Cobalt Zaffre (DOTS: DR Character)

Cobalt is the deuteragonist of DOTS: DR. He starts off as Ruby's rival during the first tournament arc of the series.

### Soul Color

Blue (Blue Paladin), also contains Cyan half soul (Cyan Paladin)

### Elements

Ice, Wind, Lightning (Both Ball and Normal)

### Weapon

Sword

Cobalt is also the true identity of Turquoise Sky, and both the Blue and Cyan Paladin (called an "Azure Paladin"). Because of his dominantly Blue soul, he is mostly referred to as the Blue Paladin.

As a professional tournament fighter, Cobalt makes a name for himself in Neocity. Due to his three elements, he fears being manipulated for his great power. In order to protect himself, he has two sentry roommates, Yin and Yang, to act as his non-tournament bodyguards. He also owns a samoyed named Shiro, who was gifted to him by Marengo Payne.

## Apperance

Cobalt is a pale Lunaran with bright cyan eyes. His hair is magical, and when cut the blue part naturally grows back, keeping the same ratio of blue to brown coloring.

He is mostly seen wearing trench coats, iconic to his character style. A running gag is also considered where even before needing to hide his prosthetic, Cobalt still wears trench coats in hotter seasons. These coats are also underneath a sash he uses to store his sword. After the midpoint of Arc 1 and onwards, he wears long black gloves to cover his prosthetic arm, both to hide it from others and himself. Like most DOTS characters, he wears boots. Mana has called his style of boots, "rich people boots".

Underneath his outfit are various tournament scars. Most notably are an X-shaped scar around his chest and shoulder, a large vertical scar on his right shoulder, a diagonal one on his right tricep, a horizontal one on his right forearm, and a scar on his leg. He also has lots of smaller scars on his body, though these scars are for extreme detail. After the midpoint of Arc 1, he has two horizontal scars parallel to each other on his left tricep, as well as scarring around his stump.

Cobalt is a slightly muscular and tall male. His left arm is eventually replaced with a metal prosthetic or shown covered in bandages when not in use.

## Personality

Cobalt is a mostly serious character due to his title as a famous prodigy, though he is shown to loosen up and have fun as Turquoise. He occasionally presents himself as cocky and confident, though it is unknown if this is an act or not. He is fairly intelligent and a master fighter, taking fighting very seriously.

He acts a lot like a jaded veteran, and is shown to get extremely melancholic at times. While his "Paladin Virtue" is serenity, he manifests this by being apathetic to his lifestyle as a tournament celebrity. He has also been described as having a "terrifying" anger, venting his frustrations by shoving his sword through his house floors. On the other hand, as Turquoise he manifests his virtue of clarity by being extremely exaggerated with his expressions. Turquoise/Cobalt is an extrovert, though as Turquoise he tends to be much more anxious and neurotic.

## Abilities

Unlike other Junoans or Paladins, Cobalt has three elements due to having a dual soul.

### **Ice**

Cobalt can lower the temperature around him through his mouth, summoning ice around him to use as weaponry or elemental attacks. This is mostly partnered with his Wind abilities.

Unlike other elements, Cobalt's ice element is constantly active, making him look as if he's breathing ice in certain situations. Due to the connection it has to Cobalt's mouth and biology, Cobalt's body temperature is naturally cold. During times of emotional stress or extreme emotion, he will unwillingly breathe ice. Despite originating from his mouth, extreme stress could cause him to form a small shell of ice around his body in extreme cases, or form ice around his feet when standing. Using his ice element too much will also lead to dehydration, and it is important for him to hydrate himself consistently. Cobalt cannot eat spicy or hot foods such as spicy peppers or soups, and doing so will both disable his ice abilities temporarily and give him a migraine.

### **Wind**

Cobalt can control the air around him to create a gust of wind. While not useful to him by itself, one of his most common moves is using his manipulation of air alongside his ice breath in order to summon ice at long distances.

### **Lightning**

Cobalt can summon both forms of lightning, such as ball lightning and normal lightning. His lightning element is his Paladin element, having both ball lightning from Callaina and normal lightning from Azureus. Much like Blaze, Cobalt developed his Paladin element at a young age rather than unlocking it.

Cobalt can electrify things at a distance or blast them with balls of lightning. This is seen as Cobalt's most dangerous element, due to the hazards of electrocution.

### **Support Elements**

Alongside Cobalt's elemental abilities, Cobalt has two support elements, flight and teleportation.

As a Lunaran, Cobalt also has the ability to shapeshift.

### **Physical Abilities**

Cobalt is skilled in swordsmanship, always carrying around his sword. During battle, it is most likely for Cobalt to draw his sword than rely on elemental abilities. He is also interested in learning other weapons such as daggers, using similar weapon handling of daggers for Turquoise's ice attacks.

A running gag is that no one realizes that Cobalt is still gifted without his sword. He can do a decent style of punches and kicks, though most of his fans and opponents believe he cannot fight without his sword.

Despite his great strength in all of his elements and his powerful defensive psyche, Cobalt gets easily drained in battle.

## Trivia

* Inspirations for Cobalt's character include Noctis Lucis Caelum from FFXV, Takashi Shirogane from Voltron, Steven Quartz Universe from Steven Universe (specifically Steven Universe: Future), Wilbur Soot's character in the Dream SMP, and Roy Mustang from FMA.
* Cobalt occasionally goes by the nicknames "Coco" or "Balt". Mana initially wanted to nickname him Coco due to its cute nature, but ended up using Balt instead. Canonically, his parents would probably have nicknamed him Coco, while his friends would nickname him Balt.
* Despite their arc as tournament rivals, Mana accidentally made Ruby and Cobalt's names into perfect "rival names", as Cobalt's last name "Zaffre" came from another language's word for "Sapphire", clashing perfectly with Ruby's first name.

* Cobalt's arc 1 hair was originally longer, moving past his shoulders. However, Mana felt the hairstyle was unfitting for Cobalt and was "unable to make it look good". His arc 1 hair was made to be shoulder-length, having a similar hairstyle to Ventus Fulmen from Mana's other story, AuAg.
	+ Another change from Raven's initial art of his arc 1 design was taking away the fingerless gloves, as Mana felt that his hands should be "emphasized" before he loses one of them.
* As Mana's favorite Chrises, Mana has said that both Ventus and Cobalt take after music albums with a "man in a tuxedo covered in blood" when it comes to their character arcs. In Cobalt's case, it is A Picture Perfect Hollywood Heartbreak by Zach Callison, which deals with the struggles of mental illness in a public scene such as Hollywood.
* In Ruby's band, Prism Prison, Turquoise plays the drums. It is unknown who takes over after his amputation.
* Cobalt's outfits were solely designed by Raven, as Mana felt that they had the best grasp on his fashion choices.
* Cobalt is one of Mana's original four OCs, being based off of Chris Fujiwara.
* Cobalt is the only modern Paladin with magical hair, not counting Turquoise due to his form of being Cobalt's disguise and alter ego.
	+ Turquoise's dual-colored hair also does not match his supposed soul color like Cobalt's does.
* Cobalt is one of the only two characters with some form of half-soul, though his Blue side is much more dominant than his Cyan side, making his soul Blue.
* It is canon that Ruby and Turqbalt have roleplayed self insert characters in the past. Cobalt's character was named "Azure", unintentionally referencing his Azure Paladin title.
* If Mana had to create a theme song for Cobalt, Raven and Mana agree it would have elements of "Faint" by Linkin Park and "This Love This Hate" by Hollywood Undead.
* Cobalt is canonically on the autism spectrum, and exhibits many traits of autism, such as the following: stimming (finger tapping, chewing ice, wearing comfortable weighty coats, running fingers through hair, etc.), aversion towards certain food types (hot/spicy food), hyper/hyposensitive to temperature (hates heat, doesn’t care about cold), hyper/hyposensitive to tactile sensations (hates raindrops), abnormal emotional responses (overall lacking in emotion, alexithymia), hyperfocus/special interest in blades, anxious about loud sudden noises (including crowds to an extent) and prone to meltdowns if provoked, and developmentally challenged as a baby but grew up quickly with great intelligence. Also, Chris Niosi, an inspiration for his character, also happens to be autistic, diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome.