Act 11 Voodoo Child 18

“Just one minute…” Ban says. Maria now has her arm flung over him for support. ‘Help’ finally realises that Ban used the Jagan and Maria tells Ban off for it; “Idiot child…If you save me how am I to show you how to fight.” Throwing his jacket to the semi-naked Maria he answers, “It’s you who are the idiot…” then goes on about how she can’t teach them anything if she’s dead and he believes they will not fail. Maria is pleased by his answer and thinks how of course he is this way as he learnt from her since he was little and he is no longer a child. Well, ‘Help’ is having a bit of a hussy fit screaming and warbling and still going on about screaming help blah blah. The commentator tries to tell Help that Ban’s interference is not allowed but the Beltline fighter is not listening and attacks. Ban seems wholly unconcerned. He just tells Maria to go and get her wounds treated then conjures something which looks suspiciously like his dad’s Kagami-hand eating monster from a few chapters ago. Which bites of Help’s arm. Even Maria looks surprised at that and Help can’t believe it. Then Ban speaks to the Beltline fighter; “Hey, Monster. You said that your name was help, didn’t you? People learn their fear of death at the very moment they are born. But you are not something which was born, so never learnt that so do you even have an existence? Because you are not a thing which was born you do not fear death.” He continues that Help only has the recollections of the now and thus does not fear a time when he will no longer exist. He finishes; “If you think it strongly enough, then soon it will become reality.” We then see what I take to be a memory of Ban’s; an image of a man in a suit saying something like if Ban wants to live he should think it strongly. Back to the fight, ‘Help’ makes to attack Ban who is conjuring something up again. “You will return to the place from where you were first,” he says and then we see him apparently having cast a spell or something which seems to deconstruct Help. “Verschwinde Geist,” Ban shouts as he does this [both the German and the Japanese say roughly the same thing “Be gone, spectre!”]. On the sidelines, Ginji cries out to Ban in surprise but Akabane tells him not to worry, that Ban chose to send the “Demon” back to the “Archive” rather than destroy him. Though Akabane says he can’t do that if he is “aiming for the top” [I assume he means Babylon City here]. Now the commentator also thinks Ban can’t do this as he calls Ban’s victory a foul. In fact, he fouls both Ban and Maria and announces that the GetBackers et al. team now have two loses. (The crowd are also unimpressed and we see some of them saying, “Kill him!” and “What is that bastard doing?”) So then Ban is put in restraints and the guards tell the GetBackers team that he is to executed for breaking the rules. As you might guess, Ginji is none too pleased at this prospect but Ban tells him not to do anything. He and Maria have been disqualified so it is now up to the rest of the team to win and anyway, he and Maria can take care of themselves. Ban then asks the guard if it is to be a private execution (somehow I find this line extremely amusing), to which he replies yes it is. Ban seems pleased by that and then says he’ll see Himiko and Ginji later. They agree and off he goes as the commentator announces the departure of Midou Ban and the end of the first round. “Now then!! If fate brings tears or smiles we shall find out in the second round!!” he announces. Back to Fuuga and Saizou is expressing his surprise at the outcome of the fight. He does say that at least they learnt something about the Beltline fighters- that they aren’t human. Juubei, surprised by what Saizou just said, asks him if he’s ever been to the beltline. Saizou replies that at the time when Fuuga still ruled Mugenjou at the time when Kazuki went missing and everyone in Lower Town was running around “desperately searching for him” he saw Kazuki fighting at the entrance to the Beltline. He calls the opponent he saw that day a “walking corpse” (who’d have thought there is in fact a single kanji for that?!) and when he saw it his heart was filled with fear and he couldn’t move, he says he thought at that time they did not have the power to reach the “top”. But Juubei is incensed and demands to know why Saizou didn’t help Kazuki. Saizou reminds him that he was held by fear. Now back to the commentator who asks the “Der Henker” team to choose the next opponent. Two step forward, to which the commentator says that only one can fight. The fighters though say that in the last match two from the other team took part so it is only fair. In any case, the fighters join hands, there is an explosion and when the mist fades there appears a single fighter. Both Saizou and Kazuki are shocked- it appears this is the being Kazuki fought at the entrance to the Beltline. “Amazing! Amazing!” the announcer cries, “The two fighters joined hands and in a moment became one fighter!!” Kazuki shouts to the GetBackers team; “Don’t! That monster’s fighting is…!!” and he thinks that the GetBackers team will not win. Ginji wants to go and fight, but Akabane tells him to stay and watch the “essence of battle”, that he will fight so off he goes. The commentator announces him and warns the team that they must not lose another fight. Akabane is going his scary smiling thing. The opponent asks what’s so funny. Akabane replies; “Nothing…It’s just that this is over and you are unaware of it. Not funny at all.” And he slices the demon to little bits. And the crowd goes wild. “Instant death! Instant death!!” proclaims the announcer and comments on Akabane’s strength and “matchless cold blooded nature” in “hacking” his opponent to pieces. Yet again poor Ginji is in a state of shock, but Akabane tells him; “Just as Midou-kun said, they are not things which were born and so they do not fear death. And as they do not fear, they do not die…things which are “above” defeat things which are “below”…this is the logic of Mugenjou.” Ginji continues to be shocked, Saizou is impressed with the “Doctor” and Kazuki considers whether Akabane might be…[that’s all he says, sorry]. Anyway, the returning Akabane laments how the fight wasn’t much fun, then tells Ginji and Himiko to prepare themselves as it is their turn next.