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 (Rihitō Bahha), or known by his real name Sakai Rihito (坂井離人), is the main male protagonist of Plunderer. He is one of the 7 Legendary Red Barons, known as "The Flash Baron".

Appearance
Post-300 years Licht does not differ much from himself before the war, other than his long white hair and taller height. 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 an astonishing count of -999 at the start of the series.

During his first appearance, Licht has messy, mid-back length hair that was cut shorter mid-fight and a Noh mask which was also destroyed during his fight with Davi.

At certain moments, a number code "001" can be seen in Licht’s left eye. Although it's yet to be confirmed, this is most likely his identification code from the Aerial Ace Project. This code can also be seen in the other Barons as well. Tokikaze is 002 and Taketora is 003. This code represents the order in which they were made into Barons.

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

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

When he takes on the true power of his Ballot, his personality shifts to an unwavering bloodlust and desire to kill all enemies.

Past Event
Licht (a.k.a. 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 be a trouble maker, so he and Tokikaze were always punished by their grandmother. A few years later, Tokikaze decided to go to the training school. The grandmother requested Rihito to bring him back, as she did not want to watch Tokikaze kill people. Rihito accepted her request and set off to bring Tokikaze back home.

When Rihito arrived at the 13th Special Military Forces School, he, Tokikaze and other students attended the orientation where Schmelman Bach started to read a 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 joked that they must be children, so when they were told to be quite by Schmelman, Ichinose Saki states that they didn't understand the concept of silence, since they were "children". This lead Alexandrov Grigorovich (Alan) to shoot Saki in the head stating that to be a soldier, they must learn how to listen and obey their superiors. He then said that everyone who cried and screamed will also be shot. He continued to shoot other students while stating that questioning his superior officer was also another way to die. Alan turned his weapon on Hina, but Tokikaze quickly interfered Alan with his blade, screaming how can he kill people so easily. Rihito, unbeknownst to everyone else, had sneaked up behind Schmelman while the conflict occurred. Rihito put a stick onto Schmelman's neck as a threat, but after realizing his situation he didn't know what to do. Schmelman then showed Rihito where to place his hands to efficiently snap his neck. Bach requested Rihito to kill him, otherwise his brother, Tokikaze, would die. He backed away and refused, stating that he was mistaken about all of this. Schmelman said that there was no other way and declared that he would kill them all while emitting a deadly aura which put everyone on their knees except Rihito. As Schmelman was about to attack Rihito, Firenda stopped him and commented that he has gone too far, and that she would take over. Each instructor introduced themselves to the students with Alan revealing that the bullets he shot at the students were in fact just paint balls. After all students departed to the dining facility, Alan and Schmelman stayed and talked to each other about a "rare" human they found. Alan thought he was talking about Tokikaze, but Schmelman was talking about Rihito. Noting that when Alan immediately pulled out his weapon, he was moving faster than anyone else and that instead of attacking Alan, he set his sites on the commander, going for his throat in a threatening manner. On the first day on school, every students received two stars and were told that: every day at 18:00 (6:00 PM) they should check the number of stars each students possessed. Any student with 10 stars is enlisted in the army and will receive extra payment and extra food rations, while those that have less than 10, will be expelled from the school. While all students received two starts for starters, Schmelman gave Rihito a special task. He received no stars and was told that his objective was to steal them from others. This allowed Alan and Schmelman to test his aptitude. After the class took a break, Rihito sat on his place and wondered if Firenda wore panties or not. Knowing this, Hina and Lyne Mei got angered and told him to be serious. Rihito stated he didn't care if he would be expelled from the school since his only purpose there was to bring Tokikaze back home.

Knowing Rihito's true purpose, Tokikaze told him that he wouln't return home since he wanted to become a soldier. Soon, Rihito overheard Sonohara Mizuka's scream and immediately went to find her, he found that Douan Taketora also joined into the school and bullied Mizuka. Tokikaze tried to tell Taketora to stop, but he didn't listen and warned Tokikaze that if he kept opposing him; he would kill his grandmother and kicked her off from dojo. Taketora also stated that if Tokikaze didn't want to see his grandmother getting hurt, he should give him his stars too so Tokikaze would be expelled from the school. Tokikaze had no choice but gave his stars to Taketora. As Tokikaze kept thinking how to regain his stars, Rihito told Tokikaze that he could just return home to stay with his grandmother. However, Tokikaze still insisted to become a soldier, so his grandmother could live peacefully without worrying about him and Rihito. After seeing Tokikaze's tears, Rihito decided to steal Taketora's stars and return them to Tokikaze. Although Rihito was punched by Taketora, he managed to steal Taketora's stars and gave them back to Tokikaze and other students. After Tokikaze regained his stars, Rihito told him that they would be staying at school together, since he believed doing so could help their grandmother fill her stomach just fine.

Few weeks later, after Schmelman informed Class A about a peeping incident, Tokikaze and Rihito having a conversation about it and said they have to capture the peeping tom first before the instructors did. Rihito stated he will soon peeping the woman's bath so he leaves the room. While Tokikaze told him to be careful, he just confused and realized that Rihito is the peeping tom, Then, Rihito told Tokikaze that he wasn't the peeing tom but he will disguises as one, so their classmate won't be sacrifice by the instructors. Tokikaze, in order to protect Rihito, he stated he will do that job instead so he claims himself is the peeping tom. Then, Alan overheard Tokikaze's words and mistakenly thought he is the real peeping tom so he captured him. Soon, Rihito went in front of bath doors and thinking how to peeing the woman's bath since Firenda is guarding outside. Then, he found out a idea that just simply went into woman's bath like nothing happened. When he enters the supposedly "woman's bath", he realized that it's actually man's bath and captured by the girls. Saki explains that it's Pele Poporo's idea for switching both bath's name, as he already knew Rihito is the culprit from the beginning. Later, when Jail Murdoch went unconscious after leaved the woman's bath, Rihito tried to run away but he was captured by Alan. Because of him captured the culprits, Alan punishing all Class A students by running outside. Jail told Rihito to peeping woman's bath again tonight, as he believes running for punishment is so much better than listening Schmelman's storybooks. Although Tokikaze and other students claims this is a bad idea. During that night, Rihito sent a fake love letter to Alan, so that he can peeps the woman's bath without being captured by Alan. Rihito also doing the same thing in the next few days too.

Few weeks after the culprit was revealed to be Rihito and the class receives a punishment, the Class A is still doing their punishment due to Rihito keep peeping the woman's bath. Because of this, Alan stated he will give them a "prize" for doing their punishment everyday, which soon revealed to be Forest Survival trip. During the trip, Rihito told the girls there's a river around the forest, the girls were happy and went to drinks it's water but Rihito made a trap to causes them fall into the river. The girls soon realized his true intention that he wants to see their underwear and covers their body, although they soon went back to the forest without covering their body, which Rihito found it odd. The girls explains they don't care since Rihito already seen them a lot of times, and that they must not afraid about it as gender doesn't matter in the battlefield. Soon, when Saki tried to tame off her bra, Rihito gives his uniform for her to cover her body and asking everyone if they really wanted to become soldiers. Saki and the others stated that they must kill they enemies in order to protect their friends and family. Then, Schmelman appeared and said that they can forms the "Non-Killing Army" while they can still becomes a soldier. While the Class A was happy, Tokikaze told Rihito that he will form the "Non-Killing Army" together with him and other students. With this, Class A decided to forms the "Non-Killing Army" under Schmelman's suggestion.

After the Forest Survival trip has ended, Class A's training is finally started. Schmelman stated that he won't train them as hard as Alan. After the explanation, Schmelman told Class A try to hit him in a training battle. Although nobody except Lyne able to hit him, the training has begun. Rihito was told by Schmelman to trains his speed so he can run must faster than a light.

Sometimes later, Rihito found Schmelman playing with dolls and asks him what's he doing, Schmelman claims that he wasn’t playing with dolls, but he treats the dolls as his children. Schmelman explains his past to Rihito about how he accidentally killed his mother and how his wife committed suicide due to fact that she can't pregnant. So, Rihito called Schmelman “Dad” and said Tokikaze's grandmother told him that he can find his own father. Schmelman blushed and asked Rihito to call him "Papa" instead of "Dad". This shocked Rihito and he embarrassingly called him "Papa" once. Schmelman went to hug Rihito and started crying. After this, Rihito becomes Schmelman's adoptive son.

During the summer, the instructors brought the Class A students to the beach for rest and having fun. Rihito took his time to sexually harass the girls, but he got himself attacked by them instead. Soon, the Class A students told Rihito to becomes the captain of "Non-Killing Army", as he's the only person who still took his time for having fun and sexual harassment even, on a serious moment. Rihito told the Class A students that forms the "Non-Killing Army" is possible. When back at school, Rihito noticed Taketora has once again stolen Mizuka's stars. Taketora explains to Rihito that he stolen Mizuka's stars was because she is too weak and don't deserves to become solider. Rihito then said that it's Mizuka's choice to remains training or leave the school, and tells Taketora to returns Mizuka's stars back. Taketora, instead of following what he said, he punches Rihito instead and said that he is a idiot for forming an "Non-Killing Army". He also said that the war won't ends as long as the enemy is still alive. After getting beaten by Taketora, Lyne asks Rihito if he seriously think if he can protect everyone all by himself, he answers that although he may not able to protect everyone at the same time, he will try his best to help the others as he is the captain of "Non-Killing Army". Lyne felt saddened at Rihito's answer considered his fate on Abandonment War and in 300 years later (Although Rihito unaware at Lyne came from the future).

The war is slowly making it's way to the school'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. 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 Rihito 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 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, intructors 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, Schmelman gave a Ballot Replica to Rihito and told him 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 Schmelman started to head upstairs to outside, but due to his enhanced speed, he quickly darted outside and comically ran into the far wall ending up upside-down. Surprising the soldiers, their sergeant 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 girls tried to play it off telling him not to worry, and trying to laugh, but Saki started to break and was almost in tears. Rihito ran up and hugged Saki as she cried. Full of rage, he looked at the sergeant of the soldiers and asked, "What were you trying to do to my comrades?" The sergeant pointed his gun at Rihito, 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.

After Rihito killed the enemies, he run away from everyone and went to vomit, disturbed that had just killed human beings. When Hina discovered Rihito vomiting, she told him that it wasn't his fault. he claims Taketora was right, that he must kill his enemy to end the war. Despite this, Rihito stated that he was glad that he's the one that killed the people. Knowing other Class A students will still able to form the "Non-Killing Army", he set his count for how many people he has killed in place of his friends and loved ones. As Hina disappearing, due to forced return to her own timeline, she kisses Rihito and told him that she won't let him feel lonely anymore. She also told Rihito to wait for her in the future and she would bear his children. This was the first step of Rihito's descent and the start of his 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 count, 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 him via his perverted side. They walked up and showed him their underwear, where he got up and walked away. Asumi cried and stated the old Licht has gone, but Saki 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 the barons, Licht wanted to make sure that Tokikaze was the farthest from the front lines. Sometimes during the war, Taketora worked together with Licht. As Licht can't kill children due to Schmelman's genes of loving children, Taketora comes to kill the children instead. After Taketora killed a child, he was attacked by Licht and he asks him that if he killed that child or not, Taketora said yes and said that he's an enemy so they can't keep him alive. Licht apologizes to Taketora about his attack afterward. Then, Taketora made a promise with Licht that they will kill all their enemies so that the Abandonment War could be ended.

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. At some point, Licht briefly regained his sanity and told Tokikaze, who keep hoping Rihito to regain his sanity, that he must use the Ballots to ban nuclear weapons. Licht stated that as long as nuclear weapons were banned, he don't care if he will forever loose his sanity and emotions. Tokikaze cries and follow Licht's advise to ban nuclear weapons. Sometime later, berserker Licht went to fight against Tokikaze. Tokikaze's wife, Tsukina Farrow, in order to stop the fight between the Sakai brothers, she went to face Licht and stop him. However, Tsukina failed to do so and received a fatal wound from Licht.

An 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 and took what resources were left of the Abyss, the surface of the planet. All resources that still remained were quickly were taken over the years and the land stripped bare. All of the Barons, excluding Nana who was asleep, approved of this vote, except for Tokikaze. He took one of the original ballots and ran, trying to tell the rest of the class about what was happening. An unanimous vote was needed for their plan to go through, so Firenda, drugged Licht up and released him on Tokikaze. Unaware of the world and 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.

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 count, 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 find him, Hina explains to him that he should stay with her, and that she was happy that she met 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 on his left hand, which reads "-999". This count is the ‘first count’ since it is the “first one seen”. This count is obtained after the Abandonment War ended. Licht and Nana were roaming Althea for 300 years and to “blend in with the crowd”, they decided to get a second count, one like everyone else had. Nana stated that this Count stands for how many girls have gotten close to him. If he turns them down, his count goes down and visa versa. His count becomes -1000 after Hina calls him a liar and says that she hates him. His current count is -1002. Though it is to be believed that Licht does not need this count in order to “live” as he never had a count to begin with, since he is originally from the Abyss. And people from the Abyss do not have counts.

The ‘second count’ is 5700 and this count is his first and original count. This count is located on his long sword near the handle, and stands for how many heads he had cut off. Though it is revealed that Licht's original count stands for how many people he has killed in place of his friends and loved ones later on in the story. In Chapter 10, it states that he is actually hiding his true power, but the reason is unknown as to why he was hiding it. So his count reading in at 5700, is not his true power, but his power in hidden mode. During battle, his count increases by 10 times, reaching the amount of 57000 when activating Schmelman's bloodlust genes. Again, this reading of 57000 is his power in hidden mode. Later on, it was revealed that Licht was not using his original Ballot Replica, as the sword he was using shattered. In Chapter 50, it was told that Licht's original Ballot Replica was stored away behind Ende, as Schmelman was scared of the Ballot returning to Licht and with it, all of the other Barons. His original count on his original Ballot Replica is 300000, and reached 1,500000 when activating Schmelman's bloodlust genes. It is noted by Taketora in chapter 53 that the 1,500000 is only 5 times normal, since anymore than that and Licht would lose control of himself, thanks to the bloodlust genes. Since it is only 5 times and Licht’s full power is 10 times or assumed to be, it is possible that when his count is at full strength, it reaches a count of 3,000000 or greater. This has yet to be confirmed though.

Licht's ability as a Baron is the speed of flash. According to Nikola, Licht's speed is even faster than sound. So fast, that his opponents can't see his movement. He can also jump high, which makes people mistakenly believe that he was flying.

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" and Bach means "small river" in German.
 * 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 Japanese.
 * Most of the characters refers him as "Licht". However, the other Barons 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 Alexandrov, Gespenst and Avsette, Licht is the strongest baron, despite what other Baron’s counts are.