Read a detailed summary Ankh’s origin story as seen in the Kamen Rider OOO novel.
Warning: The following story contains violent content that some may find disturbing.
The story takes place 800 years ago before the TV series, in a small country surrounded by larger ones. Despite the world being at war, the small piece of land was never taken over and continued to flourish. This is because it acted as a hub for medicine and herbs, thanks to the alchemists who resided in the area. They found ways to make them exportable for war and even enhanced its healing effectiveness.
Eventually more and more alchemists would travel there in search of work. When the new Ancient King ascended to throne, he gathered them all and encouraged them to act on their desires. Which is to make artificial life. They began to experiment on living creatures and created hybrids. Some resided in the Ancient King’s palace and some scattered.
By the Ancient King’s command, they created the OOO Driver, which condensed the powers of living creatures.
Using the power of OOO, the Ancient King began to invade the surrounding countries. He utilized different Core Medal combos strategically to take over them. He would eventually conquer almost all of the continent. But that wasn’t enough. The Ancient King had his sights on another countries.
In order to move forward with his ambition, he needed to create what he would eventually call Greeeds. Although sets of ten Core Medals were created, they weren’t used to produce the Greeed. Instead, one of the Ancient King’s alchemists named Gala conducted an experiment where they infused nine Core Medals with a huge amount of Cell Medals. It worked. By removing one medal from the Core Medal set, this would produce the desire of wanting to feel whole again.
During that experiment, a certain set of nine medals had a dream. They dreamed that they were an enourmous red bird with beautiful wings. They identified as a King and commanded the other species of birds throughout the world. This King of Birds admired itself and was content with roaming the skies for the rest of its life. Until one day, a human was on its back and shoved its hand into it, removing a very precious item that made it whole.
This King of Birds woke up atop a sarcaphogus and was greeted by the Ancient King’s gleeful yell: “Happy Birthday, my dear Ankh!”
The King of Birds was named Ankh, and he immediately noticed that everything was grey to him. In addition to that, he lost other senses such as the ability to feel temperature or the sensation of touch. This angered him and made him want to strike at the Ancient King. But because he had no strength, he fell to the ground.
The Ancient King introduced the Cell Medals to Ankh and threw it at him. This gave the Ankh strength and he proceeded to try and kill the man who greeted him. The Ancient King predicted that Ankh would lash at him, so he transformed into OOO Tatoba Combo and dominates the fight. And eventually, extracting six Core Medals from within Ankh.
For the first time in his life, Ankh experienced desire. The desire to take everything he once had back.
As Ankh stood up, he is greeted by other Kings: Uva, Mezool, Kazari, and Gamel. The King commands them all to create Yummies out of human beings in order to produce Cell Medals. He wanted them all to surrender 70 % of what they collected to him. He also assigned Ankh to be the one that delivers everyone’s Cell Medals to him.
Ankh begins to suspect why the Ancient King would want them to produce Cell Medals in order to take over other countries. Seeing as he’s already powerful enough to do so. After some time, Ankh decides to ask the other Greeds for help in order to kill the Ancient King. While they all share the same goals, they get into a small argument on whether or not it’s actually possible. Until Kazari speaks up. This somehow encouraged the others to be in on the plan.
Knowing how Kazari is, Ankh suspects that he’d betray them for his own benefit. Despite that, he includes him and everyone else on a plan that would help aid them in strength: by each creating a Yummy from the King.
Despite his alliance with the other Greeeds, Ankh still saw them as enemies. He makes his way into the forest because he sensed that there was a desire greater than the King’s. As a Greeed he’s able to sense the desire of human’s. For the first time in his life, he visualized the desisre of complete darkness. He believed that whoever saw such a desire wanted to bury the world in nothingness.
When he finally met the person who possessed such dark thoughts, he was taken aback. It turned out to be a little girl. As he approached her, she turned around and hugged him and began to call him “Birdy”. This surprised Ankh because the wings he possessed were rough and not soft like feathers. He pushed her off of himself and continued to talk to her. She stood up and began feeling around the air for Ankh. She was blind.
The little girl revealed that her mother died and that she resided in a cabin in the foods. As she continued to talk, Ankh created a Yummy out of her in the shape of a Condor.
Ankh returns to the palace where the Ancient King lived. In his chambers, he found Kazari in there with him. This made Ankh suspicious. He feared that Kazari intended to betray everyone in order to gain favor with the Ancient King. Kazari excused himself. Now Ankh was all alone with the Ancient King; dreading that he would be slaughtered.
The Ancient King did reveal that Kazari told him of Ankh’s plan. But instead of being angry at him, he was ecstatic that Ankh was living according to his desire. He compelled Ankh to betray the other Greeeeds by demonstrating his powers. He ripped his hands into a chimera’s heart, an experiment by the alchemists, and crushing it in the palm of his hands.
Distraught at what happened, Ankh returned to the little girl’s cabin to have her explain in detail the visions the Condor Yummy was providing her. In order to feed her desire, the Condor Yummy went around the country clawing out the eyes of people. He took the eyes and crushed them over the little girl’s face. The bodily fluids and blood that dripped over her face would allow her to see beautiful sights from its victims. Ankh found pleasure in those landscape details as told to him by the girl as it reminded him of his dream as the King of Birds.
This time was different though. The little girl was hesistant to tell Ankh what she saw. He eventually convinced her to tell him. The little girl saw a man who beat his daughter. Despite her cries, he continued to beat her and eventually “takes” her vision away. Ankh immediately realized that what she saw, was of her ownself being abused. The eyes belonged to her father who owned an estate nearby. The only reason she survived living in the cabins is because servants from that house brought her food.
Ankh made his way to the estate and killed all the guards. He figured the house was on high alert because the Condor Yummy broke in earlier and ripped the head of the estate’s eyes out. He made his way into the bedroom of the little girl’s father, and he inflicted non-lethal wounds on him. He wanted the man to feel the pain. The man’s cries reminded Ankh of himself when the Ancient King threatened him earlier. Disgusted at what he felt, Ankh delivered the finishing blow.
Ankh left and flew in the direction of the little girl’s cabin. He saw smoke emitting from the house as well as other people surrounding it. He realized that they are relatives of the Condor Yummy’s victims who wanted revenge. Ankh realized that the people must have seen him and the Condor Yummy coming to and from. Instead of trying to save the girl, he just stood by and watch. He saw the Condor Yummy swoop in and kill the little girl’s attackers. Just before it could kill the last person in the group, he dissolved into Cell Medals. Signifying the little girl’s death.
Ankh and the other Greeeds made their way to the palace in order to carry out their plan. They kill all the monsters in the hall and found a box with everyone’s Core Medals at the end. Kazari tries to snatch it but Mezool and Gamel intervenes. Ankh informed the other three Greeeds of Kazari’s eventual betrayal and predicted he would try to do something.
Ankh returns everyone’s Core Medals and tells everyone that Kazari is needed for the plan to succeed. He shows compassion, something he learned from the little girl, to Kazari, and returns his Core Medals to him. The Greeeds make their way to a church the Ancient King was hiding out in.
The Ancient King reveals himself to the Greeeds in the church, wearing a priest’s robe while carrying a bible in hand. The Greeeds attack and they managed to catch him off guard and begin to create Yummies out of him. Kazari’s Yummy managed to latch itself onto the Ancient King as a parasite. If that parasite grew big enough, it would consume its victim (I’m not sure why Kazari’s Yummy can do this but I read the paragraph twice to make sure I wasn’t misreading anything).
The Ancient King managed to break loose from the parasites consumption and transformed into OOO.
The Ancient King turned to Ankh and asked him for his Core Medals. Ankh tossed his Kujaku and Condor Core Medals to the Ancient King, betrayaing his temporary comrades. OOO Tajadoru quickly made waste of the Greeeds in no time and brought them to their knees. Now that the battle was over, Ankh demanded his Core Medals, believing that he kept his end of the bargain.
Instead of giving Ankh his Core Medals back, he reveals the reason why he created the Greeeds. He needed them to create Yummies in order to create a huge amount of Cell Medals quicker. He would use those Cell Medals to reign over the world not as just a king, but as a god. Unfortunately for him, he turned into a stone sarcophagus the moment he absorbed the Cell Medals of the Greeeds and the Cell Medals. The Ancient King could not control the powers he desired.
Ankh managed to have one hand holding onto the ground while the rest of his body dissolved into Cell Medals and were absorbed into the Ancient King. But since he only had one Core Medal left, he drifted into slumber.
He dreamt that he was in a giant bird again, and he flew around with the little girl on his back. Far from where anything could harm her.
He eventually awakens to the present time when he hears Eiji calling out his name.
End
To read my article on the parallels and tie-ins between the novel and newest OOO film: Kamen Rider OOO 10th: Revival of the Core Medals, visit my post on the Tokusatsu Network.
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But instead of being angry at him, he was livid that Ankh was living according to his desire.”
Aren’t angry and livid the same thing?
Thank you for your comment. You are correct. I have updated my post accordingly. Have a great day.