| “ | Keep your mouth shut... Still gotta round up two thousand more strays for the Tsukuba lab boys... And that general, hoo boy... | „ |
| ~ The Crusader Thug's thoughts, explaining the gang's motivations behind kidnapping people. |
The Crusaders are major antagonistic faction of the Near Future chapter of Live A Live. They are a large and infamous biker gang that kidnaps people all over Nippori. Formerly seeking to overthrow the corrupt government, they ended up siding with it and its conspirators instead, providing them with humans to sacrifice to Odeo.
Biography[]
The Crusaders were a biker gang of anarchists, formerly led by Matsui Kenichi, who regulated their behavior and prevented them from descending into complete violence. They seeked to overthrow the corrupt Japanese government and its conspirators, frequently clashing against the riot police in extremely heated battles. One day, Matsu was confronted over his actions by Tadashi Tadokoro, a member of riot police. Refusing to stand down, he ended up murdering the man, leaving his children, Akira and Kaori, orphaned. Out of guilt, he left the gang and ended up helping them with growing up in Bright Sparks orphanage. The Crusaders, meanwhile, were hired afterwards by General Yamazaki, one of the conspirators, and were ordered to kidnap civilians all over the city, children included, and bring them to Tsukuba Research Facility to be liquefacted and eventually sacrificed to Odeo.
The Crusaders make their first proper appearance in the chapter by ganging up on Akira, trying to kidnap and bring him to the government. However, Akira, together with Matsu (now known as the Lawless), fought back against the group and succeeded in defeating them. Afterwards, Crusaders were shown to be patrolling the city streets, attacking Akira (as well as his new companion Taroimo) on sight with their RC machines.
After Akira returned back to the orphanage after his trip to Doc Tobei's Timeless Wonders Antique shop and failure to activate the Steel Titan, Crusaders broke into the Bright Sparks orphanage and kidnapped Kazu, taking him to the city docks. However, they were tracked down and defeated by Akira, Lawless and Taroimo, who freed Kazu. The Crusaders refused to reveal their reasonings behind kidnapping people, but Akira has read the mind of one thug and learned that they kidnap people to take them to Tsukuba Research Facility per general's orders.
After learning of this, Lawless busted into the research facility, with Akira and Taroimo following soon after. At one point, Akira and Taroimo encounter the group of Crusaders in the facility, who immediately decide to gang up on him, only to be beaten down, as the duo and Lawless reunite and team up to uncover the conspiracy, eventually learning that General Yamazaki, Doctor Livingstill and Priest Unryu were the culprits, intending to sacrifice 2000 liquefacted humans to bring Odeo onto Earth.
With the discovery of their conspiracy, some time after the Bright Sparks orphanage stuff was informed about it and Matsu went to the bar to stock up on matango after failing to activate the Steel Titan, Yamazaki sent the Crusaders to burn down the orphanage to silence the information about their goals. Fortunately, Matsu was able to activate the Steel Titan by overdosing on matango to amplify his psychokinetic energy and piloted the mecha to the Bright Sparks orphanage, saving the lives of Akira, Kaori and Taroimo.
The Crusaders responded by firing their lightning guns at the Steel Titan, succeeding in electrocuting Matsu, but he responded by forcing the lightnings back into their guns, electrocuting the Crusaders back and exploding their guns, knocking them unconscious. However, the damage they did to Matsu, combined with matango overdose-induced exhaustion, led to his death, with Matsu's last thoughts before death being a confession to Akira that he was the one who killed his father back when he was a Crusader leader. Afterwards, Akira took control of the Steel Titan, defeated the awakened Odeo, and the conspirators were consumed by the liquefacted human lake they created. It is unknown what happened to the Crusaders afterwards, but since the chapter's credits and the ending showed that they do not terrorize anyone anymore, it's implied that the gang was disbanded.
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 Villains
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All Chapters The First The Successor The Infiltrator The Wanderer The Strongest The Outsider Mechanical Heart The Lord of Dark Dominion of Hate | ||