Sakon Shino

Headless Sakon was once a Master Swordsman who gave up his social standing as a samurai to live as a street performer simply because he could not abide being a complacent part of the inherent injustice of the aristocratic class system in which he lived.

He challenges Itto to a duel not because Itto has a contract in which he is tangled up or because he cares about the price on the Lone Wolf's head, but entirely because he is concerned for Daigoro and wants the boy to grow up with a proper father, whether it is Itto or himself, and cannot talk Itto into giving up his life as an assassin.