Steel Ball Run - Chapter 35
Summary
A flashback details the past of Ringo Roadagain.
When he was a child, Ringo had a weak constitution and would cut himself on anything. His family was ostracized by society when Ringo's father deserted the army and was arrested, thus they lived alone in the wood. One night, Ringo woke up to see a soldier having killed his family and the soldier tried to rape him. The sickly child stole the soldier's gun and shot him in the mouth, killing him. Since that night, Ringo wasn't sickly anymore and adopted an antisocial philosophy, believing that a true man didn't act in function of others but of his own desires.
In the now, Gyro laying out of Ringo's house, witnesses an apparition of his own father Gregorio Zeppeli, which demands that he returns immediately to Naples as his foolish participation in the Steel Ball Run race is fueled by sentimentality. However Gyro refutes what the apparition says, and affirms his own desire to witness if Marco really deserves to be executed and his desire to see what the Corpse is about. With a renewed determination, Gyro throws a Steel Ball and watch through the walls, seeing that Ringo has also discovered the location of the next Corpse Part. He attacks the gunslinger through the walls, severely hurting him but Ringo rewinds time. Entering the house, Gyro challenges Ringo to another close ranged duel. Gyro then warns that Ringo has a weak point, his left clavicle which when damaged, will paralyze his body and even his heart. Both attack, Gyro is shot at the heart, but Ringo is fatally wounded too, forcing him to rewind time, Ringo protects his clavicle with an arm, but the movement deviates his arm and Gyro is merely shot at the shoulder, while a wood splinter impales Ringo from behind into the left clavicle again, due to the Steel Ball. Ringo acknowledges his loss, and before being finished off by Gyro, asks him to find "the light" beyond the standards of society, welcoming him to the "True Man's World".
