#that's the whole reason tanaka had to get the other food from sebastian and it made me cry hearing a new seiyuu

[minakoaiinos]

Cutting this whole bit and most of the servant's lines and Bard explaining how to play cricket get the fuck ouuuutttt

[fragmentedshards]

The Final Curtain, Chapter Seven

Nocturne

-

Self-reflection.

Mei Rin never underwent the process of self-reflection unless the situation was a dire one. She had briefly reflected on who she was becoming the first time she assassinated someone, but by the time Sebastian had appeared to recruit her she was almost immune to the flickers of integrity in her soul. Working to protect the Phantomhive manor and the young master, she never committed any tasks that called her integrity into question. She, as well as Bard and Finny, prevented threats from harming the young master, and that was that.

Then the circus performers came.

They had materialized in the middle of the night with the obvious purpose of attacking the manor and the young earl. The servants eliminated the ragtag band using every manner at their disposal, and never gave a fully conscious second thought until after the fact. The members of the Noah's Ark Circus had all been so young, they could not have been acting on their own; they must have been working for someone.

Mei Rin had felt her first twang of a guilty heartstring in a long time when she heard the grieving cry of the one called Peter, when she had shot the one called Wendy. She had pushed those little thoughts aside, continuing to protect the Phantomhive manor with every bit of her being. But the feelings continued, until the day she stumbled upon the files for the Noah's Ark Circus case when cleaning the earl's study. The performers had been working for someone; their benefactor and, for all intents and purposes, father. They had acted out of protection for their assumed family, just as she, Bard, and Finny had protected their own "family" that fateful evening.

Then came the fire.

Several cases for the Queen later, after Sebastian and the young master had investigated all manner of murders and kidnappings and deceit, acquiring Pluto in the process, the fire had struck London. It was, physically, the work of Pluto, being controlled - Mei Rin knew now - by an angel of massacre. The earl had convinced her and the other servants that Pluto was out of his mind, succumbing to the beast inside of himself, and urged them to shoot; to put him out of his misery. And they did. And Mei Rin's guilt gushed within every vein. In her own mind, no matter what logic the others applied, she had murdered a friend - in a way, a family member - and thus, her integrity was abolished for good.

These musings and memories flooded Mei Rin's mind as she stood before the mirror in her room in the servants' quarters, preparing to meet Sebastian in the garden. She had spent the evening helping Paula take care of the Abberline baby, and with her tasks as well as Sebastian's completed for the night, it was time for the second wave of discussion.

She did not look forward to it.

All the nervousness that would have filled her with anticipation for meeting Sebastian at any other time did not exist now. Instead, Mei Rin felt a numb anger. She had

wholeheartedly forgiven Sebastian for his fooling her and the other servants, but the thought of everything that had come to light about the young master left her disillusioned about what she had so long perceived as an idyllic life. She could not protect the boy who had given her so much. Mei Rin stared expressionless at her reflection in the full-length mirror, then slowly reached up to her face and removed her eyeglasses, placing them in a drawer in her nightstand.

With a last glance at herself, she turned on her heel and lethargically exited her room, making her way to the Phantomhive gardens.

~

Sebastian was waiting when Mei Rin arrived. How long he had waited, she could not tell. He saw her approaching, regarding her almost kindly. When she reached him, he gave a nod of the head by way of greeting, to which she only stared.

"Mei Rin, whatever happened to your glasses?" Sebastian inquired, noticing the maid's distinctly bright, cat-like eyes. "True, I don't suppose you need to disguise your astounding eyesight anymore..."

Mei Rin shook her head. "I don't deserve them, I don't," she stated, her voice rendered monotone. "I was supposed to protect the young master, and I failed. I don't deserve that gift from him."

The butler watched her speak. "In fact, your job, as well as Bard and Finny's job, was to protect the Phantomhive Manor; I was tasked with protecting the young master's life." he placed a hand on the maid's shoulder. "You failed at nothing."

"Are you so sure?" Mei Rin unenthusiastically jerked her shoulder away. "Did you forget the utter destruction of the manor after Pluto's fire?"

"If all had gone according to plan, the state of the manor would have meant nothing," Sebastian continued. "The young master had achieved his revenge; I should have taken his soul.

If I had not lost my arm - and, with it, the contract seal - the young master would be long dead, and the condition of the Phatomhive estate would be inconsequential to all."

"And what would have become of us?" Mei Rin demanded, glaring at the butler. "Finny, Bard and myself - why, even Tanaka! What would we have done, without the young master and the estate, without even you to guide us?"

"Do you really believe I would not have provided for each of you?" Sebastian countered, audibly disgruntled.

"To be frank, Mister Sebastian," Mei Rin's voice was frighteningly calm. "I believe you would not have given any of us a second thought after consuming the young master's soul."

Sebastian was speechless. He realized, confounded, that the maid was right even though she was wrong. He had made preparations to give each of them new employment following the desecration of the manor, but it was true: he would never think of them again beyond that. They had been meaningless to him. Had been. He stared at her guiltily, wondering how and why he managed to get into this situation. She glared back, unmoving. At length, he lowered his head in admittance.

"Since the young master made the choice to reveal the truth to everyone and continue running Funtom, and we traveled back to the estate, I have thought in detail about humans," the butler confessed. "Demons think of humans primarily as food, you see, and that is still correct in that the devouring of human souls remains the source of sustenance for a demon. But viewing the human race as only food is, in fact, a misjudgment. I see now, in hindsight and in the moment, how strong and complex humans really are. You fight with everything you have to protect what you deem important. You fully comprehend your mortality, and though you may fear death you accept it - most humans, at least. Mortality is not a matter presented to demons very often; we have no reason to dwell on it. Living with that shadow over your every action... many demons view that as incredibly naive. I see now that to still regard humans in that light is to remain in ignorance."

Mei Rin watched Sebastian closely throughout his soliloquy. When she assumed he had finished, she kept her eyes on him a moment longer before exhaling sharply through her nose and looking away. "Mortality brings different meanings to different people. Growing to respect the human race as a whole is an improvement to your character, but keep in mind that not all humans are the same."

"Just as I hope you will keep in mind, Mei Rin," the butler replied coolly, "That not all demons are the same."

The maid glanced at him, but said nothing.

They walked silently throughout the garden for several minutes before Sebastian decided to speak again. "I suppose the best use of our meeting tonight would be to examine our respective feelings regarding one another," he began, but another scoff from Mei Rin made him stop short.

"Is that really the wisest use of our time?" she questioned. "I feel a certain way and you are immune to feeling. How does that warrant an examination?"

"Today I have been noticing unfamiliar stirrings within myself," the butler answered, matter-of-factly. "Well... I suppose unfamiliar is not the correct word. I was human once, and I experienced sensations similar to these current stirrings. I have been subject to them before today as well, but they were not nearly as strong. I believe it is safe to say that, due to the abundance of unprecedented activity in the recent past, my emotions are returning to me. I am, if you will, learning to feel again."

This caught Mei Rin's attention. Her eyes widened at Sebastian in curiousity. "Learning to feel again? That's an interesting notion. I wonder if it will change your disposition."

Sebastian sighed in amusement. "I have been this way for nearly a millennium. I can hardly remember what it was like to be human, or what sort of human I was. I have no way of knowing how my newfound humanity will affect me now." he paused, then chuckled softly.

"The only thing I know that remained in me from my humanity is my love of cats."

The maid allowed herself to laugh along at this remark. "I expect this will be a journey for all of us, then. It never occurred to me that you might have to make adjustments as well. I wish you luck, Mr. Sebastian."

"I confess I do not believe in luck, Mei Rin," Sebastian fixed her with his crimson eyes, and he began looking more familiar to her. She found this comforting, somehow. "Especially in this situation, after all; I will have you and the others to instruct me."

He smiled kindly at her, an expression which she gladly returned. And with that, Mei Rin slowly felt her resentment - both towards herself and towards the black-clad butler - fade away.

[darkspellmaster]

Relationships Part 2: Real!Ciel

Real!Ciel

Now this is a hard one, and one that we have to think a lot about in only Theory since there’s not too much to go on. However there are clues. So best way to start is roughly when we first see him in Baron Kelvin’s intro to the Twin, Vincent and Ciel.

 In this moment we see Our!Ciel nervously hanging out behind Vincent, while the Twin willingly goes up and says hello. Vincent notes that Ciel is shy around strangers (and this does keep true to him even know to a point he’s wary around people he doesn’t know), while the Twin is very much happy to get to know someone.

When he says hello he gives this bright childlike smile to the Baron who becomes infatuated with Vincent and the family. 

We also see him rush to Klaus and happily get picked up in the air by the man. Even the chapter cover shows him, playing with flower crowns and, probably, handing them over to Lizzy. 

It’s interesting of note that Vincent this whole time is being very protective of Our!Ciel, holding his hand, while his brother is let to run to Klaus. This I think might be important to his personality and probably why he is the way he is. But again this is all speculation.

The next time we get something strong is in Lizzy’s memories. Here the Twin is seen running around the garden with her, and clearly having fun.

 This is, mind you, when he’s much younger and hasn’t quiet grown in his temperament yet. However we do see something important come from this.

 In the moment when Aunt Frances is fighting with the Twin for practice we get one of the lines, that I think, shaped Lizzy’s character until Our!Ciel wiped that fear from her allowing her to be more herself then before.

“That was Scary. Aunt Frances is pretty but such a strong wife scares me. I’m glad that you’re the one that’s going to be my wife Lizzy.”

Automatically we can tell a huge thing about this kid. He doesn’t like ladies that are stronger then him, or that order him around. This very line caused Lizzy to shape herself at first into a person that was going to be protected by the Twin.

We also get three other memories from Ciel that do show a bit more about the Twin in a weird way. 

During the Halloween event we see Lizzy being pulled away by the Twin to follow after Vincent and Rachel. Then there’s the memories from the lunch with Dee. 

We see that there was a plate, two bowls and two glasses, clearly finished. Now there’s a few things going on in that scene that we can look at. As I’ve said before either Our!Ciel ate the food, which I can buy given what Tanaka says, or the Twin had the food with him and then left. Either way it paints an interesting picture.

Our!Ciel is inside a lot due to his asthma, much like Rachel who can’t take long trips and the like. We are told that they were all going to go on a boat ride, but Rachel being sick changed that plan. What we don’t see is the Twin, at all. It’s strictly Ciel that is running around in that chapter. So where is he? Well there are two likely answers and both tell us something about the Twin. Either:

A)     He’s outside playing with the dog Sebastian and Lizzy. Which means that he’s not at all focused on the wellbeing of his mother, unlike Ciel who is willing to help out Vincent and Dee make the food for Rachel. (And this one to me seems the less likely of these two scenarios since we’ve seen that he’s usually outside with both his parents with him as he’s only 7 at the time)

Or

B)      He left with the Midfords on the boat trip and chose his own pleasure over that of his family. Something that Undertaker notes about Ciel that is really different than the other members of the family. Undertaker’s implication is that Our!Ciel is far more altruistic then his twin, which means that if he did chose to go with Lizzy and her family, it’s because he’s choosing himself over others.

The reason I bring up the lunch is that he did eat food with Ciel, which brings me to the last scene that bugs me, it’s from the same comic. When Ciel mentions not needing any other brother.

 That shot some red flags up for me rather quickly because of Our!Ciel’s look and also the way he said it, “Fake brothers” as if to indicate that friends are not really something he should have. That he should rely only on his brother at all times, and I have to wonder why that is.

We also see how he treats Ciel in his own mind, and that’s just his memories of the boy, not the real him.

 Then we see what he was willing to do to Soma (not counting Agni as that was Polaris or someone else acting as an attack dog) and how he treats Ciel when he comes to the house,

 acting like a sarcastic selfish brat. (I’m not counting Violet here because I don’t know if the kid was awake at the time in regard to the bleeding, and if that was, or was not, his arm in the chair. Nor can I count Lizzy just yet as, again, I don’t know if he’s the master mind to any of this or not.)

Now here’s where the theory has to come in about the Twin and his parents in regard to how he sees them and his own personality because of it.

As I said above Vincent is holding Our!Ciel’s hand, and playing around with him a lot. We see with Our!Ciel that his parents were very much trying to be positive, teaching him things that can help him in life and keeping his spirits up. Vincent, even when introducing Ciel to the Baron was very much standing between him and his son, and keeping him close. On the other hand the Twin willingly ran to Klaus, happy to see him at least, after giving that bright eyed look to the Baron. We later see him dealing with Aunt Frances and that he’s not training well, his foot work is weak, and he highly dislikes the idea of bossy women (something Angela was pushing onto Lizzy early on in her memories of the past) and seemed to be pleased with a Lizzy that wasn’t like her mother.

As the healthier of the two twins it’s apparent that the Twin was chosen to take on the role of heir, and probably got the ring as a gift from Vincent upon his 10th birthday. This actually follows the idea of the handing off of power or at least indicating a sort of tradition that seems to be a bit in the Victorian asthenic. The idea of a noble training their child at the starting age of ten was common as in that time people didn’t live as long and “childhood” was over with. The Twin would have had to really double his training as to being part of the Watchdog group, and probably would have eventually taken over Vincent’s job, leaving Our!Ciel to probably run the business end of things as he’s doing now.

We can therefore assume that the Twin was not only being trained by Frances in swordsmanship, but also in riding, shooting, dancing and being schooled in not only the ways of being a gentleman (which I think Ciel was too, though to a different degree then the Twin due to health) and then by Vincent and Frances in how to be a Watchdog. If, and I’m betting I’m right on this, if the Twin was being trained that meant that he wasn’t shown as great of fondness as Our!Ciel was by Vincent.

What do I mean? Well given the job that Vincent was going to have the boy do, he was going to have to be far harsher on his son, possibly at times distancing himself from him so that the boy would understand that this was a job and not something to just play with. Given how we’ve seen Vincent act and Dee’s comment on love, it would not be surprising if in some ways the Twin may have resented his father and possibly his brother.

We know that Rachel clearly worried about Our!Ciel, along with Angela, and we know given what Undertaker said about how the other members of Ciel’s family acted that the Twin probably wasn’t all that nice under the happy smile that he gave. I get the feeling that he was pushed a lot by Vincent to learn what he could to take over some day, and possibly felt that his brother got more attention than he did. But we’ll get to that in a moment.

I do think he probably cared about his family, though to what extent I don’t know. Clearly we can see them having fun outside, and if Lizzy’s memories are true then his parents loved him just as much as they loved Our!Ciel. Though I get the suspicion that he was more Vincent then Rachel in personality. (Given what I”ve recently learned about Chapter 99.5, I probably will have to rethink part of this theory, but I have a feeling that there is probably more resentment regarding his role with Vincent.)

Now as for his relations with Our!ciel, this is a doozy. Again, assuming that he was treated slightly different due to his future as the Watchdog as well as being healthy, I have a feeling that he wasn’t all that nice to his brother out of jealousy.

Think about it. We know that he’s a bit selfish based on his not being around during the small story with Dee, and we know that he was pulling Lizzy away from Ciel in the memory he had on Halloween. So what sort of relationship did these two brothers have? I’m going to proposes that it was a bit of a domination sort of relationship, and possibly a bit obsessive in a not to good way.

One could say that he probably had less then great feelings for Ciel due in part to the fact that the family probably worried about him a lot. Our!Ciel has a room full of toys and we know that the majority was probably his as he can’t go outside. So starting there, you probably have the Twin getting jealous that his brother gets a lot of attention from his family in regard to material items. The Twin more than likely has to watch as Lizzy goes and plays with Our!Ciel while he has to have lessons, then there’s the fact that Our!Ciel seems to have strong connections to both parents and it’s clear that they willingly cast aside both for the chance to go out with the other side of the family. 

(MIght be wrong on this I’ll have to re think part of this about him casting aside his family but a part of me has to wonder if that’s still stands as true)

We know that during the night of the kidnapping we saw that Our!Ciel was clinging to the Twin’s hand. He felt better with him there. And yet when he returns he marginalizes him immediately. Not to mention that when he’s just Our!Ciel’s memories he’s purposely being nasty to him to make him feel more guilt. 

Why would Ciel see his Twin as such if he didn’t act like this when they were growing up? Fact is, he wouldn’t. Ciel, or rather Our!Ciel, is seeing his Twin as he was back then. 

The Twin was a jerk to him, leading to Ciel to depend on him. The line about not needing any fake brothers.

So why do that? Well to control the situation. The Twin has been taught to control things as the Watchdog, and he pushes that into his own family. We can see by Ciel’s guilt that he loves his Twin very much, but it’s clear that he’s reeling at his death, and yet he’s willing to move forward as him, not because he wants to be the Twin for selfish reasons, but for the sake of others (Lizzy particularly since she’s engaged to him and to Ciel it makes perfect sense to make her happy by being the one person he thinks she would want to see alive of the two of them).

That very thought makes me feel that the Twin probably has, over time, convinced Ciel that he’s less worthy due to his own jealousy of his brother. And this, I fear, will play out like a chess match between the two kings.

We see on the chess board for the Twin’s side we have A Queen (Lizzy), A rook (possibly Lord Polaris as he’s the butler here), a bishop (Blavat, since he’s the priest like figure), two pawns (Soma possibly, and someone else –Snake? Edward? Violet?), and a Knight (which I think is the demon). On the oppsite side you have Our!Ciel with only three pawns (Bardroy, Finny, May rin), a rook (Tanaka) and a Knight (Sebastian).

This tells me that this is going to be a chess game, that we’re going to see the characters be moved like pieces and that there is more to this between the brothers then simply a game of chess. The Twin wants to control Our!Ciel as, to him, he probably feels that Our!Ciel got better in life then he did.

Both parents seemed to dote on Our!Ciel far more than the Twin. Every time we see him he seems to be rushing off, trying to get someone’s attention in some way or another. So that could indicate that he’s somewhat starving for their attention as Our!Ciel is ill and taking up a lot of their nurturing in that aspect. Then there’s Ciel himself and how the Twin seems to have him manipulated into thinking that friends or having anyone on his side are fakes. That he’s the only one that can care for him, thus controlling him and keeping him probably from wanting to rise above the Twin due to his honestly more compassionate personality. We can assume that the Twin tells Ciel all about the stuff that he’s learning, which is probably how Ciel knows a lot about things. Given the whole situation with the nasty comments, the insisting on Ciel remaining in his mind forever and the leaving the family to do his own things, makes me think that he feels like he’s allowed to control things.

I get the feeling we may be seeing a Maurice Colt  like characters coming out of this.

And I’m suspecting that the Jealousy also comes to the fact that he’s probably jealous of Lizzy and Our!Ciel’s relationship as well.

Lizzy gives us a very big clue into their relationship. She’s trying to be someone she’s not for him. We see early on that she’s been tasked with protecting him and the Twin comes off as someone who acts like he needs it. There is probably a reason why Lizzy was set out to be his protector, and, as we see with Aunt Frances’s foot work he’s not that good with the sword. But then we glimpse something else. He doesn’t want his wife to be strong, and wants to be the one in charge of things.

The Twin’s actions with Lizzy right now are shrouded in mystery but given what we see in the mansion and what we know about in regard to her own actions we can have some guesses as to what he’s told her, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Their past relationship seems a bit odd. Lizzy dote’s on him, wanting to be the right girl for him as she is scared about her skills as s fighter, and there had to be a reason that Vincent and Frances decided to allow their children to be married. I’m suspecting it was because of the fact that the Real!Ciel really had limited skills in protecting himself, and probably needed her to be his Sebastian. My guess is that Undertaker took on Sebastian’s role for Vincent and probably Tanaka was it for Claudia.

We see that Lizzy plays with the Twin outside, him chasing after her with the dog and that she clearly enjoys her time with him. But what of him to her. Well that’s a bit of an issue I think.

 Given his line to her I don’t think that he really thought much of Lizzy outside of being someone that he could have fun with. He comments that he likes her because she’s not strong like her mother. That she’s cute, and that completely changed how she tried to grow herself into adulthood.

The weird thing is that, I get the feeling that for all of his mother’s physical weakness, she was strong and cunning in the mind. Vincent’s line about Rachel having fun leads me to believe that for the Twin he didn’t want someone who was cunning like his mother, or strong like his aunt. He wanted a flighty girl that he could come back to have fun with and not have to think a lot about.

Again I’m getting a vibe of maurice and maybe even a Viscount Druitt vibe off this kid.

As for what happened in the Blue Cult, well. We don’t know but we can take some guesses from Lizzy’s behavior and what Paula said. During her time there we know she’s become confused as to who to trust, leading me to believe that the Twin told her a vastly different story about what happened that night. That Ciel may have chosen to send him to die, rather than what we saw Our!Ciel doing. What else could have been said, well clearly he probably reminded her of her duty to protect him, as that’s what she was supposed to do. Yet I don’t think he would have liked seeing her fight all that much, unless it’s against his brother.

We also see that when she sees Real!Ciel (whom I’m certain is in that chair when she walked into the room, as I think that they pull in the people and drain them that way) she’s clearly crying over the fact that she couldn’t help him. We assume that it’s the Twin, but I think it’s because she feels guilty over the fact that she doesn’t know how to help him nor Our!Ciel directly. Save doesn’t mean saving his soul, because she probably thinks that the Twin is alive and not a living doll or whatever he is, but rather not being able to save him from what happed to him.

 On the other hand she feels bad for not being able to save Our!Ciel from the guilt that he’s been feeling all this time, as she didn’t realize which of the boys it was all that time and she could have done something differently to help him cope with things. I think that the Twin is actually rather jealous of Lizzy’s relationship with Our!Ciel. Consider the fact that he probably had more training to go through with his father and Aunt then Ciel did, the Twin probably sees Lizzy’s relationship with Our!Ciel something that he doesn’t like. 

We know that Ciel and Lizzy would play house, and that she clearly was worried about him as per what we saw with Ciel’s memory of the time he had an asthma attack and was tended to by Angela. But I think that, like Ciel, the Twin is manipulating her in some emotional ways.

We know that there was an Easter egg thing between them, and that Ciel didn’t know about it. Which tells me that the Twin shared secrets and such with her, and I think that Ciel did as well, but they were different as Ciel seems to recall things with Lizzy, such as the whole “Sitting by the window sill by the rosebushes”, and playing house. Yet I think one of the reason the Twin did share with Lizzy was so that he had some control over her more than his brother could.

Now as for what probably could have been, given his attitude, I don’t think he would have made a very good husband for her, and it would have ended in a miserable situation where Lizzy felt she had to play this very sweet woman and the Twin probably would have had mistresses on the side. He strikes me, again as a very possessive sort, pulling Lizzy from Ciel during the Halloween memory, and I get the feeling it’s something that Lizzy for her part, has tried to ignore due to Angela and her commentary.