Vlov Arkhangel

is the nineteenth of The Twenty-seven Dead Apostle Ancestors in the Tsukihime Remake series. 
==Profile==
===Background===
Vlov originates from the frozen lands of the far north, where all he could do was await his death. Vlov inherited the position of Ancestor from Zaria Offenbaum, who he killed. He was formerly a knight who was exiled from his kingdom due to false charges. He wandered the world until he reaches the frozen ocean where he found Zaria and was adopted by her, being given the name "Arkhangel". He served Zaria like she was his liege and was gifted with warmth in return. But the cold pain in his soul couldn't heal, leading to him abandoning his creed as a knight and rebelling against Zaria, leading his home as the next Dead Apostle Ancestor. Vlov was convinced to kill Zaria as he couldn't bear to see his liege sullied like that and lied to about how the blood of a True Ancestor would save his life by Roa, resulting in Vlov developing a deep hatred for the Infinite Reincarnator and a desire for revenge against him.Melty Blood: Type Lumina - Kouma Kishima's Arcade Route - vs. Vlov
As he was not yet old enough to withstand Zaria's Idea Blood, its inheritance should have shattered his will; however, he managed to maintain his sense of self with the combat experience he'd cultivated in his capacity as a knight of the dark ages in the medieval era, which defeated the curse that encompassed the entirety of his flesh. A pride on the level of a mere twenty years surmounted a madness that exceeded a thousand years. Properly speaking it was not something that Vlov could withstand, but thanks to a technique given to him by a "certain Dead Apostle" as well as his desire for revenge against "that person" he managed to retain his sanity until the end.
Vlov was one of the Dead Apostle Ancestors involved with the French Incident.Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon- - Midnight Rainbow route - Day 13: "Mirage" He sacrificed all of his territory in Russia in order to pursue Arcueid for revenge, and has no way to return to his homeland. While what exactly became of his wives is unknown, he remembers having left them behind when he departed, however the ending of Kouma's Arcade Mode in Type Lumina seemingly states that Vlov was fighting while protecting their souls.Melty Blood: Type Lumina - Kouma Kishima's Arcade Route - Ending 
===Appearance===
MB Lumina Vlov.png|Vlov Arkhangel in Melty Blood: Type Lumina, illustrated by Takashi Takeuchi.
MB Lumina Vlov 2.png|Vlov Arkhangel in Melty Blood: Type Lumina, illustrated by Takashi Takeuchi.
===Personality===
Vlov is at his core a proud and loyal knight, who enjoys the idea of a good duel with a strong opponent. Despite this enjoyment, he is quite tactical and observant, being able to easily discern that Arcueid's action of raising a wave of rubble was meant to hide Shiki Tohno's follow up surprise attack, and quickly recognizing that Ciel's style of swordsmanship was taught to her by the Dead Apostle Ancestor Be'ze. His battle instincts are also quite good, as he was even able to instinctually determine that Shiki somehow possesses the ability to kill him, despite having no information on the teenager. Despite his cool-headed nature, Vlov is extremely protective of his personal life and his secrets, and revealing them in any way can cause him to fly into a rage and make unwise tactical decisions.
He has ten wives provided to him by Zaria, whom he seemingly cares deeply for. In Akiha's story within Melty Blood: Type Lumina, he tries to get her to be his eleventh wife, but she refuses by the polygamous relationship alone.Melty Blood: Type Lumina - Akiha Tohno's Arcade Route - vs. Vlov Arkhangel
Despite his rational personality, he is often seen behaving in a strange manner, as if he was in a sleepwalking trance, mixed with moments of extreme desire to feed on large quantities of humans. This is seemingly a coping mechanism to deal with his own Principle and as Arcueid puts it, he is not naturally insane, but rather, he is running away from his own sanity on purpose so that his mind isn't overwhelmed by his Principle. He will seemingly only snap out of this state if enough of his power is expended or if he is injured enough.
Vlov absolutely hates Roa for seemingly stealing away the past 200 years away from him, due to how he convinced him to kill his liege Zaria and lying to him about how True Ancestor's blood would save his life, with him wanting to get to Arcueid partly as a way to get revenge to Roa.
==Role==
===Tsukihime===
Vlov has arrived in Souya in order to warm his heart by consuming other's blood, due to having run out of food in his homeland. He sacrificed all of his territory in Russia in order to pursue Arcueid for revenge, and has no way to return to his homeland. While what exactly became of his wives is unknown, he remembers having left them behind when he departed.
Shiki first encounters Vlov the night before he meets Arcueid, after being awakened by the howling of a dog. He briefly sees the vampire kill the dog — an undead familiar of his whose body appears to be melting — with a small spear, before saying something in Russian and departing.Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon- - Day 2: "A Day That Was Not"
Vlov reappears at the hotel where Shiki and Arcueid are staying after she was dismembered by him, and accompanied by two undead dogs identical to the one Shiki previously saw him kill. He uses his flames to flood the hotel, killing nearly everyone inside, then sending the dogs to devour their corpses. After Shiki disposes of the dogs, he sees a woman who escaped the fire appear out of the elevator, but she is quickly caught by Vlov, who drinks her blood himself. Before Vlov can kill Shiki using his flames, Arcueid intervenes, suffering an injury when she blocks an attack intended for him. She questions Vlov as to his name using her Mystic Eyes of Enchantment, and upon not recognizing the name "Vlov Arkhangel" from among the Ancestors’ chosen Successors, he admits to having killed the Ancestor from whom he took his Idea Blood himself. He motions to draw his sword and attack Arcueid again, but decides against it and retreats as he realizes the sun is rising. From a news report the following morning, Shiki learns that the vampire consumed all 200 of the hotel’s guests, and not a single body was recovered, implying they were converted into undead in his service.
====Arcueid route====
Within his coffin in his lair below Souya’s train station, Vlov awakens and struggles in pain from both his Idea Blood and bloodthirst overwhelming him. His memories are out of his grasp and all he can recall is that he left his wives and territory behind to hunt something in the city. In desperate need of blood, he emerges into the city with his army of The Dead, burning away the legs of a crowd of people with his flames and transforming his undead into the Flaming Dead. He slaughters the crowd and drinks all of their blood, but finds no satisfaction in it. The police barricade the part of the city Vlov emerged into to contain him, and the news writes off reports of the undead by those who escaped his attack as panic-induced delusions. The police make a futile attempt to apprehend Vlov, but are knocked unconscious when Arcueid descends with a flying kick, snuffing out the vampire’s flames and destroying most of the area, collapsing the ground into a crater forty meters deep. 
Vlov regenerates from the force of the attack and fights Arcueid directly, exchanging blows with her using his sword. She repeatedly inflicts fatal wounds on him, but his fresh supply of blood allows him to fully heal his injuries every time. When he attempts to use his flames, she nullifies them with her dress and attempts to wear him down in a battle of attrition, hoping she can cause him to run out of blood. After using her control over nature to prevent him from retreating, she impales him with her hand, but is blown away by ice when he activates the full power of his Idea Blood. The surrounding area is completely frozen in only two seconds, with any humans possibly remaining in the surrounding buildings devoured by the ice. Arcueid uses her Mystic Eyes to question Vlov about his Idea Blood, prompting him to recall his true nature, and her to realize he is the usurper of Zaria Offenbaum. Vlov then summons his lance from his shadow, taunting Arcueid about her weakened state and inability to use her Marble Phantasm. She charges at him, but he freezes her in place and deals a crushing blow to her with one strike of his lance. He sends his undead minions in to consume her blood while she lies helpless on the ground, but is interrupted by Shiki, who kills the Dead.
Shiki presumes Vlov will underestimate an ordinary human such as him, but after witnessing his physical abilities and killing intent, realizes that Shiki possesses an ability which could kill even him. He conjures shards of ice and shoots them at Shiki to kill him at range, confident that the aura of cold around him will prevent his opponent from getting any closer. Shiki manages to hold out against the barrage of ice, allowing Arcueid to recover and throw a chunk of bedrock at Vlov. After her projectile is easily shattered by Vlov’s lance, Shiki and Arcueid plan on a way to approach and kill him. While Vlov’s tactical awareness which he possessed as a knight returns to him over the course of the battle, he is still blindsided by the nature of their plan — for Arcueid to throw Shiki into the hair on top of a chunk of rubble, then use her vines to create a bridge for him to leap across and into range to stab Vlov’s Point of Death. Vlov throws his lance at Shiki, then shoots another barrage of ice at him as he descends, but he manages to evade both attacks using his instincts and martial arts. A second such attack is blown away by a Black Key, thrown by Ciel.Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon- - Moon Princess route - Day 13: "The Face of the Moon" As Shiki enters his range, the vampire draws his sword and swings at him, but Shiki manages to just barely evade his attack and inflict a killing blow, destroying Vlov’s Idea Blood along with his life. As he dies, Vlov feels a tiny bit of the life he once had return to him before his body is consumed in blue flames and burns away to nothing.
====Ciel route====
Shiki wants to enter, but it would mean immediate death. He watches helplessly as Vlov's lance pierces Ciel, she's defeated, and with that, the barrier shatters. However, what should have amounted to immediate death does not come. The flow of the cold is being diverted. Shiki looks up, and sees Arcueid. She's using her powers to nullify the frost, in what amounted to the one way her pride would allow her to help. Shiki rushes towards the collapsed Ciel. Vlov, who cannot adequately move in the cold, is only very slowly approaching the pair. Ciel wakes up, shocked at seeing Shiki beside her. She tells him there should be no reason for him to help. Shiki asks her to make a reason for him then. Perhaps she can treat him to lunch some time if they win.
Ciel is dumbfounded, but accepts his help. She tells him the two conditions he has to uphold if they want to fight Vlov, 1. Never attack from the front, 2. Do not care what happens to her. Vlov and Shiki's gazes meet. Vlov understands he's a threat. Ciel and Shiki charge at Vlov. A frantic melee begins, and despite the two of Ciel and Shiki having the numerical advantage, Vlov finds a way to fend both of them off with his splendid fighting. Shiki looks deeper, his eyes focusing on Vlov's point of death. His mind starts to perceive its very nature, the truth of its existence. He sees Vlov's origin. He was thrown out of his homeland, into a sea of frost. There, the one person who gave him purpose; the woman he loved; the woman he betrayed. Shiki sees it all, he can kill it. The canopy covering the sky celebrates. A curse upon the Ancestors, upon the world of man.
Vlov looks back at Shiki. He knows that Shiki has seen it, and angrily scream at Shiki to not look. He turns his attention away from Ciel and starts to pursue only Shiki. Ciel tells Shiki to fall back. They're both badly hurt, they'll only have one more chance. The charged at him again, and with all of his attention upon Shiki, Ciel manages to get above him, scoring a powerful hit with Blade. Shiki uses the opportunity to sneak in, and plunges his knife into the Point of Death. But Vlov does not die. Shiki looked too deep, he killed the thing within Vlov, but not Vlov himself. Vlov is enraged, attacking Shiki again, but Ciel is too fast. Her Holy Scripture transforms in a pilebunker, driving it into the weakened Ancestor's chest, blowing his soul asunder. 
Yuugo Ando reports to Mario Gallo Bestino that Ciel has already retrieved all the remains of Vlov, to Mario's dismay, with Ciel obtaining Vlov's Idea Blood.Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon- - Midnight Rainbow route - True End - Day 15: "Cloudless Blue" 
===Melty Blood: Type Lumina===
MBTL Vlov ending.jpg|Vlov's ending.
Vlov's story depicts his arrival in Souya and reunion with Roa. However when Roa suggests that Vlov act as a distraction for the Church so he can continue to work in secret, Vlov is angered by Roa's words, and unlike in Tsukihime kills Roa himself.Melty Blood: Type Lumina - Vlov Arkhangel's Arcade Route - vs. Roa Some time later he runs into Arcueid after having lost all of his reason.Melty Blood: Type Lumina - Vlov Arkhangel's Arcade Route - vs. Arcueid Vlov defeats her, but while standing in the middle of his blizzard realizes that it changes nothing, for the past cannot be rewritten and he has no idea what to do for the future. Having never once met an opponent who could move his soul, he decides that this is a fitting end for a man as worthless as himself.Melty Blood: Type Lumina - Vlov Arkhangel's Arcade Route - Ending
==Abilities==
As a Dead Apostle Ancestor, Vlov is a very powerful vampire. However, he did not become one the usual way, which is to usually first be a Successor (Stage VIII Dead Apostle). Him having only been a Stage VI with only a few centuries to his name is the reason as to why his Principle threatens to constantly overhelm him. According to Arcueid, his baseline abilities are still inferior to a Stage VIII Dead Apostle, even as an Ancestor. Despite this, he boasts great strength and endurance, able to overhelm both a weakened Arcueid and a serious Ciel in close quarters combat once he gets serious, despite having sustained several serious injuries before either of these two fights even began.
===Idea Blood===
The Principle of Vlov's Idea Blood is . His Principle's primary effect is not dropping the temperature, but rather "to deprive things of heat", which thus gives him abilities over cold, such as creating weapons of ice and dropping the temperature to no less than -273°C, near-. The freezing ability is strong enough to instantly freeze a building and everything inside, as well as generate structures of ice such as spears, which he can create and fire as projectiles fast enough to compete with a machine gun's rate of fire. He can generate them from behind him, from his shadow, from behind his opponent's back and from the ground.
Unless any containment measures are taken by other individuals, Vlov's blizzard can instantly cover an entire city. However, Vlov cannot move freely while emanating the wave of cold. He also can concentrate the wave, or spread it out, and its strength is accordingly affected depending on where Vlov needs it.Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon- - Moon Princess route - Day 5: "Fire and Blood II"
Getting near him is enough to freeze a person to death. There are two side effects to this ability. First and foremost Vlov can either condense it into one spot or spread it out. The latter lacking in strength in comparison. As such it is possible to get close enough to his body without freezing to death as long as he is distracted on freezing another point. Though this was later revealed to be embellished by a protection Arcueid had given to Shiki and the surrounding area to minimize damage, stating he would have died to the cold regardless if it was focused on him. The second side effect is that using this ability seems to impede his movement to a degree, making him mostly stationary, as his body is not immune to the cold and he feels the pain from such low temperatures the entire time; the pain is enough that it makes him want to die while using it. 
 
As a unintentional side effect it also lets him conjure flames, both orange and blue. The blue flames only damage living things, as they are actually an ability that robs the life and heat of his targets. His orange flames are actual physical flames and when condensed in the form of "hands", they reach temperatures well above 3000 degrees celsius. Vlov is able to create and control several of these "hands" at any given time, having hit Arcueid with three of them.Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon- - Day 4: "Fire and Blood I"
His presence drastically increased the temperature of the hotel that Arcueid and Shiki were staying at despite being multiple floors above him. The flames when emitted can cause both humans and ghouls to spontaneously combust just by being within a certain vicinity of Vlov. The flames, however, are not an intentional and are a result of an inefficient use of his Principle, with the flames being a side-effect that he can somewhat direct. As his Principle deprives things of heat, using it inefficiently causes some of the energy not gathered by him to go free as "vaporisation heat"; the heat of land deprived, causing atomic activity to switch from to , with the new ultra-low temperatures repelling electrons, depriving them of a place to go, and causing them to react. 
===Familiars===
File:FlamingDead.jpeg|The Flaming Dead.
File:Vlov Dogs.png|Vlov's dog familiars.
When a living being or one of The Dead is exposed to either his flames or his cold, they will be infused with his power to a degree. If they are exposed to his cold, they will become an Dead filled with ice. When they are exposed to his flames, they will become , with abilities greater than that of the average Dead and they will also explode if damaged enough or if Vlov wishes to detonate them at his leisure, even if the Dead have been cut into pieces before he gives the command. 
Vlov has two familiars in the form of hounds which can explode in a fiery blaze upon death, but this seems to be nullified when cut by Shiki Tohno. 
===Combat===
He carries a sword which is akin to a cleaver when wielding his flames, but switches to a lance like weapon when brandishing his ice. When not using the lance, he stores it inside his shadow by unknown means, and can draw it from his shadow at will. He is also seen using a small spear to dispose of a monstrous dog, but this weapon is not used by him in any of his fights against Arcueid, Ciel, and Shiki.
Claiming to have been taught how to fight by the Dead Apostle Ancestor Be'ze, Vlov is skilled enough to have a competitive fight with a weakened Arcueid, while he himself is weakened from her surprise attack prior to the fight as well as not having all his mental faculties at the time, although he would eventually start to lose once Arcueid made herself immune to his flames. With his lance and his mental faculties restored, he is able to knock Arcueid unconscious with a single blow to her chest and is able to punch through her avalanche of debris, 50 meters in height and weighing 7000 tons with a single strike. His strikes are also fast enough that Shiki Tohno is unable to properly react to them without some form of interference from a third party. 
Against Be'ze's last disciple, Ciel, despite being injured prior to their final battle, he demonstrates enough skill to match her with his lance, despite the Executor using an unconventional trick sword and being superior in her swordplay technique, he is eventually able to strike a decisive blow on her due to his Principle eating away at her, shattering her Virgin Pain armour and knocking her unconscious with a blow so strong that it shattered the outer layer of his own lance. Shortly after, he is able to evenly fight both Ciel and Shiki together in melee, despite the numerical advantage.Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon- - Midnight Rainbow route - Day 5: "Icebound Ocean" 
===Endurance===
Vlov also possesses a superb regeneration ability, letting him have a prolonged fight with both Arcueid and Ciel in a starved state despite taking many blows. 
Prior to the beginning of the fight, Arcueid had launched a preemptive surprise attack from above, which was strong enough to create a crater in the middle of the street, 40 meters in depth. It was noted by Shiki that this greatly weakened Vlov as he had to use much of his blood reserves to regenerate from this. Regardless, he would still go on to win his exchange with Arcueid once his mind was cleared. 
Prior to fighting Ciel, Vlov had lost function in one of his arms due to Shiki cutting its lines, as well as taking other slashes to the chest, also from Shiki. Furthermore, he fought Ciel inside her Church barriers some time later and was more than a match for the Burial Agency agent. 
==Development==
===Creation and Conception===
Vlov replaces Nrvnqsr Chaos' role from the original Tsukihime. Takashi Takeuchi describes him as the character who best symbolizes the differences between A Piece of Blue Glass Moon and the old game. He intended to design him as a decadent, beautiful and pale pure vampire, in direct opposition to the non-standard vampire in the old game.
Nrvnqsr was replaced by Vlov because he was too strong to be the “first boss” in the series, and because was a highly unusual vampire. Nasu instead wanted to introduce his vampires with an old-school vampire that evoked classic gothic horror, as he feels unusual vampires have become too common these days. The scene in which Vlov feeds on Noel was intended to follow the archetypical vampire as portrayed in the original Dracula novel. Despite being weaker than the other Ancestors, he is still a threat that ordinary people cannot match, and meant to show how easily humans can die at the hands of the Dead Apostles. Takeuchi was requested by Nasu to design Vlov primarily as an old-school vampire, but also to evoke the feel of a knight and a “winter hunter” due to Vlov’s origins in Russia’s North Sea. The “blockbuster” feel of his fight with Arcueid and Shiki was meant to reflect the increasingly common natural disasters we see in the real world, and emphasize how the Near Side of Tsukihime is more about threats to wider society and not merely individuals. He is a character whose mysteries and background have not been entirely revealed yet, and his story in Melty Blood: Type Lumina only exists to provide more hints and not the whole answer.Interview with 4Gamer
==References==
Category:Characters in Tsukihime Remake
Category:Dead Apostle Ancestors
Category:Introduced in 2021
Category:Dead Apostles
Category:Vampires
Category:Knights
Category:Russians
Category:Voice - Kenjiro Tsuda
Category:Threats to Humanity
Category:Chaotic Good alignment