. : V a n i t a s : .

PLAYER: Mika
ARE YOU AT LEAST 18 YEARS OLD?: Yes
CONTACT: indulgentsin | MelodicWinds#6453
CHARACTERS PLAYED: N/A

NAME: Vanitas
CANON: The Case Study of Vanitas
CANON REFERENCE: About Vanitas himself | Series Summary/Overlook
CANON POINT: Post Ch.57
CRAU HISTORY: N/A
AGE: 18
APPEARANCE: A full body view | His bright blue eyes
CONTRACT PAYMENT: The identity of the individual responsible for stealing ‘Luna’s’ true name, and if not that directly? A reliable lead towards finding out who they are.
QUESTIONNAIRE: (all are answered OOC-ly)

What are your greatest regrets, if you have any? What would you have done differently?

When it comes to Vanitas, he isn’t much of a personable type of individual and keeps his secrets insanely close to his chest but even he has things he regrets intensely.

For one, he has a LOT of regrets towards his weakness when he was younger. Whether it was because he let himself give into his own personal anger towards vampires or let himself be captured by Doctor Moreau so easily. If he hadn’t been so weak back then, maybe things would have turned out differently than they have today.

A much more notable amount of regret comes from how he failed his family not once, but TWICE.

He was raised by his father and a traveling troupe of performers for some time, but a brutal vampire attack left him the only survivor. After this, he was picked up by the Catholic Church to train to be a Chasseur but that didn’t last long until Doctor Moreau faked his death and he was taken in for inhumane experimentations. Both of these times he’d been unable to prevent these events from happening, being weak and ‘helpless’.

The second time he failed his family, it was during the event where someone stole Luna’s (The Vampire of the Blue Moon) true name and she began to turn into a crazed monster. He allowed himself to become her kin and used the power of the Book of Vanitas to kill her, but Mikhail had been severely injured to the point he believed his adoptive younger brother had died and he was the only legitimate kin to the Blue Moon.

So when the aforementioned brother showed up again, wanting to know the truth of that night? He’d tried to keep it as secret and under wraps as possible since he didn’t want Mikhail to possibly blame himself for that night’s events.

If one was to ask him what he’d do differently, though? It would be to the one where he holds the heaviest regrets, for his failures towards people he considered/considers his family. He wouldn’t have refused to become Luna’s kin so fiercely as he had, since if he’d had that power? It would have enabled him to save Luna instead of having to kill her and Mikhail wouldn’t have had to get so severely injured, to where they’d probably still be travelling together. This is the most fixable of the regrets he has, as the others he wouldn’t have been able to change much about it asides from not allowing himself to be captured by Moreau so easily.

An oni of the Shuten Clan has gone completely berserk, and is going on a violent rampage through the city. You can't stop him, but you CAN lead him elsewhere, but you only have two choices: a road by a discotheque with a large crowd in front, or the nearby park that you do not know is unoccupied, and may have children present. What do you choose, and why?

Vanitas is a very intuitive and quick thinking man who would consider all options but take the one path to success he’s absolutely sure of. Is it reckless? Probably. People are likely to be hurt (whether emotionally or physically) but if things go his way, nobody is going to die.

This said, he’s going to lead the oni over to the park and not be at all silent about it. Taunting the oni to get him to come this way, and shouting at people to get to safety if they value their lives. If they don’t listen, that’s up to them but nobody will be able to say he didn’t try to warn them in some way. He’s the type to do reckless things to try and ensure innocent people won’t die, so even if there were children he wouldn’t let the oni hurt them.

How do you define "success"? What is something you're ambitious about?

In his eyes, the definition of success is managing to complete whatever he’d set out to do. Whether it comes at the cost of bodily injury, people’s feelings or anything else. Whether it was just getting information or managing to save a corrupted vampire, long as he achieves those things? It’s a success.

Something Vanitas is ambitious about in the series is something he’s stated over and over, without missing a single beat.

‘I am a doctor. I’ll keep treating curse bearers. I’ll do as I please. I’ll save the vampires, for the sake of my revenge.’

It’s stated that he’s pursuing his revenge, treating curse bearers in order to find traces of the one who stole Luna’s true name. To erase every last fragment of the vampire of the blue moon’s existence and consign them to oblivion. It’s his entire purpose for doing everything up until this point and what motivates him to keep going forwards in this world, so it’s reasonable to say it’s the thing he’s the most ambitious about.

An enemy of your faction has asked for a meeting, proposing a truce of sorts to deal with a greater threat. On one hand, there is indeed a threat at hand, but on the other, this person double-crossing you is just as likely an outcome. Do you agree to the meeting? Do you trust them?

There wouldn’t even be a single pause. He’d agree to meet up with them but nobody said he would have to trust them, only to make them believe that he did.

Before the actual meeting, Vanitas would come up with several contingency plans and inform those he trusted most in his faction about this occurring and what to do depending on whatever happened during the meeting itself. These people would be informed not only about his location, but the possibility of several outcomes and how they could act accordingly while staying out of sight and out of the enemy’s detection. No need to incite any fights unless absolutely necessary, after all.

The actual meeting is where he’d show up ‘alone’ and claim it was out of good faith while agreeing with the other person about wanting to take down this ‘greater threat’. He’d play the fool to an extent to get information from them, such as where they heard about this supposed greater threat if they could be handled by them grouping together to defeat them. Let them think he was this earnest individual who had so quickly agreed because this threat was important and needed to be handled as soon as possible, if only so they let their guards down and play into his hands.

Vanitas wouldn’t be above using some underhanded tactics to get what he wants in these situations, even if this could put him in a tough spot where he’s likely to get hurt. So he’d make sure he befriended the right people who could help him out, even if only for situations like this one. It’s not the first or last time he’ll do something like this, since it’s so easy to get people to do what he wants, whether just a slip of the tongue or a reaction he wants to see.

It’s all about having the upper hand, you see.

POWERS & ABILITIES:

An overview

Intelligence:

As he is simply just a human facing against much stronger vampires, Vanitas is considerably not as strong but he makes up for it by being a quick-thinker in a fight and knows how to utilize what’s around him. He’s adept at analyzing situations and figuring out the best ways to handle them, even though some tactics may be a little dirty. Sometimes.

Combat Skills:

Vanitas is incredibly adept with using a knife, most notably one that has the hilt rigged with wires but tends to keep all of his weapons and tools hidden until he absolutely needs to use them. If only so he can have the element of surprise with his enemies, and has an incredibly devious, low-handed way of fighting to the point he’s not against using information about his opponent against them should it come down to it. Whether it’s ‘threatening’ a child or suddenly kissing someone in the midst of battle, nothing’s off the table here when it comes to how he gains the upper hand.

When he was younger, he also received training to become a Chasseur, which is essentially a vampire hunter who works for the Catholic Church. It’s the root for where he learned a lot of his fighting skills and how to handle weapons but he also learnt things such as a vampire’s weaknesses, though he’s used this in battle against not just vampires but other chasseurs. While it’s unknown how he got his hands on them, he also has physically enhancing drugs from them that he only uses when he knows he has to fight a serious battle with a vampire.

Overall? While human, he is incredibly swift, agile and can handle himself in a fight better than the average human off the street.

The Book of Vanitas:

Having adopted the name from this book, this is the thing Vanitas is the most known for and he’s more than adept at using it.

He is able to save or ‘heal’ curse bearing vampires through a method called an ‘inverse operation’ which is essentially where he interferes with their true names, extracting the corrupted maladies that have turned them into ‘malnomen’. Each one is something he can discern with the use of the book, but there are times where he already can recall which one it is off the top of his head. To be able to use inverse operations require incredible proficiency of the book itself.

While it’s only happened once, he isn’t able to heal some curses on his own completely and will need the help of the curse bearer to reject their malnomen/curse and he’ll use the power from the mark given to him when Luna had made him her kin. This is, however, dangerous as using this power from the mark will slowly overwrite Vanitas himself.

Vanitas is also able to utilize the book in battle as a weapon. He can use it to rewrite the world formula to briefly stun vampires for a short time to the point of immobilizing them briefly. He can also interfere with a type of stone called Astermite which powers mechanical beings/creations in their world called Automatons, to the point where he can make them do his bidding, go haywire or go kaboom entirely.

Since this world lacks anything like the world formula, it’s not something that’s going to really come up but is all what he’s capable of in that front.

Other:

Aside from combat abilities, Vanitas is actually quite knowledgeable when it comes to medical practices and it’s clear he has some level of training on that front. From how to treat poisons, first aid, and carrying an assortment of medicines on him at all times. That probably coming from his time training as a Chasseur and the fact his father was a doctor when he’d been alive.

He’s also incredibly skilled when it comes to cooking and has a wealth of knowledge on french history and culture, alongside with this niche talent of being able to pick locks but he doesn’t always utilize this unless he absolutely needs to.

SUITABILITY:

Vanitas has experienced copious amounts of death, been inhumanely experimented on and has not hesitated to try and kill people that get in his way. Hell, he’s done a murder once already. So it’s easy to say that violence doesn’t at all bother him, and several things he’s done, such as breaking into churches, stripping people to steal uniforms and even breaking into airships? He’s got no problem with doing questionable criminal activity to an extent, and has once used performance/strength boosting drugs to make himself stronger in a fight.

He also spent a lot of time flirting/making flirtatious comments to the love of his life, Jeanne and already has kissed her. While he’s never engaged in any sexual activity, he’s aware of it and has been in a close-range to the aforementioned woman while stripped of his clothes (he was quite sick.). Though he will boast, tease others and act like it doesn’t at all bother him, until it’s turned on him and that’s where he’ll get extremely flustered over it.

FACTION SUITABILITY:

The Shuten Clan

While he knows nothing about sports, Vanitas tends to make life or death gambles but not for money. He’s a passionate individual who has his eyes set on one goal, so in a way he’d respect their leader for his own strong ideals but feels that he lacks a lot of honor himself. Tends to enjoy a good fight and hates being weak and useless, but is more agile and quick on his feet instead of overly strong so there’s that.

He’s not super strong. Unless one takes intelligence into consideration on that front.

The Tamamo Clan

While the concept of kyuubi are unknown to him, it’s not something that would bother him for very long. He would be quite flustered with the whole pleasure district things, but it’s not like he couldn’t push that thing onto other people without even blinking twice. He’s good at being ridiculously suggestive and putting things in people’s heads, after all.

He’d also be a huge advocate for their beliefs of freedom and the ability to be able to relax as he hates being overly controlled. Vanitas does his own thing and on his own time, after all. Not to mention he’s incredibly pretty and great at deception, alongside being known for his cunning and way with words.

Not to mention quite insightful and a quick-thicker in situations, but can have a bit of a temper at times.

The Sutoku Alliance

Money has always meant very little to him, so he wouldn’t really be interested in that aspect but there’s many ways where he WOULD flourish.

Vanitas is incredibly skilled at getting information out of people at any real cost and able to discern things all the way down to a person’s facial expressions. He can use this information to his advantage in situations as to get the upper hand however possible, and was someone who spent most of canon with his past a complete mystery until now. There’s a lot still not known about him but he keeps things like that close to his chest.

He’s quite talented at saying things to get people to reveal things, or how to push their buttons in all the right (or wrong) ways. Some call it being manipulative, he just calls it being resourceful.

The Department of Enma

Due to his upbringing and the way he operates, Vanitas isn’t much for law authorities but he does respect them. He’s all about keeping control in his own hands no matter what, and when that control is taken away? Rationality tends to go out the door but he can also be extremely level-headed and quite competent.

Vanitas would be decent at keeping order to a degree if he had to, and depending on the reason would get his hands dirty. However if it was to kill an innocent person, he’d sooner decline it and would only do so if it was to put someone out of their misery. Nobody should suffer and he wouldn’t entirely sit by if there was a lot of corrupt things occurring because even he has morals and would let some things slide if he felt it was appropriate.

SAMPLES

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