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"Allow me to show them the hatred of something not human, the emptiness of being born without God's blessing. I will show them the hell that slumbers within my truest self, within my core—and within the depths of my soul." |
Paul Verlaine (ポール・ヴェルレエヌ, Pōru Verurēnu?) is an ability-derived life-form created by the French researcher Pan, under whose servitude he was known as Black No. 12 (
Appearance
Verlaine is a tall, young man with a slim physique. He has dark brown eyes[note 1] and blond hair which is braided along the hairline on the left side of his face, while his right eye is obscured by bangs. The braid is then tied with a ribbon with the rest of his hair in a long ponytail. He wears a three-piece suit comprising a dark sand-colored backless waistcoat, matching-colored trousers, and a light sand-colored coat that he typically leaves draped on his shoulders and that carries a brooch on its lapel. He also wears a black dress shirt whose sleeves are folded to his forearms, together with a cherry-colored tie tucked beneath his waistcoat. In addition, he dons white gloves, a black porkpie hat which was gifted to him by Rimbaud, and a pair of black dress shoes.
When he posed as a Port Mafia mailman, Verlaine wore a black suit and sunglasses together with his signature black hat. Later, when he visited Osamu Dazai in his shipping container, Verlaine wore a midnight sea-colored suit with his black hat.
Personality
Verlaine was originally controlled by a series of codes programmed into him with his personality being artificial. After being freed from Pan's control he struggled with this fact along with the knowledge that he was not human, to which Rimbaud went to great lengths to help him cope.
He was able to empathize with Chūya Nakahara's situation as a clone and refused to go along with the mission to capture the boy and hand him over to the French government for further experimentation. This empathy ultimately won out over his care for Rimbaud, and he attempted to kill his only friend to free a boy he did not know.
Unfortunately, without Rimbaud, Verlaine's sanity declined as he was no longer able to deal with his origins as a man-made being. His beliefs became warped and he decided to kill those Chūya cared about to force the boy to N, demonstrating his now unhinged personality.
As described by Adam, Verlaine is a lone wolf and does not trust anyone. Moreover, as an assassin, he displayed an enigmatic and deadly nature, not immediately revealing his identity or goals with clarity. He once posed as a Mafia mailman to approach Chūya despite being the stronger of the two, and he was very deliberate about his targets to force Chūya to kill N. However, despite his planning, his downfall was that he did not expect Chūya to decide wanting revenge against Verlaine for killing the Flags more than he wanted revenge against N for experimenting on him.
Background
Black No. 12 was a clone created by Pan, implanted with an artificial ability and programmed to obey a series of trigger phrases. He was Pan's personal attack dog who obeyed every command given to him. Eventually, Rimbaud was sent to take down Pan's one-man group for creating Black No. 12 and decided to free him from Pan's control. Upon being freed, Black No. 12 killed Pan and was taken in by Rimbaud.
Eventually paired with Rimbaud, the latter trained Black No. 12 as a spy for France and later gave him his own birth name, Paul Verlaine. Along the course of their endeavors, Verlaine struggled with the fact that he was not a real human and could be controlled. Therefore, Rimbaud gifted him with a bowler hat embedded with certain metals which allowed its wearer to control command sequences at will, allowing Verlaine to be one step closer to becoming a human with free will.
Towards the end of the Great War, Verlaine and Rimbaud were assigned to abduct a young Chūya from a Japanese military facility after France knew of their research on a high-energy being. However, Verlaine empathized with the boy and wanted to save him from being made a test subject for the rest of his life, stating that he wanted the boy to be raised in a village with a new family without knowing anything about his past. Rimbaud did not consider Chūya a human and refused to deviate from the mission. Verlaine then decided to betray Rimbaud and shot him in the ensuing fight. Soon after, Chūya and Arahabaki were released, causing a massive explosion.
Subsequently, Verlaine began work as a lone wolf assassin known for killing high-ranking individuals on either side of the law. Branded as the King of Assassins, his calling card is to leave a cross carved from a locally grown white birch. He killed eight major figures throughout the world, including three military armory supervisors and a drug cartel boss. He eventually stained the Order of the Clock Tower's reputation by murdering several ability user guards and almost successfully assassinating the Queen herself after actually killing her body double. Due to his notoriety, Verlaine became considered as one of the most dangerous threats in the world, comparable to the Seventeen Worldly Evils.
Ability
- Main article: Gravity-Manipulation Ability
Verlaine possesses a gravity-manipulation ability, which allows him to manipulate the gravity vector and magnitude of anything and anyone he gets in contact with. His ability is also largely identical to Chūya's Upon the Tainted Sorrow, and it is considered a transcendental ability[1] like those of Shakespeare, Goethe,[2] and Rimbaud.[3] Verlaine's prominent brand in his killings caused by his ability is the brutal fashion of assassination of his targets, which is seen either externally or unnoticeably.
As an artificial ability, Verlaine can tap into Guivre's powers and succumb to Brutalization. Following Guivre's rampage during the King of Assassins Incident, Verlaine loses most of his ability.[1]
Skills
- Physical Prowess: Verlaine is an expert combatant in physical fights and battles, which he utilizes together with his powerful ability. Dazai also noted that there is no one in the world who can win against Verlaine in hand-to-hand combat alone. As a Transcendent, Verlaine was able to fight on equal footing with Rimbaud, who was a fellow Transcendent and the very spy who trained Verlaine himself. Even skilled fighters like Chūya and Adam Frankenstein, an android with a wide skill set himself, had considerable difficulty fighting him to an extent.[1] Verlaine was also able to fend against Mafia guards on his own in complete silence in their own turf[3] and brutally murder the Flags, who were all quite adept with their skills and capabilities.[1]
- Intelligence: Verlaine is quite elusive, which makes him difficult to be caught even by Europole. Furthermore, he inputted a command sequence in Chūya to close his Gate upon contact, which therefore allowed Verlaine to deactivate Brutalization even without his consciousness. This eventually led him to regain said consciousness and avoid being poisoned at least for a brief moment. Verlaine possesses an unparalleled competitive edge in battle owing to his tactical intellect together with his combat skills.[1]
- Mentoring Skills: After Verlaine loses most of his gravity-manipulating ability, Verlaine retains his espionage skills and knowledge in combat, which he used to train Kyōka Izumi, Gin Akutagawa, and countless others who became first-class assassins without exception.[1]
Quotes
- (To Arthur Rimbaud) "You can twist things however you want in your mind, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm not human! You, a mere outsider, dare say I should calm down, that everything's okay because I look and act just like a human? I'd feel better if you told me I'm just like a frog!"[1]
- (To Chūya Nakahara) "Brother, you are not human. You are nothing more than a string of characters. You are a simple equation without a soul. That is what true loneliness is. No one can save you from your isolated chamber… But what if a desolate, lonely comet had another comet of the same temperature by its side? A comet that was just as lonely?"[1]
- (To Chūya Nakahara) "I am going to cut the strings, one by one, that manipulate you like a marionette. And then you will be free. This is the greatest gift of brotherly love and the only thing that will bring you happiness. I am going to kill every human who matters to you."[1]
- (To Osamu Dazai) "Well, I understand where you're coming from. You went on a journey with the expectation that you might find something to change you, but all you found was a kingdom of garbage and despair. I've been through something similar. Simply breathing, eating, and relieving yourself isn't living. That's why we make the journey."[1]
- (To Chūya Nakahara) "Why don't you get it? There isn't anything you need to do! Live how you want to live! Destroy what you want to destroy! Because there's only one thing we needed to do, and that was to not be born!"[1]
- (Thinking to himself) "Nobody understood that I'm not human. Nobody understood that I wasn't blessed by any god, that I wasn't birthed by a person—I was born from nothingness. Rimbaud himself didn't understand this loneliness, even at the very end. I hated him, but not because he didn't understand. I hated him because he pretended like he did."[1]
- (To Arthur Rimbaud) "Don't look at me like that. Get angry. Hate me. Punch me, kick me, strangle me, Rimbaud! I shot you in the back! I caused that explosion that made you lose your memories and forget who you were! I'm the reason you died in this foreign country! If you really were a ghost, you would have at least one reason to despise me, Rimbaud! You'd want me to pay for what I did!"[1]
- (Addressing Arthur Rimbaud) "I'm sorry, Rimbaud. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't treat you like the friend you were. I'm sorry I couldn't thank you for the present you gave me on my birthday. And now that you're no longer here… Now I'm just so terribly sad.[1]
Etymology
- The name Paul is of Latin origin, meaning "humble".
- The surname Verlaine usually denotes that they come from the municipality of Verlaine, Belgium.
Trivia
- The real-life Paul Verlaine was in a romantic relationship with the real-life Arthur Rimbaud.[4]
- 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.[5][6][7]
Notes
- ↑ His eyes are depicted as blue in other media.
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 Bungo Stray Dogs: STORM BRINGER.
- ↑ Bungo Stray Dogs: 55 Minutes.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Bungo Stray Dogs: Dazai, Chūya, Age Fifteen.
- ↑ Paul Verlaine. Wikipedia
- ↑ Christie’s Will Sell Gun That Verlaine Used to Shoot Rimbaud. ARTnews.
- ↑ Gun that wounded French poet Rimbaud sold at auction. BBC News.
- ↑ Gun with which Verlaine shot Rimbaud up for auction. The Guardian.