Battle 4

Battle 4
Volume:	1
Chapter	4
Total pages	57 (60 in VIZ Media Edition)
Released	1991
Story Arc	Makaku Arc
Chapter Navigation
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Berserkers Reborn (甦る狂戦士, 甦る狂戦士^?, Yomigaeru Bāsākā) is the fourth chapter and the fourth issue in the first volume of Yukito Kishiro's Battle Angel Alita. It was originally subtitled Resurgents, which Viz Media renamed Resurgence.

Cover

Alita sitting next to a window and draped in a blanket with a revolver by her side.

Summary

As Alita dreams, Gonzu tells Daisuke Ido how lucky he was not to have been turned into a cyborg by the cyberphysicians who practice the equivalent of emergency care in the Scrapyard. Ido has Gonzu take him and Alita down to the basement of his clinic, which has a collection of various odd robots. Ido then unveils a sophisticated cyborg body which he found several years ago in a crashed warship from a long ago war at the bottom of a ravine west of the Scrapyard. Here he found a cyborg body built with very advanced technology which he decided to take home and analyze. However he discovered that it was a weapon of war and christened it the "Berserker Body", locking it away in his basement. Despite this, Ido is firm in his decision to transplant Alita into the body, and reconfigures it for a woman's body. He tells Gonzu, who is a former cyberveterinarian, that he will have to do the operation because of his own injury, but that he will back him up.

Alita meanwhile continues to dream, during which she realizes that she now has an unknown power. Makaku's sudden appearance in the dream wakes up her up. When Gonzu and Ido ask her how her new body is she quickly tries it out, to their delight. After both fall asleep from the long surgery, Alita notices Ido's wound and vows to defeat Makaku.

In an underground Coliseum arena, Kinuba is in a fight with Zaariki. The latter launches a swift attack against Kinuba and corners him, but is then shredded to pieces with Kinuba's grind cutters for the champion's 281st straight victory. After the fight Kinuba is relaxing in a waiting room when an unnamed cyborg comes in and claims to have just become a big fan of his. Kinuba extends the stranger a drink and talks about the grind cutters in his right arm. The stranger then reveals himself to be Makaku in disguise and threatens to take Kinuba's body. The champion destroys the dummy body, but Makaku is too fast for him, using his Maggot Body to slither underneath Kinuba's cape and start to invade his body. Kinuba tries to kill himself with the grind cutters, but Makaku gains enough control to make Kinuba sever his own head instead, taking over the body.

Alita in her trademark hunter-warrior outfit

Elsewhere in the Scrapyard, Alita asks Ido, still wheelchair bound, about the sound made by the Factory Tubes, remarking that it sounds like "the moans of thousands of people". When he observes that she starts to seem more grown up, she assures him that she will always be the Alita he knows. The two visit Bar Kansas, a hangout for hunter-warriors. Inside Kansas Ido greets the various hunters present as well as a baby Koyomi and Duke Fang. After Master mentions that he heard about what happened from Gonzu, Ido announces to the bar that he and Alita are going after Makaku and asks for them to help assist in bringing him in. This suddenly silences all the hunters and none of them respond to the inquiery. When Ido singles out Zapan, the latter responds that it is none of his business and that each hunter brings down their own prey by himself. The other hunters also raise objections and Ido tries to reason with them, but Zapan will have none of it. He articulates his philosophy that to be a professional involves carefully choosing one’s prey and minimizing risk. This does not sit well with Alita, who kicks Zapan's drink into his face and questions his rationale, declaring that he and everyone else in Kansas is a coward for refusing to go after Makaku. She flatly turns down Ido's request to make an apology and provokes a brawl when Zapan threatens to teach her some manners. During the fight Alita manages to get ahold of Zapan from behind, manipulating his arms and legs and using him to slice up the other hunter-warriors before sending him and her other opponents out of Kansas in a massive ball of bodies that blows out of the entrance. Alita is then asked her name by Reptile, who was not involved in the fighting.

Outside Kansas, as Zapan vows revenge, Makaku appears, stomping on three hunter-warriors and pulling off their heads. He bursts through the entrance, and is taken to be Kinuba at first by Reptile, who asks for an autograph. Makaku uses one of his grind cutters to sign his name onto Reptile's back and slice his head to shreds, catching his exposed brain with his tongue. He then opens his mask and reveals that he is there to see Alita.

Debut appearances

Characters

• Beck (not named)
• Bull (not named)
• Duke Fang
• Koyomi
• Master (not named)
• Reptile (not named in original printing)
• Skull (not named)
• Tank Man (not named)
• Teito (not named)
• Zaariki
• Zapan

Locations

• Bar Kansas
• Coliseum

Occupations

• Cyberveterinarian

Technology

• Berserker Body

Trivia

• The crashed spaceship and Berserker Body are the first hint of the Terraforming Wars.
• Desty Nova later revealed in Last Order that the Berserker Body was derived from the Berserker technology developed 200 years ago by the République Vénus.
• This is the only time that a Coliseum fight is directly shown in the manga.
• Alita's trademark hunter-warrior outfit debuts in this chapter.
• Five hunter-warriors who make their debut appearances in this chapter, Beck, Bull, Skull, Tank Man, and Teito, are later named in the Supersonic Fingers side story.
• Master is never named in the manga. He is called Master in Gunnm: Martian Memory from the British practice of calling owners of such establishments "Master".