Garter

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* Anime

**Garter Kikuchi** (ガーター・キクチ, *Gātā Kikuchi*?) is the former president of the Garter Corporation and Gettan's primary confidant. He acted as the figurehead for the Major Corporate Alliance, overseeing movement and providing reports on circumstances, while Gettan dictated policy and actions.

## Appearance

Characterized by his obesity, Garter's appearance is described as "frog-like."

## Personality

Garter is a pusillanimous individual who obediently follows Gettan's orders, after his hostile takeover. Incompetence may outmatch his weight, as all Major Corporate Alliance directive failed.

## Chronology

### Beginning of the Anti-Mitsugoshi Alliance Formation

Garter, the president of the Garter Corporation, felt pressured along with all the other trading companies in the Midgar Kingdom about the strengthening monopoly of the Mitsugoshi Company. Commercializing the nation's economy at the royal capital with its highly innovative products proved very popular among the kingdom's citizens and the introduction of banknotes to the Kingdom allowed Mitsugoshi to venture into fractional-reserve banking, furthering its wealth. Foreign nations expressed interest in business relations with Mitsugoshi, asking for branches to be built in their capital.

In fact, there was no shortage of merchants that regard the company as a threat and the demand for Mitsugoshi goods so tremendous that even a whole coalition of merchants wouldn’t stand a chance against them no matter how hard they tried, with Mitsugoshi's position rock-solid for some time.

Fearing the growing power of Mitsugoshi and its increasing influence, many company presidents decided to quell their business disputes and form a non-aggression pact, merging into a singular organization known as the "Major Corporate Alliance", which is a consortium of conspiring merchants united over the mutual desire to overthrow Mitsugoshi's economic dominance. Garter was appointed as its head, likely owing to his capable private army, which was rumored to be equivalent to a small national force. The MCA's mercenaries began to disrupt their competitors' trading systems and supply lines. Moreover, the Alliance tried to make paper money to compete with Mitsugoshi Company. The MCA created banks and asked citizens (even forcefully) to replace Mitsugoshi's bills with banknotes from the MCA.

The Alliance's only successful effort was causing losses from the traveling merchants who carried Mitsugoshi's goods to the commoners in the countryside. Hovever, Mitsugoshi refused to back down at all for whatever reason due to their urban trade was completely unaffected and still accelerating their expansion, without realizing that the Mitsugoshi Company is the Shadow Garden's public cover. They had been keeping an eye on the MCA's movements and preventing their endeavors secretly from the shadows.

### Great Trading Company Conflict

Despite being the MCA's head, Garter turned out to be made a subordinate by Gettan who is the person he hired to help him destroy Mitsugoshi Company after handing over control of his own company to Gettan when he gave the Alliance's trade president members promises of victory to their adversary with Garter only following every direction of his orders in sabotaging their competitors' trade to combat them and sending progress reports to Gettan which making him the figurehead of the Major Corporate Alliance, without realizing Gettan's true affiliation that he is a member of the Cult of Diablos who is entrusted with his mission to eliminating Mitsugoshi in exchange for earned a seat in the Knights of Rounds for his dedicated hard work so that Mitsugoshi does not become a powerful threat and adding new opposition in the future as the Cult still dealing with Shadow Garden.

Since the Alliance's efforts were fruitless in stopping their adversary's trading system, Garter attempted to financially sabotage Mitsugoshi per Gettan's order by sending their best enforcers, especially the Clovers who were Gettan's personal elite mercenary group to mount a daring attack on Mitsugoshi's carriage and eliminate their employees to intercept their business, but ended in defeat with Garter stunned by reports of the MCA's failure direct assaults that their competitors' supply lines is unimpeded and continued to run smoothly due to not knowing that the sent assassins had encountered fierce resistance from *company employees* who were Shadow Garden's well-trained forces, leading to many of their deaths and a few of them being captured for interrogation.

From one of them, Garter gave another failure report to Gettan after receiving news that the Alliance camp had been raided as his private troop prepared to disguise themselves as bandits to attack Mitsugoshi's camp carriage, resulting in the death of all the mercenaries in the camp, even one of the Clovers members also became one of the victims and Garter suspected that Mitsugoshi had hired several dark knights.

Then he received orders from Gettan who didn't want the Alliance's resources to be quickly depleted to send the remaining Clovers to carry out a night raid on Mitsugoshi's primary headquarters to get all their money and manufacturing details without failure as Garter was preparing his private army to support the Clovers along with a rear guard who is responsible for reporting back in case of mission failure.

However at the next day, the Alliance's planned operation in the Mitsugoshi Company's main building is also completely unsuccessful with all of his mercenaries along with the Clovers never returning from their mission and were presumed to have been killed. When Garter said there were some MCA members who had expressed their concern over the lack of results, Gettan harshly telling Garter by told them to shut up.

Some time later, Garter informed Gettan that he had found counterfeit money in circulation and was currently checking the certainty by looking for detailed clues, with Gettan immediately telling Garter to quickly find out where it came from, without knowing that the counterfeit discovery is the real plan from the Cult given to Gettan to order the Alliance to manufacture banknotes that are easy to counterfeit to create a credit crisis in order to overthrow Mitsugoshi by using the MCA as a sacrificial pawn.

But, the plan should have started once the Cult's assets had safely withdrawn from the capital and completed their deal with the MCA, which led Gettan to contact the Cult wanting to check the info until a few days later the Cult of Diablos confirmed that the counterfeit banknotes had still not been made after the messenger had informed Gettan which made him angry to the point that he thought there was a third party mass producing fake bills which Gettan thought that Mitsugoshi Company was the one behind this act and they used his plan against him.

Garter then is ordered by Gettan in his anger to mobilize all his subordinates to find the route of the counterfeit money distribution chain and trace the whereabouts of John Smith, who is the individual protecting the transportation carriage, in order to retrieve the gold coins.

In the afternoon at the day when winter had begun, Garter received harsh anger from Gettan because of his incompetence in finding John Smith, even though he said that John's trail ended up in the Lawless City, pursuing any further would be a fool's errand since any investigation in the Lawless City is incredibly risky and the MCA keep losing contact with their investigators upon entering the city area.

While Gettan warned that the time is running out very quickly with the credit crisis set to start later as rumors about counterfeit money had already started circulating in the capital, Garter informed that there is been an increase in people exchanging exchanging their banknotes for their gold coin which stored in deposits at their banks, as well as adding another development report about a huge liquidation requests that came in this morning and continuing been getting more.

Garter even told Gettan that all the other company presidents in the Alliance said this wasn't what he promised from the beginning as they are asking if it would be possible to shut down their exchange, with Gettan quickly responding to stop their actions because if they did, then word would spread quickly and hordes of people would come breaking down in the Alliance banks, with Garter plus informing that their reserves will not hold out at this rate.

Then when Gettan wanted to confirm that a huge liquidation order had came this morning, he felt suspicious about it because no one would react that quickly until Garter is ordered to find out who made it as Gettan will investigate it himself and wait for further news from him.

Feeling that the day of the credit crisis was approaching because knowing that the Alliance did not have enough reserves to meet people's requests to exchange their banknotes, coupled with Gettan's absence without knowing that his fate was to die at the hands of John Smith, who is actually Shadow who helped Yukime in collecting money to help Mitsugoshi, Garter tried to escape at night after closing his shop along with many trading company presidents who were members of the MCA.

Subsequently, they were intercepted by the Knight Order until all members including Garter were caught and forced to open the vaults to appease the mob of patrons seeking their gold. Once the public discovered the duplicity of the smaller amount of money than the bills in circulation within their reserves, the populace lost their trust with the Alliance and experienced bankruptcy which resulted in the Major Corporate Alliance being disbanded.

Eventually, the Mitsugoshi Company bought all the Alliance's assets after their collapse and the final fate of Garter as the leader of the Alliance along with all the trading company presidents whose also fellow MCA members were given severe punishment by the Midgar Kingdom for being responsible of committing fraud.

## Powers & Abilities

Garter had authority over his corporation, which grew exponentially after he became the "leader" of the Major Corporate Alliance. It was lost after the Alliance's collapse.

## Relationships

### Gettan

Gettan was a hired beastkin that Garter tried to employ, but subordination was not the warrior's intent. The hierarchy reversed and Garter retired himself to a submissive role.

## References

1. ↑ Episode 20
2. ↑ *Volume 3 Chapter 4: I'll Destroy It All and Start from Scratch!*
3. ↑ *Volume 3 Chapter 5: Printing Fake Money as Mitsugoshi Throws Down with the Major Corporate Alliance!*
4. ↑ *Volume 3 Chapter 6: Circulating Counterfeit Cash!*
5. ↑ *Volume 3 Epilogue: The One to Destroy It All and Start from Scratch—with Fakes Bills!*