Batista Hoshi, more typically referred to as Noh Mask, is a major antagonist in the manga series Choujin X. He is the brother of Yamato Mori's second in command, Sandek Hoshi. His motives are largely unknown, although he seems to have an interest in helping Zora achieve her goals.
Appearance[]
Batista's typical attire is that of a business suit and a noh mask, albeit with a noose in place of a necktie. Under his mask, however, Batista's face is a distorted amalgam of different features. Batista is a Nue Chimera: a choujin who gains abilities by hunting powerful choujin and swapping out their body parts to obtain the abilities of others. As such, most if not all of Batista's body was taken from the dead bodies of those he's killed.
Personality[]
Not too much is known of Batista's personality. However, he seems to be very intelligent, being able to assemble a XEMBER drug from Zora's blood. Additionally, he seems to greatly resent his brother Sandek, openly expressing the desire to surpass him in their fight. Batista is shown to be rather sociable, being willing to have a normal conversation with Nari and making small talk with Palma upon noticing her good mood. He also seems to have a very crude sense of humor, making Tokio think he killed Azuma and Ely as a joke after kidnapping them.
Biography[]
Batista Hoshi, alongside his older brother Sandek, was born a gravity choujin and trained from childhood to join the ranks of Yamato Mori. While Sandek was always deeply supportive of his younger brother, Batista's training was never quite able to measure up to Sandek's, much to his dismay. One day, Tsukiko Mado, the prophet in charge of Yamato Mori, received a vision that Bastista would one day bring destruction to their organization. To prevent this future, Mado ordered Batista to give up his future as a choujin, and told Sandek that he would need to kill Batista should this future ever come to pass. Sandek, wanting to support his brother in his ambitions, protested and insisted that they could prevent Mado's future by simply working hard. However, Batista accepted Mado's order to never use his powers again, giving up the future he had trained years for in the process.
Batista in his youth with his wife Hartley
As the brothers entered into adulthood, Sandek found an abundance of success working as a keeper for Yamato Mori, to the point that he became the second-in-command of the organization. Batista, meanwhile, devoted himself to scientific discovery alongside his beloved wife Hartley. Although Batista largely felt as though he was living in Sandek's shadow, he was still immensely successful in his own right, developing several medicines that would go on to save hundreds if not thousands of lives. Despite his scientific breakthroughs Batista had a lot of trouble getting support from Yamato Mori's leadership for his new drug, Ember, which would have the ability to turn those with aptitude into choujin. Nevertheless, Batista and Hartley were still able to find happiness with each other, with Hartley giving Batista someone he could turn to and confide in.
It isn't exactly known what transpired after this point, but it's heavily implied that Hartley met a horrific and bloody fate, setting Batista down a dark path as a Nue Chimera. It's also indicated that, at some point, Batista and Hartley attempted to start a family as Hartley appears to be pregnant in a brief flashback.
At some point, Batista found work with the Tower of Mourning, lead by Zora, and created a drug made from Zora's blood. He then distributed the drug to people across Yamato, hoping to discover the Beast of Prophecy that Zora foresaw. Eventually such an individual appeared: Tokio Kurohara. Batista then sent his contact Nari to test Tokio and kill him if he should fail. Nari, however, ended up being captured by Yamato after she was jumped by various agents while unprepared.
Undeterred, Noh Mask sent Ricardo and Umezawa to capture Tokio. They succeeded initially, but were attacked by Yamato Mori after doing so. More problematically, however, Azuma Higashi was awakened as a choujin after Umezawa killed him when he confronted her to save Tokio. Azuma was forced into his chaos state, defeating both Ricardo and Umezawa and forcing them to retreat.
Noh Mask then contacted Chandra Hume of the Tower of Mourning, notifying him that the Beast of Prophecy had appeared and offered him to help capture it. Chandra agreed and was accompanied by Yubiko and Mori, two of Batista's other contacts, to capture Tokio. Although Chandra and Mori were defeated, Noh Mask succeeded in his objective of kidnapping Tokio. Furthermore, he kidnapped Ely Otta and Azuma Higashi as well, hoping to kill them and take their body parts for the sake of further augmenting his abilities.
Noh Mask brought the three teenagers to Zora, who explained her objectives and motives. The negotiations ended up going poorly, and Zora decided to transfer her powers to Tokio by force. She, alongside Noh Mask, managed to capture the heroes without too much trouble, but before she could kill Ely, she and Batista were intercepted by Sandrek, who was accompanied by the full force of Yamato Mori. After a massive battle, Batista was defeated and Zora herself was forced back to the Tower, although Yamato Mori took heavy casualties in the process. Batista himself evaded capture, and quickly got right back to his machinations with the Tower.
He would eventually try his drug on reanimated corpses, giving Palma several refined samples and asking her to experiment with them, to horrific results.
Powers and Abilities[]
As a Nue Chimera, Batista has a wide array of abilities, as he specifically hunts down powerful choujin to gain their abilities.
- Gravity manipulation: Batista, like his brother Sandek, has the power to manipulate gravity. Unlike many of his abilities, he seems to have this one naturally.
- Flight: Using his gravity manipulation, Batista can fly and levitate.
- High-heat fumes: Like Chandra and Ely, Batista can create high-heated smoke.
- Sword creation: Using a severed wrist from the Kagomura clan, Batista can summon and manipulate swords.
- Portal creation: Using an artery from a street performer he killed, Batista can create portals to travel around.
- Chemical knowledge: Batista seems to be adept at chemistry, being able to make the XEMBER drug from Zora's blood as well as several hallucinogenic poisons.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Batista shares some notable parallels between the story's three main characters.
- Like Tokio, he started his life as a very meek individual living in the shadow of Sandek, paralleling how Tokio started the story living vicariously through Azuma.
- Like Ely, Batista is a depriver who takes the abilities from other choujin and makes them his own. However, while Ely gained this ability by virtue of naturally being a thief, Batista became a Nue Chimera by making some kind of deal with Nue.
- Batista's main foil, however, seems to be with Azuma. Like Azuma's relationship with Tokio, Batista is saddled with feelings of inferiority toward Sandek. This seems to be supported by Batista repeatedly taking interest in Azuma, and Sandek explicitly saying that Azuma reminds him of his younger brother. The exact extent of these parallels are still unknown due to a lack of knowledge on Batista's life.
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 Villains
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Tower of Mourning Mercenaries Other | ||