Miki

Miki (三木, 'Miki') is a parasite who worked with Reiko Tamura and Gotou. Unlike other parasites, Miki is composed of five individuals sharing one host body, located within both arms, legs, and his head. Unlike Gotou, he can only utilize three of the five in his body.

Appearance
Miki is a tall muscular parasite with brown hair and black eyes. He is seen wearing an orange and black jacket over a black tank top.

Personality
Unlike most parasites, Miki likes to try and use different facial expressions and even laugh, which causes him to come off as silly. During combat, Miki uses these differences on his enemy, throwing them off and catching them by surprise. When Gotou made his appearance, Miki quickly followed the orders given to him.

Despite being ordered to kill Shinichi Izumi, he doesn't take the task seriously initially, cheerily greeting him when they meet and commenting on Migi's quiet signal. He also expresses interest in Shinichi and Migi's partnership once they begin to battle, asking how the duo fights and making remarks on their teamwork.

In the manga Miki displays respect towards Reiko to the point of defending her from Kusano's accusations, giving credit to her for the parasite colony's start along with his and Gotou's ability.

Although the effectiveness of his faked expressions is questioned multiple times, he asserts that he prefers to make them over being "serious". He also states that he wishes to test himself, leading to him being sent to attack Shinichi despite the other parasites' doubts, and upon meeting Migi laments their mutual lack of imagination towards names.

Background
Miki was involved with an experiment to create an extremely powerful parasite. He became part of a five parasite controlled body and worked alongside Gotou. At some point he became interested in mimicking human facial expressions.

Plot
Miki is first seen entering a café, and starts a conversation with Reiko Tamura. She then comments on his usage of expressions and asks about Gotou. On the other side of the cafe a young man named Abe, who was tasked by Shirou Kuramori, makes notes on their conversation. Miki and Reiko then end their conversation and go their seperate ways.

Miki heads to an arcade and begins playing video games, displaying somewhat poor coordination. Quickly picking up a young woman, Miki leaves the arcade and brings her to a building. Abe follows them to the basement of the building, and is caught by Miki. Miki proceeds to kill and possibly eat him, then disposes of his and the woman's bodies to leave no trace.

Miki is later seen in multiple meetings with Reiko, Kusano, Mayor Hirokawa, and numerous other parasites, discussing how to deal with Shinichi. Miki defends Reiko against Kusano's displeasure at the risks she is taking regarding Kuramori. Though Reiko would prefer to keep Shinichi alive for a while longer, she is eventually overruled. Miki then volunteers himself for the job, but must keep the body intact. The other parasites express doubt at his capability. However, when asked to take over the job later, Gotou dismisses the request in favor of Miki and says he simply needs more experience.

At school, Migi detects three signals from the parasites that make up Miki's body and prompts Shinichi to run. Although they create a plan of attack, Migi falls asleep, forcing Shinichi to run or take rides for several hours to keep Miki away. Eventually, Shinichi pauses and Miki is able to confront him. He initially confuses Shinichi due to his facial expressions. After Shinichi begins running away again, Miki hides in the bed of a truck. Doing this he is able to catch up with him, but when jumping out of the truck, he falls down as he tries to stick the landing. Migi then wakes up and senses that Miki has at least three parasites in his body. Miki transforms both his arms into multiple blades, viciously attacking them. This forces them to run again, prompting Miki to once again catch a ride on a truck and fall down when exiting the vehicle.

Continuing their battle Miki begins overwhelming the duo. Migi and Shinichi try to attack Miki's legs, but it's revealed his legs are also parasites. He uses the moment of surprise to attack Shinichi, but his arms crash into each other and stops his own attack. Shinichi takes the opportunity to run away. Miki begins chasing Shinichi and Migi in the woods, missing multiple attacks. Migi, realizing his lack of coordination, creates a strategy to catch him off his guard once he attempts to predict Shinichi's dodges. To defend himself he begins to shapeshift his head, but is decapitated, seemingly defeated. Then, one of the arms begins moving and replaces the head of the body. After Gotou takes over their body, he orders Miki to return to being the arm and to go to sleep, which he does.

During the final battle with Shinichi, Miki tries to rebel and escape from Gotou's body due to the poison. He is repressed multiple times, and ultimately dies when their shared host body is destroyed by Shinichi.

Abilities & Powers
Being a parasite, Miki can shapeshift his parasite cells and harden them for offensive or defensive purposes, as well as detect other parasite signals and automatically emit his own. He can also maximize the host body's physical potential and disregard pain. As he consists of five individual parasites, the ability to shapeshift extends to all four of his limbs. He can harden their shared cells for offensive and defensive purposes. Because he can only control two others besides himself, he uses his arms as battle tentacles like other parasites use their heads. Though he has little control over the parasites in his legs, it's proven they are incredibly durable, only being slightly scratched from Migi's attack.He can attack from multiple angles with double the amount of tentacles as a regular parasite, leaving the experienced team of Migi and Shinichi (who is superhuman) at a major disadvantage. His usage of expressions and emotions, albeit faked, even proved useful in battle by making it hard for Shinichi to concentrate on the task at hand. Outside of battle, his exaggerated expressions make it easier to deflect suspicion of being a parasite and lure in prey.

Because he shares a body with Gotou, they can also swap positions if needed. He is one of the few parasites shown to transform his parasite body into a mobile form after he was detached from his host.

Weaknesses
Like all parasites, Miki requires a host body with functioning organs to survive, and would die if he were separated from the body or it was destroyed. Fire can cause his parasite cells to "freak out", making him lose control. He is also susceptible to poisons or caustic chemicals, which would either kill parasite cells on contact or make his host body fail.

Due to his inability to control all the parasites at once, he has poor bodily coordination. This leaves him much slower than expected unlike others of his species. He also has little balance and is quite clumsy, causing him to fall easily and his limbs to crash into each other. However, this is a weakness he can overcome, as stated by Reiko and Gotou that he just needs more experience to learn to control five instead of three.

Like Gotou, he is unable to shapeshift his head to be used in battle, as all his focus is on controlling and coordinating the other parasites. Because of this, decapitation is a good strategy against him and and Gotou to temporarily cause confusion and stop the other parts of the combined parasite form from attacking.

Trivia

 * Miki's name means "three trees", referencing his ability to control three parasites.
 * His design bears a slight resemblance to Flash Gordon.
 * He appears in the Parasyte Reversi spinoff.