Masataka Shiba is Kaoru's father and the seventeenth head of the Shiba family and Shinken Red, succeeding Yōjirō Shiba. He set up the idea to use a kagemusha to counter Dokoku's plans to wipe his family out of existence. Masataka sealed Dokoku using the imperfect Sealing Character just before his death; his then-unborn daughter was then taken into hiding and Takeru was presented as the new head of the Shiba House.