Episode 21

Father (父親) is the 21th episode of Plunderer anime.

Plot
Hina and the others arrived at the Abandoned Capital Hoffnung and tried to find Licht Bach, only found out that he was already dead. As everyone felt sadden at his death, the spy from the Special Service comes to capture them.

In Althea, Jail Murdoch just arrived at the royal capital in attempt to meet Alexandrov Grigorovich. As secretary Erin leaving the commander's room, Jail asks her that if Alexandrov is in the room or not. Erin replies with yes but she suggests Jail to wait for a moment, as Alexandrov has been busying with his stuffs lately and only now that he got some free time to eat launch. However, Jail doesn't listen Erin's suggestion and kicks the door instead, which the door ended up hit Alexandrov's head while he ask him if he know the difference between good and bad actions.

After Jail salutes, Alexandrov tells him that he doesn't need to continue his mission on capturing Licht anymore and that he will help him to deal with his crime against the Althing, under the request from Nana Bassler asking for forgiveness. Soon, Alexandrov shows a photo of the helicopter from the "Abyss Demon" incident, he states that a new war is about to start in the future. Alexandrov tells Jail that he and the Gefängnis need to be prepared for the upcoming war, as losing any one of their strongest soldiers from the army within this period would only weaken their strength and it may lead to their defeat. After explaining the situation, Alexandrov tells Jail to relax and give a hug to him, which he do give Alexandrov a hug afterwards. This confused Alexandrov so much that he asks Jail if something's wrong happened to him, as he have never once give him a hug before until this moment. Soon, Alexandrov realized that Jail has finally made a friend and feel happy about him. Alexandrov gave Jail a hug again and says that while it's good that he has friends now, Licht is the only person he can't befriend with as doing so will marks Jail as a traitor.

Soon, Jail only says he want to wager his stars. Jail says that while he do want to discuss the stuffs about the Althing, Alexandrov isn't the person that he want to discuss with. Jail also ask Alexandrov, or known better as "Captain Alan" in the past, that why he betrayed the Class A 300 years ago. Alexandrov, being angered, he called Jail as "Shitty Four-eyes" like his past self and accepted his challenge in the Startheft Bout battle. Once the hands of Althing starts appearing, the fight between Alexandrov and Jail begins. During the fight, Alexandrov claims Jail never learn his lesson and his fighting pattern is too obvious. When Alexandrov land his kick, Jail dodged his kick and attacked his chin, which Alexandrov surprised that the reason why Jail fought him back in 300 years ago was to found his weakness for this fight. Alexandrov said that he clearly had became older now that even a youngster's attack could hit him. Jail claimed that his attack hit Alexandrov was not because of he's younger than him, but because he has a conviction of punishing evildoers. Then, Jail summoned his iron devil and asked Alexandrov why he betrayed Class A. However, Jail's iron devil is melting due to Alexandrov's power, while claiming that conviction doesn't matter as it stand no chance against the Blast Baron's flame. Soon, Jail was defeated and his count reduced to only 1.

After the fight, Alexandrov explains his past to Jail, about how his real children were killed and how the world gone "mad". Alexandrov explains that he has two children whose age was below 8 and he loves them. One day, when Alexandrov returned home, he saw that his children were killed and the food was taken away. Alexandrov was shocked and tries covering his children's corpses, as he started crying and he believed he heard their voices of wanted him back home. Being angered at his children's death, Alexandrov finds the murderer in the village and discovered that the murderer has a baby that's scrawny and small. After seeing that baby and murderer's tears, Alexandrov didn't kill him and realized it's the world's fault that they don't have enough foods to live.

After ALexandrov revealed his past, he told Jail to start his recruit to increase his count. Then, Jail stands up and said he wants to continue the fight, claiming that Alexandrov would never defeat him despite his power, which confused him. Jail asked Alexandrov why didn't he asks Nana to sent him back to the past to save his own children, Jail explains that he doesn't because Alexandrov afraid he would change the future and erased Jail from existence. Jail also asked Alexandrov why didn't he choose to save his real children, rather than his adoptive children who can't even make friends and be nice to the others. Alexandrov stated he didn't he didn't do that because he is sure that he has been destined to adopt Jail as his foster-child. Soon, Alexandrov fired Jail from the army and told him to never see him again. As Jail leaving the royal capital, Alexandrov ordered Erin to gives Jail his military uniform for one last time. After Jail wear his new uniform, he noticed his uniform has few meters shorter, which Erin said that children usually grows much faster than their parents imagined they would be. After hearing Erin's words, Jail starts crying. At the same time, Alexandrov then sitting at the commander room, saying he was proud at Jail and how he grew as a person, while looking at his family photo with his real and adoptive children.

In the abandoned capital, Hina and the others awakened and realized that they all has been handcuffed. Douan Taketora wondering why does Hina and the others appeared in his memory, when they haven't born yet 300 years ago. Soon, Taketora realized that it was Nana's time travel ability changed his memory. Lyne Mei asked Taketora if he really killed Licht and he said yes as he broke his promise. While Lyne was confused at the promise, Taketora says that it doesn't matter as what's more important to him now is Sonohara Mizuka's whereabouts. In hopes Hina and the others can answer his question, Taketora tries to use his gravity on them to force them answer it. Lyne tried to said that they don't know where Mizuka gone but Taketora doesn't believe and keep using his gravity. A spy of Special Service informs Taketora "that person" is coming, which angered him and asks that spy why did he informed "that person" about them. Realizing "that person" already arrived, Taketora only gave Hina and the others some advise that don't talk too much or else they will die, as "that person" is no longer the same person that's kind and loves children.

"That person" Taketora referring was soon revealed to be Schmelman, which Hina and the others were shocked at his arrival. Upon seeing their faces, Schmelman noticed there's something wrong with his memory and soon realized it's Nana's time travel ability changed his memory. Hina asks Schmelman why he betrayed Licht and the Class A even everyone believed his words so much back then. Soon, Schmelman's henchman point out his gun at Lyne's mouth, saying it's disrespectful to called him "teacher" and they should calls him as the "Field Marshal" instead. Then, Schmelman answers it as they're served as a experimental for the "Aerial Ace Project" and the Class A was a failure as a soldiers, as they're actually stupid enough to believe that they can win the war without killing their enemies. Soon, Schmelman stated that since Hina and the others once studying on the training school before, he give them a "chance" by giving them a Baron's surgery, which terrified Taketora. As Schmelman ordered his subordinate to gives the drugs to them, he leaves the capital and went back to his main base.

As the soldier tries to give Lyne the drug, Taketora told that soldier to give them some physical checks first before giving them the drugs. That soldier didn't follow it and stated Schmelman's orders must be followed, which made him furious and and kills that soldier. Taketora says that he can't believe someone who never went through the Abandonment War can become the Baron, and he also told that soldier only the actual soldiers who had experienced that War deserved to becomes the Baron. After he destroyed the mansion and killed several spy from Special Service, Taketora releases Lyne and the others and told them to go away, due to he don't have a mood to kill them. As they leave, Taketora saw a Ballot dropped from Hina's bag. As he taking Hina's Ballot from the ground, Taketora thought they're collecting the original Ballots to make Althea fall into the groubd so he will kill all of them.

Differences in Adaptation

 * The scenes where two of Royal Guard's soldiers complaining Jail's attitude and wanted him die was skipped.
 * Alexandrov's explaination that his children told him to not worry them from his flashback was skipped.
 * All mention of Russia was removed in the anime.
 * Due to the place changes in the previous episodes, when Jail stated Alexandrov already knew he is his future foster-child, he said the conversation is taken place in a factory instead of computer room.
 * The scenes where Taketora complains that Nana shouldn't use anymore of her ability to avoid her counts reach zero, and that he noticed Jail wasn't present here, was skipped.
 * One of Schmelman's henchman, the man with glasses, didn't appear in the anime.
 * Most of Lyne's roles during her scenes on Abandoned Capital Hoffnung, mainly when she asking Schmelman about why he betrayed Class A, were replaced by Hina instead.
 * The scene where Schmelman teleport back to his base was skipped. Instead, it was replaced by him simply walk away.
 * Unlike in the manga, Lyne was already affected by Taketora's gravity before she even able to ride the horse.

Characters
By order of appearance:


 * Nana Bassler
 * Hina
 * Lyne Mei
 * Gespenst Zerlegen
 * Licht Bach
 * Jail Murdoch
 * Erin
 * Alexandrov Grigorovich
 * Douan Taketora
 * Sonohara Mizuka (mentioned)
 * Schmelman Bach (Clone)
 * Sakai Tokikaze (flashback)
 * Akui Genji (flashback)
 * Suda Kyouhei (flashback)
 * Ichinose Saki (flashback)
 * Narumiya Kyouka (flashback)
 * Sumiya Asumi (flashback)
 * Schmelman Bach (flashback)

Trivia

 * In the Blu-Ray version of the episode, several scenes were redrawn to either fix the art or adds more detail on the characters.
 * In the Blue-Ray version, Taketora's injury in his flashack with Licht were shown more bloods than the TV version.