Arcueid Brunestud

Arcueid Brunestud (アルクェイド・ブリュ ンスタッド) is the main heroine of Tsukihime, being the eponymous Moon Princess (月姫).

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 'consciousness of the planet.' True Ancestors are likened to occurrences 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.

The True Ancestors didn't have a specific reason in creating Arcueid. They normally only mold new True Ancestors to fit specific needs. There was no need for a being as strong as her, but in the end, she originated from nothingness, simply as a product to realize the pointless goal of "the strongest True Ancestor." They used her great strength to make her into 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 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.

She was originally a being without emotions who never spoke. She only focused on her duties and then returned to sleep in an endless cycle. Shiki, by killing her, made her interested in something on her own for the first time and essentially "broke" her. The "airhead" version of her is something that shouldn't exist alongside her purpose as a weapon, but it was present in her foundation. She isn't truly an airhead, but more childish and honest.

She has a constant flow of income in the form of gold, so she has no issues with obtaining money. There is a special gold exchange shop for fugitives in the Mage's Association, and the owner of the shop gives her gold because he is a fan of her. She can be called rich, but she doesn't dress like it because she has no interest in clothing. She later changes to make Shiki happy.

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 "", a common name in vampire stories created by reversing '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 beginning of the story. The two then go off to seemingly spend the day together.

Ciel's route
Like in her own route, Arcueid falls in love with Shiki and wanted him for herself throughout, despite him being with Ciel in this route.

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 gets distracted by Satsuki.

Melty Blood
Arcuied's role in the first Melty Blood's story is limited. She fights Shiki Tohno and Sion Eltnam Atlasia once while investigating the occurrence of the Night of Wallachia, though the Arcueid they fight may only be a manifestation of a rumor depending on the path. Wallachia's main goal is to manifest as a True Ancestor, so he hopes that the rumors lead to him developing as Arcueid. Shiki's fears about Arcueid losing control over her vampiric impulses combined with the rumors of her traveling through town at night allows for him to manifest in her form if there are no more prevalent rumors.

This manifestation, called Red Arcueid (暴走アルクェイド), is a hypothetical Arcueid that has ceased restraining her blood lust and succumbed entirely. The main route has him materialize as her, but this form is defeated. The true Arcueid shows up afterward, utilizing Marble Phantasm to allow him to be fully killed. Red Arcueid is able to still be manifested within the sequels under the TATARI of White Len and Dust of Osiris. Actress Again introduces Archetype：Earth (真祖アルクェイ), a princess-version of Arcueid that follows the will of her Crimson Moon "personality" and has full access to her abilities.

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

Carnival Phantasm
She appears in episode 1 as a spectator of the Holy Grail War, but 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 gets used to the school rules and quits after a day. Much to Shiki and Ciel's chagrin, Arcueid doesn't give up in spending more time with Shiki and 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 caught 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. Her ditzy attitude and rivalry-friendship with Ciel are 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 about the maid dress she wore when she worked at Ahnenerbe, as she compliments Saber much to the latter's embarrassment.

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. She is much like a God, as a spirit in flesh.

Combat
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.

Marble Phantasm
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.

Without her limiter, she can likely materialize something the size of a small village in the mountains. She cannot do so normally in modern towns built up by the work of many people, so she would have to destroy in order to create anything there. It would require more time, so the Church would have enough time to locate her and start a battle with her. It is very hard to directly help humans utilizing the ability, but it is viable with other creatures.

Backup
Arcueid receives backup from the planet as part of the Counter Force. She has the ability to increase her fighting power to one level above those she faces while drawing upon it, and it is said to be virtually unlimited. Overall, the strength available to her as of Tsukihime, thirty percent of her strength, is around that of four Servants. She will very likely win when only faced with one Servant-level opponent in this state, but even with her power, she would still potentially be overwhelmed when faced with two opponents of that level. Due to an absolute order from her backup, the planet itself, her "output changes according to her opponent", so she is only allowed an output slightly stronger than her opponent like how the Counter Force deals with its problems. Against a Servant, the level of output would be approximately that of two Servants.

Her ability to deal with single opponents, "single entity ability", is roughly on the same level as Servants, so she has bad compatibility against those like Gilgamesh. Servants utilize Noble Phantasms, while she utilizes her backup, leading to differences depending on affinity. She can be called a "simple-is-best" fighter and an all rounder with high chances in most fights, but doesn't go well with those of high versatility. Gilgamesh has the "firepower" of over five Servants, but Arcueid is only able to draw strength based on "single entity ability." He has roughly the same statistics as her, but a large amount of weaponry to utilize against her, making her have horrible compatibility in such a fight.

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.

Bloodlust
She is the only True Ancestor able to suppress her bloodlust with pure willpower. As she drank Roa's blood in the past, Ciel states that, no longer how long she holds out, it is inevitable that she will drink it again.

Red Arcueid, no longer |restraining her blood lust]], should have full access to her power after having succumbed entirely. Wallachia, noting her almost limitless strength, is only able to bring about 30% of the power of the form. She is intensely sadistic and bloodthirsty, and 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, similar to when she first tasted blood.

Restriction
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.

Archetype：Earth has full access to Arcueid's full power and more authority over the planet than she normally possesses. She is called an Ultimate One in this state, taking on her original appearance before losing her hair to Altrouge Brunestud, and the part of her in control is the subconscious Crimson Moon side of her. Normally limited to the Millennium Castle in their "dreams", this form is her awakening to experience the human world for the first time.. Ciel believes that Arcueid managed to awaken her Origin, but Archetype denies this, declaring that they are intrinsically a single being. 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.

Shiki Ryougi recognizes a overwhelming aura flowing from her during their conversation, stating that she cannot see her death, going as far to say that he does not have a death, and that she is a monster. She is able to directly affect the entire planet. Ciel mentions the possibility of her melting the ice of the North and South poles, or even disrupting the axis of the earth.

Crimson Moon
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.