Licht Bach

"Hina-chan, you wanted to know what my purpose was... so listen up... Jail, I'll tell you who I am... I am... Plunderer. To steal away everything in this country, that is my purpose."

- Licht Bach reveals his true identity

Licht Bach (リヒトー=バッハ Rihitō Bahha), or known by his real name Sakai Rihito (坂井離人 Sakai Rihitō), is the main male protagonist of Plunderer. He is one of the 7 Legendary Red Baron, known as "The Flash Baron"

Appearance
Post-300 years Licht does not differ much from himself before the war, other than his Snow White hair and being taller. His eyes are crimson and his skin is fair, though his looks are not uncommon among others.

He hides his face under masks of all designs. They are typically classic Japanese Theatrical masks, known as Noh. He sometimes even adorns costumes to appear unassuming, such as a pudding cup with his sword re-purposed into the guise of a spoon.

His usual attire consists of a red garb draped over his shoulders with armor underneath and jet-powered boots although it is unknown if the boots are still functional.

On the back of his hand is his count. It's a maximum of -999.

Personality
He is enigmatic as far as intentions go. He does his best to conceal that he is a red baron, but his overwhelming power and inability to allow others to suffer before him causes him to out himself often.

He is shamelessly perverted and needy in a comical way. He could be considered mischievous upon first meeting. He is used to girls denying him and being hated, facing that truth with a stone face.

When he takes on the true power of his ballot, his personality shifts to an unwavering blood lust.

Past Event
Licht (used be known as Rihito) was brought into his new house by his adoptive grandmother. His grandmother introduced him to his new brother Sakai Tokikaze and told him that they would be living together. While living together, Rihito was known to cause trouble, so he and Tokikaze were always being punished by their grandmother. A few years later, Tokikaze decided to go to the training school. Grandmother requested that Rihito bring him back, as she did not want to watch Tokikaze kill people. Rihito accepted her request and set off to retrieve Tokikaze.

When Rihito arrived on 13th Special Military Forces School, him, Tokikaze and students all attend orientation where Schmelman Bach starts to read the children's book about the Tortoise and the Hare. Unable to control themselves, the students burst into fits of laughter and start to make fun of Schmelman. They make jokes that they must be children, so when they are told to be quite by Schmelman, one female student states that they don't understand the concept of silence, for they are "children". This leads Alexandroff Grigorovich (Alan) to shoot the female in the head stating that to be a soldier, you must learn to listen and obey your superiors. He then said that everyone who cries and screams will be shot. He continues to shoot students until Tokikaze, with his blade, interferes with Alan's ability to shoot. Screaming how he can so easily kill. Alan then turns his weapon on Alan stating that to question his superior officer is also another way to die. Rihito, unknowingly to everyone else, had snuck up behind Bach while the commotion was going on. Rihito put a stick to Major Schmelman's neck as a threat, but after realizing his situation he didn't know what to do. So Schmelman, using his own head, showed Rihito where to place his hands to efficiently snap his neck. Bach then continued on to request from Rihito, to kill him, otherwise his friend, Tokikaze, was going to die. He jumped back saying no and said that he was mistaken about all of this. Schmelman, said that then there was no other way, and declared that he would kill them all while emitting a deadly aura forcing everyone to their knees except Rihito. As Schmelman was about to attack Rihito, Firenda intervened stating it was all too gloomy, and that she would take over. Each instructor introduced themselves to the students with Captain Alan revealing that the bullets that he shot at the students were in fact just paintballs. After all students departed to the dining facility, Captain Alan and Major Schmelman stayed and talk to each other about the "rare" human he found. Captain Alan thought he was talking about Tokikaze, but Schmelman was talking about Rihito. Noting that immediately when Captain Alan pulled out his weapon, he was moving faster than anyone else and that instead of attacking Captain Alan, he set his sites on the commander, going for his throat in a threatening manner. On the first day on school, every student receives two stars being told that every day at 18:00 (6:00 PM) they would be checked for the number of stars each student posses. Any student with 10 stars is enlisted in the army and will receive extra pay and extra food rations, while those that have less than 10, will be removed from the school. While all students receive two to begin with, Schmelman gave Rihito a special task. He received no stars and was told that his objective was to steal them from others. This allowed Captain Alan and Major Schmelman to test his aptitude. After the class taking a break, Rihito sitting on his place and wonder if Firenda wears panties or not. Knowing his thought, Hina and Lyne Mei angered at this and told him to be serious, he stated he don't care if he will expelled from school or not since his only purpose being here was to bring Tokikaze back home.

The war is slowly making its way to the Achool's doorsteps and with all the testing on the Aerial Ace Project not turning in any new results, Firenda suggested that it was time to initiate the Aerial Ace Project now. Major Schmelman was upset at the idea of using his students as test subjects and started to freeze Firenda. Calmly she explained to him, the reason for the previous experiments extreme bloodlust was not a fault of the experiment itself, but from Schmelman's blood. She also stated that to make more progress, she needed to advance past the animals, as they were no longer providing any new results. They settled on Licht as being the first new test subject, but second in the program. Everyone was against the idea, but Firenda defended the program saying that they would not be able to win on their own, that they needed a sorcerer. While getting the blood transfusion from Major Schmelman, soldiers and helicopters came in with bombs and guns; this was the beginning of the Abandonment War.

As the fighting progressed, students were getting killed left and right, professors and students were jumping in front of guns to protect other students or their loved ones. During one incident, the male soldiers started to rip the front of the girls tops revealing their undergarments and making suggestive comments. As Rihito slowly started to wake up the earth started shaking confusing everyone. Once both parties were awake, Major Schmelman told Rihito that he may have once been a tortoise, but now he is the hare while everyone else is the tortoise. He also advised Licht to walk as gently as possible until he goest used to it. Confused, Rihito left Major Schmelman started to head upstairs to outside, but due to his enhanced speed, he quickly darted outside and ran into the far wall upside-down. Surprising the soldiers, their commander told them to kill Rihito, who saw the bullets in slow motion. Easily avoiding them, he stated that they were too slow. That is when he takes notice to the half naked females kneeling by the soldiers. The women tried to play it off telling him not to worry, and trying to laugh, but one of them started to break and was almost in tears. Licht ran up and hugged her as she cried. Full of rage, he looked at the commander of the soldiers and asked, "What were you trying to do to my comrades?" The commander pointed his gun at Licht, but being slow, Rihito knocked out all the soldiers. One of the soldiers who was knocked out, stood up and revealed to the students that he had a bomb, and the only way to deactivate it before he set it off, was for someone, specifically Rihito, to kill him. Rihito had denied, he would do any such thing, leading the man to start a countdown from 10. Tokikaze, jumping in, was going to kill the man, but Rihito quickly deflected him and decapitated the man himself. It was revealed by the man that the bomb on his body, was a fake and that he was proving a point: "In war, you have to kill to win. You cannot fight in a war without shedding blood." This was the first step of Rihito's descent and the start of his body count.

After this incident, Rihito renamed himself from "Sakai Rihito to "Licht Bach". He was consistently sent out onto the front lines. Always coming back with a higher number, more scars, and blood covering his body. But he would always greet Nana with a smile and would always goof around with the other students. His light hearted spirit was what allowed the students and Nana to forget that they were training to be soldiers and they would potentially have to kill. Slowly as the war progressed, and the higher Licht's count got, the less open he was. It was becoming noticeable among the students and the girls of Class A were trying to reach his perverted side. They walked up and showed him their underwear, where he got up and walked away. The girls tried to reason that the reason he didn't react was because it was the lingerie, that if they found the lingerie he really liked, he would return to the person he was.

When the other 5 Barons were identified, Licht became their captain and he commanded no one to kill. Of all of the barons, Licht wanted to make sure that Tokikaze was the farthest from the front lines. So as years went on and war continued, Licht continued to go to battle alone to kill the enemy so that his friends did not die, nor did they have to kill, but this slowly took a toll on Licht. The more he killed the more Schmelman's bloodlust took over. Eventually Schmelman's blood took over entirely and they had to keep Licht heavily bound up for safety. If they were to release him onto a mission, they would pump him full of drugs and drop him into enemy territory.

A unanimous vote among the instructors using the original ballots, created new land that separated from the mainland and floated in the air; this new land was Althea. Althea abandoned those on the surface to what resources were left of the Abyss. All resources that still remained were quickly were taken and the land stripped bare. All of the Barons, excluding Nana who was asleep, approved of this vote, except for Tokikaze. He took the original ballot and ran, trying to tell the rest of the class about what was happening. A unanimous vote was needed for their plan to go through, and so Firenda, drugged Licht up and released him on Tokikaze. Unaware of the world, believing Tokikaze was his enemy, Licht slashed Tokikaze, killing him. After Licht swung and fatally injured Tokikaze, Licht came back to his senses and realized what he had just done. The one person he wanted to protect most from himself and the world, he had just killed with his own hands. This lead to Licht's 300 years of despair. Within the 300 years after the war, not once had he ever removed his mask, nor did he talk much.

Story Event
Licht first appeared in Chapter 1 with his introduction to Hina being him trying to see her panties. Licht asks her for money to buy something else. With him bleeding, Licht stated that he can't hold on anymore and hoping Hina can gives him her "money", while he touching her body. Hina was frightened and ran away, but Licht kept following her until he was slapped by Nana Bassler.

Nana wants to apologize for his behavior, Licht interrupts Nana asking about the food. Nana asks him where's the money she gave him to run errands and he doesn’t answer. While Hina introduces herself to Nana, Licht tried to sneak food for himself but he was punched by Nana instead. Hina reveals her count, Licht appears in front of her, trying to see her panties. Nana orders Licht to handstand until he dies, as an example of how count works in this world. Hina asks about the "Legendary Red Baron", Nana asks Licht that if he knew anything but he was quick to shake his head.

After Hina was invited by the "Legendary Red Baron", it was shown that Licht is drinking with his mask on. He then said that there's someone who tries to impersonating the "Legendary Red Baron" to swindle people and doing awful things to girls. Knowing this, Licht goes to find Hina and save her.

Hina's count was reduced to only one, Licht arrives and states he will challenge Davi to a game of "The Startheft Bout" in Hina’s stead. After Davi saw Licht's ridiculously low counts, along with Davi’s subordinates, they laugh at him. Nikola pointed out something's wrong with him, that he isn't suppose to be still alive with that low of a count.

Licht tells Hina to stop finding the "Legendary Red Baron", as they are not heroes but murderers. Although he also stated that he will returns Hina's counts back from Davi, and reveals his true identity that he is the "Legendary Red Baron".

Once his true identity is revealed, the other soldiers‘ attitude shifted to fear. Davi denied it and told his henchmen that Licht must be fake Baron, just like him. Licht tells Hina to close her eyes while attacks the soldiers and "teleport" behind Davi. Licht wonders what’s wrong with Davi and tell him that all he did was just "walk around". He also tells Davi that he must return Hina's count back to her.

Davi is easily overwhelmed by Licht‘s battle and combat prowess. When Licht jumps higher, he apologizes to Hina for all the violence. Hina told him to not get hurt and he promises her that he will returns her counts back from Davi. Once Davi is defeated, Licht takes Hina's Ballot and told her that he will sell it for money. While Hina cries for him to not leave, he merely says he will give her his doll instead in exchange of Ballot. Hina exclaims that he isn't the hero that she's looking for. Soon after Hina discovered Licht's true intention and went to finds him, Hina explains to him that he should stay with her, and that she was happy that she meet him. However, Licht didn't choose to stay with her and his first count was reduced to -1000.

Abilities and Power
Licht has two separated counts: the first count is "-999", Nana stated that his Count stands for how many girls have turned him down, his count becomes -1000 after Hina calls him a liar and says that she hates him. His current first count was -1002. The second count is 5700 and stands for how many heads he had cut off. In chapter 10, it states that he is actually hiding his true power. During his battle, his count increases by 10 times, reaching the amount of 57000. It's later revealed Licht's original count stands for how many people he has killed in place of his friends and loved ones. It was later revealed that Licht's original count on his original Ballot Replica was 300000, and reached over 1500000 when activating Schmelman's bloodlust genes.

Licht's ability is speed of flash: according to Nikola, Licht's speed is even faster than a sound that his opponents can't see his movement. He can also jump high which makes people mistakenly think that he was flying in the sky.

Trivia

 * Licht's character design (Especially his appearance and personality in 300 years ago) is most likely based on Sakurai Tomoki from Minazuki Suu's previous works, Sora no Otoshimono.
 * Licht means "light" in German, while Bach is a German surname.
 * Licht's original name, "Ri" means "leave", while "hito" means people/person, which makes the literal translation of "Rihito" was "leave person".
 * Despite the German name, Licht is actually a Japanese.
 * Most of the characters refers him as "Licht". However, the other Red Baron and his friends from 300 years ago are refers him as "Rihito" instead.
 * Similarity, in the original Japanese scan, when Hina and the others referring him, his name was written in Katakana (リヒトー). While for Tokikaze and the others, his name was written in Kanji (離人) instead.
 * According to Alexandroff, Gespenst and the Greengrocer, Licht is the strongest baron.