Réminiscence — Friends is the nineth 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.
Synopsis[]
Two children stand together in the bright sun, a boy smiling politely and a girl timidly hiding behind him. Louis, and his little sister Dominique. The Teacher introduces a young Noé, cradled wide-eyed in his arms, to the two, his darling grandchildren. The Teacher is glad to have Dominique visiting at such a convenient time, and tells Noé to direct any questions for those two as he has to leave. Louis smiles and greets Noé brightly. Dominique does as well, much more shyly as she continues to hide behind her older brother. Noé clings to his Teacher’s arm nervously and greets them in return. He approaches hesitantly and reaches his hand out to give Louis a handshake. Louis takes Noé’s hand—and yanks him close. His voice suddenly goes dark. He tells Noé how unlucky he is to have the Teacher take a liking to him. Louis whispers in Noé’s ear—
“You poor thing.”
Young Louis
Sometime later, Dominique and Noé sit in the grass under the trees and play with dolls together. As they do, Noé tells Dominique that he was raised by humans, to her shock. For all this time up until now Noé had lived in the human world, with no knowledge of his parents. A pair of kind elderly humans found a very young Noé crying all by himself in the snow one day. Hearing all this, Dominique frets nervously. Louis however, sitting on a tree branch above them, mocks Noé for foolishly believing what humans told him. He says that instead those humans most likely kidnapped him and were raising him to eventually eat him. Noé’s eyes widen at his words. He throws the doll he’s holding right into Louis’s face. He yells at Louis angrily that his Grandma and Grandpa weren’t bad people. He remembers them and the time he spent with them, the way they cared for him until any members of his family came for him. Being taught about Vampires by his Grandpa, how they were both good and bad just like humans, he and Grandma musing together about finally having themselves a grandchild. These memories fill Noé’s mind as he tightly grips the edge of his shirt.
Noé bursts into tears, wailing as he remembers his dear grandparents. Dominique flinches as the tears gush out of him, and Louis pales and makes his way down the tree. Dominique glares at Louis, who flinches at her look, and snaps at him to apologizes. Louis, flustered, curses under his breath. Dominique and Louis sit on either side of Noé and, as he continues to cry, hug him tightly. Embarrassed and quiet, Louis apologizes. Noé sniffles and bursts out crying anew, to the siblings’ concern. He muses about how he thought his little family would be together forever, but his Grandpa got sick and died, and soon thereafter his Grandma went to sleep and never woke up.
The three children huddle together in bed, tucked under their blankets and laid under a canopy of stars, as Noé tells his story. After they both had passed, Noé went looking for flowers to put on their graves, only to end up getting captured by kidnappers. Louis is unsurprised, explaining that Vampires tend to bring humans to Altus to use for labor. He jokes about the shock it gave them to find Noé, a Vampire, making Dominique scold him. As Noé went with the kidnappers, he was taken to a variety of places, until eventually his Teacher found him. Louis questions Noé calling him “Teacher,” which Noé explains to have been his Teacher’s response when Noé tried calling him “Master.” Dominique, tears welling up in her eyes, sympathizes at the awful situations Noé has been through. Noé doesn’t find them awful at all. Eyes still shining brightly, Noé recalls being fed properly everyday and being taken to the Vampire world, and calls it “fun, like traveling.” The siblings are silent for a moment. Louis bursts into laughter and calls Noé weird. Dominique is amused herself but scolds Louis for laughing, while Noé just grins brightly at his friends.
From that day forward, Louis, Dominique, and Noé would spend their childhood together. Sleeping all curled up in the same bed, receiving gifts from the Teacher, playing in the forest outside their home. Louis helping Noé as they studied together, Dominique dressing Noé up in dresses that matched her own. They lived together happily, Louis and Dominique being Noé’s first ever friends. One day, while playing in the forest, they met another group of children. The village kids, Mina, Fred, Gilles, and Fanny, who recognized them as those residing in the castle and subsequently became friends with them as well. They even found their own secret base within the forest. Everyday was unbelievably fun.
One day, Dominique is dressing Noé up as Louis sits nearby reading a book. She’s surprised to hear about his ability, seeing things about people by drinking their blood. Noé roughly describes the experience, seeing all kinds of things that rush in once he takes in their blood. Dominique is amazed and asks him to do it to her, which excites Noé to drink some blood. Dominique, heart beating excitedly, offers her hand to Noé, who lightly nips at her fingers. He drinks her blood, eyes glowing red as his ability as an Archiviste activates. He’s confused though, as all he sees is lots of himself, making Dominique blush pink. Louis behind them amusedly marvels at his ability. Dominique and Noé turn to stare at him. Louis sweats and tries to reject. Dominique tells Noé to get him, which Noé promptly does, making Louis cry out as he’s tackled by Noé. Dominique excitedly asks Noé what he saw. She pauses—Noé is crying, hot tears spilling out as his mouth is stained with blood. The two of them are concerned as he wipes his tears. What Noé saw was Louis all alone, curled up by himself in the darkness. A sight that mad him so, so sad. Noé can’t help but wonder, if his power as an Archiviste was more potent back then, and if he could’ve seen Louis’s past completely…
“Could I have avoided losing you that way—?”
Dominique waves goodbye as she’s ushered into her carriage. She lives properly in the main estate owned by the de Sades that sits far away from Averoigne, and only comes by for monthly visits. Noé and Louis wave goodbye to her in turn as she leaves. Louis, meanwhile, lived in Teacher’s castle all the time. Louis explains to Noé the reason one day as they both sit and read together in the library. After he’d been born, they found Louis to be “sick” and thus placed him under his grandfather’s care for the sake of his health. Noé asks what kind of sickness he had, but Louis didn’t know. Noé asks if Louis wants to see his parents. Louis only scoffs darkly at the mere thought. To the House de Sade, he’s already long dead. Noé stares at Louis, eyes filled with concern. All he can do is bury his face in the book he’s reading, mind racing with worry, wondering what to do, what to say to help. As he does, Louis notices something on a desk. He picks up a small booklet, scrawled all over with notes and information. Louis begins to read it.
Dominique, eyes welling with tears and face flushed a flustered pink, tries to protest that she’s scared. Noé takes her hands in his and reassures her. The field of glowing flowers burst their petals into the air, like little drops of light fluttering in the wind, as the moon hangs heavily in the sky shining a brilliant blue. Noé calls the sight “beautiful” and urges Dominique to join him, as Louis sits nearby and watches. The Teacher laughs and wonders if any other Vampire exists who would be so overjoyed at the sight of a blue moon. Louis is quiet for a moment. He calls for his grandfather—and asks what a “curse-bearer” is. Louis tells him he found materials about himself in his grandfather’s collection room. His grandfather attributes it to his being clumsy and forgetting them there, but Louis doesn’t buy it. He snaps at his grandfather, knowing that the man meant for Louis to find them all along.
Laughter interrupts him. He looks to the flower field, where Noé has helped Dominique put a flower in her hair. He watches them for a moment. He asks if that was the reason why his parents had Dominique, because Louis turned out to be a curse-bearer and so they made to forget about him. The Teacher says nothing. Louis asks his grandfather what he’s trying to make him do. The Teacher’s mouth open, fangs bared hungrily. Darkness starts to seep in. He denies this, that Louis has it all wrong. He isn’t trying to make Louis do anything, all he wants is to leave Louis to his own free will to do as he wishes and subsequently observe whatever comes of it. Nothing more, nothing less. The tendrils of shadow dance at Louis’s feet as if laughing, as if excited. Louis takes this in for a moment. He laughs humorlessly. He tells his grandfather that he has terrible taste. Dominique has just also placed a flower in Noé’s hair. And Noé, sensing something, looks back towards Louis.
He recalls that, from that day forwards, Louis started acting strangely little by little. One day as they’re relaxing together, Noé curls up on the couch notices Louis carving something from a block of wood. He asks what he’s making, which Louis replies it’s a secret. Louis continues to carve, and Noé hovers all around like a curious little bird. He kneels at Louis’s feet, rests his chin on Louis’s knees, and once again asks what he’s making. Louis huffs and repeats that it’s a secret. Louis then smiles enigmatically, that he intends for it to be a present for Noé. The effect is instantaneous; Noé gapes and his eyes turn to stars with the way they sparkle in excitement. He sits himself patiently and properly and promises to wait for it eagerly, to Louis’s amusement. Noé can’t seem to curb his excitement for getting a present from Louis, but what he sees next snaps him out of it. Louis stops his carving and stares off into the distance, eyes far away, unresponsive. He would continue to do this more and more frequently as time went on.
More oddities about Louis’s behavior would then be stacked on. Sometimes when Dominique would be visiting and spending time with them, Louis would look away, face twisted in pain. Louis no longer talked with his grandfather, avoiding the man entirely. One day Noé noticed Louis once again at it with his woodcarving, this time with a brand new block of wood as if making something entirely different. Louis responds that he made a mistake with the last one, and continues to carve. Noé observes Louis with concern, noting that no matter how much time he’d spend on it, whatever he was making would never be finished. With every drag of the knife against the grain of the wood, every scratch the object in his hands would make, Louis’s eyes would grow darker and darker until they were completely imperceptible. The slow whittling of the carving like the steady diminishing of Louis’s state of mind. It was as if Louis was trying to seal some kind of uncontrollable emotion in the “something” he was making. And losing a bit of himself with every try.
Noé asks what he can do to help Louis
Noé cries out for Louis. He grabs his friend by the arms, stopping him from his woodcarving, staring directly into his eyes as the other boy stares back in shock. Noé asks pleadingly, desperately, if there’s anything he can do. If there’s something he can do for Louis. Louis is silent, face stricken as he is asked this. His lips tremble as he hesitates in answering. He tells Noé that he… A knocking on the door, frantic. Noé opens it to find Dominique, face pale and panicked. She tells him that she heard the maids speaking about something, about Mina—Louis interrupts. He’s begun his woodcarving again. Mina will be executed tomorrow. Dominique and Noé stare at him in shock. He quietly carves the wood in his hand. Noé is baffled and demands to know why, to which Louis answers that Mina has become a curse-bearer. The terms makes Dominique break out into a fearful sweat. Louis declares darkly the rule that nearly all Vampires knew: curse-bearers are to be beheaded by Bourreaus.
Noé, shocked, asks Louis if he knew about Mina already. Louis is silent, lips pursing. Noé purses his lips himself and rises, insisting that he has to go save her. Louis mocks him for being an idiot. He can’t save her unless he can somehow erase the curse of the Vampire of the Blue Moon, which they all know is impossible. Louis yells at Noé that they can’t save her. Noé’s face darkens in anger. They burst out into a fight, to Dominique’s distress. Noé snaps at Louis for saying such things, which Louis calls only stating the truth. Noé assets that they can’t know until they try, which Louis scoffs at. He asks Noé if he could do it. Louis rises from his seat, dropping his woodcarving to the ground, and grabs Noé’s collar, yelling right into his face to—“go on and try! Here! Right now!!”
Louis and Noé's fight
Noé stares at Louis, distressed and confused. Louis smiles brokenly at his friend, something welling up in his eyes, as he tells him there’s nothing he can do.
“You can’t do a thing. Not one single thing!”
Noé’s anger rises and causes his face to flush. He shoves Louis off of him and runs off, cursing at his friend as he goes. Dominique runs after him, and they dash off together. While Noé in his anguish wonders to himself, why, why, Dominique tells him she also wants to save Mina. She suggest they ask for help from their other friends, Fred, Gilles, and Fanny, so they can take Mina away from the village. Meanwhile, Louis wanders about the castle and asks the maids and servants if they’ve seen Dominique and Noé anywhere, to which he receives negative answers. Faint lights dancing in the darkness. Louis stops. He comes to a realization with dread, of what the two of them did.
The children’s secret base hidden deep in the forest.
The lights dance faster, like a heartbeat coming to life.
The deeply twisted voice of a broken-eyed smile rising up behind Louis.
“Finally you’re listening to me… Louis…”
The children huddled together fearfully in the secret base, all centered around Mina whom they’ve managed to free.
“I’ve been inside you all this time…”
Mina is pale and visibly in pain, letting out a low moan as she’s curled within herself. Her friends gathered around her look to her with concern and growing fear. Her low moan continues on and grows and grows, until she’s screaming at the top of her lungs. Her eyes glow red, her claws elongate, and her fangs bare.
“I was waiting…”
A pair of hands made of pure shadow curl themselves lovingly around Louis’s neck.
“For you to want something very badly—”
Mina attacks
Blood spills. Noé stares in shock. He and his other friends have backed up in fright as Mina chomps her teeth hungrily into Fred’s neck and kills him. They’re paralyzed with terror as they watch their friend slowly drain their other friend of his blood until nothing is left. Mina drops Fred’s lifeless body. She leaps up and lunges for Noé and Dominique. Something slams into Mina’s side and sends her crashing into the other wall, Noé and Dominique flinching as they barely evade being attacked themselves. Noé looks up in shock as Mina’s twisted, hungry screams continue—the sound of something being broken. Noé’s eyes are wide. Mina’s severed head hangs in Louis’s grip as he stands over her headless body. He pants heavily as he stands. He looks up at Dominique and Noé, relieved to find them alive and unhurt. He drops Mina’s head to the ground. Noé calls to Louis as Dominique trembles beside him. Louis grabs his head, doubling over in pain as he starts to scream a horrible, agonized, twisted scream. Noé calls out for Louis again.
Louis kills Mina
Louis is behind him, attacking Gilles and Fanny. Noé whips around in shock as his two other friends drop lifelessly to the ground. Louis’s fangs are bared as he pants and growls in hunger—hunger for blood. He greedily devours the blood from his friends’ bodies, completely losing himself to his thirst. Noé goes pale. Louis has stopped drinking their blood and is looking at him. Noé yells at Dominique to run, and despite her protests, insists she get out of the way. Louis attacks. Noé intercepts him, grabbing him by the shoulders and driving his feet into the ground to stop him from moving. He yells desperately at his friend, trying to snap him out of it, to ask him what’s wrong. He asks if he’s angry about their argument earlier, that Noé didn’t listen to him, as Louis continues to pant and growl ravenously, his lips stained with blood. Noé apologizes for being wrong, saying it was his fault. He pleads Louis to go back to being himself again.
Louis and Noé stand together for one silent moment. Louis, head bowed into Noé’s chest, tears spilling out of his hungry eyes, begs Noé to kill him. Noé’s tearful eyes widen in shock. Louis pleads with him, telling him he can’t go back to normal. The ground and walls are stained with the blood of their friends that Louis spilled and drank. Soon the Bourreaus will come to cut off his head. They sink to their knees together, leaning against one another. Louis sobs and tells Noé—if he’s going to die, he wants Noé to be the one to kill him.
Noé’s hand shakes. He grips Louis’s back tightly, embracing him in his arms. He says he can’t do it. Noé can’t kill him. Louis sobs and raises his head, fangs baring once again as he bites Noé’s neck and drinks his blood. Louis… Noé’s hand drops as he continues to drink. Louis… His dear, dear friend. Louis…
Louis is decapitated.
Louis’s head is cut off.
Dominique is in tears. Noé stares wide-eyed as blood splatters all over his face and body and his friend’s head flies off right before him. Louis’s body falls lifelessly. Darkness seeps into the air like living smoke and shadow. A voice sighs out in relief about how close that was. A figure appears before Noé, remarking on how fortunate it was for him to hurry home. The Teacher has arrived. His body, the very shape of his form, seems to be made up of living darkness, tendrils that curl up and up towards the cobweb sky, within which the moon sits and shines a blinding red. Red moonlight that illuminates the twisted, sharp-toothed grin on the man’s face. He asks Noé if he’s alright.
“From the bottom of my heart…”
Noé stares with tear-filled eyes and a bloodstained face up at his Teacher. His lips tremble.
“…I thought it was abominable.”
Noé vomits, the horror and trauma of all he’s seen catching up to him. Louis’s head sits just a distance away from him.
Noé sobs
“The fact that…”
Noé grasps at his mouth and sobs.
“…Even in a situation like this, I was relieved to be alive…”
Quietly, Noé answers his Teacher: yes.
“…Struck me as absolutely abominable.”
Characters[]
- Louis de Sade* (†)
- Dominique de Sade*
- Noé Archiviste*
- The Teacher*
- Noé's Grandparents* (First Appearance) (†)
- Mina* (†)
- Fred* (†)
- Gilles* (†)
- Fanny* (†)
- Naenia*
(*) - Denotes that the character did not appear physically, but as a part of another character's memories.
Terms[]
- Averoigne
- Altus
- Vampires
- House de Sade
- Archiviste Clan
- Astérisque Flowers
- Malnomen
- Bourreau (Mentioned only)
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Réminiscence is a French word that shares the exact same spelling and definition as the English word "reminiscence." Still, this is to be regarded as the French word and is meant to be pronounced in a French manner.
[]
| 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 |
| Intermissions | 15.5 • 46.5 • 51.5 • 60.5 |
| Volumes | 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 |
| Other | Vanitashu no Karute • Author's Notes |