Kuroudou Akabane

Origin

Akabane Kuroudo, also known by the alias of Doctor Jackal was originally a rather capable surgeon though very few details on precisely what happened to him that turned him into the cruel man he is remains undisclosed. He is said to have worked years as a surgeon, a job he mentions he enjoyed, and was responsible for saving numerous lives, however despite his best effort he failed to save a young boy's life which brought him into a conflict with his father. Accurate details on who the boy is, why he was unable to save the boy, or if that particular incident was the reason he turned into Doctor Jackal remains unknown though is commonly believed be so despite no concrete evidence either way presented in the series.

Creation

Kuroudo Akabane was created by Aoki Yuyya and drawn by Ayamine Rando. He first appeared in Get Backers Volume #2 during Givers and Takers story arc. He was portrayed as a professional looking gentleman in a black suit who constantly had a smile on his face.

Throughout the series he is often drawn with a tilted head, closed eyes and a soft smile on his face. He was originally introduced as one of the three best transporters (individuals with super power whose job is to transport things from one place to another, oftentimes not knowing any details in regards to the content) though his precise rank wasn’t originally revealed.

Personality

Akabane Kuroudo is normally portrayed wearing a black suit and with a smile on his face, however he remains as a character that simply kills because he enjoys killing. It has been mentioned that Akabane is the most powerful and the most hated transporter whose greatest pleasure is to kill. This separates him from other transporters who do jobs for money and kill only when they have to, while Akabane takes the job so that he can kill people.

He is normally seen smiling and calling silly names to his comrades, for example during Givers and Takers he calls Kudo Himiko as Poison Ivy, but once in battle he becomes a different man. A man whose greatest joy is killing and humiliating others.

Major Story Arcs

Givers and Takers

Akabane Kuroudo first appeared in Getbackers volume number 2, chapter 9 Givers and Takers story arc. He was accompanied by two other top ranked transporters, namely Maguruma Koza (alias: No Brakes) and Kudo Himiko (alias: Lady Poison). These transporters where hired to transport a box which is believed to have millions of dollars worth of Platinum stored in it (which later turns out to be false and the content in the box is much later revealed to be Plutonium). This brings them in conflict with the titular duo of Ban Mido (alias: Evil Eye) and Ginji Amano (alias: The Volts) who call themselves The Getbackers and have been hired to retrieve the same box.

After escaping the attempted sabotage of their trucks by Getbackers, we see Akabane compliment his comrade and the portrayal thus far suggests he is a kind, mild mannered individual. This changes rather quickly few pages later when their truck is stopped by Manji Brothers sarcastically calling themselves the public highway commission. Manji brothers who intend to rob the transporters of any precious cargo decide to attack the transporters, starting with Akabane Kurodous, not knowing the reality of who he is. Akabane Kurodous mercilessly tears apart one of the two Manji brothers with his hundred hidden blades. Upon realizing who Akabane is the only remaining Manji brother starts shaking in fear before Akabane slices the top of his head with a gentle smile on his face saying "It's very bad to try and steal from others. I hope not to see your kind any time soon".

After having killed the Manji brother his comrade Kudo Himiko (alias: Lady Poison) inquires as to why Akabane decided to kill them when they weren't a threat. Akabane sarcastically smiles and says it was because they had firearms and they scared him, Kudo however understands the situation and summarizes that Akabane did so because he enjoys killing.

After killing the transporters continue their journey before being intercepted by the Getbackers. Akabane, alongside the other two transporters, slowly walks out of the truck to meet the Getbackers. Akabane starts the conversation with the Getbackers, very politely introducing himself and suggests the Getbackers renounce their mission in exchange of a promise from Akabane to spare their lives. After Getbackers refuses, Akabane starts by kicking them both so fast that neither of them can follow his movements. Ginji, shocked by his speed, asks Ban Mido to go retrieve the box while he decides to take Akabane head on. Ginji shocks Akabane with electricity but Akabane comes out unharmed. Akabane on the other hand manages to injure Ginji on his neck. After few grim banter, Akabane stabs Genji explaining how his scalpel now is only 5 millimeters away from Ginji aorta. However instead of killing Genji, Akabane takes him hostage, asks Ban Mido to stop and the transporters drive off leaving Ban Mido speechless.

Ban Mido, after contemplating for his fair bit, decides to come after the Transporters, and using his evil eye to give them a false perception quickly escapes with Genji as well as the box. This leaves Akabane rather pleased because The Evil Eye cannot be used on the same individual a second time. Akabane and the remaining two transporter decide to follow the heroic duo for revenge.

Getbackers vs The Transporters

Akabane alongside his 2 allies track down and confront the Getbackers. While his allies take on The Evil Eye, Akabane fights Genji. Akabane even comments how Genji is faster this time around as he is finally taking the fight seriously but he is still no match for Akabane. Despite Genji charging at Akabane with 20, million volt of electricity Akabane blocks it rather easily thanks to his super insulating gloves. Genji after repeated attack finally manages to melt Akabane's gloves.

Genji repeatedly comments how his powers are outmatched by Akabane. No matter how much electricity he jolts down Akabane's knives, Akabane is able to regenerate all of them again. Akabane then attacks Genji with his special technique, The Blood Rain, a technique where he thrown a massive amount of knives in the sky then rain it down upon the opponents like rain. Genji is caught in the bloody rain and is massively injured. Meanwhile Midou Ban shows up, but upon being question Genji states he needs to help and intendeds to finish this battle on his own.

Genji then using his electricity powers turns his body into a giant magnet. This magnet interacts with the 1000 knives Akabane has stored inside his body. Since these knives are made up of metal Genji's magnetism manages to pull them all out thereby seriously injuring Akabane. Using this technique he manages to beat Akabane, though collapses himself moments later because of the injuries he sustained during the bloody rain.

Get Back The Sound of Life

After the two leave, Akabane regenerates himself by absorbing all the knives back inside his body. After that he goes to see his comrades and tells them that he is quitting the job and will be paying back the down payment he received to their employer.

Akabane is then confronted by the three Sanji brothers, we are unhappy what Akabane did to Manji brothers and decide to attack him. Akabane mercilessly slays them apart and feeds their remains to crows.

Return to the Infinity Fortress

At the end of the story arc Phantom Sunflower, after the case with the Phantom Sunflower has been dealt with the Getbackers return to their joint where they are greeted by their nemesis Shido and Himiko who explain that there is a big job going down but the details of the job are yet to be disclosed until the final member chosen for the team by the client arrives other than the said job involves The Infinity Fortress. The final member turns out to be none other than Akabane. Upon reaching the Infinity Fortress the group is attacked by a small group of mutants whom Akabane slaughters mercilessly. The Getbackers are furious that Akabane just killed those members when there was no need to kill, but Akabane does not answer. While the team seem a bit intimidated being on the Infinity Fortress , Akabane is the only one who feels at home because killing is what he loves the most.

The team find themselves in a trap attacked by a group of 7 swordsmen, while the team is trying their level best to survive Akabane with a smile on his face slaughters everyone barring one unnamed swordsman. Before Akabane can slaughter him, Ginji electrocutes him to save his life asking Akabane to not kill people unless necessarily. Akabane with a gentle smile on his face replies "Careful Ginji, you may be the next to lose your head". Turns out a second group of attackers where hidden who decide to run away because they recognize Ginji as The Lightning king who ruled the Infinity Fotress, however Akabane manage to persue them and kill them all without letting the team know.

The Sculpture attacks Ginji, who seem to have a past score to settle with him. While the attackers managers to drop Ginji on the ground with a cheap trick he is shocked to realize someone has cut off his arms without him knowing. When he turns back he sees Dr. Jackal who smiles at the idea that he did not know his arms where cut off and says that he's been dead for a while now, only for him to drop dead with 1000 blade marks all over his body, with his blood forming the letter "J" at the wall behind him.

Akabane and Ginji continue to be a team, albeit uncomfortable with each other while the rest of them continue their respective assignments. Akabane and Ginji are attacked by an attacker who looks like teenage version of Ginji himself. While the attacker gets Ginji jittery, Akabane slices his body apart with absolutely no trouble. Angered by Akabane's action Ginji attacks him, but is stopped when many different people looking exactly like Genji show up. Akabane then mercilessly slaughters them all, revealing some of them were people pretending to be Genji while the majority were just hologram. Genji is rather shaken up by Akabane's display of power and starts wondering if Genji could even stop him should the need arise, and if he would even survive should he choose to do so specially now that his magnetic powers won't give him a win.

Terrified of Akabane Ginji tries to flee as fast as he could but regardless of how fast he ran he always finds Akabane just behind him. The duo however are surrounded by a group of mercenaries, which makes Akabane really happy. Ginji terrified of what Akabane would do to these guys begs them to flee, they however refuse Genji's plea saying they are an ultra-elite fighting team and that they have nothing to fear, immediately followed by Akabane slicing the said member's head in half. Akabane removes his blades and proceeds to attack them only to find his attacks blocked by Genji who stuns the remaining crew into unconsciousness. Ginji re-iterates that they do not have to kill unless absolutely necessary, Akabane however with a calm smile explains that in a place like infinity fortress where it is all about killing and being killed, having a heart that bleeds for your enemies is a big liability. Ginji however stands firm on his belief that they could complete this mission without resorting to un-necessary killings. Akabane is impressed by Ginji's determination and decides not to probe the matter further.

Ginji and Akabane continue their journey through the infinity fortress. They reach the underground ruins; the entrance to which is blocked by a titanium door. Akabane however slices through the titanium door without any trouble. The duo is then opposed by Juubei Kakei and Kyuji Kagami, former friends of Ginji during his past as the Lightning Lord of the Infinity Fortress. After hearing that Juubei killed Kazuki of the strings and that this duo has joined the Makubex, a furious Ginji attacks Juubei, leaving Kagami to fight Akabane. Kagami initiates the attack which Akabane dodges with ease. After a brief spar Akabane asks Kagami's name and replies that while the fight has been fun Akabane can't be far away from Ginji too long because Ginji might forget who Akabane is. Therefore the fight has to come to a conclusion soon and Akabane asks Kagami to hold nothing back and promises he would do the same. Kagami obliges and starts with diamond dust attack, an attack that helps Kagami form hundred clones .While Akabane mentions he could see through the illusion he starts to bleed because evidently the diamond dust do more than just create illusion, it enters a person skins and lungs when they breath tearing their internal organs from the inside and rip apart the blood vessels throughout his entire body. An attack that would have killed any ordinary man, then again nothing about Akabane is ordinary. Akabane impressed with Kagami's tenancies, smile and rips out the diamond dust from his body which he then converts into his blades. He then explains the shocked Kagami that one of his special skills is that anything that mixes with Akabane's blood automatically becomes his weapons. Kagami's is taken aback by Akabane's powers and easily overwhelmed by his bloody cross attack, only to then be revealed that it was merely Kagami's clone that Akabane was fighting and the real Kagami had already retreated earlier.

The scene then cuts towards Ginji on the other side of the ruins enjoying his solitude because Akabane is not around any longer. He starts singing only to be interrupted by Akabane who has found his way to Ginji, to his dismay.

After the story catches up with Ban Mido, we return to the scene between Ginji and Akabane. First we see Akabane fight a large mass of people who he defeats however decides not to kill. In Ginji's monolog he is happy that Akabane is not killing people anymore though still terrified of his powers and he fears its Ginji that Akabane eventually wants to kill. Akabane on the other hand has been seeing Genji fight and seem impressed of his prowess as well and summarizes that Ginji's powers come from the Infinity Fortress.

The scene again cuts away, Akabane and Ginji are only seen again next issue where the duo are finally united with the rest of the group. This is followed by the group being attacked and Ginji and Akabane taking care of the attackers easily. Lady Poision sees Akabane defeat all these guys without killing them which surprises her, for obvious reasons. Soon the whole group, including Himiko, Hevn, Kazuki of the Strings, Akabane, Ginji, Ban and Shido meet, precisely as Makubex predicted. The group reunites and proceeds forward only to reach a place with 7 doors. Since the group is made up of seven people, they decide to check the door individually. Upon the roll of the die, door number 1 is assigned to Akabane. Akabane enters the door and finds out his opponent is none other than Makubex himself.

The confrontation between Akabane and Makubex is side track for an entire volume to focus on other fights taking place in the same period of time. Finally we see Akabane and Makubex in volume 9, chapter 1.1 page 60.

Makubex creates Akabane's home town which shocks Akabane. Akabane is annoyed and asks Makubex to stop it. Makubex however asks Akabane to relax and enjoy the show and he pulls up a screen with all the different members of the getbackes and reveals that the traitor the story was hinting on was none other than Dr. Jackal himself.

Makubex then starts reciting the story of the Christ. As Christ hung dying on the cross upon the hill Golgotha, he asked God a question, god why have you forsaken me? But god understood that without Christ's death there can be no resurrection. So for Christ to truly become the son of god he needed Judas's betrayal. Judas fulfilled his role as the Christ's apostle by betraying him and Makubex believes that is exactly what Dr. Jackal had planned all along. Dr. Jackal is rather surprised by what Makubex has found out and he replies that he initially thought Makubex as a fool who wanted to use an atomic bomb to make a deal with god, but it seem he was wrong and that Dr. Jackal is curious to understand what it is that Makubex is trying to achieve. Makubex replies he is looking for proof that their lives are run by their own free will. That they are not controlled by others and if they can't do that through this fight with the retrievers then their only choice is to send everything back to nothing with the atom bomb. Dr. Jackal calmly replies that he has very little interest in this and the only reason he is here is because Makubex hired him before the transporters and he has brought the items Makubex needed to combine with his implosion lens to complete the bomb. Dr. Jackal hands him the plutonium and says with this his contract with Makubex has come to an end. His next job is to take the IF from Makubex and return it to his other employer, whose identity is not revealed.

Dr. Jackal then further corrects Makubex by telling him that since he was never on anyone's side but his own he can't be a traitor, and that all he now cared about was he wanted to see how this battle ends.

Makubex and Dr Jackal continue to talk while they see the live feed of Getbackers fighting their respective opponents. Makubex is pretty surprised seeing Ban Mido's fighting abilities but Akabane seem to hint this is just the beginning of what Ban Mido can do. This leads to Makubex asking if Dr. Jackal believed he could beat both Ban Mido and Genji, who has now transformed into his old more powerful self called the Lightning Lord. Dr. Jackal merely smiles and says that he is yet to be paid by Makubex. The scene cuts to Lightning Lord fighting his opponent who is clearly overpowered and crying for help. The said opponent is told that a powerful ally will step forth soon to fight Lightning Lord Genji. Upon hearing this Genji replies they could send whoever they want but Genji can't be stop, an assertion his opponent seem to believe. This all changes when the person who steps in is none other than Dr. Jackal himself.

Upon entering the scene Dr. Jackal calmly says that to be able to fight the Lightning Lord is the payment he is seeking. The Lightening Lord isn’t happy and asks Akabane to go away, followed by attacking him with lightning. Dr. Jackal however dodges every single one of his attacks with frightening ease and comments that lightning lord form is powerful indeed capable of hitting any spot he desired with lightning instantly. Like an emotionless machine whose only instinct is to fight in order to erase Ginji's pain till all enemies are wiped out and afterwards as the lightning lord form leaves Ginji would return to his average self to lament the death of his enemies. Lightning Lord seem annoyed with his talks and decides to uses his magnetic energy to pull out Dr. Jackal's knives from his body like he did before but this time it does not work because the scalpels are now ceramic and cannot be magnetized. Dr. Jackal continues his monolog saying the frequencies of waves the lightning lord is emitting is very high and powerful, so powerful that should anyone get close their blood would start to boil. This angers the lightning lord even further and he starts generating plasma from around his body. This however simply make Dr. Jackal happy who comments that the infinity fortress itself gives him energy to become the killing machine that can be shut down only by death around him and it is the peak of Ginji's power as the lightning lord that Dr. Jackal seek to find and kill. Dr. Jackal then rips out his mysterious blood sword while the lightning lord continues to pour out more and more power.The power output is so much that most of the electrical equipment around the infinity fortress is fried. Dr. Jackal however is still unperturbed and pushes lightning lord to unleash more and more energy, and forces him to get angrier. He can evidently even measure the percentage output of the lightning lord and is counting till he reaches 100%. When he does Dr. Jackal attacks with his sword but Ban Mido stands in the middle and gets skewered by the sword. Seeing this Genji bursts in tears and his lightning lord form wears off. He is then greeted by Ban Mido who is unharmed as it seems the prior scene of him being killed was merely an illusion cast by the evil eye.

Ban then warns Dr. Jackal to not do so again because at 100 percentage lighting lord powers Ban believes even Akabane would be burnt to crisp. Akabane however with a smile on his face replies if someone of your skill says so; it looks like I really let a big fish get away. The complete and utter disregard to someone as powerful as the lightning lord shocks the getbackers. Dr. Jackal then says that his first job is complete which was to give Makubex the plutonium and that it's now time to finish the job he was handed by the other clients. This shocks the getbackers because they did not expect Akabane to be the traitor much less outright admits it in front of the duo. Ban Mido however mentions regardless of what Akabane did his goals and our now coincide and hence they can work together. Ginji agrees but does not want to be paired with Akabane again; however Ban Mido asks Ginji and Akabane to go ahead while Ban goes to the toilet. While Ginji can sense something is wrong he does as he was told. We then see Ban Mido bleeding pretty badly from his shoulders as it turns out he never got to use the evil eye but was in fact skewered by the sword. Luckily he was only skewered next to his arm, so while he is injured pretty badly he isn’t dead.

Akabane and Ginji continue their journey only to enter a room filled with what looks like hundreds of clones of Dr. Jackal. Ginji asks if there were Akabane's brothers and Akabane replies these are clones created by Makubex using the data on Akabane that he found on Babylon City Achieve. Because there clones were created using some of Akabane's own data they are pretty formidable. Upon saying that Akabane pulls out his blood sword and start cutting his clones to pieces saying it sure feels strange cutting myself to shreds like this but at the same time it is pretty amusing. After a short while when Ban Mido manages to catch up to Akabane they see Akabane has killed all of his clones, this terrifies the group because he is this powerful and ruthless but also makes the group happy because for the moment he is on their side.

The team regroup and head for Makubex. Upon reaching Makubex's room the team starts explaining Makubex how what he is doing is wrong and that he should stop. Annoyed by all this righteous nonsense Akabane speaks up saying his job is to return the IL to the client and he does not care about the therapy season all he wants is the bloodshed to star.

Akabane was the member of the team when the heroes dealt with Makubex but he himself did very little.

After the job is over Akabane is asked to hand over the disk to his employer, but the employer decides to betray them by calling for his guardsmen, a group of cyber enhanced superhuman called Manji Earth Forces. Akabane kills the said forces saying he is sick of these stupid game and leaves on the note that the job has been great fun and that's payment enough.

The Lost Arms of Goddess

Ban Mido and Ginji are hired by Clayman to retrieve the missing arm of the masterpiece statue Venus de Milo. The arms are currently being transported to an auction via luxury liner, and their owner Miss Hela has hired the mysterious Protector Natsuhiko Miroku. As Ban Mido and Hinji travel to the Okinawan port where the ship is docked they are attacked by a dangerous unseen ememy, and Ban Mido doesn’t seem happy to recognize the sensation he's getting. The enemy is revealed next issue to be none other than Akabane himself.

As it so happens the person hired to transport the said arm turns out to be Akabane who seems rather pleased that Getbackers are involved in this because he thought transporting art of an action would be boring but with Getbackers he gets to do what he loves fight and kill. Akabane attacks the Getbackers , after hurling Genji aside he starts to fight Ban Mido. Ban Mido attacks Akabane with his most powerful attack, the snakebite, and Akabane is taken off screen. Genji is surprised that Ban Mido managed to crush Akabane but Ban asks Ginji to run. We then see Akabane get up with absolutely no injury and smile. The getbackers are annoyed that Akabane is involved but Ginji mentions while Akabane is impressive what Ban Mido did to him, cornered Akabane in the fight was great. Ban however shows Ginji that his t-shirt was torn from that back with a "J" mark and mentioned that Akabane tried to slice and dice him and he barely made it in one piece. He also mentions that this is not the time to fight because when Ban finally fights Akabane its going to be to the death and it is not going to be pretty.

We then see Dr. Jackal talk to his employer for the job, whose face is not shown. Akabane enquires why he intentionally put Dr. Jackal against the Getbackers and the employer replies he did it for three reasons. First he wanted to see the enemy's strength so he made the first attack. Second he does not what the Getbackers to know he is involved, specially Ban Mido, and third he wanted to see Dr. Jackal's ability first hand.

We then see Dr. Jackal talking to Miss Hela who enquires why Dr. Jackal is hanging around her quarters and not protecting the missing arms. Dr. Jackal replies his duty is to protect the arm as well as her and the arm for the moment is protected by the other bodyguards she has hired. Dr. Jackal also informs Miss Hela that he ran into the Getbackers who have been tasked with retrieving the arm and that they are in good health. Miss Hela seem annoyed at Dr. Jackal and asks him to take the job more seriously because the word is Getbackers are not the only ones looking for Venus. Dr. Jackal replies saying he does not care what she thinks and that to him the value of the job lies in how much enjoyment he can get out of it.

Getbackers try to enter the cargo ship by hiding inside a barrel but they are discovered by Miss Hela's guards with Akabane present. A short fight ensues between the getbackers and the guard but Akabane does not join the said fight. Ban Mido is hurt and flung into the ocean when the guards trick Ban by blowing up the small boat he was under. Ginji furious at his tries to jump into the water to look for Ban Mido only to be stopped by Akabane. Akabane attacks Ginji but stops pretty quickly and mentions he is happy that Ginji, even after losing the lightning lord mode for the moment, has demonstrated enough power that Akabane is confident he is not going to be killed by the mysterious Protectors because Akabane wants to be the one to eventually kill them. He however gives him a warning not to assume that the enemy is merely one person and leaves.

Ban Mido finally makes it to the ship after being plundered into the ocean earlier, tired and having used up all his evil eyes for the day only to meet Akabane. Instead of attacking the injured and tired Ban Mido Akabane simply asks him if he has fought the Lightning Lord and full power and if he did, did he win? Ban Mido replies he has and he won. Upon hearing that Akabane says he does not want to fight Ban Mido at the time but after they reach the port and all is done he wants Ban to fight him at full power. Ban agrees.

Ban Mido allows Ginji to go after the soul sharing Protector while he goes after Akabane. A fight ensures but they seem equally matched. Their short battle comes to an end when they mistakenly believe something bad has happened to Ginji as all the electric equipments fail. After a short conversation Akabane suggest that Ban Mido is powerful but he doesn’t have anything that can kill Akabane, Ban calmly replies his job isn’t to kill Akabane but to stop the auction. Ban Mido then uses a rubber doll trick to temporarily confuse Akabane before he makes a hasty exit.

Akabane merely sits there and smiles thinking that was the right choice and that The Getbackers are really something else.