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Introduction

Un Autre — Scar is the forty-sixth chapter of Jun Mochizuki's The Case Study of Vanitas.

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SPOILER WARNING!
This article contains plot and/or ending details for The Case Study of Vanitas.
Read at your own risk.
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Summary[]

“Why wasn’t it me?”

Dominique has wondered this ever since Louis died.

Amelia brings Noé a letter addressed to him.

If only it was her who’d been a curse-bearer. If only it was her who’d been beheaded. If only…

She pictures so vividly, Noé’s smiling face, more brightly and genuinely than he has ever smiled before, as he is with an adult Louis standing in her place.

…Louis was the one here with Noé right now.

Noé opens the letter. Something slips out and drops to the floor. He stares at it in shock and Amelia gasps in horror. It is a lock of Dominique’s hair, tied up with a ribbon like a present.

I’m sorry.

Along with the lock of hair, the letter proper is a postcard from the Exposition Universelle, a world’s fair soon to be taking place nearby, the message scrawled neatly across the picture of the ferris wheel. He and Dominique are waiting for Noé there. Noé crumples the letter in his hand.

I’m sorry.

The unevenly cut strands of hair, significantly shorter than the rest, from which that lock had been cut, is lifted up and carded through with a mechanical metal hand.

I’m sorry.

Dominique sobs out aimless apologies, barely conscious as she kneels collapsed on Mikhail’s lap. He idly pets her head as her grief and guilt spill out of her…

“I’m sorry…”

…Just as it did years ago when she was a child, right after her brother’s death.

“I’m sorry… Noé…”

Dominique sat at Noé’s bedside, crying helplessly for her bedridden best friend. It was right after she had given him the “present” Louis had left her with, had intended for Noé. The countless wooden stakes he’d carved himself with which Noé could kill him. Upon encountering that, Noé collapsed with a high fever. And Dominique in the wake of this was terrified. She cried into her hands as her mind spun around on anxious wheels, wondering what she could do for him, whether this truly was a nervous ailment, if he never woke again, what she would do then. She couldn’t stand the thought of Noé vanishing in front of her as well. Dominique’s hands fisted in the sheets of the still sick Noé’s bed. From the perpetually circuitous spiral of anxiety, her mind was lead to regret. Guilt. Endlessly wondering thoughts of what she could have done differently. The millions of tiny steps that could have averted this. Be it Dominique telling Noé of Mina’s scheduled execution to the group’s decision to act alone to their misguided loyalty to Mina to begin with… Would any of it have prevented that? Would it at least have not happened so horrifyingly, right before Noé’s eyes? Did any of that even matter?

Dominique thought once again of that box. The present. When Louis had lifted its hefty weight into her arms and asked her for a favor. He had wanted her to give the present to Noé, “when the time comes.” Dominique had been confused and worried, unsure how to react. She remembered though. Louis had lifted a hand to his sister’s face and caressed it gently. As she had gazed up into her brothers smiling face, Louis had remarked on how much she looked just like him.

A voice called to Dominique. Cloying and commanding and saccharine. She immediately flinched. Dominique snapped her head up as her elder sister Veronica entered the room. Veronica sighed with dissatisfaction at the state of the place and announced she’d come to retrieve Dominique back to their home. Dismissively she ordered her sister to prepare to leave. Dominique, pale and trembling as she looked up at her sister, hesitated for a long moment. She opened her mouth. Still pale and trembling, hands gripping her dress, unable to even look up from her lap, Dominique forced the words past her lips with insurmountable effort. She did not want to. Veronica looked at her in shock. Shakily Dominique explained her own fault in this, how she couldn’t just leave Noé. And finally she asked if Veronica felt anything for Louis’s death. Veronica was silent for a moment.

First, Veronica said. She had no little brother.

She goes on. Dominique should be grateful he had managed to live so long, as he was meant to be killed at birth at the beginning.

Dominique paused. Her eyes were wide with surprise… and confusion.

Dominique raised her head and asked what her sister meant. Veronica stared back in similar surprise, similar wide eyes. Then it clicked for her. She realized that Dominique was being genuine, that she was asking honestly. And Veronica broke out into a wide grin. With delighted disbelief Veronica realized that Dominique truly didn’t know anything and had been assuming for all this time that Louis’s isolation from the rest of their family was due to an illness. That Dominique had been an utter fool to the truth all along. Dominique in the face of her sister’s growing pleasure grew paler and paler, a cold sweat beginning to break out on her skin. Finally Veronica told her. With nothing but the utmost delight, laughter, and glee, her bright smile against her little sister’s petrified face, Veronica revealed what they all except Dominique knew.

That Louis was Dominique’s twin.

It was as if Dominique’s entire world turned over. And everything she thought she knew of the world now became meaningless. Everything she thought she understood was futile. All of it meant nothing.

For Louis, her older brother by one year, was in fact her twin. And as Veronica continued to explain, twins were a bad omen among Vampire society. Said to steal more life in the womb, and thus heralded misfortune. As the House de Sade was such a reputable household in the atmosphere of Vampiric aristocracy, their good name would have been soiled by the news that their mother birthed twins. And so the family chose one of them. That, Dominique realized, being herself. And the other left unchosen was Louis, who had been meant for death. Except in that moment the ever-enigmatic family head, the de Sade siblings’ grandfather, declared the infant’s death to be a waste and had taken him in, claiming there had been something he had wanted to try.

In the midst of this explanation of what had truly happened in the past, Dominique finally found her voice once again. And with it she asked one question, softly, weakly, barely even able to stand it. Why did they choose her? Veronica looked at her little sister.

“Who knows?”

It was their father who had made the decision. It seemed as if he simply chose on a whim.

Dominique could not move. What she felt was even less than hollowness. A true worthlessness. An absolutely pointless, futile, vain sense of nothingness.

Veronica watched her little sister’s reaction to learning the truth. She coyly covered her hand with her mouth, yet did not even bother attempting to hide her amused giggles. Idly, as if simply thinking out loud, she admitted to there being a valid point. Though she didn’t have the time to waste on her nonexistent little brother, she still had to wonder.

If they had made the other decision, would Louis have lived up to their expectations better than Dominique?

Veronica laughed shamelessly right in Dominique’s face as she numbly took this all in. All she could think of in the throes of these horrors was Louis. Her brother. Whom she shared the happiest parts of her childhood with. Who was there with her and Noé. Did Louis, Dominique wondered, know about this as well? Another memory comes. A night spent together under the rainfall of a storm outside. Dominique telling Louis how she had wished she could always stay there as well. How she envied him. Louis’s reaction she had not realized at that time. A different kind of horror overcomes Dominique as she finally came to know just how awful it was, what she had said to him.

In the bed they were next to, a tiny noise. Noé began to stir, squirming restlessly and painfully in the depths of his illness. Dominique gasped as he did and she surged forward to check on his condition. Calling to him, she tried to ask how he felt, if he could recognize her. Noé blearily looked up as she hovered over him. Dominique’s eyes filled with tears as she called his name. But all Noé could see where she stood was the one person they both desperately missed. They both desperately wished was still there.

Noé leapt up out of bed to pull Dominique into a hug.

“Louis!!”

Dominique’s eyes were wide.

Noé held her so tightly, so weakly in his arms. He cried into their embrace. With utmost relief to be awake, he sobbed that he dreamed that Louis had died.

(Something began to crack.)

Over and over, with a joy unlike any other, Noé called Louis’s name.

(More and more cracks, until that something began to shatter.)

Noé’s fever was beginning to overtake him once again. Growing weaker, he teetered where he sat and started to sink back under. The last words he could breathe with the last of his strength was his relief that, for him, for that one moment, Louis’s death was just a dream. Noé’s grip slackened completely and he let go. He collapsed back into bed, unconscious once again. Leaving Dominique there.

Noé.

Dominique wondered. As she cried noiselessly, worthlessly, pointlessly. As nothing of her was left. She wondered.

Would you… rather have had Louis too?

She kept wondering. And she never stopped wondering.

Even as she was ushered away. As she was getting changed with the help of her maids. As she stood before a tall full-length mirror just to her side.

Dominique looked. And she wondered. With eyes as empty as she herself was, Dominique looked into the mirror at her reflection. At herself.

She wondered. If Noé too wanted Louis to live instead of Dominique.

Veronica came at the sound of some commotion. Their maids cried out in distress, shrieked in pain, and Veronica turned into the room where her sister had been changing. Her eyes grew wide at the sight she beheld. In the middle of the room, past the maids crumpled on the floor after being attacked and shoved away, was Dominique. Kneeling lifelessly on the ground in just her underdress. Surrounded by chopped up little locks of black. Clutching a pair of ornate scissors in her hand. Her hair was now at shoulder length.

And she wondered. And she wished.

I wish I’d been the one to die.

She continued to wish that… all the way to the present day. Where she cries this wish into Mikhail’s lap, who gently cradles her head and comforts her. As she falls apart right at his fingertips, he gently tells her, voice angelic. She doesn’t have to cry anymore. After all, it won’t be long until her “prince” comes along to save her. He made sure of it.

The bustling city of Paris at night. Amelia is in a frenzy as she enters a restaurant and hurriedly asks the servers for help in finding somebody. Finally she sees whom she’s looking for sat together at a table having dinner together with an increasingly drunk Dante. Vanitas looks up from his conversation with the informant as Amelia runs to him. Pale and panicked, she announces the awful news to Vanitas’s surprised face. About what happened regarding Noé.

Noé. Who, with an expression darker than he’s ever looked before, stands before a large metal gate, its doors and sign imposing above his head. With his one functional arm, he grasps at the iron bars of the unlocked doors and pushes them open with a clang. The amusement park he enters is eerie in its emptiness and silence. The ferris wheel that towers above all else, the utterly still merry-go-round, the unmanned and unattended stands and carts, the unlit and barren roads that wind through. Noé silently walks past all this. Until a blinding flash to his side catches his attention. Music begins to play, the glittering lights gleam in the backdrop of the night, the colorful horses start to spin around. The merry-go-round, initially dead to the world now having come back to life in grandiosity. A boy rides upon it.

It is Mikhail, who cheerily welcomes Noé. Who in turn darkens his expression further, if even possible, and interrupts Mikhail’s greeting with a growl past his fanged teeth. Where is Dominique? Noé rushes Mikhail as he steps off the merry-go-round. Mikhail almost mockingly doubles back in shock at Noé’s aggression. As he is running forward, Noé stiffens then stops in his tracks and jumps back just in time to evade a swipe at him. An automaton has jumped in between himself and Mikhail, protecting the boy, shaped as a long-snouted hound with a knife attached to its long extended tail. Noé prepares to fight against it.

Vanitas leaps to his feet. A deafening clatter sounds from the table at his sharp and sudden action. Amelia pauses in her panicked explaining with surprise. Vanitas looks horrified. The color has completely left his face, his skin has broken out into a cold sweat, and there’s a faraway and keen distress in his eyes as he repeats the name that was just told to him. Mikhail. Dante and Amelia both stare at him with surprise, confusion, and growing concern. As Vanitas realizes it was Mikhail who wrote and signed that letter to Noé, that he is behind this. His voice is dark and distant as he quietly breathes to himself, that Mikhail is alive. Then with a gasp he realizes the depth of the trouble Noé is in. Noé, whose fierce battle against the dog automaton kicks up into the air the dust and gravel of the earth at their feet. The knife tail swings at him again, but this time Noé grasps onto the length of the tail, not even flinching when blood wells up from the spikes piercing his palm, and swings the automaton around to smash it into the ground. Even with such distance, Vanitas still tries to gasp out warnings for Noé to stop. To not go near Mikhail. Because Mikhail is… With the dog automaton gone, finally unprotected. With that threat eliminated and that opening made, Noé once again attacks Mikhail, who simply stands there as he is rushed. Then Mikhail smiles.

Blue lightning engulfs Noé’s form. Blinding and vibrant and radiant like a star bursting to life right at his chest. It is painful. And Noé is baffled as in the wake of that attack, all his strength has left him and he collapses to the ground right at Mikhail’s feet. But what shocks Noé the most is not the literal electric paralysis that has brought him to his knees. It is the way that it feels familiar, that when he thinks about it he can recall one other moment in which he’s experienced this before. At the hands of Vanitas and his Book. Noé, collapsed to his hands and knees, begins to look up at the figure standing before him. Mikhail teases Noé for being so impatient as to act before they’ve even introduced themselves to one another, as Noé sees a chain dangling from his hands. Noé looks up. His face has blanched in shock, in dread… in remembrance. He knows this.

“A blue leather cover and jet-black pages… A clockwork grimoire linked to a silver chain…”

He has not only seen this before. He has studied it extensively the past several months. He has lived next to it. He knows it.

Mikhail stands illuminated by the twinkling, starry lights of the merry-go-round to his back.

“I am Mikhail.”

The night is a cold one and a breeze gusts past them, setting into the skin of anyone nearby a frigid chill.

“I inherited only this Book from the Vampire of the Blue Moon.”

Amidst the multicolored brilliance of the amusement park, he stands as a lone shadow bathed in pure blue.

“And I am… an average human being.”

It is the Book of Vanitas. A second one. Completely separate from the one he knows so well in Vanitas’s hands. This one is in the grasp of the flesh-and-metal hands of this adolescent boy, possessing brilliant blue eyes that are painfully familiar as well.

The Blue Moon shines its light down upon them from the night sky above. The second greeting he’s received from it like this.

Mikhail’s half-lidded blue eyes are menacing with an unsung threat, glaring at him past the shadows of the boy’s face. Noé flinches back. Then Mikhail breaks out into a childish, boyish grin and laughs that he was joking and copying his older brother. Then, realizing he also calls Noé brother, he clarifies he means his actual older brother who went by “Vanitas,” as he’d heard about the pair’s first encounter from Dominique who’d heard it from Noé. After a pause Mikhail decades he will just call him Noé to sidestep further confusion. After that awkward one-sided exchange, Mikhail asks if he’s heard anything about the boy, as his dog automaton nudges its head under his hand for a pet, metal grinding against metal in affection. Mikhail finally references “No. 71,” and Noé starts in recognition. His and Vanitas’s encounter with Doctor Moreau replays in his mind, and he growls past bared fangs. Mikhail smiles at this and explains that he has a favor to ask of Noé. Then he puts upwards somewhere, and Noé’s eyes follow where his finger directs. The ferris wheel. Upon closer inspection, there is a figure standing on one of the carts close to the top. A figure with a tall form and a thin shape and long hair flowing down their back…

Noé is horrified.

It’s Dominique.

The wind blows past her hair as she stands dead-eyed and unresponsive atop the ferris wheel several stories above the ground below.

Noé tries to rush to her but the attack of Mikhail’s Book on him is far too fresh still and he has no power. His body skids limply and uselessly on the ground and he can only barely prop himself up on his forearms as he curses himself out and desperately tries to command himself to move. Nothing works. He is helpless and at the mercy of the boy who did this. The same boy who leans down to explain that, should he get hurt at all, Dominique will jump without hesitation. Mikhail taunts that neither of them want the nice and sweet Dominique to splatter all over the ground, all the while Noé’s head spins disorientingly and he wonders if Dominique’s True Name had been tampered with. Finally, Mikhail speaks what he truly wants.

For Noé to drink Vanitas’s blood.

Noé’s mind goes blank.

Mikhail’s blue eyes are infinitely dark as he explains that there is one thing he must know, no matter what.

Why did his brother kill their father on that day?

Noé is confused. He is disoriented. He cannot get a grasp of what is happening. From the contextless revelation he’d just heard, to the panic of Dominique’s well-being, to the horror at the command he’s been given. He can’t do anything but absorb and watch and listen. Mikhail smiles like the devil and tells Noé to do as he does best and sink his fangs into that pale skin.

“Reveal the blood of Vanitas.”

Characters[]

(*) - Denotes that the character did not appear physically, but as a part of another character's memories.

Terms[]

Trivia[]

Le Bouillon Chartier
  • Un Autre is literally translated as "another" from French.
  • The restaurant in which Dante and Vanitas are eating is based on a real restaurant in Paris, Le Bouillon Chartier, founded in 1896. It is located close to Hôtel Chouchou's real counterpart.

Navigation[]

v - e - t The Case Study of Vanitas
Characters

Main: Noé ArchivisteVanitas
Dhampirs: DanteJohannRiche
Galerie Valentine: ManetNoxParks Orlok
Hôtel Chouchou: Amelia RuthFlute
de Sade: Antoine de SadeChryslerDominique de SadeLouis de SadeMurrThe TeacherVeronica de Sade
Oriflamme: August RuthvenJeanneLoki OriflammeLuca Oriflamme
Chasseurs: Astolfo GranatumCharlesGanoGeorgesMarcoMariaMiraOgierOlivierRoland Fortis
d'Apchier: Chloé d'ApchierJean-Jacques Chastel
Blue Moon: MikhailVanitas of the Blue Moon
Archiviste: Noé ArchivisteLady Archiviste
Charlatan: ChèvreMonsieur SpiderMoreauNaeniaPlague Doctor
The Vampire Senate: FaustinaLord BellatorLord PaldenceMarquis Machina
Others: Beast of GévaudanCatherineÉricFannyFredGillesLouiseMinaNoé's GrandparentsParacelsusThomas Berneux

Nobility Archiviste ClanClan of the Blue MoonHouse d'ApchierHouse de SadeHouse of GranatumOriflamme DukedomThe SenateThe Vampire Queen
Terminology Species & Factions: BeastiaBourreauThe Catholic ChurchCharlatanChasseursDhampirsVampires

Objects: Astérisque FlowersAstermiteThe Book of VanitasMielWorld Formula Alteration Device
Weapons: Carpe DiemDurandalHauteclaireLouisette
Events: Babel IncidentThe War
Miscellaneous: MalnomenMark of PossessionTrue NameWorld Formula

Locations AltusAveroigneLa BaleineCarbunculus CastleLes Catacombes de ParisGalerie ValentineGévaudanHôtel ChouchouDoctor Moreau's LaboratoryParis
Volumes 1234567891011
Omake Romance is a✰LOVE MISSION
Episodes 123456789101112131415161718192021222324RecapSpecial
Blu-ray/DVD 12345678
Drama CDs Drama CD 1Drama CD 2Drama CD 3Drama CD 4
Soundtrack OSTSora to Utsuro0 (zero)Your NamesalvationCharacter Song Album 1Character Song Album 2
Character Songs Le Formidable!Hidamari ni Saku Hana~mon trésor~Na mo Naki MichiSekka
Other Media Stage Play
Extra Vanitashu no KaruteAuthor's NotesTimelineReal-World References
Author Jun Mochizuki
v - e - t The Case Study of Vanitas Chapters
Parisian Excursion Arc 12345
Bal Masqué Arc 67891011
Hunters of the Dark Arc 12131415161718192021
The Beast of Gévaudan Arc 2223242526272829303132333434.53536373838.53940414243
Amusement Park Arc 444546474849505152535454.55555.556
Miel Incident Arc 575859606161.56262.563
Intermissions 15.546.551.560.5
Volumes 1234567891011
Omake Romance is a✰LOVE MISSION
Other Vanitashu no KaruteAuthor's Notes
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