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Introduction
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Poupée Fissurée — The Essence of the Witch is the thirty-ninth chapter of Jun Mochizuki's The Case Study of Vanitas.
This article contains plot and/or ending details for The Case Study of Vanitas.
Read at your own risk.
Summary[]
Roland has arrived. He stands wearing his Chasseur garb wielding his Durandal in the middle of a pile of wolf corpses. The rest of the world around him seems to be falling apart, chunks of the earth and the Château floating above as if frozen in time. Noé calls to Roland in surprise as Vanitas cowers behind him. Roland whips his head around at the call. He shoves the two of them up against the wall, caging them between his arms and pressing his body against theirs. Noé goes pale as he does so. Vanitas is extremely distressed. Then an airship passes by overhead, catching their attention. Roland apologizes with a laugh, as it’d be trouble if the rest of his colleagues spotted the two of them. Vanitas, hand smothering the entirety of Roland’s smiling face to shove him away, looks up in alarm. More airships have gathered—Chasseur transports, also known as Orcas, have overtaken the skies over Gévaudan.
More and more Chasseurs drop down from the Orcas while Roland explains how they were making for Saugues, only for a blizzard to come out of nowhere, for the mountain to crumble, and wolves to show up. The Chasseurs tend to the townspeople previously attacked by the wolves. Roland’s subordinates, Maria and Georges, are also present and are preparing to fight. Roland asks if this is all the doing of the Beast of Gévaudan. Noé stiffens in panic, thinking Roland is here to kill the Beast as well. But Roland pulls the two of them into an embrace, flustering Noé and unnerving Vanitas, and asks them what the plan is. As they stare at him in surprise, Roland says if they’re here then a curse-bearing Vampire must be the cause of everything. Roland smiles and asks what he can do to bring about a more peaceful resolution.
Olivier screams at Roland at the top of his lungs. He’s standing off against a pack of wolves with the villagers of Saugues behind his back, and he screams angrily at Roland leaving his unit behind. His Vice-Captain asks him to calm down, and Olivier just screams one last time for Roland to get back. The wolves growl hungrily, and the villagers cower. Olivier snaps in his rage and tells the howling wolves to shut up, slashing them all to bits with a single swing of his weapon. The villagers rejoice. Olivier continues to cut down the wolves as the villagers cheer him on. Olivier rants about the trouble he’s going through and how he just wants to finish and go home, his attacks getting more and more vicious with every word of his rant. The villagers grow sickened at his ruthless slaughtering. Olivier wields his weapon—a large sword with its tip curved into an axe shape, with serrated blades running up and down the edges like a chainsaw. The Hauteclaire.
A voice speaks up, expressing pity for his Hauteclaire and how it’ll break if he keeps using it so recklessly. Olivier turns and Roland appears at his back, wielding his own Durandal. Roland laughs at how violent Olivier’s fighting is, and Olivier snaps where Roland has been this whole time. At this, Roland gets a gleam in his eyes and asks Olivier to do a favor for him. Olivier says no. Roland proceeds to speak said favor: focus their efforts on nothing but protecting the villagers for the next thirty minutes, and completely ignore the incredibly suspicious source of the chaos overhead. Olivier is reasonably baffled, and he asks Roland why. Roland is silent for a moment. The wolves descend and Roland and Olivier fight them off together, blood and body parts spilling about. In the meantime, Roland begins to explain. The order they’d been given—“kill all Vampires in Gévaudan”—sat wrong with the both of them. They were not at war, and killing a Vampire with no connection to the incident could spell serious trouble. Olivier grips his Hauteclaire tightly. It’s as if the Church was trying to cover something up.
Roland leans in, face inches away from Olivier’s, expression dead serious. “I don’t like it.” Olivier stares at Roland, who simply smiles at him.
As a result, Roland has decided to take a more peaceful route, hearing out the curse-bearer at the center of all this without killing them. The defeated wolf corpses on the ground start to twitch. Olivier is baffled to hear this, as he doesn’t know what a curse-bearer has to do with any of this. Then he stops and comes to a realization: “two those” are here. A shadow rises up behind Roland. The wolf corpses have gathered up all together into a huge, consolidated mass of body parts and malice, like some experiment gone horribly wrong. The monster glares at them hungrily. Olivier and Roland regard it with surprise and wariness. Roland calls to his subordinates and orders them to prioritize the lives of the villagers while he and Olivier focus on the monster before them. Maria and Georges confirm his orders and take off. Olivier’s Vice-Captain asks what their unit should do. Olivier stews in his own frustration and anger for a moment, then throws off his white cloak and calls out for the same order. They begin to fight.
Earlier, with Roland conversing with Noé and Vanitas. Noé asks why Roland wanted to help them. Roland stares at Noé for a long moment, then he says it’s “obviously” because he likes them. Noé gasps, mouth agape, face flushed red, and eyes sparkling with joy. Noé emotionally returns that he likes Roland as well, and Roland thanks the both of them heartily. Vanitas snaps at their interaction. Vanitas grits his teeth, lost in his frustration for a moment. Then he gives an order to Roland: keep the people of Gévaudan alive. He remembers the words Chloé d'Apchier had said during her “revenge”; the most important thing to her existence is her life as a d’Apchier. If one of the people in her land dies due to her rampage, she won’t be able to be saved even if she survives this. So Vanitas looks into Roland’s eyes and asks him earnestly to keep them alive. Roland stares at Vanitas, then he takes off his white cloak and promises to do so. He prepares his Durandal as Vanitas watches and tells them that he is here as a Chasseur Paladin. Should the limit be reached, he will start killing Vampires with no hesitation or remorse. Roland leans on Noé’s shoulder and tells him with an ominous smile to not let Roland kill the Beast. Noé shudders with foreboding and gulps nervously. Roland then gives them both friendly smacks on the backs, announcing it’s time to move out. Roland and Olivier fight to protect the people from the wolves. “I’ll do what I must.” Noé and Vanitas make for where Chloé is as fast as they can. “You do the things only you can do!”
Inside the broken remains of the Château’s tower. The ceiling and bits of the wall have completely crumbled and disappeared, the bookshelves are in total disarray, the shattered chains from what is leftover from the World Formula Alteration Device float in the air as if gravity is no more. Dante slumps against the wall, unconscious. Similarly, Astolfo and Marco lie passed out together on the ground. Jeanne is as well. She slumbers, completely gone to the rest of the world, plunged into the deepest darkest parts of her memory. Like drowning underwater. Air bubbles surrounded her amidst the liquid she was submerged in. She asked, where was she? Who was she?
“You are a doll.”
A figure appeared beyond the bubbles, beyond the mysterious liquid, beyond the darkness. Carrying a single candle which flickered its amber light. They told her, she is no more than a doll. All she needed to be was a tool, as vessels did not need wills of their own. No thinking, no wanting, no wishing. And if she failed to comply, nothing but death would follow. Jeanne absorbed this. She was a doll. Only a tool. Vaguely, Jeanne wonders when this memory is from. Jeanne stood in a small puddle of liquid that dripped off her form. She took a step forward. She started to run, leaving the place behind.
A pair of faint voices spoke up. The darkness faded, and two people, a man and a woman, stood over her in concern. Jeanne, only a child, covered head to toe in dirt and long hair unkempt and in her face, just sat there staring blankly almost lifelessly. Later, the two of them—Éric and Louise—would go to their teacher, Ruthven, and told him they’ve decided to raise the child they found. As her parents embraced her lovingly and introduced her to their beloved teacher, Ruthven greeted Jeanne warmly and told her to live along her family, see the world, learn many things, and come to one day understand it. Time passed, and Jeanne grew to be a happy, energetic, and loved child. One day her parents told her bid her goodbye while promising to be back soon, and Jeanne smiled brightly and awaited her parents’ return with joy.
Jeanne stared at the decapitated heads of her parents with horror, a fire blooming around as she witnessed the end to her happy family life. A figure told the bound and chained Jeanne that her parents had betrayed the Vampires, resulting in countless deaths and the comatose state of Ruthven. Jeanne stared aghast. She asked why, why, why. The figure continued to explain that children must pay for the sins of the parents. Why, Jeanne continued to ask. They told her, she was no longer a Vampire at that point—she was a Bourreau. A tool.
Understanding dawned on Jeanne. There was her answer. She remembered those orders, no thinking, no wanting, no wishing. And if she failed to comply… Jeanne understood now; it was because she didn’t comply as ordered. Except it wasn’t her head they took, it was her parents’. Jeanne’s eyes were dark with infinite despair. Some time later, a bear with a grate on its chest from which a voice spoke entered Jeanne’s quarters. On that day, she was made The Senate’s Bourreau, and as he—the Marquis Machina—was a member of the Senate, she was his Bourreau as well. He offered to make her a weapon that would match her combat skill, and ordered her to rampage to her heart’s content. Jeanne stared at the man. She told herself once again: she was a Bourreau. Tools like her needed to do as they were told, no more no less.
Blizzarding snow against the pitch black night. Chloé d’Apchier, crying tears of relief and despair, greeted her, smiling as if she’d been set free. Jeanne stared in horror. Panic and grief set in. A war waged within her form, her order to kill all in sight, her sorrow to see Chloé again like this, the urgency to fulfill her duty as quickly as possible, the knowledge that she could not kill Chloé, the single thought she had pleading for help—
Chloé stepped backwards off the cliff. She dropped down and plummeted into the snowy darkness. Jeanne was left with her hand outstretched to that darkness, empty and futile. Jeanne’s eyes trembled and shook with agony. She dropped to her knees and screamed at the top of her lungs. In the aftermath, word spread around about what happened to her. That she as well, the Hellfire Witch, had broken, letting the Beast get away and killing every minder who had tried to approach her. Discussion continued, that she lasted longer than expected, that Bourreaus like her stopped being useful very quickly after all, that she was to be disposed of after all—a voice stopped the Senate’s discussion. Ruthven stood and offered to take her. In Jeanne’s jail-like quarters, she laid in her bed with dead, lifeless eyes like that of a doll’s. A shadow appeared above her. The shadow loomed over her with a gleeful, ecstatic, hungry grin. She laughed, and Jeanne looked into Naenia’s smiling face with unmoving eyes.
Darkness. Jeanne slowly woke to the calling of her name. When she came to, her quarters were trashed and destroyed as if a fight had occurred. Ruthven was there. He held onto her outstretched hand silently, a still bleeding wound clearly caused by claws on his face. Jeanne pulled her hand back and stared at her teacher with confusion and alarm. Ruthven closed his single working eye and told Jeanne to not forget the “oath” she swore. Jeanne was confused. He told her that she would be sleeping for a long, long time. Until the war would one day end and everyone could live in peace. Ruthven reached out his hand to Jeanne’s pale face. He told her to heal her wounds little by little, and Jeanne thus fell into a deep, long slumber. And she remembered; she remembered that she had forgotten. She dreamed for so long that she forgot—she was a doll.
Jeanne, hair long and unkempt, eyes black and lifeless and dead, sits in infinite darkness with her arms around her knees pulled up to her chest. She needs to be a doll with no will of its own. And so she tells herself, she must kill Chloé, this time without fail. A voice speaks up from behind her. Chloé d’Apchier is not the Beast of Gévaudan, and Jeanne knows as well as she had seen it herself. Jeanne is quiet. It doesn’t matter, because Ruthven told her to end the incident in Gévaudan no matter what. The voice continues, the order was not “to kill.” Jeanne turns around. The Beast of Gévaudan has slaughtered so many that it must be killed, there is no other way around it. And even if the Beast is not Chloé, she must be killed anyways as a curse-bearer, because that is Jeanne’s duty as a Bourreau. She tells the figure vaguely in her sight, that he won’t make it in time, that he can’t save her. Because of that, she has to…
“Not yet.”
Jeanne looks up. Vanitas stands before her, a shining light behind him banishing the darkness that had been engulfing her. Vanitas tells her, Chloé can still be saved as long as it’s them. He reaches a hand towards her and asks for her help. Jeanne stares with wide eyes. Vanitas tells her, Chloé has never killed any of the people of Gévaudan, neither in the present or the past. That is a certainty, and Jeanne is shocked. Chloé had been framed as the Beast, and Jeanne is baffled. Vanitas kneels to speak with her at eye level, and tells her to ask Chloé herself. Vanitas goes on to ask the same question he had asked her back in the cabin. Does she truly want to kill Chloé d’Apchier? Jeanne remembers Chloé’s loving smile from their past together. Jeanne flinches. She repeats to herself what she must do: she can’t want anything, she can’t wish for anything. Vanitas laughs with a bitter smile and asks why. Jeanne says she doesn’t know, but if she disobeys again, then someone will lose their head in place of her. In her mind flash the burning heads of her parents. It might even be him—
Vanitas laughs. He takes Jeanne’s hand and pulls her up into an embrace. He smiles and says he won’t die, at least not before she does. After all, he promised that he would kill her. Jeanne stares at Vanitas in shock. Vanitas tells her: he loves her, he’s the one to make all her wishes come true, it has to be him. He takes her hand in his and asks her what she really wants. Be it a trivial request, an ugly emotional, even a curse, he will accept it all for her. Jeanne’s eyes fill with tears.
“Help.”
Jeanne’s eyes overflow with tears as she begs him—help her. It’s been hurting for so long that she can’t take it, so please… Jeanne recalls that unvoiced plea from when she was first forced to kill Chloé: “Help me.” The darkness surrounding her cracks and breaks, little fissures spreading until the whole of it shatters against the light. Jeanne begs Vanitas, please help Chloé. Jeanne leaps into his arms, clinging to him desperately, sobbing out her wish to him. Vanitas ruffles her hair with a smile and promises: “D’accord!” Jeanne is left with tears spilling down her face as she stares at him in awe.
Vanitas stomps over to Noé. He angrily kicks him in the back. Noé is baffled as Vanitas snaps how this is all his fault. What he said, “Not yet,” mirroring what Noé told him long ago, making promises he might not be able to keep. Vanitas explodes in anger and snaps at Noé to take responsibility. Noé is just confused.
On the other side of the room, Marco mutters incoherently with his head in his hands his apologies to his deceased master and mistress. Astolfo next to him slowly rises to his feet.
Characters[]
- Roland Fortis
- Noé Archiviste
- Vanitas
- Maria
- Georges
- Olivier
- Olivier's Vice-Captain
- Chloé d'Apchier*
- Dante
- Astolfo Granatum
- Marco
- Jeanne
- Éric* (First Appearance)
- Louise* (First Appearance)
- August Ruthven*
- Marquis Machina*
- Naenia*
- Jean-Jacques Chastel
(*) - Denotes that the character did not appear physically, but as a part of another character's memories.
Terms[]
Trivia[]
- Poupée Fissurée is literally translated as "cracked doll" from French.
- The monstrous mass of wolves fighting Roland and Olivier were drawn by Yoneda Taro.[1]
References[]
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| v - e - t | The Case Study of Vanitas Chapters |
|---|---|
| Parisian Excursion Arc | 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 |
| Bal Masqué Arc | 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 |
| Hunters of the Dark Arc | 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 |
| The Beast of Gévaudan Arc | 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 • 26 • 27 • 28 • 29 • 30 • 31 • 32 • 33 • 34 • 34.5 • 35 • 36 • 37 • 38 • 38.5 • 39 • 40 • 41 • 42 • 43 |
| Amusement Park Arc | 44 • 45 • 46 • 47 • 48 • 49 • 50 • 51 • 52 • 53 • 54 • 54.5 • 55 • 55.5 • 56 |
| Miel Incident Arc | 57 • 58 • 59 • 60 • 61 • 61.5 • 62 • 62.5 • 63 |
| Intermissions | 15.5 • 46.5 • 51.5 • 60.5 |
| Volumes | 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 |
| Omake | Romance is a✰LOVE MISSION |
| Other | Vanitashu no Karute • Author's Notes |