Category A

"Trust me, I know evil when I see it. It gathers around me like butterflies to a flower."

- The Category A

The Category A (real name Kazuhiro Mitogawa) was the secondary antagonist/behind-the-scenes main antagonist in the anime Ga-Rei: Zero, and an antagonist in the original Ga-Rei manga series.

In the anime:
The Category A first appeared along with his swarm of butterflies after several mysterious dark spirit conglomerations appear in Tokyo, and revealed himself to freelance monster hunter Isayama Mei as the true source of all of this darkness and all of the deaths that resulted. He claimed to her that they were attracted to the supernaturally powered bane-stone in his eye, and then tried to kill her, with the two duelling with swords until she impaled him with her own sword. The Category A laughed at this, as in spite of the sword’s mystic abilities it had no effect on him, and he touched Mei’s hand, which caused him to see inside Mei’s mind and see how cruel and manipulative she was as a person.

He told Mei that he liked her for how dark and similar to himself she was, only for him to then stab her in the chest with a lance he produced using his powers. Hours later, one of his butterflies was seen feeding off of the blood from Mei’s corpse, when she suddenly and mysteriously rose from the dead. It is later revealed that half of the dark spirit energy that followed the Category A around is now associating with Mei (i.e. he transferred some of his powers to her), in order to spread destruction throughout the city.

The already evil Mei, further corrupted by the Category A, then proceeded to murder her uncle Isayama Naruku before he can declare her adoptive cousin Yomi as head of the family and wielder of the spirit beast, in order to take that honour for herself. Mei then completely displaced Yomi and was declared head of the family, taunting and humiliating Yomi, and demanding their family’s powered sword from her.

Upon receiving the sword, Mei suddenly remembered her encounter with the Category A, and his butterflies surrounded her and pursued her out of her home. In the streets, while she was running from his butterflies, the Category A confronted Mei and told her about how useful her anger and hate can be as weapons, and he used his magic to non-fatally tear open Mei’s chest to reveal that he had placed one of his magic stones within her when he impaled her, and told her that everything was working to her advantage. He smiled gleefully while Mei screamed in agony and in horror at everything she had done.

He later unleashed a giant Category B spirit monster on the city, watching and turning invisible during its assault, meanwhile Mei attacked Yomi using the spirit beast linked to her powered sword. In the attack, Yumi cut off Mei’s arm, but it grew back.

As their duel became more and more violent, Mei began monologueing about how easy it was to kill Yomi’s adopted father, causing Yomi to stab her repeatedly, causing no damage until she hit the Category A’s stone within Mei’s chest, which caused her healed wounds to suddenly re-open, and her original personality to be restored.

Having become herself again, Mei lost all memory of everything she did under the Category A’s influence, and was confused and terrified when Yumi continued attacking her. She pleaded for her life to Yomi, not knowing what to say, but her cries fell on deaf ears, as Yomi pinned her to the ground and decapitated her.

While the rest of the vanquisher team were fighting the monster along with an unwanted military aid, Yomi confronted the Category A regarding what he had done to Mei, and what she had become, and he told her that Me simply wasn’t compatible with the bane-stones, but that she (Yomi)’s high levels of spiritual energy (as well as the hate she felt for Mei) would make her a much more suitable host, before ordering 108 of his butterflies to turn into knives and attack Yomi in mid-air, with each one then stabbing her. Though the attack failed to kill her, Yomi was put into intensive care, and the damage to her vocal chords took away her ability to speak.

After Yomi was in a long recovery process from spending 2 months in a coma as a result of the Category A’s attack, he visited her in hospital, and healed her wounds with the bane-stone, promising to end her pain and her guilt. Once he healed her vocal chords, he asked Yomi,

“Tell me, what is the source of your suffering? What is your one true hate?"

Yomi’s adoptive sister Kagura saw the light emitted by the Category A forcing a Bane-stone into Yomi's body ran to Yomi’s aid, only to arrive just after Yomi and the Category A disappeared from her hospital room.

The Category A then influenced Yomi to murder her uncle, while he watched from a nearby set of scaffolding, where Kagura’s absentee birth father confronted him, and it was revealed that he (the Category A) had murdered Kagura’s mother. Kagura’s father threw a lance at the Category A, only for the Category A to transform into a swarm of butterflies and fly away just as it was about to strike his chest.

He then sent dozens of latcher-type demons after the Supernatural Response Division’s team, who were possessing the bodies of the soldiers that fought the Category B earlier. Noriyuki (Yomi’s fiancé) realised during this attack that whoever was behind what happened to Yomi was probably controlling all of the other demons and dark spirits too. Yomi then arrived and killed all of the latchers, before using her spirit beast to attack the members of her former team, who were just informed that she had just been labelled a “Category A threat”.

Yomi then began a murderous rampage, killing probably hundreds of relatives, government agents, former friends, and soldiers, and part way through she fled to a local forest, and her mind started to take over from the Bane-stone again, and she was horrified that it was replacing all of her emotions with hate, and at all the awful things it had made her do, and she begged it to stop, only to be met by The Category A, who told her that there was no stppping it, but that she’d get a hang of it in no time. Yomi then collapsed on the floor and the Bane-stone retook control of her mind.

Some time later, after Yomi's tragic death at the hands of Kagura, The Category A was seen contemplating whether or not Yomi had truly mastered the Bane-stone, and decided he’d never know, and that he’d wait in the wings and pick his moment before choosing a new host.