The predicted One Hundred Machine Funeral
The One Hundred Machine Funeral (Hyakki Eikou) is an ominous event and central plot device within the series Karakuri Dôji Ultimo.
The circumstances are described as a huge battle that transcends both time and space, in which it is said that a total of one hundred Karakuri Dôji in "full bloom", separated into two sides composed of the good and evil branches, will fight for the sake of ultimate victory for their side. The reason behind the event's occurrence is to determine whether it is "good" or "evil" that will win. However, it is believed that if it were to ever happen, it would inevitably result in the destruction of the entire world.
The Good Dôji Club specifically aims in the prevention of such circumstances from occurring at any and all costs, even if that means capturing the man behind all this chaos: Roger Dunstan himself. However, The Evil Dôji Branch deliberately intends to cause these circumstances, so the masters can manipulate the devastating consequences of this event and the powers of their respective dôji to take control of the remaining population as the gods of the resulting new world.
When the funeral began again after the time reversal, Dunstan appeared with Milieu and told the dôji and their masters that the funeral's objective is not to kill the dôji and their masters, but to get the most enemy dôji on their side within a one year time frame. The side that has the most dôji on their side by the end of time limit wins the event. While fighting the opposing side is still an option, if one decides to destroy a dôji's spirit sphere, the color within them will stay the same.
Dunstan purposely manipulate some of the battles in "themes" based on social and worldly philosophical concepts, such as money or life and death, in addition making some of the masters having a close connection to each other while on the opposing side to challenge their emotions against their moral beliefs.
Storyline
The Funeral officially began in Chapter 12 with The Evil Dôji Branch winning and killing The Good Dôji Club as Roger Dunstan watches with Milieu from afar. However, Yamato Agari, using time-space manipulation, was able to reset time to the day before the funeral. Only Yamato and Musashi Murayama remember what happens, but Vice and Shin Ekoda finds out later on and pass this information to the rest of their groups.
In Act 25, Dunstan reveals that the whole funeral isn't about eliminating all dôjis from the opposing sides - but rather winning as many dôjis as possible over to your side. Also, crushing a dôji's spirit sphere will not change its allegiance.
As a result of this information, some of The Evil Dôji Branch members change their tactics and focus on trying to convince and influence their enemies to join their side, but quickly shifts their tactics to killing them when the Good Dôji Club members refuses. Although most members felt they were at disadvantage since they only knew how to kill, Rune Kodaira pointed out they can keep defeating their enemies until their spirits break and loses hope to win. The Good Dôji Club are more willing to fight with their enemies right away in order to prevent further harm from spreading around or simply in self-defense. However, they know killing them is pointless and they have to learn to understand their enemies if they hope to win, as well becoming strong enough to defeat Dunstan.
In Act 51, the true purpose of One Hundred Machine Funeral was to prevent the future destruction of the world by "awakening" the knowledge of ultimate good and evil within humans. Once the event reach its conclusion, Dunstan turn back time once again to undo all deaths that occurred in his experiment. Although, Dunstan states his experiment isn't over and turns all the dôji into humans to live normal lives alongside their masters to see how they will shape the future.
Trivia
- The One Hundred Machine Funeral begins on May 6, 2012.
- Although Dunstan supposedly created 100 dôji, only Ultimo, Vice, the Six Perfections and Seven Deadly Sins taken part in it.