Hell C00chie

Fighting over the same darling

ᥫ᭡Do you wish to see a whole city burn? For this is a nightmare which can turn frighteningly fast into a reality with not one, not two, not even three but five people who are the farthest thing from human being obsessed with you. Where exactly did it go so terribly wrong for you? Was it when you visited the young Earl of Phantomhive for business and caught the eye of his butler? Was it when you accepted an invitation to a prom in the name of the young Trancy lord accompanied by his butler? Was it when you decided to strike a conversation with the only woman in the household, noticing how she observed from the sidelines rather than being in the center? Or was it when you caught the eye of the butler of her majesty when she made a short appearance in public? Perhaps your fatal mistake starts even before all of those events yet what is undeniable that with each meeting something unraveled and now you are at a point in your life where nothing is like it used to be. A mate bond is a connection immediately forged and felt by the supernatural. A bond which is invisible to your eyes has chained you to four powerful creatures who will go to great lengths to have you.

ᥫ᭡Sebastian is the wolf in gentleman's clothes. Suave, charming and guaranteed to always make your heart flutter. It was he who laid eyes on you first and has been taken with you ever since. Your voice, your scent, your very essence is something that he craves for everyday. Never before has he entertained the thoughts of a mate yet it doesn't take long before he has recognised you as such. If he were aware that he has fair competition he would claim you as his solely because he found you first. Yet he knows that everyone else is far away from traditional honor and fairness hence why such a silly claim would never work. Of course if he were in their position he wouldn't care for that meaningless argument either. He is a demon after all who takes what he desires. For the others he imagines it must be the same. With no allies by his side, Sebastian finds himself working alone. He cannot rely on his master to help him nor could any of the human servants offer more than a short distraction against those he must face. So with a thrilling ensemble of tension and anticipation he enters this fight alone. Centuries of a long and greedy life have taught him lessons that will undoubtedly be useful.

ᥫ᭡Claude is much more direct in his approach. Thoughts of a mate have rarely crossed his mind yet when he finds out that it is you, he is surprised to figure out that he is bonded to a human. Yet there isn't even the briefest hint of disappointment. Just a deep-rooted entitlement that you are his. Whilst still striving to charm and seduce his patience is much shorter than those of many others. He doesn't seek out a long game that many others seem to want to drag on as he wants to claim you as quickly as he can. The actions he takes can therefor be much more aggressive and sometimes even far too impulsive, giving his emotional state of desperation away to his opponents. In Hannah he assumes to have a pawn at the beginning as he has always done the mistake of underestimating her. Yet he soon finds out that the control he believed he has over her is shaky at best as Hannah too has found her mate in you. Working for the same master you would assume that they would work together but Claude doesn't plan to form an alliance as he knows neither one would even entertain the thought of sharing. So he uses her as little as possible by using her weak spot in Alois.

ᥫ᭡If Sebastian is the wolf in a gentleman's skin than Hannah is the wolf hiding behind the sheep's skin. She is quiet and mellow which fools initially everyone and it fools you for the longest time. Differently from the other demons she has found herself wondering about a mate, especially once the death of the little brother of Alois shook her heart more than expected. She is capable of emotions, more than other demons perhaps, but that makes her all the more intense when she finds her mate in you. She doesn't woo and court you as openly as others as she instead seeks to claim your heart through quiet manipulation and a forced dependency on her. Everything that might intimidate or frighten you in those who also chase you, she hides on purpose to create the illusion of a safe space for you when with her. With the demon triplets she has pawns that she can use in her game even though they lack the experience and strength that others posses. Still, she has additional eyes who can watch you and helping hands to set traps and put her plans in motion. You won't find out until it is too late just how scheming and dangerous Hannah is though. At heart she is still a demon.

ᥫ᭡Ash is impatience personified. If Claude has a short temper and little patience compared to others, than Ash has none of it. His infatuation is a direct stab to the heart that aches so much that he is physically in pain. It comes harsh and fast and leaves him trembling. Thoughout his entire life he has considered your kind to be tainted and dirty, in need of a cleansing to rid the souls of all their tainted emotions and sins. Then he lays his eyes on you though. And in a world drenched in lies and sins, you are a singular beacon of hope. The web of impurity is far too big for you to avoid it forever though as eventually you will be caught in it like a helpless butterfly. The presence of three demons in your life is only a confirmation. Demons are creatures who yearn to destroy all that is good. So you have to be protected from those who wish to break you open and devour you. With Pluto doing all his bids and the Queen under his control who has authority over both Alois and Ciel, Ash has arguably the most cards. Yet in his burning paranoia he fails to play them right which is a weakness that everyone else learns to explore quickly. This game is far from being over for him though.

ᥫ᭡Undertaker is the odd one in all of this. For him the concept of mates doesn't apply as it does for everyone else. What you have going for you though is the fact that four strong creatures chase after you. That is an achievement so rare that it is enough for him to seek you out. Not of obsession yet but of curiosity. What could it be that has made you so fascinating for fate to burden you with such a life? Undertaker revels in chaos so he hides you and offers you protection simply because he wishes to observe the reactions of everyone else. Initially it is all for his own entertainment. Until he too falls for you. Not because you are his mate but due to a connection that has been forged through close observations and an interest that has grown into dangerous fondness. He doesn't tell you of that just yet though. He has been granted a special privilege where you hand him most of your trust the further this game of obsession has spun and he plans to use that to his advantage. For him there is a different playground and different rules as Undertaker is a Shinigami. He has knowledge no one else has and has different tricks up his sleeves that not even someone like Sebastian would be able to predict.

ᥫ᭡There will be no such thing as sharing amongst any of them. They are all creatures driven by their own sense of entitlement. The demons view you as their mate to protect and keep, Ash is deluded in his belief that you need to be locked away to preserve your purity and Undertaker doesn't plan to let go of the one person who has made him feel alive again after so many centuries of chasing only fleeting entertainment to fill his heart somewhat. However, there is an unofficial agreement that happens amongst Sebastian, Claude and Hannah. Whilst there is little that connects them they are still kin. All of them are demons. Ash and Undertaker are something else. Ash is an angel who is the sworn enemy of any demon and Undertaker is a shinigami whose attachment they do not view as respectable enough for he didn't imprint like they did. Both play by different rules and it is that difference that leads to a fragile agreement that doesn't bound. If there should ever be a fight where one or both of the unwanted participants is present the demons will go for them rather than fighting amongst themselves. They aren't going to actively help each other but they won't actively attack each other either then.

ᥫ᭡It could have all been something that happened right beneath the noses of the people. A fight that leaves visible traces but no way of identifying the culprits. It is Ash's abduction that shatters everything. Everyone else could have played an intense and destructive long game where betrayal and dirty play would have been as common as breathing. Yet Ash has the most intense need to protect you from the evil and with three demons and one shinigami, all harbingers of death and destruction. He cannot let you wither away under their corruptive forces. That abduction is the trigger that leads to dire consequences for every soul that lives in the city. More violence is used as the intent to eradicate the rivals heightens. Buildings burn. Structures collapse. People die. The greed amongst everyone grows. Even the respective masters of each demon are unable to do anything for this is a matter that transcends even the contracts. A mate is worth more than even the rare souls that Alois and Ciel have to offer so there is at one point no leverage that could be held against Hannah, Claude and Sebastian which chips away the control Ash thought he had by using the Queen to his own advantages.

Note: the lists were revised for people who extended their lifespans. The dolls are bodies whose deaths have been recorded and their souls reaped, the list has not been revised for bizarre dolls. Sebastian knows this, Ronald explained it. So he must have a different motivation for asking about this, which I’ve alluded to before..

That one Japanese undertaker blog brings up how Sebastian did not answer whether or not o!Ciel caught him in a lie, that he may have been capable of bringing r!Ciel back and dissuaded o!Ciel from making that wish. I don’t think that’s the case, Sebastian seems oblivious to the fact he can circumvent death by intervention beyond that of his contractor alone. He’s periodically impressed by the speed with which human technological advancement progresses. Ergo, there could be a possibility that Undertaker’s Frankenstein experimentation was in service of actual medical feats like blood transfusion and galvanism. I may want to mention here that the time period for this sort of experimentation lines up with the real life timeline, when medical science was making forays into it. Othello said that the nobles had their death dates changed because they were suffering from renal failure and they’d otherwise have died if not for the intervention, through application of real-world medical techniques. r!Ciel did die, at one point, but he was resuscitated and put into a coma/catatonic state while Undertaker experimented with dead bodies to practice his, like, clinical necromancy. I believe the other stars have maintained their souls, too. Undertaker was present for Doll’s death, as he likely was for r!Ciel’s. Modri has all but outright stated that he still has his soul. Layla is assisted by a reaper, herself, and when Ronald caught her he monologued about how reapers can’t themselves see souls. And with defector-reapers involved, would it not be reasonable to wonder if they may be the culprits behind the unaccounted for souls which Will complains so much about? Maybe he missed Doll, or maybe her name wasn’t on the list because Undertaker intervened.

The only thing that doesn’t fit quite into this is that we saw r!Ciel bite Undertaker on the campania, indicating that he is soulless, but I suppose an answer to that could be that Undertaker kept his soul (given he’s a reaper) and did not want to risk returning it to a dying body. This may be the same in Layla’s case. We never got any answer about what he was feeding r!Ciel out of that vial, but the starry eyes was imagery we once saw before once o!Ciel was granted the land back and his title as Earl Phantomhive— an resurrection of sorts in of itself

I’ll note real quick— maybe it’ll just be its own post later— but what Sebastian says here is “a fire that will not go out” using the word often rendered as “disappear” as their euphemism for dying. Scar and Kiss are homophones. Back to the season 2 clip. Here is another moment that it resembles to me:

We get one of those side-glances from Sebastian again when Ciel says that there’s been something troubling him. Then, “That would be a reasonable conclusion”… strikes me as an odd reply. It also always struck me as odd/annoying that we’re having the reanimated corpse aspect repeated to us at this point— when, here, I thought Undertaker showing up at the manor and explaining the entire thing to us (and Sebastian/Ciel) itself was the reveal that r!Ciel is a bizarre doll. What do you mean you “think” he’s still one of the corpses? Is it just redundant writing, because we were stuck on that staircase for 2-some-odd years? Possibly If it is the case that he’s still alive, and Sebastian even so much as suspects that and is withholding his doubts from Ciel, that is a massive betrayal. He’s allowing— supporting, even— Ciel’s endeavor to kill his brother by choking off his blood supply. r!Ciel’s operation may have resulted in deaths, but he’s not solely to blame, since their resources had been spread out until o!Ciel’s attraction induced more deaths. Back in the Circus arc, o!Ciel told Joker that he did the right thing trying to protect his peace, the lives of the people important. From this perspective, r!Ciel is sympathetic. He was as powerless as o!Ciel and he didn’t choose to be revived, but he also already regretted not being able to protect his brother before he died. Now he knows that all this time, o!Ciel had been living alongside the very predator who exploited him into (essentially) premeditating his own murder. Just like o!Ciel, r!Ciel was required to make a ruthless decision if he wants to save his brother’s soul. And he is all who r!Ciel would have any loyalty and obligation to. Though I believe there’s another layer to r!Ciel and Sebastian’s mutual distain, because they are in competition for the role of Ciel’s protector as well. I believe Sebastian robbing r!Ciel’s stomach of the ring has a symbolic element to it in that regard, among other ways. Ciel himself seems to have suspicions about Sebastian contractors having all been eaten. If my theory about Sebastian having spit them out instead holds up, we’ll have that revealed to us through the story of Anna, I’m sure. I don’t expect that to come soon, however, because I don’t think it’s likely that Modri is aware of that and I imagine Sebastian might be the one to admit to it when he gives his side of the story. Which he’d probably be less reluctant to admit as their relationship has grown closer, if it weren’t for fear of Ciel throwing him to the curb once he realizes he can indeed have his brother back.

By the end of the Circus arc, Yana sided with our protagonists. At the same time, she said that we were supposed to be left feeling like you wouldnt know what the right thing to do would’ve been either. It’s been the underlying moral conflict throughout the manga, this “Noah’s Arc” trolly problem where instead of it being the needs of the many vs the needs of the few, it’s you and the people you value most vs those you cannot save and don’t have any personal attachment to. Sebastian cares about Ciel, I’m fairly certain that he’s his entire world, but Ciel cares about other people. He likes that about him, it’s not something I’d believe he wants lost. I think Sebastian is afraid of o!Ciel being more loyal to r!Ciel than he is to Sebastian and himself, he’s also afraid that he’s been rendered completely impotent as the person who is supposed to grant Ciel’s desires when someone else now can. At the same time, he may be afraid that if Ciel were to know r!ciel is in fact still alive, he might not even care, too consumed by his greed and pain to have love and forgiveness in his heart. He by all means has reason to sympathize with his brother, and if he can’t do that then how could Sebastian ever expect Ciel to care about him? So, if it is the case that r!Ciel still has a soul, I think Sebastian wouldn’t even want to know for sure, himself.