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| At first impression, Dokuga can come off as
completely obsessed with the Boss. He is perhaps Kai's most
zealous follower and hardly a scene goes by without him thinking
of Kai. But, on closer inspection, their relationship is much
more nuanced than that. |
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Dokuga feels that he owes Kai a life
debt for killing the magic users who left him and his
friends to die in Hole. Kai wasn't really trying to save
them, and frankly it's a miracle he didn't kill them
too. Still, to a bunch of street kids forsaken by the
world, he was a beacon of hope, and they followed him.
Dokuga dedicated his life to being useful to his beloved
Boss, and how seriously he took that role is shown when
two of his friends' lives were on the line, and the
other CrossEyes Officers were ready to pawn in Kai's
daggers to get money for healing smoke. Dokuga angrily
refused, and instead opted for a much riskier way. |
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This wasn't because he loved Kai more
than his friends. It was because Kai was a symbol for
something much bigger than Dokuga and his friends, and
he felt responsible for protecting that.
The sorcerer world ran on principles of Social
Darwinism. There were no laws to speak of. Murder,
torture, maiming, and theft went unpunished save for
vigilante justice. Might made right and only the fittest
survived.
Though sorcerers liked to test their magic on the humans
of Hole, they treated members of their own society no
different. Those that couldn't use magic, those whose
magic wasn't powerful enough, or those who had useless
kinds of magic were subjected to bullying and abuse. No
matter how hard they tried, they were unable to get
decent jobs and were often driven to a life of crime.
Meanwhile, those fortunate enough to be born with strong
magic could effortlessly live a life of luxury by
selling their smoke and services.
That is why, to the helpless and the oppressed, the
CrossEyes Boss was a long-awaited Messiah. He embraced
social outcasts and struck fear into the magic user
elite. He gave the world black powder, which amplified
magic and allowed less abled people to lead more normal
lives. He taught his followers how to defend themselves
by disarming magical abilities.
But what the masses interpreted as Kai standing up for
the underdog was just him acting in his own
self-interest. He was collecting magical powers. |
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And Dokuga was more to blame than anyone
for perpetuating the myth of the Boss as an altruistic
savior. As the Boss' right hand man, Dokuga was the
keeper of his most alarming secrets. He knew, better
than anyone, what Kai was really like. It made no
difference to Kai if the powers he sought were in the
heads of comrades or enemies. He was an
equal-opportunity butcher.
This greatly disturbed Dokuga, though he didn't show it,
or tell even his closest friends. He was an expert at
masking his emotions, and felt this was necessary to
maintain their morale. When he was finally forced to
share what he knew with Tetsujo, the latter's reaction
was predictably negative. |
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But there was also a more practical
dimension of self-preservation to Dokuga's motives. He
was aware that they owed everything they had to Kai and,
if it wasn't for his protection, they'd all be dead.
Not in some hypothetical sense of what could've been if
Kai hadn't passed by that one rainy night, but in the
immediate sense that they would be dirt poor and hunted
by magic users for the trouble they've caused. |
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It's significant to note that, even given black powder and magic-disarming
techniques, the CrossEyes and En's forces were not evenly
matched. The Officers were quite humble about their abilities
and knew they couldn't fight the powerhouses of the sorcerer
world without Kai. They scattered like cockroaches if they saw
one and confrontation was avoidable.
That's why, whenever the Boss was in danger, there was
the constant tension between "there goes my meal ticket" and "oh
no, civil rights!" And the CrossEyes were, essentially, civil
rights activists. Freedom fighters to the oppressed, terrorists
to the oppressors, but the status quo left them with no choice.
They pursued their cause through the only channel available. |
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Though Kai's methods were brutal and
cruel, good still came out of them. Even if it was
unintentional, indirect, or accidental, it still helped,
and was a lot better than nothing.
It was very hard for Dokuga, being very sensitive and
idealistic by nature, to accept that Kai wasn't the
person he assumed him to be. But that didn't change that
Kai saved him and his friends, took them under his wing,
made them feel worthwhile and filled their lives with
purpose. It didn't change that Kai was an inspiration to
the weak and had already done so much to shift the
balance of power in society.
Dokuga desperately wanted to believe that there was more
to it than Kai using them for purely selfish gain. That
there was a reason why he shared with them the tools to
make the world a better place for others like them. That
some part of him cared about the CrossEyes and their
cause. And that, even if some lives had to be sacrificed
for Kai's ambition, such was the price of their
revolution.
At the very least, he may have hoped that staying at
Kai's side gave him the opportunity to have some
influence over his decisions. |
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This is probably why he had the
misguided notion that he can "talk" to the Boss.
After it was discovered that a CrossEyes member they had
befriended actually had strong magical powers, the other
Officers rejoiced and wanted her to be the Boss'
bodyguard, but Dokuga and Tetsujo knew her life was in
danger. This time it was personal, and Dokuga wasn't
about to let her die. He was willing to put himself on
the line by actively sabotaging what he knew Kai would
want.
He planned to send her away to buy some time for him to
reason with Kai about the wisdom of killing fellow
CrossEyes. Of course, this was based on the naive
assumption that somewhere, deep down, Kai had a
conscience, or some capacity for sympathy, or a soft
spot for Dokuga's tireless devotion. Or, failing all
those, that there at least existed a coherent
personality that could be reasoned with. |
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But there wasn't.
Natsuki was a girl who desired nothing more than to be
useful to Kai. She had helped him, healed him, and
talked to him. But none of that mattered. He killed her
anyway, using her love for him against her.
Kai was literally a monster. Just a killbot created by
Ai to gather ingredients for his ideal self. He didn't
care about anything besides this. He couldn't even care
that that Dokuga tried to send his prey away. He was
completely hollow, and any semblance of a person that
might've been there was long dead. |
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Dokuga had suffered in silence
for so long. It hurt to think that he bound
himself to a cold-blooded tyrant, and that he had built his life around an
illusion. As second in command, and especially during
Kai's absence, he thought he had to be strong for everybody,
so he acted like nothing was wrong. He
put on a stoic face and carried all the pain alone.
But Kai never claimed to be any of the things the
CrossEyes attributed to him. It was their own wishful
thinking that led them to see their Boss that way, and
Dokuga never bothered to correct them. He chose to
guard the sanctity of Kai's reputation because he
thought their cause would fall apart otherwise. It was a
tough call to make. One that knowingly endangered many others.
Though he was deeply conflicted about Kai's methods, he
accepted the world as a merciless place that only
listened to violence, and trusted that Kai would
ultimately work towards the greater good. But what good
was it? What kind of world was he fighting for if he
couldn't even protect his friends? |
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Dokuga was the one with the most faith in the Boss, but
his faith wasn't blind. It was based on firsthand
knowledge of what Kai was capable of, both good and bad.
He saw it as a balancing act of costs and benefits, the
lesser of possible evils when viewed from the bigger
picture - along with a healthy dose of fear. Fear of
Kai, and fear of losing Kai.
Certainly Dokuga had
motives that could be called selfish or cowardly, but
instead of indulging them through corruption and greed,
he used them as the foundation of his compassion for all
who struggled like he did. That is why it's a great irony that it was Dokuga's heightened
kindness and sincere desire for a better world that
convinced him to tolerate as much from Kai as he did.
The other Officers were much less subtle. Much as he
wanted to be honest with them, Dokuga knew it would be a
very bad idea to tell them about Natsuki. They would
want answers right away, and be as appalled at Dokuga's
apparent complacency as Tetsujo was. Their brashness
would only annoy Kai, or worse. But
Dokuga was no less adamant in his own way. He never stopped thinking for himself and was
always questioning. He had the tact to work around Kai,
and even against him, without getting himself killed.
As the one with the most knowledge, he was also the one
with the most doubts, since he had a better
understanding of how much he didn't know. He tried not
to think about it, but he let it spiral out of his
control, and
now the powerlessness he felt about his own role and
Kai's actions was nauseating. Between
wanting to protect himself, his Boss, his friends, and
salvaging what he could of the ideals of the CrossEyes, he was being pulled in too many
directions. |
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Despite these festering feelings of
uncertainty, it never crossed his mind to outright
betray Kai. He still wanted to talk to him before
deciding what he would do and what he would tell the
others. This conflicted mental web of trust, conviction,
idealism, obligation, regret, fear, doubt, and hope makes Dokuga
a very "human" character, complete with an irrational
side prone to self-delusion.
Until he could confront Kai and straighten things out,
Dokuga remained fiercely protective of the Boss and his
interests, no matter how crazy. His loyalty to the Boss
ran very deep, his emotional investment too strong, and
his sense of duty was neigh unshakable. He continued to
stain his hands with blood, doing all the dirty work
that eroded his soul, and leading others to do the same.
He followed Kai's orders to massacre hundreds of
innocent magic users a day to
find a needle
in a haystack.
It was getting harder and harder to trust the Boss'
intentions when everybody was stretched to the limits of
their sanity, and the other Officers began to question
Kai's motives. Dokuga just
kept
quiet. He wanted to discuss this with Kai on his own
terms. After confirming Natsuki's death, he went looking
for Kai in his chambers, but it was too late. |
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He never got his chance. Kai's time among them
had run its course and he fused into a wholly new and
suspiciously helpless kind
of being.
Dokuga wasn't about to abandon his Boss in such a state.
He took the initiative to help this creature up and try
to figure out what it wanted. And
besides, if he did give up, he'd never learn what this
was all for, and everyone would've killed and died
for nothing.
Nobody knew what was happening. There was no point in blame, anger, or
regret. The only thing that could be done was to stay at
the Boss' side and hope that he knew what he was doing. |
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