Kyouko Suehara

Kyouko Suehara (末原 恭子 Suehara Kyōko) is a third year at Himematsu High who first joined the team fifteen months prior to the current story and she is the one responsible for Suzu Ueshige joining the team as well as getting Kinue Atago to try for the regular team.

Appearance
Kyouko has long purple hair tied in the back and purple eyes. She wears the standard Himematsu top and pants, along with two bracelets on her right wrist and one on her left. Outside of competition she was seen wearing the gym uniform.

Personality
Kyouko is well informed about her opponents even briefing her teammates on their abilities and habits to prepare them. In mahjong, she is always afraid of losing.

She has a close bond with the coach of Himematsu, Kazumi Zenno, and is weary of the acting coach Ikuno Akasaka, not taking her seriously and only waiting for Zenno to come back from her medical leave.

National Tournament Arc
Kyouko is first shown complimenting Hiroe Atago on a win while watching Kiyosumi's match in the first round. During the second round she appears in a flashback during Suzu Ueshige's match briefing them on Yuuki Kataoka's playing style. She tells Suzu to stay within 30,000 pts or she will write on her forehead with permanent ink. She appears again in a flashback but this time she is briefing about Miyamori's Shiromi Kosegawa and her unusual playing style. In the later rounds of Suzu's match we see her quietly cheering her on but gets frustrated when she isn't doing well. When Kinue Atago tells her she is too hard on Suzu, she says she whips her with love. In another flashback it is revealed that she only joined the regular team because Akaska Ikuno agreed to put Suzu on the team but is embarrassed by this and asks her not to tell anyone. After that she was quitely waiting Suzu to make a comeback but it didn't happen along with her missing her goal for the match. When Suzu tries to sneak in Suehara catches her and decides to write on her with a regular marker until Akasaka finds her a permanent one.

At the beginning of Yuuko Mase's match, Hiroe says she doesn't find anything weird with Aislinn Wishart's records, Suehara corrects her. She then explains that while Aislinn doesn't do anything freaky or flashy, she always gets a winning hand and was even best in her nation winning percentage wise. When watching the second match, Suehara is stunned by Mako Someya's way of playing and doesn't get why she is playing that way. As Hiroe runs back at halftime of her lieutenants match, Suehara complements her for taking back their lead position. When Hiroe tells her she'll keep it up, Suehara then tells her that she isn't worried about her or her sister but herself, because she is up against all the monsters but is interested to see how far an ordinary person can go. Before the start of the vice-captain match she tells Yuuko that even though they give Nodoka Haramura a lot of attention, she thinks that Hatsumi has a better shot at winning. She then tells her that Eisui employs a strategy where Hatsumi and Komaki Jindai go for the big hands, while Kasumi Iwato tries to shut her opponent down. Also that unlike Jindai, Hatsumi's play doesn't waver and stays strong but Kinue should be alright. When Kinue's match starts we see a flashback to a few months ago. Here it shows that Suehara was the one who invited Kinue to join competitions for the team so she can be together with her sister. Near the end of the first half of the vice-captain match, Kyouko again appears via flashback telling Kinue how to deal with Hatsumi Usuzumi. Before leaving for her match she tries to cheer up Kinue.

At the start of her match, Kyouko begins well winning the firs three hands quickly. After Saki Miyanaga's win Kyouko decides to play a riichi but is quickly prayed upon by Toyone Anetai and her special abilities. Kyouko thinking it was a coincidence plays into Toyone's hand three more times before the intermission. During the break she was seen contemplating how Toyone was able to beat her. After the break, thinking she has Toyone figured out, decides not to call anymore riichi's. However, Toyone uses another one of her abilites to gain even more points. After more wins by Toyone, Kasumi Iwato decides to use her offensive abilites and begins to win. Kyouko then begins to feel discouraged and quickly realizes Kasumi's abilites before the girl wins again. She is then reminded that the situation is similar to three player mahjong and is able to counter and win. However Saki then starts to win more hands. But Kyouko keeps analyzing and eventually wins another hand bringing her to second place and when Saki wins the last hand, Himematsu was able to advance. She then thanks everyone for the game and leaves.

Back in the waiting room, she apologizes to her team for losing the large lead and thinks back on the match. She then notices that Saki actually scored plus-minus zero twice during the game and still got first. Having understood this, Kyouko starts to feel down but Ikuno asks her if she wants to become stronger than Saki. She says yes and Ikuno immediately transforms her appearance into something more girly. Ikuno then goes on to call in Yoshiko Kainou and a few others so they can emulate their semi finals opponents. She finally says that Zenno will come watch their match and Kyouko tells herself that she really can't lose now.

Final Eight Arc
Kyouko is shown along with the rest of Himematsu entering the tournament hall. Along the way she notices Zenno on the big screen and smiles. She is later present to send off Suzu before her match. While watching the match, she notes that against stronger opponents, Suzu is more likely to explode, though sometimes she misfires and does it against weak opponents. During a Suzu flashback, Kyouko tells her that she would like Suzu to make a small change when she is facing powerful opponents and that is to play fast to keep scoring points. After the vanguard match, Suzu was getting praised until Ikuno reminded everyone that she failed at her given task, staying within 30,000 points of the lead; Suzu was 30,900 points behind Rinkai. Kyouko then tells she to bit the bullet on this one and draws on her forehead. However, she decided to draw with lipstick instead of a marker and drew a victory flower for her instead of the usual punishment. When Hiroe bumped into a wall before her match, Kyouko was seen scolding the girl on being too relaxed. Before her match, Kyouko is shown to wear the girly appearance that was suggested.

The captain's round begins, with Saki planning to get first blood with a Rishan Kaihou; however, she is interrupted when Kyouko calls a pon, giving her tile to Nelly. She wins a few turns later, and Saki realises that Kyouko purposefully changed (and minimized) her wait in order to prevent Saki from winning. In the next round, Saki senses Sawaya Shishihara using her ability, alerting Kyouko to be on the defensive. Kyouko attempts to end the hand early by calling, but when Sawaya discards the first and only honour tile on the table (7 turns in no less), Kyouko decides that against an unknown ability, it would be better to bail, and ends up drawing all of Sawaya's waits; she declares a kan on both the 5-pin and 8-pin, and is left with the 4 and 6-pin, and must decide which one is not Sawaya's wait. After just barely managing to slide through, they are all taken aback when Nelly Virsaladze wins with a Rishan Kaihou.

Kyouko then quickly wins the third round with a cheap 1000 point hand. After reading Saki's expression again she notices that Sawaya is going to attack. With a hand going nowhere she tries to dodge the hit but Sawaya lands a tsumo for 8000 and a dealer repeat. She again reads Saki and notes that things have gone from bad to worse. Sawaya then hits with a counted yakuman. Kyouko notices that Sawaya had to do something odd to make up for all the lost points and says she should be use to these strong players by now. She then flashes back to two years ago. Hiroe and Yuuko approach Kyouko and tell her that she can tell that she is strong and likes that. Kyouko was turned off by this and thinks that she just wants to hang around good players. Hiroe then tells her that they can just be normal friends. She then flashes to the inter-high that year with her and Zenno watching the matches. It is here that she was put into the starting line-up and contributes to the team. However she notices that as her opponents got stronger she hit a wall. Yuuko tries to tell her that she shouldn't pay attention to the others because it isn't going to help. During the spring, the coach fell ill and was replaced by Ikuno. Ikuno then snaps her out of the slump by making her focus on self discipline and not others. With the flash back over, she immediately wins off of Saway for 4500. Kyouko then dominates the rest of the round to bring the half to a close.

In the waiting room, Kyouko switches back to her normal style and Ikuno complains. She tells Ikuno that the only reason she tried them was because Zenno suggested it and although they were effective, she can't feel at ease in them. As the match starts again, she picks up where she left off and wins again off of Sawaya. Saki wins the next hand. Kyouko and Saki then start calling pons and chiis until Saki wins with a tsumo. Saki wins again and this fires up Kyouko whom immediately wins the next hand for 8600 points, stating that there's no way that Saki could win in a fast match against her. With the win, Himematsu climbs into first position. Sawaya then tries to attack once more but Saki wins again. As Saki continues to win, Kyouko notices Nelly and wonders about her abilities. Nelly then breaks loose and wins three huge hands to end the match and knocks Himematsu down to third. Soon afterwards, Kyouko says that she knew from records that Nelly would win a few big hands, but was surprised no one could stop her. Nelly speaks to Kyouko after the match, and says that although she was afraid of Kyouko's tenpai, because Kyouko was the player before Nelly, she gained more draws when Kyouko called.

As she walks back to the waiting room, she sees Saki and calls out to her. Kyouko says that Saki beat her again and that she is no match for her. She then wishes her well and walks off. Back in front of her team, she bows her head and apologizes. When they ask her why she apologizes, she then begins to list her regrets. Hiroe and Ikuno Akasaka tell her not to regret and that they need to prepare for tomorrow and the 5th place match. Ikuno then says that they need to go greet Zenno. Kyouko tells her to take care of her tomorrow and calls her coach.

National Championship Arc
She arrives outside of Kazumi Zenno's room to report her defeat but before she can enter, the rest of the team arrive and they go in together. Once they are done with the report, Kazumi asks Kyouka to stay and allows Kyouko to cry on her shoulder. Some time later in the hall, she runs into Ryuuka Shimizudani. After a brief conversation she wishes a parting Ryuuka well and saying she isn't going to be defeated.

During Suzu's match, Kyouka admitted that she wanted to know how her abilities worked. She does know that her power tends to activate more against strong opponents. She again appear in a Suzu flashback telling her about a countermeasure for Toki Onjouji and her future vision.

Playing Style/Abilities
Kyouko is, by all meanings, a regular player. However, in her second year, she was scouted out to be on the team of her seeded school in the national tournament (she turned the offer down asking the coach to look at Suzu more carefully). She is described as a very careful player, adept at three player mahjong, and winning quickly. According to Hiroe, she is strong because of her carefulness. She is a very well informed player, using all the information available to win, studying her opponents very carefully. When faced with new information from Toyone Anetai, she decided to test whether the Okkake Riichi's were a coincidence or not, leading her to lose a lot of points. However, because she endured that in the quarter finals in the semifinals, she chose to play it much safer against Sawaya Shishihara, leading her to not directly losing any points.

Suzu and Kinue both state that Kyouko's speciality lies in obtaining a lot of points through quick hands and calling, which is showcased in the beginning of the Quarterfinals and during the Semifinals. When Sawaya used Hoyau Kamuy and nullified all players' abilities at the table, Kyouko won a lot of points as Sawaya's abilities could not keep up with Kyouko's fast wins and Nelly and Saki were prevented from using their abilities. She is also very cautious of the other players, especially monsters, and takes into account as much information as possible to deal with said monsters; not unlike Harue Akado. As such, she is quite astute, and used Saki's sensory ability to gauge when Sawaya was going to attack, and how ferociously.

Despite Kyouko losing the most points in the quartfinals, Saki stated that she had let the strongest player through, and wasn't sure if she could beat Kyouko again. Later, Saki was seen struggling against Kyouko in the semifinals (especially after Sawaya's aforementioned Hoyau Kamuy), but later pulled through after hitting a lucky streak.

Etymology

 * The name Kyouko means "respectful, polite" (恭) (kyou) and "child" (子) (ko).
 * Kyouko's surname Suehara means "end, powder" (末) (sue) and "field, plain" (原) (hara).