Rakshas

Most of the time Rakshas shows himself as a hooded shape of pure black, his face concealed behind a mask; his eyes burn orange in the manga and shine gold in the anime. Because his apostle flesh holds no fixed outline, he can pour himself into shadow or bend his body into new shapes at will. The mask matters to him strangely, and its destruction sinks him into gloom until he can fashion a replacement. Unleashed into his true apostle shape, he unfurls wings and balloons into a vastly larger, more monstrous thing.

Haughty and contemptuous, Rakshas sneers at the tapasa for their slow reflexes and treats that slowness as proof the Bakiraka have declined, though eventually he grants that they move fast for their size. A hedonist who savors toying with a victim before the final blow, a habit Silat finds repugnant, he chases a chosen target with what onlookers call rare doggedness. He usually stays silent, offering only clipped remarks and speaking in full solely when addressing someone directly, his words coming apart as a battle grows frantic. Brightness and heat drive him back, and the sole reason he offers for serving Griffith is the same enchantment that grips all apostles, one he intends to repay someday by severing the Falcon's head.

His formless apostle body makes him a natural killer. He creeps up on Kushan scouts and cuts them down before even Zodd catches on, and once flicked a dart into an elephant's ear directly beneath its handler's gaze. Melting into darkness comes easily to him, and he is able to reposition his head anywhere across his frame, a trick that fooled Silat, whose clean cut through the mask found no face waiting behind it. From his mass he sprouts blade-like limbs and tendrils to grip and to cut, and his body proves so tough that hurled stone and a full barrage from Rickert's repeater crossbow leave him unharmed while he fights Silat and the tapasa on even terms with startling speed and force.

Once forced into his released apostle state he can fly and grows far mightier, tearing through rooftops, lifting a horse with one limb, and reshaping his cloak into scythe-shaped tendrils that slice large beasts and iron bars alike. Much of his tale is his pursuit of Rickert at Falconia: he shadows the boy from the tops of statues, is beaten back again and again by Silat and the tapasa, and is at last set alight by a repurposed fire-spraying pump that jolts him into apostle form. He turns up again deep inside the Kushan Empire, erupting from a clan chief's corpse to shatter the kurultai, until Silat drives a blade through him from behind just as his shadow reaches the caged Guts.