"Now... Barago, walk the path of the supreme ruler!"
Tousei Kaneshiro: Sloppy, sluttish... A totally worthless life. The excitement of that moment... I had no idea the power of a Horror was so great!
Rian: You turned your own mother into a Horror? That's why you can so casually turn others?
Tousei: That's right. That's it exactly! I have that power!
Rian: You turned your own mother into a Horror? That's why you can so casually turn others?
Tousei: That's right. That's it exactly! I have that power!
— The One Who Shines in the Darkness, "Mother"
Where there is light, shadows lurk and fear reigns. There are many generations of the Secret War between the Makai Order and Horrors, and with it came a few surprisingly vile beings. Many of these were protectors of humanity who embraced the same darkness that they once fought against.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Live-Action Series
- Original series note : Barago was once a member of the Makai Knights, an order of powerful beings who defend humanity from the horrors in the dark. Nearly every horrible thing in the series can be traced back to Barago. He made the innocent heroine of the series into a vessel for a demonic being known as Messiah, which would allow Messiah to consume both the girl and then the world, for nothing more than his personal gain. He murdered series hero Kouga's father, and Rei's family to manipulate them further in the future. To prove he has no attachment to humanity or human beings, Barago cuts down a mirage of his own mother to prove that his family means less to him than power. Barago is willing to allow humanity be devoured for his own gain, and carelessly uses and discards whoever is in his way. When one hero begs Barago to remember why he once joined the order of the Makai Knights, Barago's only response is to coldly say he can't even remember. Reviving thanks to the birth of Raiga Saejima, Barago later proceeds to manipulate events so he may enact his revenge, taking the armor of the Emperor Knight Ouga so he may annihilate all reality.
- The One Who Shines in the Darkness: Tousei Kaneshiro turned his own mother into a Horror as a child and only got worse from there. He later turned Sonshi, a noble defender of humanity and Makai Knight, into his own minion and forced him to eat a woman he had been sworn to protect, laughing all the while. Tousei turned other good-hearted people into monsters that became his servants, using them to found Vol City, where he used his crippled father as a Puppet King and ruled from behind the scenes, allowing the Horrors to devour the innocent. He even forced the Makai Priestess Hakana to painfully produce many Madou Horror seeds against her will. Upon stepping out of the shadows, Tousei has his entire family killed, even the children and his own father. Using the fact he's not a Horror as a shield, Tousei gleefully taunts the heroes about his atrocities and molests a woman he turned into one of his special Madou Horrors in front of them. A completely normal human who's just a Psychopathic Manchild, Tousei was the quintessential example of how some people can be even worse than Horrors.
- Makai no Hana's "Greenhouse": Erina Tokiwa is a crazed Ikebana artist who murders a fan to achieve "perfection" for her works. Upon being possessed by a Horror, Erina retains her personality, resorting to serial murder and making her victims into mannequins so they may produce flowers for her to devour. Obsessed with artwork and amassing a host of unfortunate souls for victims, Erina plots to continue killing in her quest to reach perfection.
- Versus Road: Ren Hyūga is a young man who, after escaping from the police for being the prime suspect in a series of murders, accepted an invitation to join the virtual reality of Versus Road alongside 99 other players. A vicious psychopath in and out of the game, Hyūga satisfies himself by indulging in Player Killing to his heart's content while searching for strong opponents for him to kill. Hyūga's cruelty is best seen when he butchered five players in the second round alone, but not before torturing one of them first. Killing in the game also doesn't stop Hyūga from continuing his serial murders in the real world, as he brutally murdered the men who identified him. Smiling at the revelation that dying in the game means you also die in real life, Hyūga was the absolute worst that Versus Road had to offer.
Anime
- The Animation (aka The Carved Seal of Flames): Priest Mendoza is the mastermind behind the misfortunes befalling the kingdom of Valiante. A former Alchemist of the Makai Order, Mendoza was expelled from the Order for sacrificing humans to enable himself to control the monsters known as Horrors. After marrying, Mendoza's child was born with the same curse the Order had placed on him, and in response, Mendoza murdered both his wife and baby, swearing vengeance on the Makai Order in the process. Using the Horrors to murder numerous innocents, Mendoza blames the Horrors' appearance on the heroic Makai Knights, who are forbidden from taking human life, and, under this pretense, leads purges against the knights resulting in them being tortured, killed, or, in the cases of the Priestesses, raped, while Mendoza has one of the most powerful members burned at the stake in public view. When confronted by hero León Luis, Mendoza mentally forces him to relieve his own mother's burning at the stake, causing the boy to go on a rampage that decimates a nearby village. Having survived his near-death, Mendoza uses the tormented souls of hundreds of Makai Knights and Alchemists to summon an ancient Horror that, after consuming numerous innocents, Mendoza uses to give himself incredible power, at which point he proclaims himself the new god of humanity. Spiteful, cruel, egotistical, and petty, Mendoza aimed at nothing less than utter domination and destruction to avenge his wounded pride.
- Crimson Moon:
- Rudra "the Catastrophe" is the ancient Horror bent on covering the world in darkness. After Rudra was sealed away by the Abe family, the machinations of Douma Hoshi allowed it to possess Abe no Seimei as its vessel. Rudra proceeds to cause death and destruction across the Capital in order to completely break its seal, taking enjoyment in beating Raikou and Kintoki. Merging with Ashiya Douman after being freed at last, Rudra has Horrors scourge the capital, planning to reduce all of humanity to nothing more than food for its kind.
- Douma Hoshi is an ancient priest who was the teacher of Abe no Seimei. Taking sexual advantage of his pupil and placing a curse on her for the future, Douma was also the manipulative mentor of his successor Ashiya Douman. Masterminding a number of Horror attacks, Douma Hoshi reveals that he intended to trap Seimei into becoming the host of the Horror Rudra so that it may consume the entire world.
- Fujiwara no Michinaga is the wicked ruler of Heian-kyō. An unscrupulous Minister of the Left in the Imperial government who would do anything to rise even higher in the political hierarchy and Kill the Poor along the way, Michinaga casually ignores the several horrific murders that happen outside of his Light Palace. In the past, Michinaga sought to use Garo as his personal One-Man Army to win wars for him, forcing Raikou's father to exile his own wife and son to die outside of the capital in a bid to have the Golden Armor pass to his other son, who was only born to serve as Michinaga's weapon. When a plague spreads throughout the western slums of Ukyo, Michinaga forces all of the infected into a quarantine where they would die a slow and painful death. After Rudra is awakened, Michinaga blocks entry to the Light Palace, stating that Rudra is doing him a favor by devouring the lower-class of the capital. Returning in The Fleeting Cherry Blossom, Michinaga frames the counselor of state for an attempt on the Emperor's life and then wipes out his entire clan just to rub salt in the wound.
- Vanishing Line:
- The Horror known only as "King" is the ruler of El Dorado. While far from the most powerful Horror in history, King is one of the most clever. Forming the city of El Dorado as a seeming paradise, countless humans are lured in to become prey of the Horrors. Swaying numerous Makai Order adherents to his side to enact his plot, King intends to digitize the world so all humankind can be preyed on at will in his utopia. Upon the arrival of Sword and Sophie, King proceeds to give an order to initiate the absolute slaughter of humans within El Dorado and enact his digitization plot.
- Knight, real name Christopher Harden, is a former Silver Knight who has sacrificed everything for power. Murdering his wife Adelaide to sever his ties to humanity and gain even more strength, Knight returns to kidnap young heroine Sophie for his master the King. Serving as El Dorado's top enforcer, Knight uses his position to hunt down and murder people for a good fight, eager to kill anyone in his path, as seen when he almost obliterates Russell City with numerous deaths upon facing hero Sword, or Garo the Golden Knight. Attempting to help the King's forces claim the world and wipe out humanity, Knight spends his final moments attempting to kill Sword, all for one final duel after he judges his own son isn't even worth killing.
- Queen, the right-hand woman of the King of El Dorado, is the fallen Makai Alchemist who lured Sophie's brother in to enact the twisted schemes of the King and see all humanity reduced to digitized food for the sake of her fanaticism. Collaborating with Dr. Stanley for his twisted experiments, Queen has humans lured to El Dorado to become food for Horrors, awakening many sleeping monsters to break the illusion of Paradise and massacre all humans in the near vicinity.
- Dr. Stanley is a sociopathic scientist who defected to GarEden Corporation after the Makai Order had him exiled for conducting human experiments on several people. Working under the Three Swords of El Dorado as their personal Psycho for Hire, Stanley is willingly and gleefully complicit in their projects, from creating stronger Horrors for their army to even ELDO NET's prison, a virtual reality where the souls of 10,000 humans reside in to serve as food for Horrors.
Live-Action Film
- Bikuu the Movie: Zesshin was once a talented Darkness Slasher of the Makai Order who invented a dangerous spell called the Soul Insertion Technique to invade a person's soul and verify whether it is corrupted or not. Coming from an inbred family of Makai Priests, Zesshin impregnated his own daughter and intended to have another child with his granddaughter. Disillusioned with the Order's black-and-white view of the world, Zesshin murdered his own family before going to exile and modifying the Soul Insertion Technique to possess people while killing more victims along the way, idealizing the idea of achieving godhood by merging the entire world with his soul and creating a hellish playground where he could always murder people to amuse himself.
