History: Charles is one of those characters whose entrance and exit are both riotous; he leaves no room for any gradual telling of his tale. Because of this, his backstory is hardly visited at all— when it comes down to it, we know two things about his past: he lost his humanity at a very young age, quite a while ago, recreated to be the resilient playmate of the childlike Chiropteran Queen Diva; and he lost his arm to Chiropteran Queen Saya during the latter years of the Vietnam War (about thirty years ago, the manga says). Apart from these hard facts, we can only speculate, and so we will, though sparingly.
'Charles,' by the way is a name given to him, right after that incident during the War. Once he was a boy called Carl, though so little is known about that: it can be guessed that he was French, due to him interjecting and leaving notes in the French language as one might do with their native tongue. Though the circumstances of this arrangement are never explored, young Carl was whisked away to meet Diva, a very cruel, very childish vampiric being, and, before he could hit puberty, was 'turned' by Diva into a vampiric being himself, subservient to her. The plan was for Carl, now forever a child, to be a playmate for Diva, forever childlike, and this worked well for some time, with Carl growing to be one of the only things Diva thought beloved. They played together and cared for each other, with Carl servicing Diva in whatever ways she required— this included protecting her, at times, from those who sought to harm her, the primary culprit in this being Saya, Diva's own sister.
It's Saya who changed everything, decades and decades after Carl first began his life anew with Diva. While battling fiercely with Saya, for the sake of keeping Saya away from Diva, Carl was struck with a vicious blow: Saya severed his arm. Normally such an injury wouldn't warrant a second thought from Carl, thanks to his regenerative abilities, but Queens are dangerous to Chevaliers. Saya's blood is all that can kill one of Carl's kind— when her blood mixes with theirs, it crystalizes, eventually killing the Chevalier. Carl found this out through firsthand experience of the most painful sort; she hacked off his arm, and he, desperate, hacked off the rest before it could crystalize into the rest of his body. Saya escaped and Carl was left crippled, an imperfect body for a perfect being.
Upon his return to Diva, Carl found that he was barred from returning to Diva. Amshel, Diva's first and most commanding Chevalier, revealed to Carl that for his failings, and for endangering Diva, he was to be demoted. This meant that while Carl as a species was still a Chevalier, he was no longer permitted to use that title; and he was to be separated from Diva from now on, as she was told he'd been killed. Amshel stripped Carl of his name, re-christening him Charles, and decreed that Charles would now be nothing more than a test subject, used by the rest of Diva's Chevaliers to test their limitations and find out more about themselves. Banished back to Vietnam, Charles was left alone, thoughts of vengeance and a growing obsession with Saya his only companions. Holed up in a lavish manor, for decades, he crept and schemed and surrounded himself with beautiful blue roses, the only remnant of Diva left to him. He would participate in the Chevalier's experiments, he would wait for Saya to awaken, and he would avenge himself. This was his drive.
Present day, and Saya has come out of the hibernation typical to Queens - but she still isn't herself. When Charles catches wind of this, he takes it upon himself to travel to Japan and greet her— this is against the orders he'd received from his betters, but he cannot seem to contain himself. While making quite a spectacle - and massacre - of the school play Saya is performing in, Charles swoops in to see her for himself, and is quite irate to find that she cannot remember him at all. She can't remember anything about her nature as a Queen, in fact, and Charles, not taking kindly to this, sets to provoking her in any way he can. He insults and assaults Saya's own Chevalier, Hagi, but it's only when Charles threatens to hurt a boy named Kai that Saya retaliates angrily. Kai, after all, has become an important and much beloved adoptive brother of Saya's, and she cannot bear to see her family harmed. Charles finds this hilarious - this concept of family, of Saya having family - and it gives him exactly the opening he needs, though Saya and co. make their escape. Recovering from the excitement of the skirmish with Saya, and plotting once more, Charles picks and chooses from Saya's cozy little adoptive family— "The older brother doesn't interest me," he says, and then selects the younger brother, fourteen-year-old Riku Miyagusuku. His justification for this choice: "A princess in captivity is more appealing." What a way to make a decision! This means, though, that Saya finds a mutilated acquaintance, with a message carved into the poor girl's chest: Dear Saya, your dear little brother and I await you in Vietnam. Then Charles whisks poor Riku away, and settles back down in his Vietnamese manor.
Unfortunately, Solomon, Diva's second Chevalier and the 'older brother' whom Charles is most frightened of, arrives to give his younger charge a scolding - and what a scolding it is, with Solomon severing all of Charles' remaining limbs in order to subdue him. Charles makes a show of compliance, after that, but Riku regains consciousness to find Charles weeping as he softly quotes a Biblical passage, feeling very sorry for himself indeed. Charles is flustered to be caught like this, while Riku is clueless towards his situation in general— and though Charles tries to flounder away, he realizes his altercation with Solomon has left him too drained to do much good, and, when his 'servant' Van doesn't answer his calling, he whirls on Riku and decides to bite into him instead.
A few good mouthfuls of blood later and both boys seem to be fine, each of them re-dressing themselves properly, and accompanying each other to the library. It's here where Charles shows his 'shy side,' as Solomon calls it, which Riku apparently incites. They make good companions for each other, awkward as Charles is, and - most importantly - Riku's unflappable kindness allows Charles to trust and care for him, something entirely unintended on the Chevalier's part. They spend time reading together and talking together and learning things, and Charles almost seems personable. Riku proves to be a very good influence on Charles, who experiences a period of peace and companionship and normal interaction for the first time in a very long while.
It can't last long, of course, and the boys spend only a short amount of time with each other before Van Argeno returns and RUINS EVERYTHING. Charles flies to his underling immediately, domineering and angry, mind snapped back to plans and vicious vengeance. He asks why Van had gone ahead with a part of the plan Charles hadn't ordered, and Van shocks him: he says it was Solomon's command. Well, Charles' fear of Solomon certainly hasn't diminished, and it's safe to say he freaks out a bit - including begging Van not to leave him all alone, not to cast him aside (and including tearing out his own still-beating heart, augh, to offer to Van, promising immortality). He makes quite a mess of himself, and cries a lot, and really shows his loneliness then, but Van presses the heart back into the boy's chest (aughghgh) and basically tells him to stop being pathetic, since it is a pretty pathetic display. Exhausted, and slumped against Van, Charles reaches a bloody hand out towards Riku for comfort—
And poor darling Riku swats it away without thinking, startled by the blood and not wanting to get dirty. He realizes his mistake instantly, seeing Charles' hand for what it is, and quickly tries to amend it, but Charles takes the damage quickly and strongly, and reacts bitterly and with his special brand of feigned haughtiness. It only gets worse from here on out, with Charles whirling away, leaving Riku without another word, and scurrying off to speak with his superiors. Their experimentation has been going well, and they tell him it's his turn for testing: they've created an artificial arm for him to wear, which should help enhance his abilities. He dons it faithfully, and then returns to Riku - though all his warmth towards the boy is gone now, and he leads Riku to an underground bunker and then locks him in a little cell. "We part ways here," he says, and when Riku protests, Charles insists cruelly: "I am a 'Chevalier,' the noblest and highest form of life to walk the Earth... You, on the other hand, are nothing more than a bag filled with blood. We live in different worlds." Then he leaves, to do battle with Saya, who's arrived in search of her little brother.
And do battle with Saya he does, temporarily incapacitating her Chevalier Hagi, and raging at her for being a 'freak' - for killing off their own kind, while 'playing house' with the humans who would otherwise reject her. He seems angry at her for her fleeting happiness, and makes to attack her viciously— then his experimental prosthetic arm gives an alarming click, and Charles realizes that Amshel has rigged it. It explodes, blowing both him and Saya away, and though they're of course still alive, Charles has lost a great deal of blood from his injuries. This is when Van shows up. This is also when Van levels a gun at Charles. Apparently, the experimentation called for some greater data: the group Van belongs to wants to know if it is possible to kill a Chevalier, if it's possible to stop them from regenerating when their blood's been severely depleted. After taking that final blow of betrayal, Charles seems ready to accept his fate— though it seems Riku can't stop meddling. The boy shows up at the last moment.
Riku's older brother Kai had turned up to free him from his cell, during the aboveground fight between Charles and Saya, and so Riku was released (curiously, Charles had used a very flimsy lock to hold Riku in the first place), and what he found waiting for him was a last gift from Charles: a beautifully framed peacock moth. Despite his demonstrated phobia of moths and flying things, Charles had seen how Riku so admired the peacock moth, and saw it as a symbol of their time together. Likely Charles knew that Riku would be rescued, and left the moth as a token of his memory. Unfortunately, he underestimated how earnest and foolhardy exactly Riku was.
So Riku manages to throw himself in front of Charles as Van pulls the trigger, and takes the bullet. Van is inconvenienced, casually accepting that his experiment is ruined, now, and takes his leave; Charles, on the other hand, is absolutely horrified, knowing that as a fragile human, Riku will absolutely die, and wondering why on Earth the boy had done something like this in the first place. Riku explains that he wanted to thank Charles for the peacock moth, and that he 'just had to save him'— of course this wrecks Charles further, and he weeps over Riku, who is fading fast. Then he panics, and clings, and cries into Riku's chest, wailing, I never even wanted... to trust humans...!
Saya chooses this moment to show up, and despite the heartbreaking moment, can only see an enemy Chevalier with the bloodied body of her limp little brother. She rages, convinced that Charles has killed him, and charges; he thinks, A monster can only live amongst monsters. That is why... And just before Saya kills him, she expresses a flicker of doubt, because too late, she sees him smile as he says:
"I've been waiting for this."
Appearance:He's well dressed, but his features are wholly childish, and he's pitifully small. Charles is quite pale, and his eyes are violet; he's a fan of dressing in monochrome, aside from a pretty blue rose at his cloak. Also, that cowlick is impossible to tame. Normally, the remnants of his lost arm are quite monstrous— but I assume from now on he'll be left with a more human stump.
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charles / blood+ / reserved (2/4)
'Charles,' by the way is a name given to him, right after that incident during the War. Once he was a boy called Carl, though so little is known about that: it can be guessed that he was French, due to him interjecting and leaving notes in the French language as one might do with their native tongue. Though the circumstances of this arrangement are never explored, young Carl was whisked away to meet Diva, a very cruel, very childish vampiric being, and, before he could hit puberty, was 'turned' by Diva into a vampiric being himself, subservient to her. The plan was for Carl, now forever a child, to be a playmate for Diva, forever childlike, and this worked well for some time, with Carl growing to be one of the only things Diva thought beloved. They played together and cared for each other, with Carl servicing Diva in whatever ways she required— this included protecting her, at times, from those who sought to harm her, the primary culprit in this being Saya, Diva's own sister.
It's Saya who changed everything, decades and decades after Carl first began his life anew with Diva. While battling fiercely with Saya, for the sake of keeping Saya away from Diva, Carl was struck with a vicious blow: Saya severed his arm. Normally such an injury wouldn't warrant a second thought from Carl, thanks to his regenerative abilities, but Queens are dangerous to Chevaliers. Saya's blood is all that can kill one of Carl's kind— when her blood mixes with theirs, it crystalizes, eventually killing the Chevalier. Carl found this out through firsthand experience of the most painful sort; she hacked off his arm, and he, desperate, hacked off the rest before it could crystalize into the rest of his body. Saya escaped and Carl was left crippled, an imperfect body for a perfect being.
Upon his return to Diva, Carl found that he was barred from returning to Diva. Amshel, Diva's first and most commanding Chevalier, revealed to Carl that for his failings, and for endangering Diva, he was to be demoted. This meant that while Carl as a species was still a Chevalier, he was no longer permitted to use that title; and he was to be separated from Diva from now on, as she was told he'd been killed. Amshel stripped Carl of his name, re-christening him Charles, and decreed that Charles would now be nothing more than a test subject, used by the rest of Diva's Chevaliers to test their limitations and find out more about themselves. Banished back to Vietnam, Charles was left alone, thoughts of vengeance and a growing obsession with Saya his only companions. Holed up in a lavish manor, for decades, he crept and schemed and surrounded himself with beautiful blue roses, the only remnant of Diva left to him. He would participate in the Chevalier's experiments, he would wait for Saya to awaken, and he would avenge himself. This was his drive.
Present day, and Saya has come out of the hibernation typical to Queens - but she still isn't herself. When Charles catches wind of this, he takes it upon himself to travel to Japan and greet her— this is against the orders he'd received from his betters, but he cannot seem to contain himself. While making quite a spectacle - and massacre - of the school play Saya is performing in, Charles swoops in to see her for himself, and is quite irate to find that she cannot remember him at all. She can't remember anything about her nature as a Queen, in fact, and Charles, not taking kindly to this, sets to provoking her in any way he can. He insults and assaults Saya's own Chevalier, Hagi, but it's only when Charles threatens to hurt a boy named Kai that Saya retaliates angrily. Kai, after all, has become an important and much beloved adoptive brother of Saya's, and she cannot bear to see her family harmed. Charles finds this hilarious - this concept of family, of Saya having family - and it gives him exactly the opening he needs, though Saya and co. make their escape. Recovering from the excitement of the skirmish with Saya, and plotting once more, Charles picks and chooses from Saya's cozy little adoptive family— "The older brother doesn't interest me," he says, and then selects the younger brother, fourteen-year-old Riku Miyagusuku. His justification for this choice: "A princess in captivity is more appealing." What a way to make a decision! This means, though, that Saya finds a mutilated acquaintance, with a message carved into the poor girl's chest: Dear Saya, your dear little brother and I await you in Vietnam. Then Charles whisks poor Riku away, and settles back down in his Vietnamese manor.
Unfortunately, Solomon, Diva's second Chevalier and the 'older brother' whom Charles is most frightened of, arrives to give his younger charge a scolding - and what a scolding it is, with Solomon severing all of Charles' remaining limbs in order to subdue him. Charles makes a show of compliance, after that, but Riku regains consciousness to find Charles weeping as he softly quotes a Biblical passage, feeling very sorry for himself indeed. Charles is flustered to be caught like this, while Riku is clueless towards his situation in general— and though Charles tries to flounder away, he realizes his altercation with Solomon has left him too drained to do much good, and, when his 'servant' Van doesn't answer his calling, he whirls on Riku and decides to bite into him instead.
A few good mouthfuls of blood later and both boys seem to be fine, each of them re-dressing themselves properly, and accompanying each other to the library. It's here where Charles shows his 'shy side,' as Solomon calls it, which Riku apparently incites. They make good companions for each other, awkward as Charles is, and - most importantly - Riku's unflappable kindness allows Charles to trust and care for him, something entirely unintended on the Chevalier's part. They spend time reading together and talking together and learning things, and Charles almost seems personable. Riku proves to be a very good influence on Charles, who experiences a period of peace and companionship and normal interaction for the first time in a very long while.
It can't last long, of course, and the boys spend only a short amount of time with each other before Van Argeno returns and RUINS EVERYTHING. Charles flies to his underling immediately, domineering and angry, mind snapped back to plans and vicious vengeance. He asks why Van had gone ahead with a part of the plan Charles hadn't ordered, and Van shocks him: he says it was Solomon's command. Well, Charles' fear of Solomon certainly hasn't diminished, and it's safe to say he freaks out a bit - including begging Van not to leave him all alone, not to cast him aside (and including tearing out his own still-beating heart, augh, to offer to Van, promising immortality). He makes quite a mess of himself, and cries a lot, and really shows his loneliness then, but Van presses the heart back into the boy's chest (aughghgh) and basically tells him to stop being pathetic, since it is a pretty pathetic display. Exhausted, and slumped against Van, Charles reaches a bloody hand out towards Riku for comfort—
And poor darling Riku swats it away without thinking, startled by the blood and not wanting to get dirty. He realizes his mistake instantly, seeing Charles' hand for what it is, and quickly tries to amend it, but Charles takes the damage quickly and strongly, and reacts bitterly and with his special brand of feigned haughtiness. It only gets worse from here on out, with Charles whirling away, leaving Riku without another word, and scurrying off to speak with his superiors. Their experimentation has been going well, and they tell him it's his turn for testing: they've created an artificial arm for him to wear, which should help enhance his abilities. He dons it faithfully, and then returns to Riku - though all his warmth towards the boy is gone now, and he leads Riku to an underground bunker and then locks him in a little cell. "We part ways here," he says, and when Riku protests, Charles insists cruelly: "I am a 'Chevalier,' the noblest and highest form of life to walk the Earth... You, on the other hand, are nothing more than a bag filled with blood. We live in different worlds." Then he leaves, to do battle with Saya, who's arrived in search of her little brother.
And do battle with Saya he does, temporarily incapacitating her Chevalier Hagi, and raging at her for being a 'freak' - for killing off their own kind, while 'playing house' with the humans who would otherwise reject her. He seems angry at her for her fleeting happiness, and makes to attack her viciously— then his experimental prosthetic arm gives an alarming click, and Charles realizes that Amshel has rigged it. It explodes, blowing both him and Saya away, and though they're of course still alive, Charles has lost a great deal of blood from his injuries. This is when Van shows up. This is also when Van levels a gun at Charles. Apparently, the experimentation called for some greater data: the group Van belongs to wants to know if it is possible to kill a Chevalier, if it's possible to stop them from regenerating when their blood's been severely depleted. After taking that final blow of betrayal, Charles seems ready to accept his fate— though it seems Riku can't stop meddling. The boy shows up at the last moment.
Riku's older brother Kai had turned up to free him from his cell, during the aboveground fight between Charles and Saya, and so Riku was released (curiously, Charles had used a very flimsy lock to hold Riku in the first place), and what he found waiting for him was a last gift from Charles: a beautifully framed peacock moth. Despite his demonstrated phobia of moths and flying things, Charles had seen how Riku so admired the peacock moth, and saw it as a symbol of their time together. Likely Charles knew that Riku would be rescued, and left the moth as a token of his memory. Unfortunately, he underestimated how earnest and foolhardy exactly Riku was.
So Riku manages to throw himself in front of Charles as Van pulls the trigger, and takes the bullet. Van is inconvenienced, casually accepting that his experiment is ruined, now, and takes his leave; Charles, on the other hand, is absolutely horrified, knowing that as a fragile human, Riku will absolutely die, and wondering why on Earth the boy had done something like this in the first place. Riku explains that he wanted to thank Charles for the peacock moth, and that he 'just had to save him'— of course this wrecks Charles further, and he weeps over Riku, who is fading fast. Then he panics, and clings, and cries into Riku's chest, wailing, I never even wanted... to trust humans...!
Saya chooses this moment to show up, and despite the heartbreaking moment, can only see an enemy Chevalier with the bloodied body of her limp little brother. She rages, convinced that Charles has killed him, and charges; he thinks, A monster can only live amongst monsters. That is why... And just before Saya kills him, she expresses a flicker of doubt, because too late, she sees him smile as he says:
"I've been waiting for this."
Appearance: He's well dressed, but his features are wholly childish, and he's pitifully small. Charles is quite pale, and his eyes are violet; he's a fan of dressing in monochrome, aside from a pretty blue rose at his cloak. Also, that cowlick is impossible to tame. Normally, the remnants of his lost arm are quite monstrous— but I assume from now on he'll be left with a more human stump.