Arcueid Brunestud

"When everything's over, let's come here again, Shiki! It won't have any meaning, but I'm sure it will be really, really fun!"

- Arcueid Brunestud

Arcueid Brunestud is one of five main heroines of Tsukihime, and often considered its "main" or "default" heroine - in any case, she is the most popular Tsukihime heroine. She is the eponymous Tsukihime (Moon Princess), as evident by the title of her "True Ending." She also has important roles in Kagetsu Tohya and the story mode of Melty Blood. She is voiced by Nabatame Hitomi in the Tsukihime anime and by Yuzuki Ryouka in Melty Blood.

Background
Arcueid Brunestud is the White Princess of the True Ancestors. The title of Brunestud was given to those True Ancestors capable of manifesting the Millennium Castle Brunestud, and has been likened to be the vampire royal family, although this is not strictly true. The True Ancestors were a race of beings copied from TYPE-MOON, the ultimate being of the moon, also known as the Crimson Moon. Long ago the planet had no defense mechanism against humanity, nothing to keep them in check. Thus the Crimson Moon came down and offered to help the planet make a race of ultimate beings to rule over humanity, thus resulting in them being the 'concsciousness of the planet.' True Ancestors are likened to occurances such as earthquakes and typhoons rather than individuals as their "...actions, while evil and without justification, would come as naturally to her (Arcueid and other True Ancestors) as breathing." However the race was fundamentally flawed, they had a desire to drink blood that the original, the Crimson Moon had. The True Ancestors needed to use a large portion of their power to suppress this impulse, but as there was no cure, and with passage of time the impulse grew, more and more True Ancestors fell and began drinking blood indiscriminately, while others most likely went into eternal sleep.

Thus the True Ancestors created Arcueid as a weapon, the executioner of the fallen True Ancestors and of the most powerful Dead Apostles. According to Ciel, this happened in the 12th century AD, when the number of fallen True Ancestors was very high. She was able to perform this duty splendidly, but she was nothing more than a tool. She was taught nothing beyond what she needed to know to hunt her targets, to the extent that she even ignored the fact that she was the same kind of creature as those she was supposed to destroy, and went to sleep after every kill, with her accumulated memories erased.

As the executioner, she did not have any vampiric impulses, and the rest of the True Ancestors also believed she had none. A priest from the church seeking perfect immortality, Michael Roa Valdamjong, needed to become a Dead Apostle to continue his research as he had already reached the potential of his human body. Arcueid, ignorant of her nature as a vampire and the consequences of drinking blood, was easily tricked by Roa into drinking his and turned berserk, wiping out most of the True Ancestors, turning Roa into one of the strongest Dead Apostles and having a considerable portion of her power stolen by him, before she managed to regain her sanity long enough to chain herself to the throne and go to sleep. From then on she had to suppress her urge to drink blood like any other True Ancestors. The rest of the True Ancestors were wiped out either by Roa or the rest of the Dead Apostles, who made a game of trying to assassinate their creators.

Arcueid finally managed to destroy Roa's original body, although it took an alliance with the Burial Agency to do it. Roa was not killed however, as he had managed to master reincarnation, and constantly reincarnated into host bodies he chose before his deaths. These host bodies were chosen for a mix of social standing (rich families with influence) and the physical/magical potential of the body. After destroying Roa's original body, Arcueid went to sleep and awoke only to kill Roa's re-incarnations constantly, but was never able to destroy him and get her power back as he would simply re-incarnate each time. At the time of Tsukihime, Roa had re-incarnated 17 times, with his last re-incarnation being Tohno SHIKI.

Personality
Arcueid is shown to be a whimsical individual who, although knowing the basics of the modern era, does not seem to know about social norms. Both Nasu and Takeuchi think of her "image color" as white because she is pure in terms of appearance and personality. Once, she shows up at Shiki's school and waves to him from the school rear courtyard, luckily for Shiki only Ciel spots her. Her behaviour is almost child-like, due to the lonely nature of her up bringing, although she is over 800 years old, she spent most of it asleep and knows nearly nothing about the world or how to interact with others. As she works together with Shiki to stop Roa, she gradually begins to enjoy life and starts to like Shiki as more than just a friend.

Arcueid does everything in her power not to drink Shiki's blood, which nearly occurs several times in game as he is practically the only human at night with her, and she has problems controlling her vampiric impulses after being drastically weakened by Shiki's attack. She doesn't want to drink blood, as she doesn't want to become a monster that feeds on humans in order to survive.

Arcueid seems to thoroughly enjoy when Shiki cooks breakfast for her. In Melty Blood, Shiki threatens to stop doing this for her if she doesn't meet him in the park that night. When Sion Eltnam Atlasia questions whether such a threat would ever have any sort of effect on a True Ancestor, Shiki recounts to her a time that he managed to get Arcueid to immediately apologize to Akiha when she and her were arguing by making the same threat. Later that night, Arcueid does, in fact, meet Shiki and Sion in the park. She apparently cannot stand garlic. In a scene in Kagetsu Tohya, Arcueid eats instant noodles cooked by Shiki that had garlic in them, and becomes sick.

Arcueid shows up as Neco-Arc in Ciel-Sensei's lessons in Tsukihime and she randomly switches to that persona in some comedy scenes in Kagetsu Tohya, though Neco-Arc seems to be her own existence brought forth by Zelretch in the Melty Blood series.

Development
During the original draft of of the basis for Tsukihime, Arcueid was a cold stereotypical vampire compared to her cheerful self in Tsukihime. The tone of the story lacked any sort of loving tone, and not much of it remained in Tsukihime. Upon developing the story for Tsukihime, they pictured Arcueid as a cool and princess-like "Noble Vampire", but thought that it overlapped with Akiha's "Lady" character. All of the heroines spoke politely to the main character, so they figured that the only character who could fit the role of someone who didn't speak politely would be Arcueid. They eventually came up with the idea of a "pure white" vampire that developed her character very differently from the original version.

While the name bears a resemblance to "Alucard", a common name in vampire stories created by reversing Dracula's name, "Arcueid" is actually just a name they had planned to give to a different character in a different story. They used a model when creating her design. During college, Takeuchi Takashi saw a foreign model in a fashion magazine who left an impression on him. He wished to work her into one of his characters no matter how much trial and error even with only the one vague image.

Arcueid's Route
Shiki Tohno will first meet Arcueid in one of the 2 "Near side of the moon" routes (Arcueid/Ciel's routes) after leaving school early one day because of an anemia attack, he spots Arcueid on the street and is consumed by an irresistible urge to kill her because of his Nanaya blood. The Nanaya were a family of killers that specialized in hunting down non-humans, and Arcueid as a vampire awoke his Nanaya blood. Skillfully trailing Arcueid back to her apartment, he rings the doorbell and in the instant the door opens, sneaks through the crack and slices her into 17 pieces in an instantaneous single strike with his knife and his Mystic Eyes Of Death Perception. Regaining his sanity and finding himself in front of her corpse, Shiki staggers to the park where he either collapses and is taken back to the mansion by Kohaku (Arcueid's route) or is found and taken care of by Ciel (Ciel's route).

The next day when heading to school, Shiki finds Arcueid waiting on a guard rail outside his school. Panicking, he runs, only to be chased into a dead alley and confronted by Arcueid. Their conversation is interrupted by one of Nrvnqsr's beasts, and Arcueid "convinces" Shiki to help her deal with the vampire in the town as she used up most of her power to re-form her body after Shiki killed her and will need time to regain the power she had lost.

The two of them are partners against Nrvnqsr Chaos, with Shiki killing Nrvnqsr by striking his "death point". They decide to again be partners to take out Roa who Arcueid has been targeting. Over the course of her route she and Shiki begin to understand one another. Shiki shows Arcueid the various things she's unaware of, such as movies, which are things Arcueid can't comprehend as important. At several points she attempts to bite Shiki, though she manages to hold herself back in time, though usually she runs until her impulses have stopped. Eventually she and Shiki have fallen in love with one another, despite her slightly unstable nature and vampire lineage. However, she attempts to take out Roa by herself and is apparently killed in the process. Enraged and in grief, Shiki proceeds to destroy the walkway he and Roa are on as a distraction and utterly destroys Roa's point, thus nullifying his very existence and preventing him from ever reincarnating.

In Arcueid's True Ending, Shiki waits in his classroom for her despite thinking she is dead. Arcueid surprisingly arrives, having regained the bit of power Roa stole from her. However she can no longer hold back her impulses and decides she should sleep from now on, dreaming of Shiki. Despite Shiki's pleas, even begging her to drink his blood, Arcueid says she cannot do so because she loves him and says farewell with Shiki greatly saddened, looking at the moon as he leaves the school. This ending was the basis for the ending used in the anime, although a few details were changed. In the manga, after Arcueid left, he goes on a search for her and they are finally reunited together.

In Arcueid's Good Ending, she spends an entire week suppressing her urges and meets Shiki on his way to school, exactly at the same point where he killed her at the beggining of the story. The two then go off to seemingly spend the day together.

Akiha's Route
She makes one appearance in Akiha's route when Shiki sees her walking down the street from behind and has an urge to kill her. However, Shiki ends up getting distracted by Satsuki.

Melty Blood
In Melty Blood, there is a another version of Arcueid called Red Arcueid, a hypothetical Arcueid that has ceased restraining her blood lust and succumbed entirely. As such, she is intensely sadistic and bloodthirsty. Presumably, she possesses several times more power than Arcueid due to no longer suppressing herself. However, she only appears in Melty Blood series and is merely an illusion made by TATARI.

Her appearance is drastically different from Arcueid, sporting large fangs, a somewhat inhuman shape, long claws and red eyes different from Arcueid's normal golden eyes. This is similar to the depiction of Arcueid in Tsukihime Prologue from the time when she tasted blood for the first time.

Another third version of Arcueid makes an appearance in Actress Again called Archetype：Earth, a princess-version of Arcueid, assuming to be in her full power. She has exclusive access to the Eclipse style and her Last Arc is an instant kill against every character except Shiki. Because of this she is typically banned in tournaments. In Melty Blood Actress Again Ver. 1.07 and PC version, she becomes a common selectable character, gets her own story mode, and, as confirmed by Type Moon Ace Vol. 7 Magazine, is revealed to be the subconscious of Arcueid (her side as Crimson Moon) taking control over her body temporarily to experience the human world for the first time in her story mode. Ciel believes that Arcueid managed to awaken her Origin, but Archetype denies this declaring that they are intrinsically a single being, and that she simply has a very long waking period, as the basis of life for her is far too vast compared to the living organisms that live on the surface. Even Shiki Ryougi recognizes a overwhelming aura flowing from Archetype:Earth during their conversation, stating that she can't see her death and then calls her a monster before their fight. Riesbyfe Stridberg also calls her the Ultimate One.

Fate/Extra
Arcueid appears in Fate/Extra as a non playable-Berserker, summoned by Monji Gatoh.

Carnival Phantasm
She makes an official appearance in Episode 2, in which she plays a volleyball match in order to get Shiki. Arcueid is very possesive of Shiki and often gets into fights with Ciel. In Episode 3, Arcueid decides to enroll in school in order to be closer to Shiki and feeling that Ciel spends more time with him. However, she doesn't get used to the school rules, and quits after a single day. Much to Shiki and Ciel's chagrin, Arcueid doesn't give up in spending more time with Shiki, as she becomes the new janitor the next day. In Episode 7, Arcueid decides to cook okonomiyaki for Shiki, after he talked with her about it. She caughts the raw ingredients with the help of Len (she even rips a pig from Nrvnqsr Chaos), but she cooks it in the wrong way.

Apparently, Arcueid's secret identity is Phantasmoon, a magical girl who fights trauma monsters and the demon Akiha.

Unlike her personality in the Tsukihime anime, when she is shown to be nicer towards the other girls (with the exception of Ciel), in Carnival Phantasm she only seems to care about Shiki and make him happy. Her rivality-frienship with Ciel is comically exaggerated.

In Episode 12. she is one of Shiki's dates and he took her to the movies. Since apparently Arcueid likes watching movies a lot, he was expecting her to get distracted so he could go to his other dates, but Arcueid got bored and followed Shiki instead. After realizing that he might get caught for dating everyone, Shiki decided to take her, Ciel and Akiha together, until Sion appeared and accidentally revealed that he also was planning to date her. Arcueid gets angered after realizing what Shiki did and reverts to Red Arcueid, attacking him. She finally appears at the Ahnenerbe party, talking with Saber.

Abilities
As the most powerful True Ancestor created to specifically hunt down the fallen True Ancestors, there are few who can match Arcueid in terms of strength, speed and endurance. While there are different levels of power in the True Ancestor hierarchy, Arcueid, as a sublimation on the level of the First True Ancestor, Crimson Moon, is beyond all of the other True Ancestors. Before Shiki killed her, she was using 70% of her power to suppress her vampiric impulses, but even then she was more than strong enough to destroy almost any Dead Apostle that got in her way; especially with her Marble Phantasm, which can literally change reality to create any naturally occurring effect and summon the Millennium Castle Brunestud, the ancestral home of the True Ancestors. The power of Marble Phantasm is such that even in her extreme weakened state, she was able to reduce Roa's latest host body to just the ankles.

She also has the normal vampire claws, and as a True Ancestor very few conceptual weapons can harm her. Arcueid states that she may be vulnerable to conceptual weapons from South America because she has not developed resistance to those yet. All vampires can ignore damage from most sources as their body will revert to the pre-damaged state rapidly, a conceptual weapon such as the Black Keys used by members of the Church nullifies this ability. At night she is almost invulnerable, and her power is at its peak during the full moon. During the night, all of her lines and points of death disappear, rendering her indestructible; however, they show up again when Shiki "kills" the very nature from which she draws her strength in one of the endings. She can not only regenerate most wounds rapidly, but even re-form her body completely after having her 'lines' cut by Shiki, even though it took the majority of her power to do so. She also has Mystic Eyes that enable limited control over others, such as the ability to plant suggestions. The color of her eyes changes to gold when they are active, thus revealing her as possessing the Mystic Eyes of Enchantment.

Due to having the back up of the planet, she has the ability to increase her fighting power to one level above those she faces. It is possible to cut her off from this power by killing the land around her or sealing her off from the world through a powerful Bounded Field that rewrites the world by switching the terrain effect with a different terrain effect or a Reality Marble that overwrites the current world. While her connection to nature can be interrupted by any such barrier, the ability to actually cut her off from the supply depends on what is being used as energy to hold up the barrier because the overwritten world generally has an even more colossal world seeping up from underneath it to return it to normal. She complains about White Len cutting off her backup with her dream barrier, but Arcueid could easily get serious, request backup from the planet, and blow away White Len along with the entire barrier if she so wished. Some form of alien deploying a Reality Marble may be able to cut her off from her energy source completely.

Arcueid is one of two possible successors to the original Crimson Moon. The other is her "sister" Altrouge Brunestud, but she is generally considered too "unstable". Arcueid didn't cut her hair on her own, but it was taken away during a battle against Altrouge, and until she recovers it, it won't grow back. At her full power, her form, power, and even thinking can be said to be that of Crimson Moon. Her Last Arc in Melty Blood involves the ability used on Shiki in Kagestsu Touya, where she gives him payback for killing Arcueid when he stumbles into her dream. It is sure to hit eighteen times when used against Shiki to one up cutting her into seventeen pieces.