Arcueid Brunestud

Kanji
 Rōmaji
 Aliases
 Race
 Gender
 Height
 Weight
 Measurements
 Eye Color
 Hair Color
 Anime
 Japanese

## Origin

Arcueid is a True Ancestor, a vampire who is actually a nature spirit created with the purpose to counteract humanity's corruption of its environment on Earth. Unlike other True Ancestors, she was born without the bloodlust of her kind and was the strongest created as she could summon the Millennium Castle Brunestud, the Reality Marble of her creator Brunestud of the Crimson Moon. As a result of this feat, Arcueid has the title of White Princess of the Crimson Moon. When many of the True Ancestors started giving into their bloodlust, Arcueid was created specifically to destroy them and any Dead Apostle created from said bloodlust.

At some point, a priest seeking immortality named Michael Roa Valdamjong manipulated Arcueid into turning him into a Dead Apostle. Ignorant of her vampire roots at the time, Arcueid would suck on Roa's blood and be driven into a berserker rage that led her to slay most of the True Ancestors. While in this state, Roa managed to absorb most of her power and would become one of the strongest Dead Apostles on record. Upon realizing what she had done, Arcueid chose to chain herself to a throne and fall into a deep sleep. She now had to find herself suppressing her bloodlust like the rest of her kind. She would re-awaken over the centuries to slay Roa and any reincarnated form that he took on, slaying him 17 times. Reawakening in the modern era, Arcueid sought out Roa in his latest reincarnation, Tohno SHIKI.

## Creation

Arcuied Brunestud was originally created by Type-Moon for the Tsukihime visual novel game. She underwent a number of changes in her character's design during development of the game. She was originally developed as a stereotypical evil vampire before the tone of the story was changed to make it a little more positive. At another point, she was envisioned as a cool and princess-like "Noble Vampire" character, but this clashed with Akiha Tohno's personality developed. To differentiate Arcueid from other heroines in the series who politely addressed Shiki, she was given a more whimsical personality and made her into a "pure white" vampire that differed greatly from original designs of her character. Game developers made use of a real-life model in the development of her character's design.

Arcueid has appeared in anime and manga adaptations of Tsukihime, as well as Carnival Phantasm. In Japanese, she was voiced by Nabatame Hitomi for the Tsukihime anime and Yuzuki Ryouka for Carnival Phantasm. In English, she was voiced by Michelle Ruff.

## Evolution

### Appearance

Arcueid stands at 65 inches tall (167 cm) with her three sizes being 88 cm for bust, 55 cm for waist and 85 cm for hips. She has golden yellow hair and red eyes while behaving normally and yellow eyes while triggering her power as a True Ancestor. For much of Tsukihime, she is seen wearing a long white turtleneck shirt with long sleeves and wearing a long purple skirt. In flashbacks shown of her days as the White Princess, Arcueid's golden hair is much longer flowing down to her legs and she is wearing a long white dress with a blue and yellow-striped pattern on the lower part of the dress, which prominently displays her cleavage.

### Personality

Originally, Arcueid didn't possess any emotions at all and never spoke, as she was regularly focused on her duties to slay Roa and other Dead Apostles. Upon being killed by Shiki and reviving, she would gain a carefree and whimsical personality as a result of being "broken" by him. This gave her an interest in wanting to know more about the young man and the world around her. While understanding the basics of the modern era, she is clueless about social norms. For example, she waves to Shiki from the rear courtyard of his school without seeing any school officials beforehand to enter the premises. This is mostly due to Arcueid being mostly asleep the past 800 years between slayings of Roa's reincarnation, thus the girl lacks an understanding of the world around her or how to interact with others.

As Arcueid and Shiki work together in trying to stop Roa, the former learns to enjoy life and comes to develop romantic feelings for the boy. She regularly enjoys any food that Shiki cooks for her and tries to resist any urges that she develops to suck his blood as a result of her bloodlust from her weakened state.

## Story Arcs

*Note: The storyline covered here covers Arcueid's route from the Tsukihime visual novel, anime and manga.*

Arcueid is killed on sight by Shiki upon their first encounter with one another when the boy slices her up 16 times by cutting her lines of death with his Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. This was a result of Shiki's Nanaya blood reacting instinctively to non-human threats as they were a family of monster killers. Upon realizing what he has done, Shiki would flee the scene of the slaughter. While Arcueid would later regenerate herself, she used up most of her power doing so and was left further weakened as a result. This also led to her developing an interest in Shiki's fighting abilities and emotions she never had before.

The next day, Arcueid would meet with Shiki after he gets out of school and scares the boy into fleeing until she traps him in the dead end of an alleyway. While the two converse, they are attacked by one of Nrvnqsr Chaos' beasts and find themselves teaming up against the Dead Apostle since Arcueid's power is not at sufficient strength yet for her to fight alone. Shiki manages to kill Chaos by striking one of his lines of death using his Mystic Eyes. The two then decide to continue their partnership to track down Roa.

As the story progresses, Arcueid and Shiki come to understand one another as Shiki shows Arcueid various things of the modern era that she didn't consider important, such as movies. She attempts to bite Shiki at several points, but resists the impulse on time and usually finds herself having to run away from Shiki until her impulses settle down. The two eventually fall in love with one another despite Arcueid's vampire lineage and slight instability, enough so where the two have sex with each other.

After their night together, Arcueid takes off on her own to confront Roa at the school and is apparently killed by the Dead Apostle. Distraught at the sight of his lover being killed, an enraged Shiki uses his Mystic Eyes to destroy the walkway both he and Roa are on as a distraction to cut apart Roa's point of death. Being killed in this way nullifies Roa's very existence and would prevent him from ever reincarnating again in the future.

Later on, Shiki comes to see that Arcueid is still alive in his classroom and having regained the power that Roa stole from her. However, she could no longer restrain her vampire impulses and decided that she would go into an eternal sleep where she would always dream about Shiki. When Shiki offers to have Arcueid suck on his blood, she turns down the offer saying that she would always love him.

There are two different endings shown in the visual novel and manga with Arcueid. In the visual novel, there's a "good" ending showing Arcueid resisting her vampire impulses for a week and goes off to meet Shiki at the same place he had killed her where the two would spend the day together. In the manga, Shiki would go on a journey to track down Arcueid after she said her farewells to him and they would reunite together.

## Powers & Abilities

Arcueid is the strongest of the True Ancestors, surpassing them all in strength, speed and endurance. As a result, there are few who can match her in combat when she is at full strength. In her weakened state, Arcueid retains only 30% of her full power yet is still powerful enough to easily dispatch most Dead Apostles and even give Roa difficulty during their battle at Shiki's school.

Arcueid possesses the typical vampire claws of her race and the ability to use Marble Phantasm, the ability to manipulate probability and any existing phenomena of nature on Earth. Also because of her link to the spirit of the planet Gaia, Arcueid is capable of drawing upon the planet's power to be at one level in fighting power above her opponent when necessary. She also has a very high resistance to conceptual weapons as such weapons have little effect on her and she can instantly regenerate from any damage inflicted on her. Her abilities and durability are further strengthened at night, especially on full moon nights, where her lines and points of death are not visible to those having the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. She also possesses the ability to use the Mystic Eyes of Enchantment, an ability typical of vampires to implant hypnotic control over those within eyesight.

## Other Media

### Video Games

* Fate/Extra
* Kagetsu Tohya
* Melty Blood / RA / AC / AA
* PLUS-DISC
* Tsukihime