Dead Apostle

**Dead Apostles** (死徒, *Shito*?) are humans that became vampires either by the use of Magecraft (like Nrvnqsr Chaos, though this kind is rare) or by the actions of another vampire of similar nature (in this case, either a True Ancestor or another Dead Apostle). Among the creatures that fall under the vampire category, they are the most numerous. The main targets of the Executors of the Burial Agency, an organization created for the purpose of stopping the spreading of the heresy known as vampires by exterminating the Dead Apostles and sealing the Twenty-seven Dead Apostle Ancestors.

## Origin

The original members of this kind of vampire were created to act as countermeasures in the case of a True Ancestor being overwhelmed by his or her thirst for blood. In exchange for losing their free will and becoming a tool to relieve the vampiric impulses of the True Ancestors as emergency meals, these individuals were granted powers and longevity similar to their masters. However, what they received was still a flawed form of immortality and it was soon discovered that they needed to suck the blood of others to survive. Just like the True Ancestors, these vampires have the instinct known as **Vampiric Impulses** (吸血衝動, *Kyūketsu Shōdō*?), which pushes them to suck the blood of others. But differently than the vampiric impulses of the True Ancestors, they have the physical need to suck the blood of others in order to maintain their own bodies. For those Dead Apostles who used to be human, it is something not entirely dissimilar from an expression of love.

The result of repeatedly sucking the blood of humans was the emergence of a sense of superiority in the heart of the servants of the True Ancestors. Such a thing eventually gave birth to a feeling of rebellion towards their masters, which then lead the servants to find ways of strengthening their mental control and escaping from the domain of the True Ancestors. After the rebellion, these blood-sucking humans became known as the Dead Apostles.

Although the Dead Apostles are maverick and individualistic by nature, there is some form of a ruling body among them: The Twenty-seven Dead Apostle Ancestors. Initially, they were a group formed only by the original Dead Apostles who escaped from the True Ancestors; today, however, it is more of a collection of very odd, but powerful bloodsucking characters who are divided into multiple rival factions. Most of the original Dead Apostles were destroyed along the generations or sealed away by the Church. Afterward, their seats among the 27 Ancestors were either left empty or filled by somewhat suitable replacements. On a side note, those sealed away are actually just placed into eternal imprisonment inside special coffins, for the Church lacks the means to definitely destroy them. Meanwhile, some of the factions of those sealed Ancestors still remain and are slowly gaining the power necessary to either free their masters or destroy them. There are two primary factions that divide the Apostles, there are those who follow the formal King of the Dead Apostles, Trhvmn Ortenrosse, and those who follow the Princess of the Dead Apostles, Altrouge Brunestud.

The universe of *Fate/chaos divergence* is classified as a world line that is really neither a *Fate World* nor a *Tsukihime World* as it possesses elements of both worlds for unknown reasons. In this world line, there are only ten Dead Apostle Ancestors and they're split between two primary factions, led by the Princess Altrouge Brunestud and the Duchess Eskarne of Basque. This timeline also does not have any of the Dead Apostle Ancestors sealed by the Church due to the interventions of the zeroth Dead Apostle Ancestor, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg who convinced both the Church and the Mage's Association that the Dead Apostle Ancestors are not interested in meddling with human affairs and therefore, pose no threat until aggravated.

## Society

For the Apostles, amusement is the same as breathing. For those who were once human and achieved imperfect immortality, boredom is their greatest enemy. As soon as someone realizes they have no value---that their life is stopped, then their meaning of existence disappears too. So they started to wear down and to counter this they started to create their own amusement.

The Apostles began a game of conquest and saw themselves as lords of a castle expanding their territories. Additionally, Ortenrosse suggested a game of hunting the remaining True Ancestors. The Apostles find territorial wars and power struggles within their own factions entertaining and, for their own enjoyment, they place their own blood inside the humans they preyed upon. These corpses go through the Growth Process to become Vampires and eventually kill their parent Vampire in order to become new Dead Apostles themselves. For the Dead Apostles, killing another Dead Apostle is not something wrong, for the overall number of vampires doesn't change. However, those Apostles, like Enhance who want to destroy the existence of all vampires, in a manner similar to vampire hunters, become unforgivable traitors. Should a Dead Apostle be killed then all of its children vampires should die as well, but those who are treated as successors can live on even after the parent's death. The area needs investigation even after the parent is exterminated, and the real job of purification only begins after that point.

The Apostles, however, try to maintain the balance between society and themselves. They exploit humans in secret, for no other reason than self-preservation. They don't want it to be known that vampires exist at all and to protect their own lives, they hide the bodies of their victims, expand their territory and use various magical techniques to make things appear not out of the ordinary. But there were also Dead Apostles, like Ainnash, with values unchanged since the Middle Ages and sucked blood with reckless abundance. Then Aged Apostles set their own rules and by abiding by them enjoy bloodsucking as entertainment. Most of the long-lived Apostles don't use their names from their human lives anymore. And they don't make up a new name for themselves, but the Church assigns them one. They add on names as they find new, special characteristics of the vampire, so some of them have names as long as spells.

The common goal of all Dead Apostles is to achieve perfect immortality, that does not rely on the ingestion of blood. There exist a variety of approaches of Apostles who tried to achieve it but no one has succeeded yet. It could be said that another goal of all Dead Apostles is becoming an Ancestor. Even the Dead Apostles at the very bottom who were changed into vampires by lowly Dead Apostles with no standing or reputation dream of one day being able to gather enough power to become one of the 27 Ancestors themselves.

## Characteristics

Although they appear to have capacities beyond human limitations, most vampires actually acquired their powers by constantly refining **human-inherent abilities** throughout their extended lives. In other words, anyone with a similarly long lifespan has the potential to reach a level comparable to the Dead Apostles. Also, contrary to popular belief, vampires can be killed with conventional weaponry. However, that is a feat near impossible to accomplish since their superior reflexes, senses, and physical abilities allow them to see and dodge a bullet after it has been shot. And as long as one is human, one cannot deceive a vampire's sense of smell nor their sense of taste as they can even detect alcohol in the blood of their victims. They can gain these inhuman physical abilities because their bodies are not connected by nerves, but by the blood of others. They also developed fangs to suck blood and can turn their hands into vampiric claws at will. They are also able, by training their abilities or by finishing their magical research, to develop their own special abilities. An example would be that some vampires, like Jester Karture, can change their bodies freely so that you cannot rely on appearance to identify them. Gransurg Blackmore has the ability to change his shape into a large bird several kilometers in size or Michael Roa Valdamjong who altered his soul and attained the Magecraft of reincarnation. Vampires also show signs of Mystery, a sliver of power that comes from the Root, which accumulates over time and grows stronger with age. Incidentally, the top 10 Dead Apostle Ancestors can no longer be killed by ordinary means, having lived in Mystery for so long, the only way to defeat them is through an even greater Mystery. Most of the Ancestors are also able to utilize Reality Marbles.

However, the downside of acquiring a power that humans originally would not have is that the genes that compose their bodies are constantly degenerating, and once they die they won't leave a trace as their bodies turn into ash. The only way to interrupt and reverse this degeneration, even if just temporarily, is by regularly ingesting the blood of living creatures in order to absorb genetic information and stabilize their own bodies. On that note, even though human blood and especially the blood of virgins, because one's blood cells are purer before one has exchanged bodily fluids with others, are the most suited to the needs of the vampires, the blood of animals is a viable alternative. Due to their advanced age, Dead Apostles that have lived for at least one thousand years require enormous amounts of energy. Rather than a measure of their power, it is instead because compensation is needed for the maintenance of such a long-lived existence. One such Dead Apostle, Nrvnqsr Chaos, has colossal meals including over one hundred people in ten minutes. Basically, there are a few "weaknesses" common to all Dead Apostles which are sunlight that greatly hastens their bodies' degeneration and running water. But powerful Apostles are capable of conquering the sunlight and move around during the day, and any Apostle can use the advances of technology like a plane or a ship for their advantage. On the other hand, the Executors of the Church who possess holy sacraments and other holy weapons are a great threat to them.

On the issue of the actual bloodsucking process, a vampire can either hunt prey himself or acquire the blood indirectly through the use of familiars. The actual bloodsucking process is described as if, all the life in the body is liquified and sucked out, the consciousness of the victim is being destroyed. A victim that gets all of his blood sucked dies and becomes all shriveled up like a mummy. A vampire can then intentionally skip the process of becoming a vampire by turning the dead body into its familiar. Although The Dead are the traditional familiars of the vampires, few actually use them today since their presence will alert vampire hunters such as the Burial Agency. Thus, the use of familiars from different species is somewhat more widespread. These familiars are created when a vampire feeds his blood to a living creature. These creatures cannot disobey their master as there is both a mental and physical connection between the two. For a Dead Apostle living a long time and stabilizing his body with normal lives is not sufficient, so it's more effective to repair one's body by absorbing beasts, as they surpass the human species in this respect. By pushing his capacities to their limits, a Dead Apostle can possess either about 30 animals of the same species or one member of the Phantasmal Species that belongs to the **Monstrous Beast** (魔獣, *Majū*?) or Demon Beasts or **Phantasmal Beast** (幻獣, Genjū?)-class as familiars. Stronger Dead Apostles were known to have used familiars of different animal species simultaneously, showing that the strength of the user's willpower is apart from others. Those Apostles who repair their own bodies with beasts can return them to their previous forms and use them as familiars when they need to.

Dead Apostles have regenerative powers which do not simply heal, but cause their bodies to turn their time backward to a point in which they were unharmed; thus, you cannot cause wounds greater than the speed of their recovery. They also can "deny" the power of Noble Phantasms made by man or those the gods prepared for man, rendering them useless. Such a compatibility advantage comes only against humans wielding such weapons, so if a Heroic Spirit wielded those same Noble Phantasms, or if the Noble Phantasms were made by the gods for the gods, it would work against the Dead Apostles. Most of the older and more powerful Dead Apostles possess the Mystic Eyes of Enchantment, which are capable of high-level hypnosis within the user's field of vision increasing dramatically in effect by direct eye contact, while some possess other forms of Mystic Eyes. Dead Apostles are also known for transferring their consciousness into from them created spare bodies or into The Dead to acquire information from a different perspective. Once it has served its purpose, they cut the magical energy flow and it returns to dust, which gives them the impression of turning into mist. Additionally, since they are related through the True Ancestors with the moon, the lunar cycle over the Earth has effects on them. Granting them more power than their normal estate is depending on the lunar cycle.

Those who now Magecraft, make layers of Bounded Fields to form **Territorial Fields** (領地田畑, *Ryōdo Tahata*?), when creating their lairs. This invisible protection is similar to the ones that hide away the world of the fairies, which fool even nature itself. The lair is accessible only by those who are invited in, and they are difficult to invade, taking even the trained magi of the Mage's Association several years to find one. These lairs are enshrouded by darkness, by shadows, by longing for rationally, and by fear towards the taboo, so they cannot be found by humans.

## Growth Process

If a vampire injects some of its own black blood into a human victim’s bloodstream, the said victim will be infused with some of the vampire’s own power and their body becomes unable to completely die. The black blood violates and burns the whole body from the inside but in most cases, however, the body dies, and with it, the soul of the victim. The final result would be a mindless familiar known as The Dead. In the rare occurrence that the victim possesses a high physical potential and the capacity of their soul is excellent, it prevents the body and with it the soul from death. He will instead become a Ghoul and embark on climbing the ladder to becoming a full-fledged Vampire. The extension of its powers, physical abilities, and form are dependent on its parent vampire, to whom it is bound, both mentally and spiritually. One example is Sion, the child of the Night of Wallachia, who acquired abilities related to manipulating **Malignant Information** (悪性情報, *Akusei Jōhō*?) or the children of Gransurg Blackmore who, rather than transforming from humans into pure vampires, get turned into hybrids with the heads and wings of birds. Furthermore, the powers of the blood, shared by Vampire relatives of Dead Apostles, would exponentially increase when fighting together, since their powers are not calculated by addition but by multiplication.

### Ghoul

**Ghoul** (食屍鬼, *Shokushiki*?), otherwise known as a Corpse-Eating Demon are born, when the body of a vampire's victim is unable to completely die. After their corpse is buried and left for several years in the grave, their brain will rot and the human soul will be freed from the cage of the body. The decayed corpse now begins acting as a kind of living dead. Their transformed souls have now bypassed the necessity of the brain to hold the soul, as the soul is now separate from the body. They have mental capacities pretty much equivalent to that of a savage beast and they must devour other corpses to reconstruct their own degenerated flesh. After many years of this, they restore their bodies and thus, their brain, which now anchors their soul again to the body. The soul can now reshape itself with the brain and the body and they fully recover their intelligence and memories.

### Vampire

**Vampire** (吸血鬼, *Kyūketsuki*?), otherwise known as a Blood-Sucking Demon are born after several years of development when a Ghoul regains all of its memories and full human intellect. They finally become mature Vampires who acquired their parent's abilities and can now attain their own power, move by their own will, capable of creating other vampires and having their own minions. It takes decades, of acclimating to life in the darkness, to complete this Growth Process. Satsuki Yumizuka was a rare case among rare cases, for an unknown Psychic ability that made her complete the rebirth into a full-fledged vampire almost immediately. She is one of 27 to 30 individuals in the whole World who possesses this special idiosyncrasy to become a Dead Apostle. The newborn Vampire gains the necessary knowledge to understand the changes of its body and quickly grows accustomed to living as a vampire.

However, it is still bound to the will of its parent vampire, as they cannot escape from the rule of their sire's blood. They are forced, when they acquire blood, to supply the majority of it to their parent vampire. Consequently, the child vampire will eventually try to become a parent vampire themselves. They will start to threaten the world by creating servants of their very own while remaining subservient to the vampire that made them. A vampire can only become a full-fledged Dead Apostle after breaking free from the control of their parent vampire.