Midnight Rainbow (夜の虹, Yoru no Niji?), also known as the Ciel Route, is one of the routes in Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon-.
The main heroine and love interest of this route is Ciel. The route can be accessed after completing the Moon Princess route.
Midnight Rainbow is the longest route of the visual novel, as well as the only route with two endings. The Normal End must be completed before the Extra End is unlocked.
Plot
Day 1
On the train heading towards school, Shiki bumped into Ciel senpai who made it to the train at last possible second. Depending on the dialogue choice Shiki can interact with her in different manner, like him appreciating Ciel’s beautifully-shaped yet powerful legs, or as Shiki himself puts it, “a serious subject matter”. Alas, his pursuit of such subject was cut short by a flying cellphone aiming straight at his head thrown by Mio nearby.
Coming to his senses Shiki asked what Ciel was up to that resulted in her having to catch the train in such a hurry. Ciel explained she was doing volunteering work this morning and ended up going straight to school after the work was done. She also teased Shiki over his interest in what she was carrying and used that opportunity to invite Shiki to the tea club after school (as there were too much soon-to-expire snacks left and she would like some help with that). Shiki joked it would be cat-like to come to club activity over snacks but was corrected by Ciel that it would be more dog-like, and dogs are much better than cats.
The two ended up having a good chat on the train. So good, in fact, that the two ended up being asked to shut up by Mio. After reaching their destination, Ciel went ahead as she had somewhere else to visit first before going to school. Mio then passed by Shiki and scolded him (and/or Ciel) for having no shame in public.
The school day then passed by and it was soon lunch break. Just when Shiki was pondering what to have for dinner, Ciel appeared and claimed she was actually looking for Shiki. She wanted to apologize for causing Shiki trouble on the train and offered to buy him lunch at the cafeteria to make up for it. Before Shiki could respond, Ciel had already grabbed Shiki and started dragging him to the cafeteria. The sight naturally caught everyone’s attention and Shiki out of embarrassment asked Ciel to stop, especially since it really was him to be at fault anyway, but Ciel simply turned the table on him and made it so Shiki really couldn’t refuse the invitation either way.
At the cafeteria, Ciel proposed to get the food while Shiki secured the seats. To avoid unwanted attention, Shiki tried to find a corner spot, but the only one still available also has none other but Arihiko. Arihiko told Shiki that the guest he originally planned to meet up with today had to cancel the lunch date as she needed to “apologize to someone”. Shiki easily connected the dots and realized that was Ciel too.
Ciel arrived at the table and brought Shiki the food: Curry rice, curry udon, and more curry rice. Out of respect of Ciel’s kindness, Shiki picked the rice and udon, despite his clearly smaller than average people’s appetite. At this point, finally recovering from the shock of the coincidental event, Arihiko vented his rage and jelly of Shiki having such luck with Ciel, and demanded to have the curry udon, but Shiki stopped him before his hand could reach the bowl. Ciel “asked” Arihiko about his relationship with Shiki and then apologized for canceling the date.
The three then started chatting through lunch. While talking about commuting to school, Ciel asked Shiki about his home. Shiki was a bit hesitant due to the complexity of his situation, but ended up revealing he would live in the famed Tohno mansion starting today. While talking about Shiki’s time with the Arimas, Arihiko shared how in the past Shiki would always stay at his place over the break to avoid causing Arimas too much trouble, but he also accidentally revealed the fact how Shiki was taken in by Arimas. Arihiko instantly felt bad about it, but Shiki was not troubled by it. However, the revelation did seem to take Ciel by surprise and she was visibly troubled by it. Then out of nowhere, Arihiko asked if Ciel could excuse them as they have something private to chat about, a proposal Ciel accepted.
After Ciel left, Shiki pointed out Arihiko might be a bit too rude at the end even if it might be to handle the awkwardness after the heavy topic of Shiki’s family situation. This could be bad news for Arihiko who clearly had feeling towards Ciel. However, Arihiko simply stated it would be fine as it was his fault to spill the beans like that, and as much as he did like Ciel, he would not be okay about her unable to accept Shiki’s situation. While saying all these, Arihiko also started digging into the curry udon that was clearly too much for Shiki.
After school, Shiki remembered Ciel’s invitation and headed to the tea club. He was warmly greeted by Ciel and the two entered the clubroom. Ciel explained that the tea club was originally just a ghost club with no members, but Ciel saw that as a giant waste and thus ended up joining it as the sole member and gaining access to the fully Japanese-style clubroom (which is built based on the principal’s personal interest). Ciel appeared to have mixed up what the Japanese tea ceremony is truly about, but her passion for Japanese sweets seemed to be genuine (even though she like western ones more).
While the two enjoyed some matcha with convenient store snacks, Ciel followed up on the lunch conversation and asked Shiki about his family. Shiki thus gave an overview of his situation: from how he started to live with Arimas to now returning to the Tohnos after his father’s death. Ciel took note of Shiki’s wording while describing his time with Arima and asked if there was something wrong between him and the Arimas. Shiki explained that there was absolutely nothing he could complain about how the Arimas treated him, but possibly due to the trauma from the past, he just wasn’t able to truly treat them as his real family and thus always kept a polite distance. The two then chatted a bit more before it was time to go home.
Day 2
After spending his first morning at the Tohno mansion since returning, Shiki started another school day. During lunch time, Ciel appeared again, this time claiming she bought too much for lunch and wanted to find some kouhai with too much free time to spare to share them with. With the offer he cannot refuse, Shiki was taken to the school courtyard.
As for what the lunch food is, welp, it was curry bread. Apparently Ciel had tried to negotiation with the vendors for weeks for them to finally sell them in school. Shiki was a bit shocked by Ciel’s love for curry, but still decided to graciously enjoyed the bread with senpai. However, the peaceful time was interrupted by Arihiko’s ambush. He appeared behind Ciel, quickly snatched away one of the bread and ate it in one gulp. He intended that to be just a humorous greeting, but that apparently really triggered Ciel the wrong way, who quickly changed into combat position in rage and started to wave punches towards Arihiko. Fearing for his life, Arihiko quickly fled to buy some food.
When Arihiko returned, he brought back a bag filled with curry bread, which quickly secured Ciel’s forgiveness. With Arihiko now joining the chat, the three talked a bit about Noel and the ruckus she caused in the classroom, then the subject changed to if Arihiko and Shiki were fine with the oneesan-type, where Arihiko even listed Shiki’s relationship with Jihan Tokie, the daughter of Shiki’s personal doctor as example. Thus, the lunchbreak passed by in such meaningless, but peaceful manner, along with the curry breads being efficiently consumed by Ciel and Arihiko. After Arihiko left for napping, Ciel remarked it was a fun time, which Shiki agreed.
Day 3
After the strange encounter (with Vlov) from the night before and getting the dagger from Kohaku in the morning, Shiki went to school. He was greeted by Arihiko, who was a little down as Ciel actually came earlier to check on Shiki (quite possibly to ask about the incident that happened right outside of the Tohno mansion) but was disappointed to find he hadn’t arrived yet. During homeroom, Shiki also sensed Noel, who was “testing” Shiki the evening before, was paying more attention on him than others somehow.
During lunch break, Shiki decided to pay the tea clubroom a visit with some food he bought. Ciel was a bit surprised to see Shik and appeared to be a bit hesitant to accept the invitation, but quickly yielded after Shiki took out the curry bread. After entering the clubroom, Shiki quickly learned why Ciel was hesitating as she had just finished her lunch. Ciel explained she was really hungry as she skipped breakfast due to oversleeping. Shiki initially felt a little bad about that and tried to excuse himself, but eventually stayed after realizing Ciel really wanted to eat that curry bread.
While enjoying their post-curry tea break, Ciel asked about the incident outside of the Tohno mansion. Shiki shared what he learned from Hisui but decided to hide what he saw the night before. Ciel was a little troubled by Shiki’s carefree attitude about the event and suggested him to be more cautious as there was a serial killer running free in the city. This discussion then extended to whether the event should be publicized as a “vampire” event. Shiki argued based on legend, victims of vampire should have turned into vampire as well, thus the fact the victims’ bodies still remain would contradict such basic setting, but Ciel “hypothetically” pointed out the possibility of the bodies being those who failed to turn into vampire.
Outside of the clubroom, Shiki met Noel, who claimed to be here to do her routine prayer. Upon being asked why he was in this part of the school during lunch break, Shiki simply stated he was just taking a walk and hid his meet-up with Ciel. Noel didn’t seem to really buy that but let it slide nonetheless.
Fast forward to a few hours later, Shiki had just dismembered Arcueid and was drowning himself with disbelief and regret in the park, while letting the freezing rain taking away his warmth. He thought of ending his life with the same weapon he just used to kill, but couldn’t do so. Instead, he just kept letting the rain rendering his body cold as some sort of passive way of slow suicide.
This time, instead of Hisui, it was Ciel who appeared with an umbrella. After noticing how cold Shiki’s body was, Ciel expressed her worry, but after getting no positive response from Shiki, she decided to take Shiki to her apartment that was nearby. Shiki followed without any resistance.
At the apartment, Ciel offered Shiki a towel and left for a bit to prepare some hot drink. However, the sight of an unknown room of a girl triggered the recent memory in Shiki’s mind, made him unable to move a muscle. Seeing Shiki not trying to dry himself, Ciel had no choice but to take off Shiki’s cloth herself but stopped midway after seeing Shiki’s wound. However, she was relieved after learning it had recovered as she worried if it tied to Shiki’s strange behavior in the park. The exchange brought some senses back to Shiki, who started to dry himself up and put on something warm. After that, the two had some tea, which helped warming Shiki’s body up. Ciel then said she needed to buy something and asked Shiki to watch over the apartment with her absence. After Ciel left, Shiki pondered about Ciel’s actions, and realized how the simple company could make so much difference. He felt unworthy of such care from Ciel, but also now more than ever craving her company.
Upon Ciel’s return (who bought clothes for Shiki to change into), Shiki told her he couldn’t bother her any further and would just go home. Ciel clearly would not just let Shiki leave in such state so she tried to stop him, and Shiki tried to resist, but instead got his glassed knocked off. The sight of Ciel’s death drove Shiki to the brink of madness once more, making him scream in fear, and at one point, he thought of simply embracing his power fully and became a pure killing-machine with no feeling, but something stopped him. It was the kindness in Ciel’s eyes, which became an anchor that brought Shiki back to reality. He collapsed to the floor and started to calm himself down. While he tried to explain to Ciel it was a mental thing, Ciel insisted it must be due to the body and just dragged Shiki back to the living area. She would not allow Shiki to leave until he got the needed rest.
Shiki asked why Ciel would go this far to help him. While he couldn’t directly admit he just killed someone, he suggested he committed a grave sin that shouldn’t be forgiven. Ciel acknowledged Shiki did look like someone who wanted to be judged, but pointed out Shiki was still uncertain about something about himself thus ended up pushing himself to such corner. As for whether he deserved to be well treated by Ciel, Ciel pointed out it doesn’t really matter as she did what she did out of her own volition. Simply put, she didn’t help Shiki for Shiki, but because she wanted to do so, like a hobby.
Thus Shiki ended up staying at Ciel’s place for the night. Ciel even offered her own bed for Shiki as the floor might be too good for his body right now. Before bedtime, the two chatted just like they did in school. Shiki was surprised how he could still feel like a normal person shortly after killing someone not so long ago, but also uncertain what his next step would be. Noticing Shiki hasn’t fallen asleep, Ciel asked Shiki to forget what bothers him. Shiki replied he wouldn’t be able to forget his sin, but thanked Ciel for helping him as if he did end up killing himself it would be the worst way to deal with his mistake. In regards to Shiki’s feeling about his sin, Ciel pointed out the world is not simple black and white. Most people at some point, for reasons they can’t help with, end up making mistakes, or sin. Therefore, what truly distinguishes people worthy of salvation or not, is whether one is willing to make up for their mistakes.
Shiki then asked what if it is a sin that can’t be make up for. To that, Ciel replied the act of atonement was never to fully make up for the sin, as what has been done couldn’t be reversed, but the feeling that is born from it. She then highlighted her faith in Shiki’s ability to atone and remarked how despite his grave injury from the past, Shiki still grew up not becoming a twisted individual, thus proving Shiki’s heart must be at the right place. After saying all that, Ciel fell asleep. Listening to the rain outside of the window, Shiki thought of possible consequences when the body was found, and what he would do to make up for those who were important to him and the girl. With such thoughts, Shiki fell asleep as well.
Day 4
Shiki woke up the next day on Ciel’s bed. A good night’s rest helped Shiki greatly to recover both physically and mentally. After being teased by Ciel about letting Akiha know he spent a night at a girl’s place, Shiki thanked Ciel and decided to head back to the mansion first.
After getting home, Shiki was surprised that there was no police waiting to arrest him as a murderer. Instead, he was greeted by Kohaku as though nothing had really happened. Akiha was not pleased with how Shiki handled his health emergency but appeared to somewhat buy the narrative “partially” made up by Arihiko the day before (under Ciel’s request).
After a pleasant chase by a somewhat resurrected, smiling vampire girl, Shiki was forced into the corner like last time. The same exchange between him and Arcueid happened, except this time Shiki didn’t immediately agree to help Arcueid out. However, Arcueid made Shiki quickly learn his position with a simple murderous state: He didn’t have a choice at the first place. Therefore, the two established an uneasy alliance, and this time Arcueid was clearly not as friendly towards Shiki, at least for a short time until the two got to the hotel room, where Vlov attacked later and Shiki ended up bringing Arcueid home like last time.
Day 5
Shiki helped patch up Arcueid and the two discussed their strategy against Vlov. This time, despite Arcueid’s warning, Shiki decided to head into Vlov’s lair in the morning by himself so he could stop the manslaughter sooner. According to her intel, Vlov’s lair was at the department store. Shiki was a little surprised that a vampire would pick such prominent location but trusted her judgement nonetheless. It also echoed with the urban legend Arihiko brought up before.
At the department store, everything appeared to be normal, except anything above 7th floor was blocked or locked. With his power, Shiki broke into the forbidden floors and started looking for Vlov. Strangely, all the floor windows were blocked to only allow a little sunlight to come in. Beyond that, however, the first two floors just appeared to be completely empty. When he tried to get to the 10th floor, his path was blocked by two men caring flashlights.
The two figures threatened Shiki about killing him if he tried to escape after trespassing into other’s territory, but Shiki didn’t react to their words, only calmly asked them about the rumored part-time job/ dare challenge. The duo was a bit puzzled as they had only told women about such offer, but agreed to let Shiki in nonetheless. The duo guided Shiki into an elevator that went to floor B1. The deal was to stay there for one night to win the prize.
After reaching the destination, the elevator door opened and Shiki was blinded by some strong light. Before he could react, he was kicked out of the elevator that was actually way above the ground. Shiki dropped into some water pool below, and managed to make it to the dry ground while still being blinded by the strong light. All he could felt was the sensation coming from his feet, and the strong scent of death permeating the place.
As soon as Shiki was able to see, he immediately witnessed a hellish sight of the survivors being torn apart by the walking deads. He had no choice but to run deeper into the sewer space until he ran out of breath. While taking a quick break, he was immensely disturbed by the hellish space off gore and blood surrounding him, and had to resort to banging his head on the iron jail cells just to remain calm about the situation at hand. He found his own supposed determination to save lives laughable as he couldn’t do anything but run thus far. After a few head bangs and extensive self-loathing, he managed to get the courage to move forward.
After walking alone in the sewer for awhile, Shiki heard a screaming of a woman ahead of him. Almost in reflex he rushed towards the source and found Noel almost getting overwhelming by the zombies. Shiki managed to cut the arm that tried to reach for Noel and then dragged her away from the pursuing zombies. While escaping, Noel continued to scream, forcing Shiki to cover up her mouth in order to prevent her from making more sound that attracted unwanted attention, tho doing so also resulting in his finger getting fiercely bitten by Noel.
After they managed to escape from the zombie horde, Shiki stopped to take a breather and apologized to Noel for being rude. However, his considerate gesture was only rewarded by getting backed up against the wall by Noel, who started ranting how nonsensical all these things were and how Shiki managed to remain calm in this situation. She argued any normal human with rationality would have no choice but to panic in this situation. Facing Noel’s questioning, Shiki responded that it was precisely to handle such dire and abnormal situation that rationality exists for humanity, and thus he asked Noel to calm down.
After calming down a little thanks to Shiki’s words, Noel explained she got herself here because she noticed a student talking to the suspicious duo and she followed. She and the student ended up both trapped in the sewer and at some point, the student decided to make herself the bait for the zombies so Noel could escape for help. Learning there might be another survivor, Shiki decided to return to the same spot he saved Noel. Noel initially had no intention to return, but decided to follow Shiki nonetheless after the latter offered his only weapon to her to protect herself.
The two ended up in an open space under a dome. Right at its center was a stone bed surrounded by the zombie horde. On the bed was a girl in the school uniform. Seeing how well guarded the area was, Noel was having second thought about saving her student, but Shiki decided to give it a shot regardless. After Noel accidentally knocked off a torch and essentially removed the possibility of a stealth approach, Shiki charged towards the zombies and managed to cut through them to make it to the girl.
To his surprise, the girl was actually awake and was able to move. Just when Shiki was pondering how to deal with the surrounding zombies with the girl, Noel seemed to finally get fed up with the situation and dropped the “scared teacher” act. It didn’t take much time for the surrounding zombies to get slashed to pieces by her halberd. The sight simply rendered Shiki speechless.
However, Noel’s time didn’t last long as Vlov appeared shortly after. Vlov’s fire claw easily grasped Noel and before Shiki was the sight he witnessed at the hotel: A vampire ready to feast on his prey. Despite knowing he wouldn’t be able to make it in time, Shiki still dashed towards Vlov. It was not fast enough to stop the vampire from sinking his teeth into Noel’s neck, but Shiki did make it in time to cut off one of his arm before he could suck Noel dry.
After losing an arm, Vlov tried to counterattack, but the movement was so predictable Shiki easily dodged it and landed another strike to the abdomen. For a moment, Shiki felt confident about killing the vampire before him, but he then remembered Vlov’s fire power. As though echoing with his thought, the blue flame started to appear around Shiki’s feet and somewhat made him unable to move his body freely. Vlov stretched out his arm in order to squash Shiki’s head, but instead got blown away by some projectiles from somewhere else.
Shiki was still unable to move his body, but Vlov already unleashed the flame to toast his enemy. Shiki closed his eyes to accept his inevitable demise, but the attack never landed on him. Before him, the student from before somewhat blocked the attack with relative ease. Shiki then recognized the voice of the student: It was Ciel. After putting on her iconic glasses, Ciel removed her camouflage and revealed her true face. She revealed her and Noel’s identity as the Executors of the Church.
Noticing his flame didn’t work on Ciel, Vlov stopped the attack and questioned Ciel why she would resort to sneak attack as agents of the Church. Ciel didn’t respond to the question and instead demanded Vlov to reveal his name. Vlov replied he had no name to give, as a vampire who traveled here by sea in the coffin. Ciel tried to mock Vlov for his desperation to come this far just for food, but Vlov somewhat accepted the mockery and admitted that was precisely the state of his home country: a land of (vampiric) poverty with no living human beings that even the Church did not bother to enter. However, despite that, he still preferred his homeland over this "ugly” city. His motivation to come here was to heal his immense pain (by devouring a True Ancestor’s heart) and to enact his vendetta (against Roa). Ciel didn’t seem to be impressed by Vlov’s self introduction, and claimed he was not a vampire worthy of a name anyway if he became a simple slave to hunger. Vlov then asked if Ciel ever experience the sense of cold that had been troubling him, and Ciel responded she had long lost senses to either heat or cold.
The conversation thus ended and Vlov unleashed his flame in full power. However, the said flame appeared to be piece of cake for Ciel, who simply turned her back to the attack and took the blow as though she was just taking a sunbath. She casually explained to Shiki if it was magical flame, then her body could easily take it. She intended to just passively take on Vlov’s fire until he ran out of blood before landing the killing blow, but that was a miscalculation. Once Vlov ran out of his fire, he entered into his ice phase and instantly rendered the place frozen. Ciel also finally learned from Shiki that she was actually facing a DAA, much to Ciel’s surprise.
Ciel tried to charge at Vlov when he was still distracted by the pain of the cold, but her advance was stopped by the explosion of the zombies around her, triggered by Vlov’s finger snap. The explosion made the dome space start to collapse. Shiki decided to do what he can and tried to bring Noel to safety, but he was not fast enough to outrun the collapse before the building crashed upon his body shielding Noel.
Afterwards, Shiki regained his consciousness and found himself on top of Noel. While teasing Shiki about having a “good time” amidst the rubble, she explained to him that as a DAA, Vlov was a target far beyond what either him or her could handle currently, and while Ciel might stand a chance, but still an extremely slim one.
Just when Noel tried to "advance" further with Shiki, Ciel managed to dig them out of the debris. After sending Noel out on some errand, Ciel approached Shiki to erase his memory of the day, but changed her mind after Shiki asking her not to, as he couldn’t just forget all these when Vlov remained a threat to the city. Despite not erasing the memory, Ciel still warned Shiki not getting himself involved with the vampire matter any further, or she would remove him like any obstacle on her way. She also told Shiki she would not engage Vlov alone until reinforcement arrive, but even Shiki could see through her lie.
Welp, it is not like Shiki ever gave a damn when someone tells him not to do something, so he ended up paying Arcueid a visit, hoping to get her input and support to deal with Vlov. Arcueid was mad at first over Shiki leaving her alone and defenseless in her apartment, but still managed to calm down and listened to Shiki’s report about his and the Church’s encounter of Vlov underground. However, the mentioning of the Church clearly enraged Arcueid, who clearly was annoyed by their presence due to her history with them.
Despite that, Shiki still asked Arcueid for help to fight Vlov. Since the Church intervened now, Arcueid was not really interested in fighting him anymore. However, sensing the disappointment from Shiki, Arcueid proposed she could help Shiki if Shiki in return did something for her. Shiki hesitated as Arcueid did not specify what kind of request she had in mind, but agreed as he had no other option. Excited by Shiki’s agreement, Arcueid quickly moved in action and brought Shiki back to the now collapsed city park.
The two ended up at a tall building that has clear view of the area, and found out Ciel was ahead of them. To prevent the awakened Vlov from causing more destruction and casualty, Ciel used her own mana and hundreds of Black Key to create a cube-shaped “temple” in the area to trap Vlov. Arcueid easily identified it being the handiwork of Ciel and that only further annoyed her, to the point of not willing to assist Shiki further here. She asked Shiki to stay with her as she was able to tell Ciel would not be able to hold much longer against Vlov and she would be able to shield Shiki from Vlov’s power. However, Shiki also got mad from Arcueid's attitude towards Ciel and other humans and decided to go ahead to help Ciel on his own.
After making to the cube jail, Shiki was able to see the fierce fight happening within it; Using Seventh Holy Scripture’s transformation mechanism that turned into a machine gun and armor, Ciel tried to combat Vlov’s overwhelming power, but the gun was eventually knocked out from her hand by Vlov’s attack. Ciel then unleashed another transformation, essentially a giant sword, to continue her attack. Interestingly, the swordsmanship used by Ciel was not anything ordinary, but a school developed by a DAA to counter dead apostles specifically, and unfortunate for Ciel, Vlov happened to be the same DAA’s apprentice. Therefore, Vlov was able to break through Ciel’s defense and unleashed a lance strike right through her armor, sending Ciel flying. Ciel’s defeat also removed Vlov’s jail, but Arcueid intervened and prevented the blizzard from further spreading, as she did in her route.
Unable to bear the sight anymore, Shiki ran towards Ciel to help her. After regaining consciousness, Ciel was shocked by Shiki’s arrival and initially refused to make Shiki risking her life for her. However, Shiki suggested he was not doing all these for free, as Ciel would need to treat him with handmade bento after the fight was over. Ciel was not certain about this exchange as all she knew was curry, but eventually agreed to have Shiki’s assistance. Wth that, the two started to make their move towards Vlov, with Shiki leading the charge and Ciel guarding him from behind. The two managed to close the distance and started another round of fierce fight with Vlov in good unison.
Thanks to Shiki’s concentration on Vlov’s fight, Shiki managed to have a glimpse of Vlov’s origin: An exile knight at a freezing land of death whose quickly fading existence was saved by a woman who became his liege. However, to escape from his curse of the cold, he abandoned his duty and was tricked into killing his own lord by Roa. Such understanding helped Shiki realize how to kill Vlov completely, but Vlov also got enraged by his deepest secret being exposed, and instantly attacked Shiki. Ciel managed to grab Shiki away before the killing blow ended, and moved to the location where her gun dropped.
With that, the battle was coming to the end: The two charged at Vlov once more, whose attention was now all on Shiki. Against his best judgement, Vlov decided to kill Shiki first, which allowed Ciel to unleash an attack that created an opening for Shiki. This allowed Shiki to land a critical strike at Vlov’s body. However, it turned out Shiki didn’t really kill the being that is Vlov, but instead his power/curse, as he was distracted by Vlov’s origin. Vlov leaped towards Shiki, but was sent into mid-air by Ciel, who then transformed her sword back to the Scripture into its classic pilebunker mode, and delivered the killing blow to Vlov. Vlov was able to recognize Ciel’s tie to Roa from her chanting, but it was too late for him to do anything about it. Seeing Ciel finishing the job, Shiki quickly lost consciousness after a brief exchange with her about the eventful day. From afar, a spider observed all these.
On the other hand, Mario and his subordinates appeared. In Ciel route, there is a much more in-depth explanation of Mario’s identity: Within the Church, Cardinal Laurentis was one of the most influential figure who was believed to be the next Pope, and of his countless bastard children, Mario was the most capable of all and was had the honor to have Lawrentice’s birth last name. He was sent to Japan to take care of the matter in the area and accomplished Lawrentice’s assigned mission (which was revealed to be learning about Roa’s old research on immortality). As he was new to his post, he quickly summoned Noel who was involved with the Vlov fight, and easily manipulated her to be his pawn in the name of “temporary alliance”. During the exchange, it was revealed it was actually not the first time Ciel fought a DAA. Specifically, she had defeated both the “citadel” and the “forest” (most likely Forest of Einnashe) before. After recruiting the Burial Agency agent, Mario quickly moved on to his next target of priority: Arcueid.
Day 6
Shiki woke up the next day in his room. It went pretty similar to Arcueid route with minor differences like the location of his injury and how he was brought back. (Instead of just dropping Shiki at the hallway, it was implied Ciel brainwashed Hisui to believe Shiki got home on his own) After managing to persuade Akiha from asking him about his absence, Shiki got back to his room to get treated by Arach. As in Arcueid route, Arach noticed something off about Shiki’s injury but didn’t say too much about it except some riddle-like commentary.
After having a nap while getting an infusion, Shiki decided to check on Ciel. However, no one answered the doorbell and Shiki was certain Ciel and her colleagues had moved on after the Vlov incident. Despite knowing it was for the best for himself, Shiki still felt remorse over not being able to meet the bizarre vampire princess, and the curry-loving senpai anymore.
After having dinner with Akiha, Shiki returned to his room and quickly went to bed thinking about his time with Ciel. However, he woke up at midnight and ended up reading some old text by someone (Roa) about immortality. It then turned into a flashback of an exchange between him and a mysterious figure of Wandering Sea (Nrvnqsr). It is implied the two located Nrvnqsr’s old workshop and started some experimentation project to “capture” someone.
Back to the current time, it turned out Arcueid, with her saved power from skipping Vlov’s fight, decided to move ahead of schedule and killed Roa again. Mario was a little too late to the unexpected turn of events, and was shocked by Arcueid's decision and behaviors, on top of disappointment of failing his mission. Mario questioned her action as killing Roa’s form would not truly end him, and she should be at her limit with her vampiric impulse as True Ancestor. Expecting Arcueid would refuse, Mario even proposed the possibility of restoring her power by drinking Roa’s blood, but much to his surprise, Arcueid actually started to consider the option, but decided not to (for now) out of distaste of Roa’s blood. After leaving a threat to “kill everyone” that froze Mario in fear, Arcueid left.
Day 7
Shiki woke up from his bed, but something was different: He was feeling GREAT! No nausea, no loss of appetite, no sense of death he usually experienced every day since the accident. His body was so good he even managed to ask for more rice at breakfast, much to Kohaku’s delight. However, as much as Kohaku’s delicate cooking was of perfection, Shiki also felt this urge to consume something more “raw”.
On his way to school, much to his surprise, Shiki found Ciel who was acting like it was just another school day. After teasing Shiki, Ciel agreed to explain everything but at a later time. They also encountered Noel who also continued her teacher duty. Both Ciel and Noel invited Shiki to meet up afterschool to get things clarified, leaving Shiki in a bizarre dilemma.
During lunchtime, Shiki remembered the promise he made with Ciel and decided to have lunch with her at the clubroom. Ciel initially declined the invitation but quickly yielded upon seeing the curry pan Shiki brought. After entering the room, Shiki learned that Ciel did remember the promise but as she was not good at cooking, the bento attempt ended up a failure and she would need more time to prepare something satisfactory. For some reason, Shiki turned the convo on bento into a series of flirting statements with Ciel and started to approach her, but managed to regain his common sense before he could remove Ciel’s glasses. However, it did seem Ciel was genuinely happy by Shiki’s compliments.
After school, Shiki returned to the club room. This time, Ciel was more serious and ready to go through everything with Shiki. The two discussed the Vlov incident, especially on Arcueid's role throughout all these. Ciel was surprised by her actions and was not really convinced by Shiki’s defense of her. The two then changed topic and Ciel explained she was still staying here to wrap things up, and thus would stay here for the remainder of the school year, much to Shiki’s delight. The two also briefly talked about Shiki’s power, but Shiki didn’t reveal the power of his eyes just yet, thus making Ciel think it must be the dagger that is enchanted to be anti-vampire. As the discussion was getting wrapped up, Ciel told Shiki she had decided not to erase Shiki’s memory out of trust of him, but she still wanted Shiki to keep his distance from the vampire hunting business from now on. Shiki claimed to agree.
Shiki returned home earlier than usual, and found Hisui already waiting for him outside, making him realize she had been waiting like this in vain for the past few days. However, his regret quickly got thrown out of the window as soon as he found Arcueid in his room. As with Ciel, Arcueid's reason for still staying was a mystery for Shiki, but there wasn’t enough time for him to find out as Hisui was already knocking, thus Arcueid invited Shiki to meet up later that night. Before she left, Arcueid cautioned Shiki about the mansion as “something is wrong with the water”.
After dinner, Shiki and Akiha had some tea in the living room. During the chat Shiki brought up Arcueid's words, but Akiha was uncertain what he might be referring to except maybe the old water tunnel below the mansion that might require some maintenance work.
After 10pm, Shiki snuck out of the mansion to meet up with Arcueid. Arcueid was happy to see Shiki, tho the later didn’t seem to share the same sentiment. Shiki tried to point out how problematic Arcueid's “break in” was, only to get his mind even more blown by learning Arcueid also destroyed all the security camera in the mansion when she infiltrated. However, Arcueid did eventually agree to be more civil next time for Shiki.
The two then changed subject and Arcueid revealed the serial murder in the city was the work of Roa. This time Arcueid cut to the chest about Roa’s power and also revealed she had taken care of him. However, as there would be still some of his subordinates roaming about, she would still like to have Shiki’s help. Shiki initially wanted to refuse as he had promised Ciel to not getting involved, but Arcueid reminded him of his earlier promise to fulfill her request in exchange of her help against Vlov, thus he agreed.
Thus the hunt began. Arcueid explained that the Dead Apostle without their master normally would either try to hide in group, or enjoy their freedom outside. However, there also exists the more intelligent ones that would try to hide by itself and secretly establish its own clan. While Executor like Ciel were efficient with the walking deads and low end Dead Apostles, but their presence often would also alert the higher rank DA, making Arcueid's job more difficult as the result.
While explaining all these, Arcueid also revealed Roa’s base was actually right beneath Shiki’s school all these time, which naturally took Shiki by surprise. In response to Shiki’s follow-up inquiry about the students’ safety, Arcueid pointed out a DA generally would not pick humans right next to his lair as prey, as that would make them easy targets of the Church.
On their way to the targets, Shiki lended his coat to Arcueid who was sneezing. Seeing Arcueid's happy reaction, Shiki realized how much he was attracted to Arcueid afterall.
After reaching the apartment where the DA was, Arcueid asked Shiki to cut open the parking lot entrance as in the Arcueid route. However, once entered, instead of fighting them herself, Arcueid just disappeared and let Shiki do the fighting, forcing the later to unleash his power on the approaching vampires. While Shiki did manage to clear the room afterall, he was not quite pleased about her decision. In response, Arcueid explained she wanted to observe the full extent of Shiki’s power, and she had confirmed how rare Shiki’s mystic eyes are. On top of that, she remarked how efficient and focused Shiki was once he decided to kill.
After leaving the parking lot, Shiki proposed to check things out a little bit just in case, to which Arcueid agreed. However, much to Shiki’s surprise, Arcueid straight up demolished the WHOLE APARTMENT BUILDING with one single slash to “tidy things up”. Shiki quickly dragged Arcueid away before the sudden building collapse attracted unwanted attention.
Unknown to the “couple” (or maybe just unknown to Shiki), Ciel witnessed all these from a distance. Annoyed, she commented on Arcueid's reckless use of her power, but it appeared what annoyed her even more, was the reason why her kouhai was still helping that vampire princess.
Behind her stood Mario, who Ciel had noticed his concealed presence for some time. Mario informed Ciel his men would take care of the apartment incidence and then the two discussed about what Mario did to Noel. Unlike Noel who was easily intimidated, threatened, then manipulated by Mario, Ciel clearly did not get influenced by his taunting as easily and had much better idea about their respective agencies’ jurisdiction. In fact, Ciel turned the table on Mario by bringing up her prior engagement with Mario’s brother, who had asked Ciel to take care of his younger brother, which triggered Mario. Mario decided to end the negotiation there, but Ciel was not done with him yet. In fact, to make sure Mario would comply, she burned all but one string Mario used to keep him “floating” in mid-air.
What Ciel asked of Mario was to transfer Noel to his department. Ciel revealed that as executor, Noel had reached her limit both physically and mentally, and she would rather her colleague being moved to a less taxing department, as well as getting a comprehensive check, especially after her blood being drunk by Vlov. Mario agreed with her assessment and accepted the request.
Back at the park, Arcueid apologized to Shiki about her reckless decision, and Shiki forgave her. As the use of mystic eyes took a toll on his body, Shiki had to take a break on the park bench while Arcueid explained to him the danger of over-using his eyes. During the exchange,
Shiki accidentally dropped his guard and admitted he really enjoyed seeing Arcueid being this genki, which made Arcueid really happy. Then all of a sudden Shiki had an intense headache, and when the pain went away, Arcueid seemed to notice something that made her even happier somehow.
After bidding farewell to Arcueid for the night, Shiki returned to his bedroom. However, he was not able sleep, so he ended up reading something again, which led to another flashback: It was the origin story of Roa, a man who wanted unlimited time to explore the unlimited possibilities of humanity. To achieve that end, he decided to become the strongest Dead Apostle, and to do so, he would need the strongest True Ancestor drinking his blood.
Day 8
Shiki woke up in his room by Hisui as usual. During the exchange, Hisui revealed she had found out about Shiki sneaking out of the mansion at night and asked him to come back before 1AM as that’s her last shift before all doors and windows were locked, to which Shiki agreed to gratefully. While washing his face for the morning, Shiki noticed he didn’t wear his glasses, and the lines he saw on the mirror vexed him, but he felt better after smashing it.
Akiha appeared to be in a really good mood this morning and invited Shiki to some morning tea. The two briefly talked about how misleading instant messaging/texting can be and how one should manage one’s relationship in modern time. Near the end of the convo, Akiha asked Shiki about his plan after school, and regretted she didn’t cancel the afternoon appointment after learning Shiki not having anything planned. The convo did make Shiki think about what he would like to do: Maybe spending more time with Ciel.
At school, Shiki found Ciel chatting with Arihiko. Possibly still being mad about Shiki breaking his promise and hung out with Arcueid the night before, Ciel was cold towards Shiki. As the best bro, Arihiko offered to tell Ciel about Shiki’s weakness in exchange of the two making up. Turned out, Shiki would cry if you play solitaire with him as he really disliked the feeling of failing the game. (echoing with him refusing to play it with Arcueid at the theater in Arcueid route) Ciel was greatly amused by this discovery and let go of her upset feeling for now.
While going through another school day and contemplating the bizarreness of him, and others, continuing such daily routine despite the hidden threat in town, Shiki was overcome by dizziness and collapsed. In his mind, he recalled his committed murder of Arcueid and how her death, or really the immense knowledge hidden within one’s life, had marked his mere existence minimal. (echoing with Roa’s fear on his academic pursuit mentioned earlier) A hidden voice reminded and encouraged him to embrace his true nature, and unleash it all.
Shiki found himself in the nurse office. While slowly regaining his senses, he could hear conversation outside of the bed curtain between Ciel and Noel. Ciel was worrying about Shiki’s body while Noel appeared to be more cold about it; however, after Shiki informed them of his status, the attitude reversed: Possibly embarrassed by the notion of Shiki hearing her conversation, Ciel played the tsundere card and quickly left. Noel chatted with Shiki a little longer before taking a bed herself, claiming she needed a nap due to some cold. Shiki left the office after leaving her some cold pills.
On his way to grab lunch, Shiki noticed Ciel leaving the school. Worrying about Ciel’s status, Shiki chased after her despite Ciel’s warning. However, Shiki lost track of her after running all the way to the train station. Then all of a sudden, Ciel appeared right next to him. Ciel scolded Shiki for not heeding her warning, but Shiki argued it was Ciel’s fault for not separating her job and student life apart, and now he was simply acting as a worried kouhai wanting to hep his senpai. Despite the cheap argument, Ciel found herself not able to rebuke that and agreed to let Shiki help her out if he agreed to reflect on his actions, specifically how awful his stalking was. Shiki wanted to argue he wasn’t trying to stalk at all, but decided to stay quiet.
The two arrived at the abandoned hospital that Shiki scouted on his own in Arcueid route. According to Ciel, this place was a hideout for a DA previously but was abandoned since. The two started to go through each room in the building, hoping to find any fresh mark left by the DAs, particularly that by Roa; while investigating, Ciel brought up a strange analogy about what would one do if he saw a movie about the story protag turning evil and killed thousands of people, and then the said character appeared right next to him, asking if she should be blamed for a scripted event like that. Seeing Shiki unable to answer such a “hypothetical” question, Ciel claimed it was just her thoughts of a recent movie and ended the convo.
The two finished the search with no major finding, and left the building quickly after Shiki expressing his discomfort staying at such a place. After leaving the place, Shiki’s stomach growled in hunger, making Ciel offer to buy Shiki a late lunch. And of course, it was a curry shop. With the free coupon provided by Ciel thanks to her frequent visit, Shiki ordered some butter chicken curry while Ciel ordered only tea. Ciel claimed she already had lunch and shouldn’t eat more before dinner, but her passionate gaze towards Shiki’s curry said otherwise. Shiki offered to share some of his portion with her, but Ciel misunderstood and straight up eat the curry in Shiki’s spoon.
After the meal, Ciel asked Shiki about his motivation to get involved after witnessing the events at Vlov’s lair. Shiki responded he simply couldn’t leave Ciel alone after seeing how she fought Vlov for the sake of others. He lamented that unlike Ciel, he still would hesitate about killing the monsters if they are humanoid, but Ciel objected when he expressed desire to overcome such hesitation. To her, such concern was what makes Shiki precious.
The topic then changed to Shiki’s power and Shiki finally admitted about his mystic eyes. After pointing out how rare Shiki’s power was, Ciel came to realization of something and decided to leave immediately. Before she left, she cautioned Shiki about going out alone at night despite his power, to which Shiki agreed. Shiki then asked if a True Ancestor could catch a cold, and Ciel responded it was unlikely as a virus that could make such powerful being sick probably could end the world.
Shiki went out regardless, with the excuse that he was not “ALONE” since he was with Shiki. The two decided to patrol around the city to find DA roaming about, but found nothing in the end. While resting, Shiki accidentally revealed his conversation with Ciel, which greatly annoyed Arcueid. Arcueid reminded Shiki of how untrustworthy the Church was and of all its agent she would not tolerate Ciel at all no matter what, then she asked Shiki to answer the dilemma: Her or Ciel. Before he could say anything, Shiki’s mind went through all sort of precious memory with Ciel, all of which got rudely interrupted by Arc’s pouting. After asking Arcueid to stop interrupting his flashback scene, Shiki pointed out while he did deeply respect Ciel as one who saved his life, that feeling was different from his towards Arcueid, and in comparison, he worried about Arcueid few times more than Ciel. Arcueid took that as Shiki’s confession and happily jumped away before Shiki could correct him.
On the other hand, in an enclosed building, 13 DA and a human accomplice gathered as they were promised an escape after some handsome payment. However, it was all just a setup by Noel. With the aide of the anti-vampire bounded field, she HAPPILY massacred all of them while enjoying their desperate scream and cry of pain under her torments. Her final victim asked her of why going after this low of the vampire power pyramid as a supposed vampire hunter that should prioritize the big fish, to which Noel responded matter-of-factly how it was nothing about vampire hunting at the first place, she simply wanted to let out some steam abusing those weaker than her, a natural course of action of a weakling.
After leaving the building, Noel found herself overcome by emptiness after the moment of excitement from the vampire bullying. She was approached by Mario, who pointed out Noel went too far with her killing of a human amidst the vampires. Noel argued that as a human's accomplice, she deserved to be killed even more than DAs. Mario appeared to be amused by her judgement but delivered the “bad news” regardless: Ciel had ended her partnership with Noel and she would be under Mario’s jurisdiction, who decided to send Noel to the monastery. On top of not being able to withstand the reclusive lifestyle of the Church, Noel needed to avoid to be check for her human purity at all cost, thus she tried to argue against the decision, even accusing Ciel during the process. However, her desperate attempt was in vain and she was asked to pack up in two days. With Mario’s departure, Noel let loose of her rage and was reminded once more how fragile and helpless she was as a fighter. To make matter worse, she was now plagued by some pain that she tried to hide from the watchful eyes of the Church. To remove that pain, she would not give up to her fate just yet, even if she now had less than 2 days to sort everything out.
Shiki returned to his room and tried to sleep, but once again, he found himself reading a book instead. It was memory of another person: A French girl whose body was taken over by Roa when she reached 12. Slowly overcome by the DAA, the girl eventually lost control of her body and ended up killing her loving parents, then she slowly and gradually established her reign in the once lively and friendly town. Despite this being a rushed reincarnation thanks to Arcueid, Roa was amazed by his new host’s innate gift and realized he had falsely prioritized family prestige over personal gift in his previous 14 reincarnations. While doing his dark deeds, the consciousness of the Ciel still remained in her body, witnessing all the cruel acts done by the body’s new master, and imposing the minimal control she remained to have to prevent Roa from causing even larger destruction. At the end, on the night when Roa was presenting a ritual to other DAA, the True Ancestor Princess appeared with the red moon, ending the life of this reincarnation. When Roa’s soul left for the next body, the 15th body was retrieved by the Church.
Day 9
After the “dream” about Ciel’s past, Shiki woke up feeling worse than ever. It was so bad that even Hisui took note of that and suggested him to take a day off. Shiki claimed he should feel better after washing off the drowsiness caused by the nightmare, but was surprised to find the mirror in the bathroom was gone, somewhat forgetting he broke it the day before. Hisui informed Shiki a new one should be placed later today.
During breakfast time, Shiki noticed he totally lost appetite with anything Kohaku prepared, much to her professional frustration. After taking some vitamin and painkiller, Shiki was ready to head out, but Hisui reminded him he hadn’t put up his glasses somehow. Despite all these strange signs, Shiki left the mansion after putting on his glasses, expecting it being another normal school day.
At school Shiki saw Ciel from behind and somewhat decided to give her a hug, only to have his face smashed into the wall after Ciel easily dodged the ambush. Ciel was surprised by Shiki’s change of behavioral but quickly resumed her cheerful senpai persona. In fact, she even invited Shiki to the tea room during lunchtime with extra passion than usual. Shiki took note of these differences but was totally cool with that.
Upon arriving at the classroom, Shiki noticed the class didn’t seem to react to the homeroom bell somehow. Arihiko explained Noel took the day off and the class was supposed to get vaccination shot. Furthermore, the one registering the shot was no other but Dr. Arach. On top of her usual bizarre demeanor, Arach even let Shiki to pick which “vaccine” to get: the effective and painless one, or the painful but ineffectual one. Somehow sensing picking the 2nd option just doesn’t make any sense and has bad vibes, Shiki picked the option 1. Shiki tried to ignore Arach, but she managed to leave some ominous words right before Shiki left the nurse office, cautioning him the happy days were over.
Shiki rushed to Ciel’s tearoom after securing some clearly-not-curry-bread from. Ciel appeared to be busy with something and asked Shiki to enter directly. Filled with excitement, Shiki entered the room without any hesitation. However, the door locked itself as soon as he entered, and Ciel just sat there with a smile on her face. Oh, and the Seven Scripture weapon that used to destroy Roa was placed right next to her as well. Ciel was clearly mad about Shiki breaking his promise again.
After politely demanding Shiki to sit down properly, Ciel casually picked up her big gun and started to provide an overview about her trump card, and how it was perfect for punishment for sinners, including those that help a bloody vampire.
Realizing it was either honest confession or death sentence, Shiki admitted his late night activity with Arcueid and what they found. Ciel concurred with Arc’s assessment about the vampires’ inactivity, but asked how Shiki felt about his interaction with Arcueid, which she presumed to be a horrifying one. Shiki replied he still wanted to help Ciel and deal with the vampires in the city, but apologized for not being transparent with her the day before. Shiki’s straightforward responded dampened Ciel’s rage, and she expressed her deep worry for Shiki’s well-being if he kept taking risk like this. The topic then briefly turned to Noel, whose absence Ciel was not aware of, but Ciel didn’t react much to that before Shiki.
Then to help Shiki better understand the situation, Ciel decided to reveal more intel about Roa and Arcueid. About Roa, Ciel pointed out while he was not that strong a fighter, his reincarnation power made him a rank 9 threat according to the Church. He was also treated as 28th DAA, but other DAAs did not acknowledge that. She then further explained how his reincarnation worked and how Arcueid had been on this endless hunt of him. About Arcueid, Ciel described her to be a much larger threat than even Roa, and how she was the cause of Roa’s birth as DA at the first place. Unlike DA whose power is still that of human that accumulated through immensely long life, True Ancestors are beings that are far superior than humanity at birth as they are extension of Gaia’s will to keep humanity in check. Therefore, by design, humanity will always be the “enemy” for True Ancestor. As their power source is the literal world itself, only a weapon or power that can destoy the world could truly defeat a True Ancestor. In sum, in Ciel’s opinion, Arc’s hunt for Roa was nothing but a selfish act to regain her own power, and as soon as that goal was reached, she would not let her human collaborator Shiki leave in one piece. Even worse, Shiki could become her next victim to have his blood sucked.
However, Shiki was not persuaded by Ciel’s words. He was certain of his own observation of the vampire princess from their past interaction that indicated Arcueid is a decent person. Ciel retorted and pointed out despite knowing how fragile Shiki is as a human, Arcueid still let Shiki fight, and for that reason alone she could not forgive the true ancestor. The exchange quickly changed from debate to argument, and both sides stubbornly defended their perception about Arcueid, Ciel even going as far as saying she rather sleep on the moon than to work with Arcueid, while Arcueid said she'd rather hug the sun.
After the shout fest, Ciel declared their friendship was over and Shiki left the tearoom in a rage. However, he started to regret his action as soon as he stepped outside of the room, yet he refused to apologize in order to defend Arcueid. He was hoping his mood would get better after the afternoon classes, but it didn’t get better at all.
After school, Shiki found himself alone in the classroom sulking. When he finally decided to head home, his phone rang and it was a text from Noel, who asked Shiki to meet up with her near the abandoned factory area, but kept it a secret from Ciel.
After arriving at the abandoned factory, Shiki climbed up the clearly unstable stairs following the strange sounds coming from the top. It turned out it was a make shift torturing chamber Noel created for the two vampires who were luring victims for Vlov at the department store. Noel claimed she would like Shiki to have a glimpse of her daily work and a chance to make them paid for what they did to him. She then removed the constraint from one of their mouths, allowing him to speak. The vampire begged for mercy, but his plead was only answered by more gruesome torture. Noel rendered the body into nothing but head, and stuffed it into a box. She then handed her tool to Shiki and encouraged him to give it a try too, but Shiki promptly declined.
Shiki claimed he only wanted to kill the vampires that attacked humans, but Noel found that laughable and replied all vampires deserve to be tortured to death. To demonstrate her point or conviction, she moved to the 2nd vampire and rendered him to nothing but meat chunks on the floor with the help of her ax. She then somehow calmed down and claimed she might have gone a little overboard to give Shiki a demonstration.
The two continued their conversation outside of the bloodied room. Noel claimed that as they both want to protect people from the threat of vampires, the two should become ally. She also suggested Ciel had been playing the kind senpai card all these time to fool Shiki. To prove her point, she provided a lecture on Ciel’s history as an ridiculously high-performing Executor for the Church, a literal killing machine feared even by the DA community. An example of her deed was how she managed to hide in a city’s ancient sewer for over a year just to avoid her target’s detection, and killed the target with one strike as soon as he dropped his guard and stepped into the city plaza. She also revealed her relationship with Ciel as disciple and mentor (Ciel being the mentor), and how Ciel is literally an immortal who doesn’t age, nor can be killed. Finally, she revealed how Ciel had placed suggestion on everyone in the school for her infiltration, something she somehow didn’t remove from Shiki even after the later learned of the Church’s involvement. With that as the decisive evidence, Noel declared Shiki simply was manipulated by Ciel for her mission, and would be silenced for knowing too much eventually.
After returning to the mansion, Shiki lied in his bed and contemplated about everything that happened. It didn’t take long for him to deny Noel’s conclusion about Ciel’s manipulation of him, but instead he was troubled by his feeling towards both Ciel and Arcueid. To help himself reach some sort of decision, he decided to meet Arcueid again at the usual time.
Outside of the mansion, Shiki found Ciel already waiting for him. Ciel tried to taunt Shiki about desiring immortality, but Shiki saw through her intention and acted against her anticipation. Shiki then explained he would not follow Ciel’s advice tonight but was reflecting about his action in the tearoom. Hearing that, Ciel didn’t stop Shiki and let him go meet up with Arcueid, except she would tag along as well. Shiki tried to outrun her, but clearly was no match to a true professional afterall. No matter what Shiki said, it didn't seem to sway Ciel from entering the park as well.
And thus the two heroines finally meet up face to face. After an intense exchange of mockery and sarcasm, Arcueid declared she would not yield Shiki to anyone no matter what, as her time with Shiki had shown her the pleasure of the freedom to love and she intended to enjoy that freedom to the max. With that, she let one drop of her blood fall to the floor, which rendered the whole park into a pond of blood, and launched toward ‘the woman that had been pissing her off”. To protect Shiki and other residents nearby, Ciel had no choice but to play defense with just the Black Keys.
While even the enhanced Black Key throws were nothing for Arcueid, Ciel did manage to unleash a bounded field that is designed specifically against Arcueid and is as thick as Strasbourg Cathedral. Furthermore, to prevent Arcueid from moving, Ciel planned to suppress the field to the maximum as well. However, even this move that was actually based on the power of a DAA Ciel defeated was not enough to trap the vampire princess who was driven by her unstopped emotions.
Shiki jumped out and stood before the now collapsed Ciel and approaching Arcueid. Arcueid asked Shiki to step aside or she would kill Shiki as well, but Shiki did not yield despite the similar dread he felt from Arcueid before. On the other hand, Ciel also managed to stand up and try to shield Shiki as well. The result of these two both trying to shield each other resulted in a lover's quarrel right before Arcueid’s eyes. This somewhat removed all the murderous intent Arcueid previously had and she left the two after declaring she would not help Shiki anymore.
The life and death situation seemed to give Ciel and Shiki new perspective about their earlier argument so the two decided to make up afterall. However, Shiki also accidentally revealed his awareness of Ciel’s immortal body. Realizing her secret was revealed by Noel, Ciel decided to put on her “inhumane killer” persona and told Shiki to see her as a monster as well. To demonstrate, she used a black key to cut open her neck, yet quickly the wound was gone. Ciel apologized for tricking Shiki thus far, but she just couldn’t keep her distance from him, but now that was all over. She bid farewell to Shiki and left. Unsure how to face the departure of both Ciel and Arcueid, Shiki soullessly walked back to the mansion.
In the “dream”, Roa was planning for his next reincarnation and it involved research to find a way to pass down a DA’s power. After this reincarnation was destroyed by Arcueid once more, he admitted his academic pursuit was eventually replaced by something stronger: His love for Arcueid.
Day 10
Shiki woke up the next day, heart still heavy from the events the night before. He decided to clear things up with Ciel ASAP and thus rushed to the school without even having breakfast. However, at school, he was surprised to learn Arihiko’s memory of Ciel had been erased, making him believe Ciel had left forever.
Deeply depressed, Shiki came to the cafeteria for lunch. Much to her surprise, Ciel was among the students who was dining there. He eagerly rushed to her table, but was only answered coldly by her. Ciel still called herself a (unkillable) monster, but Shiki replied to him no matter what power Ciel has, she is still the kind senpai who saved him. He also apologized to Ciel for his words from the day before being too aggressive and inconsiderate. Not surprisingly, Ciel’s attitude softened after those words and she offered to shake hand with Shiki at token of the two making up.
The two then met up in the tea room and Shiki asked Ciel about her job. She informed Shiki about her purely professional relationship with Noel, the magecraft she used against Vlov and Arcueid (and that she could not use it for now), the difference between her combat armor and nun outfit (one for pure combat and other for more versatile purposes), and lastly her being a HUGE FAN of Black Keys, the supposedly outdated weapon comparing to firearm according to most Church’s members, but she herself saw unlimited potential with it.
Despite gaining Ciel’s forgiveness, Shiki wanted to push the envelope further and brought up the topic about Arcueid again. Ciel naturally wasn’t too amused by the subject and reiterated her concern of involving Shiki into the vampire affair. However, Ciel’s concern only made Shiki mad and sad, and he argued it was far too late at this point to consider him an outsider of the situation. If anything, he confessed, he was willing to get this deeply involved just so he could maximize his time with Ciel. Finding it difficult to stand her ground after such confession, Ciel agreed on Shiki’s involvement on the subsequent vampire hunt, but still refused to collaborate with Arcueid, especially since the vampire princess had demonstrated her forgoing the true ancestor protocol and essentially operated solely on her emotions alone. Shiki agreed that Arcueid was indeed acting strange and that he would keep his distance from her until she calmed down. Ciel in return accepted to operate with Shiki per the latter's offer.
After the two officially made up, Shiki’s body suddenly gave out and he almost collapsed to the floor if Ciel wasn’t happen to be right next to him. With the help of ginger milk tea with honey which is Ciel’s family recipe, Shiki was able to relax and let his body rest. Ciel pointed out Shiki was always restless and his true fear above all else was the simple act of sleep thanks to the accident from 7 years ago. Shiki agreed to that assessment as he indeed feared the notion of the happiness of his simple life ended the next morning due to his poor health. Ciel then promised Shiki that if one day he could no longer shoulder such fear, she would be there to support him.
Shiki then asked Ciel about her life thus far. Ciel revealed part of her life story to Shiki, like how she is half French and half Japanese and her family ran a bakery in France, or how she joined the Church at age 12, but also hid the part of her past as Roa’s host. Regarding her power, Ciel pointed out it only manifested after she was killed once by a vampire, as her body was abnormal, to which Shiki reiterated it doesn’t matter as Ciel was still Ciel to him, and the senpai who fought on the battlefield is still both brave and cool.
However, Ciel didn’t accept Shiki’s praise, and pointed out it was not courage that drove her, but simply her being numb to the experience of death. To her, true courage is of those who keeps on fighting despite the fear of real death. Shiki tried to argue despite Ciel’s immortality, she still would feel the pain from the harm she took, but Ciel pointed out once the consequence of an injury was lost, the pain it caused would become bearable. While not revealing the details, she confessed she had committed grand sin that resulted in countless lives lost, and was only able to become an Executor after she withstood the equal amount of torture to the lives she was responsible of. In short, she was a monster with abnormal power, but was by no means “strong”.
The school day was quickly over and Ciel started to discuss how the two should cooperate during the vampire hunt. She estimated it shouldn’t take more than a week to deal with rest of the minions in the city before they could move on to Roa. Shiki then pointed out he was informed Roa was actually killed already by Arcueid, much to Ciel’s surprise. After learning Roa’s lair was right beneath the school, Ciel promptly entered combat mode and was ready to check it out herself immediately. Shiki naturally proposed to tag along and was allowed to after promising Ciel he would not let personal feeling or attachment clouded his judgment.
The two then entered the city sewer. To avoid detection, Ciel decided to rely solely on her night vision to investigate, while holding Shiki’s hand to ensure his safely. After walking in complete darkness for 20 minutes, Ciel signaled Shiki to stop and turned on the flashlight, revealing a destroyed wall and a secret room behind it, clearly the handiwork of Arcueid. Within the room was a stone coffin like the one from Vlov’s lair, and the two found the remain of Roa within it. However, Roa’s “death” didn’t spark any joy for Ciel. Instead she grew extremely concerned as Roa’s apparent demise didn’t seem to end the lower DAs’ activities in the city, or more accurately, their very lives that were connected to ROA, implying the physical death was not complete.
Echoing Ciel’s observation, Noel appeared right behind them. She accused Shiki being the next host of Roa and even mocked him for not being aware of such fact at all. Her theory was supported by the fact Shiki was of the Tohnos, the most influential family in the area, and he also possessed the bizarre power to perceive death, both matching the criteria of a Roa’s host. Shiki was too shocked by the revelation he didn’t even try to dodge the Black Key Noel threw at him, but Ciel blocked the attack and defended Shiki. Noel was enraged by Ciel’s statement and accused her for being double standard when it comes to Shiki. She then charged at Shiki with her halberd, but a simple kick from Ciel sent her flying along with her weapon now destroyed. In desperation, Noel threw out three Black Keys to distract Ciel in order to sneak in an attack against Shiki, but even that attempt was in vain as Ciel moved much faster and a Black Key from her instantly paralyzed Noel. Fear for her life, Noel started to flee, and Ciel didn’t pursue.
After the one-sided fight, Shiki asked Ciel about Noel’s accusation. However, Ciel didn’t seem to really buy Noel’s theory and pointed out a logical hole of it; the supposed male child of Tohnos was exactly the dead body in the coffin. Not knowing the truth was covered up, she believed Roa took the body of the adopted son of Makihisa Tohno who was “killed”. Shiki naturally didn’t know the truth about SHIKI yet here and thus was surprised by that revelation. But regardless, Ciel didn’t buy, or decided not to buy, Noel’s accusation at all.
After that, poor SHIKI who did nothing but made a scream in this whole route, was burned to ashes by Ciel. Outside of the sewer, Ciel told Shiki as the current reincarnation of ROA was defeated, her operation in the city was over. She initially wanted to erase Shiki’s memory but dropped the idea so she wouldn’t make Shiki mad; instead, she offered to shake hand with Shiki one last time before the two head separate ways. Shiki felt sad about the farewell, but figured it was for the best if the two can say good bye with a smile.
After returning home, Shiki asked Kohaku about the other kid in the family, but Kohaku played the clueless card and insisted there were only Shiki and Akiha, though her words did make Shiki realize he didn’t have memory about the twin maids too despite they had been working in the mansion for a long time. Since Kohaku appeared to be certain about her words, Shiki decided to ignore his inquiry for now. After dinner, he collapsed into the bed and started to regret his decision to let go of Ciel this easily. To prevent himself from diving deeper into sorrow, he let the sleep take over his mind.
On the other hand, Noel escaped into the collapsed site. Her injury from Ciel’s counterattack rendered her powerless and in pain, which only further enhanced her hatred and anger towards Ciel: On one hand, she couldn’t forgive Ciel’s change of attitude and the notion of her still having human feelings; but on the other hand, she hated herself for not able to do anything about that anyway. She desired to be stronger, strong enough so she could have the right to seek happiness just like that “monster” she used to call her mentor. She started to pray to God to grant her such strength, or to whatever beings that could answer such plea.
And something did answer… Dr. Arach appeared and offered to make Noel stronger. Noel found such statement hilarious and started to unleash all her accumulated frustration of not being able to close the power gap between her and Ciel. However, towards Noel’s ranting, Dr. Arach simply pointed out Noel was far from trying all available options, and repeated her offer once more. This time Noel accepted. However, she was too quick to say yes as she learned soon Arach’s offer was to turn her into vampire. Alas, a demon would never cancel a signed contract, and Arach injected something into Noel who tried to stop Arach from turning her into the monster she detested the most. Oh, and Arach also revealed Noel’s suspicion of her becoming a Dead Apostle was totally unfounded, as she was in truth far too weak to be chosen as one by Vlov.
And thus Noel’s body transformed and turned into…..Dead Apostle Noel. The newborn Dead Apostle appeared to be pleased by the newly gained power, but understood she was still far too weak to deal with Ciel. Arach’s answer to that was also simple: BOOSTER SHOTS! Turned out, Arach is a DA herself and has ability to instantly “upgrade” a Dead Apostle, but the recipient of such gift would need to “die” each level he or she was upgraded to. Despite Arach’s warning, Noel took on the injection without 2nd thought, and thus the hellish cycle of death and rebirth began for the ex-Executor Noel.
Day 11
It is the flashback of the tragic event from 7 years ago again. However, the memory was interrupted by another memory: The night when Roa met Arcueid in that garden. Witnessing the beauty of the princess, Roa decided to grasp the “star”, even if it means going straight to hell for the grand sin he would commit for that end.
Shiki woke up in the morning. Today, he feels a sense of disgust and annoyance. He was so annoyed that he even rudely tell Hisui who came to wake him up to GTFO. Shiki was surprised about his own attitude, but still felt annoyed regardless.
in the living room, Akiha appeared to be in a bad mood over Shiki breaking the curfew and not really showing up in the recent chapters. Shiki managed to resolve her questioning by bringing up his poor health as defense. He even offered to help his hard-working imouto. Being both surprised and flattered by Shiki’s words, Akiha offered to held a party for Shiki before leaving for school. Seeing her from behind, Shiki remarked how “good quality” Akiha is.
At school, Shiki was surprised to find Satsuki returning to school after being absent for quite a few days. She explained she was in some accident and thus was asked to stay at home until the serial murder event was over. She also noted the change in Shiki’s demeanor after he tried to flirt with her. Satsuki claimed she had bumped into someone who looked like Shiki, but Shiki had no such recollection.
After school, Shiki was assaulted with another intense wave of headache. This and his still weak body convinced him the need to find a target tonight. After returning home, Shiki found Hisui moving a chair. After grabbing some tea and snacks, Shiki accidentally tripped on the chair, and repeatedly destroyed the chair in a rage.
Shiki’s rampage was cut short by Hisui’s concerned voice. Shiki was shocked about his conduct and fled to his room after yelling at Hisui to leave him alone. In his room, after smashing the tick-toking clock, he went to bed.
Later that night, plagued by hunger, Shiki decided to head outside to dine. However, before he could pick a target, he witnessed the massacre conducted by DA Noel. While mocking how uncivilized the noob was, Shiki pondered the justification behind manslaughter, following the similar logic as what Arcueid told Shiki in her route. Manslaughter is acceptable as it was the fault of the killed human for not being able to defend themselves. Regardless, seeing the hellish sight before him appeared to be enough to satiate the thirst for now.
On his way home, Shiki was greeted by Mario who started to call him Roa. Turns out, SHIKI has the power to steal other’s life power, and as the result, he established a connection with his victim Shiki. This enabled ROA to successfully transfer to Shiki’s body after SHIKI was killed by Arcueid. Mario was pleased by this outcome and wanted to figure out a way to make a deal with Roa to acquire the way of immortality.
Day 12
Shiki woke up, feeling rather well rested. He greeted Hisui who entered the room and apologized for destroying the chair. Hisui informed him Kohaku had taken care of the chair so Shiki could keep a secret from Akiha. However, strangely, Shiki learned today was Monday, despite his last memory was Friday when he smashed the chair.
On his way to school, Shiki was mentally preparing himself for the school life without Ciel, but ended up seeing her amidst the students. According to Ciel, since she had no other urgent mission at hand, she would stay till the end of senior year after all, which made Shiki overjoyed.
The two met up at school again and started to discuss about Ciel’s school life. Shiki suspected the whole tea club thing was made-up story by her, to which Ciel refused to confirm nor deny, but she did point out suggestion wasn’t that convenient a skill as it can only adjust people’s perception on things rather than straight up overwriting them, nor for mentioning there are individuals stronger against it. Before they return to class, Ciel offer to exchange phone number and email just in case.
When the morning classes concluded, Shiki learned the school would close early due to some structural issue found at the school buildings. Arihiko invited Shiki to hang out and to Shiki’s surprise, his memory about Ciel was somewhat restored as well. Ciel then entered the classroom as well asking about Shiki’s plan. Shiki proposed to just hang out at the tea room, but the proposal was seriously objected by Arihiko who considered that a waste of good free time. Surprisingly, Ciel was cool with the idea to have some fun in the city. The three decided to meet up at a cafe called Ahnenerbe near the theater.
Shiki rushed back to the mansion to change clothes, but suddenly collapsed while climbing the stairs. After some quick treatment by Kohaku, he managed to regain consciousness and still tried to make it to the date, but was stopped by Kohaku. With Hisui’s help (after somehow getting her approval), Shiki got back to his room to rest. However, the headache continued until Shiki rudely asked Hisui to get out. Later that day, Akiha came in to check on Shiki, but also was asked to leave.
At night, Shiki woke up from sudden thirst and he ended up leaving the mansion. Next thing we saw was him dragging a girl into the alleyway, ready to feast on her blood, but he suddenly woke up from such a dream in his room. Or was it? As Shiki’s consciousness suddenly return to that alleyway. Scared of the sight, Shiki fled back to the mansion, back to his room, and started to find a way to lock the door. In madness, he stabbed through his hand with the dagger to make it a make-shift lock, but also tried to leave the room by slamming his body against the door. He finally saw a figure through the glasses, and realized he had lost it.
Day 13
Shiki spent a sleepless night. His injured hand had somehow healed, but his mind still a mess. To stop the urge, he started to destroy things in his room, but that only made him crave for more substantial destruction: actual manslaughter. He craved for the excitement he felt when he killed Arcueid. Hisui knocked on the door as she always did, but Shiki yelled at her to leave as he knew he would not be able to control himself if she entered the room. Hisui obediently left.
Trying to distract himself, Shiki tried to find that journal of Roa he had been reading, but somehow couldn’t find it anywhere. He started to doubt his memory, or dream, and within his remaining sanity, he heard the words of accusation from Noel of him being the next reincarnation.
Shiki’s rampage worried Hisui, who tried to call out to him again outside of the room. Shiki didn’t answer, even just suppressing the urge to kill her on the stop was all he could manage. He remembered what happened to Ciel, who was in similar situation and ended up killing all she cared and loved. Hisui and others continued to call out to Shiki, but he didn’t respond.
At the evening, Kohaku decided to use the master key to unlock Shiki’s room so she could make him eat something. Despite the sight of the messy vandalism, Kohaku acted rather calm, almost as though she had handled such scenarios before. Shiki tried to convince her to leave, but his words were barely audible and weren’t enough to stop the main from approaching him.
A simply physical contact snapped something in Shiki’s mind. He tried to stop himself by biting off his tongue and stabbing his hand, but an arm still reached for Kohaku’s throat. Moments later, Shiki regained some consciousness, and found Kohaku now lying on the floor. After finally putting on the glasses, he started to uncontrollably laugh. He could no longer stop the madness. The only option outside of murdering everyone in the mansion was to go outside.
Once outside, Shiki noticed his senses had been greatly amplified. He tried to flee to the supposedly serene park, but he was still troubled by noises from miles away. Like that rainy day after killing Arcueid, he thought of killing himself, but couldn’t do so. In desperation, he gave Ciel a call. Despite his hesitation, he confessed his helplessness and asked for help. Ciel calmly comforted him and asked him to meet up at the collapsed site.
Supported by Ciel’s words, Shiki made it to the center of the collapsed site before his body gave out. He kneeled to the floor as though he was praying and started to ponder and regret what he did to Kohaku. It was then Ciel appeared. However, it was not the ever kind and understanding senpai that approached Shiki, but a killing machine ready to strike in God’s name.
Coldly, Ciel claimed she had been keeping Shiki safe just so Roa could fully manifest in order to ensure complete annihilation from her. On top of that, she revealed Shiki the truth of the event 7 years ago and how due to his connection to SHIKI, he became the next host for Roa after SHIKI was killed by Arcueid. Realizing he had been lied to/manipulated all these time, Shiki couldn’t help but to chuckle at his own one-sided emotion towards Ciel. However, the surprise didn’t end here, Ciel finally admitted she was the last reincarnation of Roa, and it was her who picked the Tohnos to be the next reincarnation destination. She went through how she was not able to resist the transformation like Shiki, how she was stopped by Arcueid, her body recovered by the Church, been kept as a speciemen until she miraculously revived years later, being repeatedly killed by the Church, and eventually became the agent for Burial Agency. In short, the abnormal power of Roa created the bug that is Ciel, and as long as Roa’s soul exists, so would the being that is Ciel.
Finishing the autobiography, Ciel resumed to approach her target. Out of options, Shiki charged at Noel and tried to move to her side, but Noel’s reaction was faster and easily sent Shiki flying with one arm essentially demolished. The subsequent attacks landed on Shiki’s shoulder and chest, forcing him to flee into one of the collapsed building before he ran out of stamina. Against the rabble, he looked into the night sky and the moon, pondering the point of his existence, and how after all these, he still couldn’t bring himself to hate on Ciel.
Ciel finally caught up on Shiki, who refused to remove his glasses and threw away his dagger. Ciel angrily asked why Shiki refused to fight her, to which Shiki replied even if everything about Ciel was a lie, to him it was still true happiness, something even more important than his own life. Looking into Ciel’s supposedly emotionless lies, Shiki realized she was lying not just to him, but to herself as well. With the final chance of confession given by Ciel, he asked why she always looked like she was about to cry. Ciel tried to deny but that didn’t fool Shiki. Shiki confessed his biggest wish right now was to continue the dream that was the time spent with Ciel, before closing his eyes to embrace his doom. But witnessing Shiki’s calm face, Ciel hesitated. She demanded Shiki to hate her actions against him, just so she could convince herself to deliver the killing blow, but Shiki couldn’t. Finally, Shiki’s “last’ words of gratitude broke Ciel’s defense. She threw away the Scripture and started to cry like a child. Not sure what to do, Shiki hugged the sobbing senpai. After she calmed down, Shiki made up his mind and asked Ciel to help him to combat Roa. Ciel agreed.
When the two were leaving the collapsed site, Noel appeared with her newly created undead army. Knowing her difference in power against Ciel, she went for the psychological warfare and mocked her for not being able to fulfill her vow of Roa hunting by sparing Shiki. She claimed unlike Ciel, she was willing to go the extra mile to defeat Roa by turning herself into a DA. Ciel was indeed shaken by those words until Shiki intervened. Shiki suggested Noel was simply buying herself time as she knew she couldn’t defeat Noel. Triggered by her words, Noel unleashed her newly gained power: The Mystic Eye of Roses, the Idea Blood of one of the DAA Rozay-en.
Shiki’s mind was quickly overwhelmed by the sight of unlimited roses, and was then placed into a memory; It was Christmas Eve, and a girl was preparing to open the cafe. She was greeted by a familiar customer, a Japanese exchange student who often visited the shop and the bakery in town as he didn’t know how to cook. The two were close and the customer even prepared her a Christmas gift; a cross necklace. Before leaving for the church, he complained how the aforementioned bakery had been closed lately despite the holiday season, and strange things had been happening around town. It appeared the boy was also friendly with the daughter of the bakery, who the girl was a little jealous of.
Being an introvert, the girl decided to skip on the Christmas Mass, not realizing that simple act would save her life. That evening, the town fail into chaos, and by the time she decided to check on things, the family cafe had already turned into a bloodbath. The girl tried to flee the town, but it was already blockaded by a mysterious wall. People tried to climb the wall to escape, only to be devoured by it like gigantic teeth. Upon the wall were some figures enjoying the sight of gore and dismay. On top of that, the town had been rendered into a vampiric amusement by them.
The girl was then dragged away by the exchange student, who brought her to the church. 50 some people were hiding there, hoping for the protective power of the holy place could keep the evil out. However, the hope instantly turned into despair when Roa, in Ciel’s body, entered the church like anyone else. She was waiting for someone, and to kill time, she killed the survivors one by one in various “creative” ways. It lasted three days, until only a handful of people left in the pit of hell. Taking advantage of the absence of Roa, the exchange student asked the survivors to work together to at least let the girl escape. However, it was all just a plot for himself to escape, even the girl was only used as a meanshield to ensure his survival. Ironically, his desperate act to survive only accelerated his own demise as the zombie hoard ate him clean.
Like that, the girl that later became Noel saw the end of her hometown in the hand of Roa, until his dark ritual was ended by the princess. The last thing the girl witnessed in that town was the corpse of the now killed Roa/Ciel that was left right next to her.
Shiki came back to his senses. Noel was surprised of his escape, but quickly theorized was due to his vampiric power (though a voice in Shiki’s mind quickly mocked the power being half-assed at the first place) However, Ciel was not as lucky. Shiki was not able to wake her up from the revisited trauma of the past. Noel was certain of her victory and invited Shiki to join her, but Shiki gave his answer by grabbing Ciel’s frozen body and starting to escape with his vampiric strength. He managed to find a blind spot from Noel’s detection to hide Ciel and then returned to face Noel in order to buy Ciel time.
In the circle made of magical spears, Shiki confronted Noel. His initial charge didn’t work and his shoulder was crushed by Noel. To buy himself time to self-heal, he asked Noel why bother fighting him as killing him would not end Roa for good. Noel admitted at this point she didn’t care about her vendetta. All she cared about was having some fun from killing Shiki and Ciel. After Noel clearly stated she wouldn’t spare Ciel at all, Shiki charged at her once more, but still failed. However, these attempts allowed Shiki to learn of Noel’s limit and he got the chance to cut off her head after blocking her spear attack with his arm. Yet at the very last second he hesitated and was sent flying once more. However, even that was enough to put Noel on guard, so instead she let the undead in to gang up on Noel. However, that wasn’t enough to stop Shiki, whose mockery made Noel go all out and rain countless lances upon him, but the attempt was blown away by a Black Key thrown by Ciel.
From Ciel’s perspective, in that memory she witnessed once more what Roa had done to her hometown, and how with the help of an outsider, she was defeated by Arcueid. Drown by regret and guilt, she wanted to just give up on the spot, but Shiki’s voice stopped her. Shiki told her he disagreed with Ciel’s self-assessment as someone who was only relying on her immortality to fight on, but in truth she was a kind person who wants to make up for her past sin by doing as many good deeds in the future. Despite the inner voice continuing to accuse her of being beyond redemption, Ciel managed to find strength from Shiki’s words and woke up from Noel’s power and her self doubt.
Back at the battlefield, Noel tried to use her mystic eye on Ciel once more, but it was blocked by Ciel using Vlov’s Idea Blood. On top of that, even the army of the dead was easily annihilated by Ciel’s unlimited black key works. The clear demonstration of their power gap forced Noel to focus on Ciel 120%. Ciel tried to apologize to Noel in her own indirect way, but her words were only interpreted by Noel as arrogance. Thus the battle began and Noel was easily defeated by Noel. In desperation, she injected herself with Arach’s drug one last time to gain additional power in exchange of her body’s collapse, and that’s what happened, before her attack could really reach Ciel, her body had already turned into ashes. At her last moment, Noel asked Ciel to return her father, her mother, and the life that was stolen from her.
After Noel disappeared, Ciel revealed her work history with Noel; How the two managed to tramp up for much longer time than normal executor duo, how Noel asked to become Ciel’s disciple in order to keep her spot in the Church, how she would come to Ciel to rant on about work. She just continued on this subject until Shiki told her it is okay to apologize.
After Ciel and Shiki left the collapse site, another fight broke out nearby between Arcueid who was observing all these from the side, and the Church agents led by Mario. Despite the preparation, Arcueid still easily nullified the attackers and cut off Mario’s limbs. Her goal was simple: Since Shiki had become Roa, then she could happily make him hers completely.
Back at Ciel’s apartment, the two discussed the next steps. Ciel proposed to make some arrangement with the HQ while Shiki waited at her apartment that was tweaked to suppress Roa’s power. On the other hand, Shiki also asked Ciel out after all these were over. He asked her to still seek out happiness while trying to make up for her past mistakes. Ciel hesitated initially but agreed after Shiki repeated what she herself told him on that rainy night. One non-existent sex scene later, Ciel bid farewell to Shiki and promised she would do whatever she can to save Shiki.
Day 14
A monologue of Roa about how the presence of Arcueid made him lose his philosophical pursuit of eternity. He was no longer driven by academic curiosity, but simple desire to be with the eternal beauty that is Arcueid. However, he refused to become physically immortal as that would sacrifice his humanity during the process. Instead, he intended to keep his purity as human through continuous reincarnation.
Waking up from yet another memory of Roa, Shiki was assaulted by intense headache, forcing him to flee from Ciel’s apartment, and ended up at the park. Someone was there to greet him: Arcueid.
Arcueid revealed she was aware of Roa’s possession of Shiki and how she had intentionally leave it be until now. However, the wait was over and she offered two choices to Shiki: Either be killed by her or voluntarily become her subordinate. The first option was denied by Shiki, making Arcueid starting to attack Shiki.
While fighting, Arcueid revealed Shiki might be already strong enough to end Roa’s soul on his own, but she would not wait for that. After easily overpowered Shiki, Arcueid offered Shiki another chance to be with her forever, as above anything else, she wants to be with Shiki. However, Shiki still refused as at this point he already had Ciel, and Arcueid was not her normal self either. The declaration hurt Arcueid, it hurts her so much that even the supposedly invisible line of death appeared on her neck. Grasping that opportunity, Shiki slashed through the line and got away from her.
However instead of simply hurting the vampire princess a little and hopefully calming her down a little, Arcueid went berserk instead and declared she would murder Shiki for sure this time. However, before she could recover from her wound, Ciel appeared and managed to nail Arcueid to the group. She then quickly dragged Shiki away to retreat to school where the collateral damage could be minimized.
Before Arcueid caught up to them, Ciel asked Shiki to stay put while she handles Arcueid. She declared she could defeat Arcueid on her own but Shiki knew it was a lie. Ciel admitted at the end she couldn’t find anything useful that could save Ciel so all she could do was to extend the time the two could be together and she would do whatever she could to protect Shiki. Shiki accepted Ciel’s proposal but secretly decided to give her a hand when the time was right.
However, that time only came too song as Noel was no match to the raging vampire princess. To stop Arcueid from tormenting Ciel’s unkillable body, Shiki got the idea to cut off Arcueid’s power source: the land/world itself. He managed to sink his blade into that point before Arcueid could stop him, but not fast enough to stop her from sinking her claws deep into his body. Despite that, Shiki still managed to sink his blade into her line of death as well, and asked her to wake up from her madness.
Realizing Shiki would die from such injury and shocked by the injury she got from Shiki’s final attack, Arcueid calmed down and declared she would need to return to the Brunestud Castle to recover from such wound inflicted by Shiki, before disappearing before Shiki. With his final breath, Shiki stabbed his own point of death with the blade, hoping to end Roa’s reincarnation once and for all, and set both Ciel and Arcueid free. The last thing he heard was Ciel rushing towards him.
Normal End
Shiki met Roa, now in his original form and priest outfit. Roa admitted it was the end of the line for him after what Shiki did, and he accepted this outcome. Before his soul disappeared, he gave Shiki advice: Everything is impossible until someone finds a way to achieve it.
Shiki then found himself woke up in a familiar hospital. Arihiko appeared and informed him he was found unconscious at a school and had been in a comatose stage for a month. After returning to the mansion, Shiki noticed everything was fine and dandy, except he kept seeing his younger self somehow staring at him.
Finally at school, Shiki reunited with Ciel, who declared after graduation she would leave the city to be trained under a famous baker for 3 years. Therefore, she wanted to make the most memory out of the final outing of the 3 together. However, after Ciel also declared how her father knew him, Shiki realized this was all but a sweet dream. “Ciel”, who might be manifestation of Ciel’s suggestion, or maybe Seven, acknowledged that and lamented Shiki was too sharp on this sort of things. She revealed how Ciel used her knowledge as Roa to save Shiki with her own life.
Shiki now really woke up. Time hadn’t passed much since he lost his consciousness, and he found his head now resting on Ciel’s lap. As “Ciel” suggested in that dream, Ciel had died peacefully, a warm smile still on her face. Shiki started to cry.
After the credit scene, it was revealed that Mario’s team arrived shortly after and demanded to retrieve Ciel’s body. Shiki accepted Mario’s proposal after the later explained to him he was willing to keep Ciel’s body safe from other departments’ interest, especially that of the Burial Agency. He also asked Mario to work with the Church after high school, in order to gain knowledge to revive Ciel. Mario respected his wish and even offered to have his subordinate teaching him European customs and language during his final high school year. It is implied here that Mario might be Laurentis himself, and for some reason suffered from some sort of deaging process.
After having Akiha’s “blessing” (by kicking him out of the mansion again), Shiki moved into Ciel’s apartment and spent his last high school year there. On the day of his departure for Rome, one of his mentors, Karius, asked him why he would go this far to achieve something impossible. Shiki replied despite knowing it was an impossible task, he wants to dedicate his life to create a miracle to prove this borrowed life’s worth to Ciel. Karius claimed he couldn’t accept such view but wished him the best of luck all the same. And thus, Shiki's new journey began.
Extra End
The events go the same until the point of Arcueid easily overpowering Shiki and asking him to become hers. In this case, the “I just can’t leave Arcueid” option (added only after clearing Normal End) has Shiki, despite still having feelings towards Arcueid, ultimately resolve his heart for Ciel and he slices open Arcueid’s line of death all the same.
Arcueid was extra mad about it, to the point she straight up wiped out the city and replaced it with her castle. Ciel appeared just in time to grab Shiki away before he got erased as well.
Thanks to Roa’s boundary field, only the high school was safe from Arcueid’s power. Ciel and Shiki had similar exchange there as in Normal Route before she headed off to stop Arcueid. She asked Shiki not to let Roa take over his body before she returned.
Unlike Normal End, Ciel had more time to prepare for the fight. With Seventh Holy Scripture operating as mobile factory, she was fully armed with all weapons that had appeared thus far in the route, as well as a hand ballista.
As Arcueid at her current state could sense everything around her, Ciel had to be extremely careful with her aiming with the ballista, but she still managed to land a sniping strike right at Arcueid’s head.
However, that alone naturally could not stop a raging vampire princess and almost in reflex Arcueid instantly closed the distance to strike at Ciel. Ciel only managed to fire again just in time to send Arcueid back to ground, but not powerful enough to cause any harm. Ciel quickly devoured Vlov’s power in order to make use of all the DAA powers within her in order to face the upcoming battle.
From here, it became a literal tower defense where Ciel tried whatever she could to stop Arcueid’s advance towards the school buildings. However, whether it is the weapons or magecraft was useless against Arcueid, whose body was now surrounding by mana so thick it became some form of deflective/debuff field. After she was close enough, Arcueid even straight up shot beams at Ciel.
Ciel managed to deflect Arcueid’s beam spam until Arcueid got tired of the easy game. However, before Arcueid could amp up her attack, Ciel revealed her trump card: Calvaria Galgalim. As Arcueid was too focused on the ground, she lost sight of all the arrangements Ciel made in the sky: a series of magical mirrors to generate enormous power spanning miles to crush Arcueid like a guillotine. While that alone was not enough to defeat Arcueid, but her resistance against such attack backfired. The ground literally could not withstand her increasing weight and started to collapsed downward. In other words, Ciel took advantage of True Ancestors’ limitation of only unleashing power slightly higher than their opponents against Arcueid, and let her be defeated by her own power.
Now completely dry of any power, Ciel was certain she finally secured the victory. However, she still underestimated the extent of Arcueid’s power. While her attack did end up destroy her body, in reality, a True Ancestor’s body is some form of limiter that prevented them from going all out. Therefore, without a body, Arcueid entered the next stage of going berserk and became a giant of light. Such presence was no different than that of a god and Ciel couldn’t do anything about it but to be grabbed by her giant hand powerlessly.
On the other hand, Shiki witnessed how the fight between the two heroine concluded and tried to head Ciel’s way. Interestingly, with the rapid increase of Arcueid's power, Roa’s consciousness fully awakened prematurely. As the result, Roa was not strong enough to really take over Shiki’s body, but instead become a snarky Alexa in Shiki’s head. Facing such formidable foe, the once enemies to the death now establish an uneasy alliance.
With his vampiric strength and Roa’s help, Shiki managed to jump between buildings to get close to giant Arcueid, who was distracted by playing with her unkillable toy that is Ciel. Despite the world itself literally turned against Shiki to support the extension of Gaia’s will, Shiki managed to close the distance and jumped onto her arm. He tried to stab at her hand to make her release Ciel, but the effort was futile. He was brushed off like a bug and fail to the ground.
- Shiki soon realized that around Arcueid’s feed, the once streets of human civilization had turned into prehistoric forest before humanity took over the planet. To avoid being captured by Arcueid, Shiki headed into the murderous forest to find another way to defeat Arcueid.
On the other hand, Arcueid questioned Ciel about her insistence to destory Roa, and why she would fall for a “terrible” man that is Shiki. With a defiant smile, Ciel responded that even after getting killed by him once, Arcueid still didn’t truly understand Shiki afterall. In rage, Arcueid killed Ciel once more.
Realizing Arcueid in her titan form has no real weakness, Shiki got the same idea as in the normal end and found the point of death of the “world” to cut Arcueid from her limitless power supply. However, as Arcueid was able to sense all living beings’ thoughts and emotions around her, she easily learned of Shiki’s plan to stop her. In response, Arcueid simply “absorbed” the world too into her body, along with the point of death.
The act of absorbing the world itself was clearly a burden for Arcueid but also allowed her to unleash even more powerful attacks against Shiki. Shiki tried to escape from the attacks with his vampiric strength and the gravitation manipulation taught by Roa, but quickly ran out of energy. Certain Shiki had failed, Arcueid turned her attention back to Ciel and decided to jail her in other dimension as her indestructible toy. However, as soon as Arcueid dropped Ciel from her hand, Shiki managed to gather final bits of strength to save Ciel. Surprised by Shiki’s determination, Arcueid quickly captured Ciel again and then launched her all the way to the school. Then, despite the titan form should have limited movement, Arcueid even managed to start walking towards the school so she could destroy everything remained for good.
Just when Shiki thought all was lost, Roa pointed out Arcueid’s action was actually self-destructive as her body couldn’t hold this much of power for long (especially since she is operating under selfish desire as "life" instead of "system"), and all Shiki needed to do to save Ciel was simply waiting. Shiki couldn’t accept such an outcome as he never truly wanted to kill Arcueid. He remembered Roa’s mentioning of alternative way to defeat Arcueid and asked Roa for help. Roa declined as the outcome of this fight and those involved had nothing to do with him really, but Shiki took advantage of Roa’s love for Arcueid and pointed out how Arcueid had been ignoring Roa’s presence thus far. Roa acknowledged that and agreed to help Shiki to defeat the titan.
Turned out, after firing the strike, there was still juice left within Calvaria Galgalim. Roa complained about how Ciel had always been clumsy when it comes to detailed manipulation of power, whether it being baking or magecraft. With Roa’s assistance, the remaining power of Calvaria Galgalim was activated once more and Shiki managed to guide it right towards the titan. While he didn’t share such information, Roa actually decided to sacrifice himself to become part of Calvaria Galgalim in order to make Arcueid unable to defend against such attack (for Arcueid it would be just absorbing her lost part from Roa).
With the attack, the titan form was shattered and the core was exposed. As the core was connected to the very conceptual universe, a mere mortal that was Shiki was not able to kill it, but damaging it to stop Arcueid was still possible. Shiki sliced through the core with his dagger and with that, the city returned to normal.
His body heavily injured and burned from the fight, Shiki collapsed to the group and found himself at the school. Arcueid, now returned to her human form, approached him, and the two started another round of “lovers’ quarrel” like they usually do. Finally, Shiki admitted he really liked Arcueid and believed being with her would truly bring him much joy. However, comparing to his personal happiness, he decided to prioritize Ciel’s happiness instead. This time, Arcueid accepted Shiki’s decision and told Ciel who also arrived that she would yield Shiki to Ciel.
After Arcueid left, Ciel called out to Shiki but Shiki was no longer able to talk. He quickly lost consciousness shortly after.
Day 15
Under the azure sky, Shiki met Roa. In a similar fashion as in normal route, Roa was there to bid farewell to his last host. However, the conversation between the two was a little different. This time, Roa actually shared the story of Kiara in this timeline and how despite gaining omniscient power, Tsukihime Kiara only learned how laughable and pointless it was to pursue personal power, as no matter how powerful she became, she was still nothing but minuscul before the whole universe. With her as example, Roa emphasized his reason to reincarnate in order to completely understand the universe as human one day, and was confident that humanity had such potential to do so. Despite that, it was still the end of the road for him. Before his departure, he left the final advice to Shiki that despite the disappearance of the being that is Roa, Shiki would still need to face himself as enemy going forward.
After that, Shiki found himself waking up in Tohno’s mansion. Everything was peaceful and normal in the mansion, and Shiki clearly had a good time with his family and friends there. However, Shiki quickly sensed something was missing within this “dream”: Ciel was nowhere to be found. With the illusion broken, a much younger Shiki Nanaya appeared before him and pointed out this was supposed to be an eternal dream prepared for Shiki to escape from the reality that Shiki had died. He pointed out even if Shiki chose to return to reality, what awaited him was to become a vegetable in the hospital for the rest of his life. Despite that, Shiki chose to do so in order to fulfill his promise with Ciel. Little Shiki acknowledged that and asked his older self not to make her cry again, before he disappeared.
Shiki thought it would be the end for him, but instead he opened his eyes and saw the face of crying Ciel. (it is implied here the younger Shiki/persona of Shiki’s past had died in older Shiki’s place) The two could finally fulfill the promise and faced the future together. While being carried by Ciel to her apartment, Shiki thought of the challenges that awaited them ahead like how he would live on now becoming a half Dead Apostle, but he was certain he and CIel would be able to overcome all these like a true happy ending.
Dead Ends
- Dead End 12: On Day 5, if Shiki continues his assault on Vlov after rushing over to save Noel, his body freezes into ice and shatters.
- Dead End 13: On Day 5, if Shiki rushes over to Ciel, he is crushed by falling debris.
- Dead End 14: On Day 10, if Shiki waits until the end of the day to meet with Ciel, she is called in to be interrogated by Mario and Noel finds Roa's empty coffin first. When Shiki enters the tea ceremony room, he finds Noel waiting for him and is tricked into eating a drugged shortcake. He is left helpless as Noel tortures him for the entire night.
- This result can also be accessed if, when Ciel leaves to investigate Roa's coffin, Shiki chooses to stay put.
- Dead End 15: On Day 9, if Shiki asks Dr. Arach for a painful and ineffective vaccine, she injects him with her Idea Replica. On Day 11, Roa fully takes over Shiki's body.
- Dead End 16: On Day 13, if Shiki tries to escape backward in his fight with Ciel, she pins down his shadow with a black key. With Shiki frozen in place, Ciel uses her Scripture to kill him and Roa.
- Dead End 17: On Day 9, if Shiki accepts Noel's offer to kill the Dead Apostle she tortured, he later kills Akiha and Hisui while possessed by Roa in his sleep. On Day 13, he is unable to stop himself from killing Kohaku and turning her into one of the Dead, causing him to flee the mansion in panic. During his fight with Ciel, Shiki takes off his glasses and stabs her point of death, right as she stabs him with her Scripture. As Shiki dies, he realizes Ciel let herself be killed as an act of penance.
- This result can also be accessed on Day 13 by choosing to fight Ciel.
- Dead End 18: On Day 13, if Shiki decides to charge toward Noel, his mind becomes trapped in her Mystic Eyes of Roses. He is forced to watch as Roa takes over his body and kills Ciel. Noel then plans to make Shiki relive his worst traumas until his heart breaks.
- Dead End 19: On Day 13, if Shiki decides to kill Noel while he has the chance, he successfully beheads her and she disintegrates. Despite this, Ciel still does not wake up. Shiki stays with her for hours as he struggles to resist Roa. Reaching his limit, he stabs his point of death to end Roa with him.
- Dead End 20: On Day 14 in the Extra End, if Shiki keeps trying to stab Arcueid, he moves to her elbow in hopes that her joints are weaker. When he tries to stab her, his knife breaks in half. Arcueid then freezes Shiki with her eyes and uses her hand to crush him.
- Dead End 21: On Day 14 in the Extra End, if Shiki tries to head up above the roots, Arcueid telepathically raises him into the sky and rips off his limbs. She catches him in her hand and crushes him, but he regenerates because his magical energy constantly replenishes while touching her. Unable to die or escape, Shiki is tortured by Arcueid.
| Routes |
|---|
| Fate/stay night |
| Fate • Unlimited Blade Works • Heaven's Feel |
| Tsukihime (2000) |
| Near-Side Arcueid • Ciel Far-Side Akiha • Hisui • Kohaku |
| Tsukihime (2021) |
| A piece of blue glass moon Moon Princess • Midnight Rainbow |