements to destroy the empire's crystal jammer, because as long as it is active, Class Zero is the dominion's only functioning unit. The cadets succeed allowing for Lady Caetuna to begin summoning Alexander for which Kurasame and the other Akademeia cadets give their lives to complete the summoning. Alexander obliterates the Militesi forces, and Caetuna enters crystal stasis. Class Zero visits the numerous new graves in the Akademeia cemetery but cannot comprehend the losses as all memories of Kurasame as well as the others perished have been removed from them. Ace says that dwelling in sadness will not do them any good, and Eight replies that even so, they will not forget that the people who died were here and lived in this era.

During the alternate ending caused by Arecia removing the crystals from Orience's history, Eight survives and is seen living a peaceful life with the rest of the members of Class Zero. He is seen pacing under a ledge, happily talking to himself about the fact that his and Cater's names are similar (with the Japanese pronunciation) and saying that they were made to be a pair.

Suddenly, a tardy Cater appears above him and decides to jump down from the ledge as a means of a shortcut to get to her next class. She loses her balance in surprise upon noticing him and despite Eight saying that he will catch her, Cater falls on top of him, rendering both unconscious.

Gameplay
Eight wields knuckles in battle and has a infighting battle style, which appears to integrate both kicks and punches. In his abilities marked as Styles, directional inputs with the control stick allows him to execute a variety of moves at no cost of the ability gauge. The player can also cancel Eight's attacks to make infinite combos as well as quickly maneuver to an opponent's side and gain extra damage for executing back attacks. Mixing all these will allow him to use his true potential.

A downside to Eight's battle style is his range; as most of his attacks are close ranged, he will have a hard time trying to get close to long ranged enemies or reach airborne enemies. In addition, his MP pool is very low and his damaging special attacks consume a lot of the ability gauge.

As compensation, Eight is extremely quick. Both his movement speed and attack speed are somewhat on par, or even better than that of fellow classmates Cater and Rem. Since his attacks are quickly executed, Eight is able to abuse the Killsight function like Machina. His safe gameplay is further augmented by the fact that Eight's body tends to step out before attacking, saving players the need to get close to their opponents.

Eight's quick and aggressive battle style is highly suitable for players with an aggressive play style. Alongside Cater, he is an ideal character to use to solo a level with ground based enemies. With proper equipment and the addition of well-timed dodges and attacks, Eight can easily become a lethal force in the right hands.

Equipment
Eight's exclusive accessory is the "Transcendent Scroll", which increases his Strength by 80, decreases all his magic stats by 40, and grants Auto Endure status.


 * Brass Knuckles
 * Silver Knuckles
 * Killer Knuckles
 * Heavy Knuckles
 * Platinum Knuckles
 * Iron Fists
 * Boxing Gloves
 * Steel Claws
 * Mythril Gloves
 * Diamond Fists
 * Adamant Knuckles
 * Godhands
 * Master Fists
 * Golden Hands
 * Kaiser Knuckles
 * Demon Fists (ultimate weapon)

Support Personnel
Some Support Personnel characters in Final Fantasy Type-0 HD appear as Eight: Hideo Masu (Drummer for Bump of Chicken), Rina Okumoto (Battle Animator), Taisuke Ooe (Lead Character Action Designer), and Hashimoto Meijin (Executive Producer).

Voice
Eight is voiced by in the Japanese version. He shares his Japanese voice actor with and  from the  series.

In English, he is voiced by Jeff Fischer who also provided voice for Yuj from Final Fantasy XIII and its sequel.

Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade
Eight appears as a Legend in Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade.

Ability Cards=


 * -|Legend Cards=

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD Twitter Battle
Eight appears as a playable character in the Final Fantasy Type-0 HD Twitter Battle sponsored by Amazon. His attacks are Brass Knuckles, Swiftwind Stance and Blizzard.

Final Fantasy Trading Card Game
Eight appears in the Japan-exclusive Final Fantasy-themed trading card game published by Square Enix.

Etymology
"Eight" is one of the trumps of a traditional set of playing cards.

Trivia

 * Eight's fighting style and his fainting animation are very similar to Zell Dincht from Final Fantasy VIII, while his Stances come to bear resemblance to moves found in staple fighting games such as Street Fighter and King of Fighters.
 * Before the complete release of Type-0, Eight's Form abilities were initially named with themes related to bodies of water and weather, before having their current themes of more spell orientated and dynamic phenomena. The only remaining unchanged form ability is Hurricane Kata (in the Japanese version).
 * Eight's hairstyle appears to be mostly mirror reflection with minor remodeling.
 * According to the Type-0 Novel, Eight wishes to become a competitive martial artist upon leaving Class Zero.