Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud (アルチュール・ランボー,), born as Paul Verlaine (ポール・ヴェルレエヌ,), was a French spy sent to investigate the Japanese military's mysterious project related to Arahabaki. After the Suribachi City explosion, he lost many of his memories and was recruited to the Port Mafia under the alias Randō, eventually promoted to the rank of sub-executive. One of the few Transcendents, Rimbaud had the ability named Illuminations.

Appearance
Rimbaud was a tall, pale man of slim build with vacant, tired gold eyes and long black hair that reaches past his mid-back. A long section of his hair fell in front of the right side of his face, alongside a thinner strand over the left side.

Cold no matter the weather, Rimbaud always wore warm winter clothes. Over his ears is a pair of white earmuffs, and around his neck a tasseled, dark red scarf with alternating thick and black stripes. He wears a grey trench coat over a white, button-up shirt, black trousers, a corset-ed belt, and red winter boots. He also wears a pair of black gloves.

Personality
Appearing as a gloomy individual, Rimbaud always complained of the cold and tried to avoid it as much as possible. He held profound respect towards Ōgai Mori after rising in rank with ease. As a veteran mafioso, Rimbaud had a deep understanding of the driving forces behind the criminal world and never showed any delight in his actions as a mafioso. In fact, Rimbaud respected lives a great deal, and as such he went to lengths to ensure his opponents never suffered more than they must.

Rimbaud was far from emotionless, expressing surprise and confusion in Osamu Dazai's antics, and even laughing after he and Chūya Nakahara rightfully accuse him of being behind the predecessor's apparent "revival".

His respect extends to Chūya and Dazai, as he expressed regret in having to kill them for his own gain, but he did not hold back in attempting to kill them in order to achieve his own goals. Furthermore, he seemed more prone to make drastic decisions when pushed into a corner. Struggling with slight amnesia, Rimbaud's ultimate goal was to learn what happened to his close partner Paul Verlaine. For this reason, he took an intense interest in Arahabaki's existence, vividly remembering its burning heat and how its existence exceeded human understanding.

Ability
Rimbaud's ability, Illuminations (イリュミナシオン,), creates hyperspaces that Rimbaud has full control over and allows him to turn corpses into abilities. As a Transcendent, Rimbaud's ability greatly surpasses that of average abilities. His hyperspace exists outside natural law, rendering Upon the Tainted Sorrow useless and overcoming No Longer Human's nullification to an extent. It is also states in Bungo Stray Dogs: STORMBRINGER that Rimbaud's ability was 'to take another person hostage and use their powers as a new addition to his ability,' which is how he attempted (and failed) to use Arahabaki as his ability during the mission in which Paul Verlaine and him had to capture Arahabaki.

Background
Rimbaud worked as a spy for France's DGSS in its Operations Division, tasked with infiltrating rival organizations to obtain and leak their secrets. At an unknown point, he was assigned to infiltrate a one-man rebel group, May Uprising, who was found to have created an artificial ability. Rimbaud battled the rebel leader Pan and, per DGSS's intel, removed Pan's creation and attack dog Black No. 12 from being controlled. Black No. 12 killed Pan, while Rimbaud took him in under his wing.

At France's behest, Rimbaud trained the artificial ability and gave him his birth name, "Paul Verlaine". Later, Rimbaud deciphered The Secret of the Gentle Forest, a part of Pan's manual on how to revert Verlaine to his true form, Demonic Beast Guivre, and wrote it on his journal. On one of Verlaine's birthdays, Rimbaud gifted him with a bowler hat that can deflect any external command sequences that could tamper with his mind, in hopes of helping his friend become one step closer to becoming a human with free will.

Towards the end of the war, after France received intel of the Japanese government's containment of a powerful entity codenamed Arahabaki, Rimbaud and Verlaine were sent to investigate and steal it. Though they were initially successful, Verlaine changed his mind and refused to hand over Arahabaki's host, Chūya, to the government. Rimbaud wanted to stick with their mission, so Verlaine betrayed and attempted to kill him, leading to a fierce battle Rimbaud believed ended in Verlaine's death at his own hand.

The battle alerted military personnel, and the subspace Rimbaud created at the time was not powerful enough to defend himself. In a last-ditch effort to save himself, Rimbaud attempted to attack Arahabaki's vessel, absorb Arahabaki into Illuminations, and use it as his new ability. However, he actually absorbed its seal, which unleashed the beast and appeared in its full power. The calamitous entity caused a great explosion that formed Suribachi City and caused Rimbaud to lose his memories.

Consequently, Rimbaud wandered Yokohama and caught the attention of the then Port Mafia boss, who invited him to join the organization. Known as alias Randō, he started off as a low-level grunt with no support or financial backing. As someone sent to fight in the Mafia frontlines, Randō survived many battles thanks to his ability. When Mori became the new Mafia boss, he took notice of Randō's ability and promoted him to the rank of sub-executive.

Quotes

 * (To Paul Verlaine) "Do you really think you can shoot me, Paul? I'm the man who saved you. I granted you human life."
 * (To Paul Verlaine) "It wasn't a mistake, Paul. I am going to take you home with me, even if it means tearing off an arm or a leg first."
 * (To Ōgai Mori) "Brrr… I want to work somewhere warm… Boss, are there any Port Mafia branches near a volcano…?"
 * (To Osamu Dazai) "Violence and war are not necessary for survival. If we all agreed to stop eating undercooked meat—in other words, if everyone agreed to stop fighting and banned all weapons—then violence would be no more. But that isn't realistic. No matter what, someone will break the rules to get ahead of the rest because that's always the most profitable option. Everyone else would have no choice but to eat undercooked meat—they would have to maintain their stance on fighting back only when provoked. You might say this is the true nature of conflict in the underworld."
 * (To Osamu Dazai and Chūya Nakahara) "What formidable children…you two turned out to be…"
 * (To Chūya Nakahara) "Chūya… Can I…ask you…a favor? […] Live. There is no longer…any way of knowing…who you are or where you came from. But even if…you are but a pattern…etched on the surface of raw power…you are you. Nothing changes that…because all people, all humanity…their brains and flesh…are nothing more than patterns—beautiful patterns…upon the material world…"
 * (Last words) "It's strange… I don't feel even the least bit cold… The world I thought was so cold… Paul… Did you feel…this warmth in the end…as well………?"
 * (Last words as an ability to Paul Verlaine) "You didn't like the birthday present I gave you. So I'm giving this to you instead, as a replacement. Happy birthday, Paul. I'm glad you were born—and I'm so glad I got to meet you."

Etymology

 * The name Arthur is of Celtic origin, meaning "bear".
 * The surname Rimbaud is of German origin, meaning "advice" (ragin) and "bold" (bald).

Trivia

 * The real-life was greatly inspired by the real-life, along with the likes of other symbolist poets including , , and . Nakahara's Bohemian style of living also led him to be called "The Japanese Rimbaud".
 * The real-life Arthur Rimbaud was in a romantic relationship with the real-life Paul Verlaine.
 * Verlaine shooting Rimbaud before Arahabaki's explosion in the military facility is a reference to the real-life Verlaine shooting Rimbaud in 1873. Though various sources differ in details, the so-called Brussels Affair saw Verlaine firing twice at Rimbaud in a hotel in the Belgium capital. This incident ended their two-year affair.