Emperor Ganishka (ガニシュカ Ganishuka?) was the head of the Kushan Nation and main antagonist of the Falcon of the Millennium Empire Arc. He was also an Apostle, but one who is against the God Hand rather than their follower compared to the others.
Appearance
Ganishka was a large built man with thick beard and mustache. He wears the Royal sherwani with a turban. While his eyes were originally normal when he was human, they changed to light blue irises with blackened sclerae and his mouth became wider and filled with sharp teeth.
Personality
Ganishka was a merciless king who killed countless people in-order to secure his life and throne. While he acted fearless, he was at a constant state of fear and mistrust from those around him. This caused Ganishka to create a belief that only fear could ensure his survival. Truly evil and inhumanly cruel, he would string up women to be eaten by crocodiles for his amusement and had hundreds more imprisoned to be raped and violently killed by dunking them in his artificial Daka generator, causing the infant Daka to tear their way out of their mothers. Even other Apostles were not safe from his cruelty, having used some of them and stitched them together alive to create the Reincarnator that creates the Daka.
Ganishka was shown to be very arrogant, as seen when he stated why he would not follow Griffith. When he met and discovered a branded Guts, he offered to join forces to defeat Griffith. He admitted that he thought favorably of those who possessed enough strong hate to survive the inescapable fear and despair of the endless night of spiritual torture. However, when Guts rejected his offer, he didn't second guess his decision to try and kill him.
Abilities
Ganishka in his Lightning Mist form.
As an Apostle who tapped deeper into the Astral plane, Ganishka 's Apostle form is the second strongest seen yet, shaming even Zodd and second only to the God Hand themselves. Unlike other Apostles, who transform directly into their alternate forms, Ganishka's Apostle form is a monstrous proxy he creates out of fog. This proxy is several hundred feet tall and resembles his face, and he can in fact speak and hear out of it and is capable of triggering it anywhere, from any location he wishes. This proxy can generate lightning strikes that give it an extremely powerful offense. It had only one weak point, and only Schierke was able to locate it through her magical powers: the spot directly between its eyes. Striking this point destroyed the proxy and caused Ganishka's real body, many miles away, some measure of pain.
Griffith, however, being a God Hand, shamed Ganishka completely in front of the ruined Kushan forces. When Ganishka became enraged and triggered his proxy, Griffith blew it away with a powerful wind he summoned, and claimed that he should be careful not to do such a thing on windy days.
Second Transformation
Shiva form.
After his stalemate with Griffith, Ganishka decides to enter the Man-Made Behelit he commissioned for creating his Daka to transcend into a form equal to Griffith in power. This transformation that Ganishka undergoes by tapping in the depths of the Astral Plane itself required him to use all his forces within Windham's walls as sacrificial offerings with only Daiba surviving through a barrier as he witnesses his lord's rebirth with the entire city destroyed in the process once dawn approaches.
In this state, referred by Daiba and the other Kushan to be their god "Shiva" incarnate, Ganishka becomes a giant taller than Midland's mountains with whip-like arms and a mound of multiple heads on his shoulders that all breath fire. Despite his power, Ganishka loses all sense of rational thinking and self, unable to register the fact that he is now a huge entity and sees everyone around him as insects. It can be observed that his mental state deteriorates as he stays in this form. At first he is able to recognize Daiba. But then he is disoriented and starts to get lost in his own power and loses his sense of perception. He crushes his army under his footsteps and considers the gore thus produced as "Crimson Flowers" while sired familiars emerge from the corpses' remains.
History
Background
Ganishka nearly assassinated.
Long ago, Ganishka was born the son of the ruler of Kushan, yet his mother favored his younger brother and sought to poison him. But Ganishka survived and took his revenge by killing his own brother, forcing their mother to commit suicide out of grief soon after. Though he has political rivals, Ganishka managed to properly maneuver his way through the dangers as he grew into an adult. When Ganishka met the emperor, his father, in person, he noted the man's eyes were full of fear and suspicion before arranging the emperor's death and killing the assassin he hired to cover his tracks. Upon taking the throne, Ganishka resolved the best way to remain on the throne is through fear and conquest, his campaigns not leaving him time to spend with his remaining family whom he secretly feared. Years later as he began to envision himself as the rightful ruler of the entire world, Ganishka attended a banquet in his honor before learning it was an assassination set up by his own son. Being poisoned and then stabbed numerous times by the spears of the surrounding guards, Ganishka lived long enough to reach an oddly-shaped stone that was given to him by Daiba. Ganishka activates the Behelit, sacrificing his son to be reborn an Apostle so he would never again feel pain inflicted him by other humans. But despite being an Apostle, rather than be their follower like the others, Ganishka instead acts against the God Hand for his own whims.
Conviction and Falcon of the Millenium Arcs
During the plague that has struck Midland, Ganishka takes over Windham as foothold to begin his campaign to conquer the country while sending Silat to find and capture Griffith. After Griffith escaped and formed a new Band of the Hawk, Ganishka ends up losing his captive Charlotte when the band distracted him and his forces. Ganishka later mounts an assault on the city of Vritannis as the Holy See are gathering an army to oppose him, sending his monstrous armies to decimate the population for an east conquest. But Ganshika's armies are slaughtered by Guts and the Apostles serving Griffith, who overwhelms him while allowing Ganishka to retreat to prepare for a final battle at Windham.
Ganishka, motivated to become Griffith's equal, is prompted to dive into the Man-Made Behelit he had Daiba made to offer lives of his own men within the city walls to undergo a transformation. The result destroyed Windham as Ganishka, compared by Daiba to their god Shiva, has been a miles-tall monstrosity while gradually losing his mind and siring Apostle Spawn from those crushed under his feet. Griffith eventually reaches Ganishka's human face and redirects the Skull Knight's attack on him towards it, causing Ganishka to explode with his body warped into a giant tree.
Trivia
- Emperor Ganishka is based on Template:W, who was a king of the Kushan Empire in Central Asia, from 127 AD until 151 AD.
- Ganishka is the only Apostle not to revert to his original human form upon death. This is due to his body being transformed into the World Tree.
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