The Plot of Tsukihime
Dec. 23rd, 2011 09:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maid_to_dieSmall Intro
I thought I would try writing up a condensed version of the plot of Tsukihime. Unfortunately, this is a huge project. This took me about three hours to write up, and it's only the first part of the story. Future additions will likely be less long because a lot of scenes build on previous ones.
Pictures are included to give some faces to the characters. The story of Tsukihime operates in a standard 'visual novel' format: you attempt to get close to a different girl each time. The best succession (the game forces you to play this way) is:
Arcueid -> Ciel -> Akiha -> Hisui -> Kohaku.
So this summary will start with Arcueid.
Prologue
The game begins with an ten-year old boy named Tohno Shiki waking up in a hospital. He is told he was involved in a car crash and that he has been unconscious for a number of days. All well and good, except Shiki now sees something strange. Not dead people; every object he looks at has 'lines' drawn on it. He cuts the 'lines' on a table one day and the table falls apart. He tries to explain this, but no one believes him. He runs away from the hospital and meets this woman. They get to talking and Shiki eventually tells her about the lines. She gives him a set of glasses that block the lines when he's wearing them, tells him she's a witch, and then leaves.
Arcueid Route
Flash-forward about eight years and Shiki is now a high school student. Through a long monologue we learn that Shiki was unable to return to his family because he developed anemia and was considered too weak. He has been living with distant relatives for the past eight years. This all changes when he receives news his father has died and now that his old man has croaked his sister Akiha wants him to return. Oh, and Shiki apparently only has two friends, Arihiko and Ciel. They talk about how there have been murders in the city where people's blood has been drained, because that's an ordinary topic of conversation.
Shiki returns to his family's house, which is actually a huge mansion. His family is ridiculously wealthy. He is greeted by Kohaku and Hisui, twin sisters who work as maids. Akiha browbeats him a little for never writing and the day ends. During the night Shiki is awakened by dogs barking, goes outside to see a strange man in a black coat. He leaves and goes back to bed. When he wakes up no one else seems to have noticed so he drops it and goes to school. Before he leaves Kohaku gives Shiki an old knife, saying it was a present from his old family.
Shiki has a pretty normal schoolday until he has an attack of anemia and leaves early. While walking home, he sees Arcueid. For some reason he starts following her until eventually he cuts her up with the knife. Thinking he's been possessed, he blacks out. He wakes up in his own bedroom, and is told he passed out coming home from school and Kohaku found him. He assumes he just had a bad dream or something because no one mentioned any blood on his clothes. He starts walking to school, only to find Arcueid waiting for him half-way. She chases him into an alley and begins the info-dump:
Arcueid is a vampire, and she's in town hunting another vampire. Shiki cutting her up drained her of about 80% of her power since she needed to revive herself. She figures Shiki must be some sort of trained killer so she's 'recruiting' him to guard her and help her kill the other vampires. "I'll make you take responsibility for killing me," she says. While talking, they're attacked by an evil looking wolf, which Arcueid tears apart. They retreat to Arcueid's hotel room where Arcueid will sleep the night and Shiki will protect her. Shiki explains how he was able to kill her because he sees her 'lines' and Arcueid deduces Shiki has something called the "Mystic Eyes of Death Perception" which lets him see the death of all things. Some time passes and Shiki finds more animals are watching them.
The animals belong to this man. His name is Nero Chaos and he is freaky. Shiki tries to fight him but has a flashback to his childhood where he vaguely remembers killing someone. Arcueid drives Nero away and then passes out. Shiki carries Arcueid off to another hideout where she eventually wakes up. Shiki finally apologizes for killing her. Arcueid explains Nero is a vampire who can make animals pop out of himself and is freaky. They decide to set a trap where Arcueid will distract him and Shiki will stab him in the back.
They meet Nero in a park at night. Nero easily tosses Shiki aside, but Arcueid rips Nero in half. Then Nero stands back up and explains if they want to kill him they have to kill every animal which makes up his existence at once. He holds Arcueid in a trap and tries to eat Shiki. Shiki FLIPS THE FUCK OUT and with skill we've never seen him have before, stabs all of the beasts and kills Nero. He passes out.
Shiki wakes up in his bed. Everyone is pretty pissed at him for disappearing for two days. Shiki apologizes to Akiha and leaves. He has a normal school day except Ciel is acting a little weird. Shiki goes out, thinks he sees Arcueid, then goes home. During the night he has an erotic dream. He wakes up, freaks out, and runs off to school.
The television news (for some reason the school cafeteria has a television) reports that some new murders have taken place. Shiki is surprised because he thought since Nero was killed they would be over with. He goes out at night searching for Arcueid and eventually finds her. She explains that the deaths weren't caused by Nero, Nero ate his victims, and the killings were all done by a different vampire. She then asks if Shiki enjoyed his dream last night. Arcueid explains that as a 'gift' for killing Nero, she had her dream succubus send Shiki that dream. (Note: The game lets you choose which girl Shiki meets for his dream. If you choose anyone but Arcueid, he yells at her. If you chose Arcueid herself, he awkwardly admits he dreamed about her.) They go out walking and meet some zombies, apparently created by the real vampire. Arcueid kills it. Shiki tells her he'll fight with her to the end.
Shiki goes home and has another flashback to his childhood where he thinks he's killed someone. Everyone at the mansion is pissed because he didn't come home until late at night. He goes off to school only to find Arcueid is out in the courtyard waving at him. He makes up some excuse about his anemia and drags her off. They talk for a while about how the school could DEFINITELY NOT BE THE VAMPIRE'S HIDEOUT and Shiki goes back to school. Ciel continues to act weird.
Shiki returns to the mansion and is asked by Hisui if he plans on running around at night. He decides to be truthful so Hisui gives him a key so he can get back in when he wants. Shiki goes out at night with Arcueid and they hunt some zombies. Shiki goes back to the mansion where this fellow is waiting to kill him. They fight and Shiki realizes he's aiming for the lines of death on his body, which means he has the same ability Shiki has. He has another flashback to his childhood about killing someone in the middle of the fight, and when it looks like the man is going to kill him, he suddenly sees Ciel standing on a lamp post looking like this. She throws those huge swords at him until he runs away, then runs off.
Shiki wakes up the next day. After some wandering around the mansion having more flashbacks of him killing someone, he spies Hisui walking off into the forest around the house. He follows her, but his anemia goes off and he passes out. He wakes up to Akiha yelling at Hisui, but intervenes by saying he's really fine. Akiha begs him to stay home for the night, and Shiki agrees. Shiki goes to bed and is woken up by Arcueid breaking into his house and demanding to know why he didn't show up to help her. Shiki promises to spend the day with her to make it up to her. "Spending the day," actually turns into a date. He takes her to see a movie and then out for fast-food. They go to the school and talk about meeting together there again after their vampire-killing crusade is over.
Shiki tells her he was attacked and how a MYSTERIOUS ROBED FIGURE SAVED HIM, and Arcueid tell him that the robed figure was probably an assassin sent by the Catholic Church. Yes, apparently in this game, the Catholic Church has a secret organization that hunts vampires and other super-natural entities. She explains that though they would both have killing the other vampire as a common goal, they want to kill her too, so they can't really cooperate. Shiki asks: "Are you really a vampire?" because he hasn't seen her act too vampire-ish. Arcueid starts a joke where she pretends to suck his blood, only to look like she's actually going to do it for a second. She runs off and Shiki looks for her. He finds her hunting more zombies. She accidentally stares at Shiki with her 'mind-controlling' eyes and Shiki starts to go crazy but calms himself down. They call it a night.
Shiki goes to school only to find out that no one seems to remember Ciel. The teachers, Arihiko, no one remembers who Ciel was supposed to be. Shiki goes to wait at the park for Arcueid to show up. He waits two hours before Arcueid shows up, who was just watching him and seeing how long he would wait. Suddenly some zombies come and attack them. Arcueid is weakened by the attack, and tries to suck Shiki's blood again but is stopped by a robed Ciel throwing a sword at her. Ciel and Arcueid exchange a few words before Arcueid runs off.
Ciel gives Shiki another info-dump: there are two types of vampires in the world, those who become vampires through getting their blood sucked or by experimenting with magic (called Dead Apostles) and those who are created by the world as vampires from the beginning (called True Ancestors). Arcueid is one of the latter. However, True Ancestors are never supposed to drink blood. If they do, they go crazy with blood-lust and start killing everything to get more blood. This happened to Arcueid about 800 years ago and she killed every other True Ancestor and went on a rampage which she eventually recovered from. The enemy Arcueid is looking for is named Roa. He's a Dead Apostle who needs to suck blood to maintain his immortality, but he has a special ability called reincarnation. Whenever his body is destroyed, his 'consciousness' passes to another host. When the host reaches maturity, Roa's personality takes over and he starts tearing up wherever he spawned. Arcueid has been hunting and killing him for centuries, but he just keeps respawning. Ciel then says that Roa can somehow 'choose' which host he ends up in and he looks for families with wealth and prestige, as well as special abilities. In other words, Shiki was the most likely candidate. But, it's apparently not him. Shiki hears about Arceuid's sad backstory where she was basically woken up a few times a century, told "Go kill this vampire," and then went back to sleep. Shiki resolves to find Arcueid so they can create more happy experiences together.
Shiki goes and waits in the park again. Arcueid eventually shows up. She explains she's so weak that she can't suppress her instinct to suck blood. Shiki says that doesn't matter because he's going to help her to the end and he loves her. They go back to Arceuid's room for a sex scene. Arcueid says she loves Shiki too, and then leaves. Shiki wakes up and looks for her but can't find her. He goes back to his house. Everyone sorta senses Shiki's upset about something. Shiki goes to school and then searches for Arcueid at night. He finds Roa lurking around at his school.
Roa then reveals what Shiki has had a bunch of flashbacks about: there was another child at the mansion beside him and Akiha when he grew up. This child was also named Shiki. (In the original Japanese, both names are pronounced the same, but are written with different kanji. For the translation, fans use Shiki for the protagonist we've been following up until now, and SHIKI for the Roa-incarnate.) Shiki realizes that SHIKI has been taken over by Roa. Roa is about to kill him, but Ciel shows up and drags him away.
Shiki gets back to the mansion, dreams ANOTHER flashback, and is wakened by Akiha. Akiha gives him another info-dump: Shiki is not really Akiha's brother, or related to their family at all. SHIKI tried to kill Shiki when they were young. That was why Shiki was taken to a hospital, there was no car crash. SHIKI was supposed to be killed, but instead his father imprisoned him for eight years. Eventually he escaped. Akiha explains that their family is not entirely-human: they have mixed their blood with demon-blood, which gives them awesome super-natural powers. However, there is a risk that these powers will overwhelm the human side of them and they'll go crazy and start killing everyone. This is what happened to SHIKI. But Shiki doesn't need to worry about that because he's not related to them. Shiki didn't remember SHIKI or the true nature of his injury because his father did something to his memory. Shiki asks where he came from, but Akiha says she just knows that her father adopted him because he thought it was interesting he had the same name as his son.
Ciel sneaks into the mansion. She reveals that of course, Roa took over SHIKI's body. Ciel explains SHIKI probably wants to kill Shiki because in his mind, Shiki took over SHIKI's role and got him locked away for so many years. Shiki decides he's going to go have a showdown with SHIKI/Roa to help Arcueid. Ciel tries to talk him out of it, but eventually agrees to help him. They go to school and Ciel says she'll hide and wait for an opening while Shiki looks around. Shiki quickly finds Roa and Arcueid fighting and Roa has the upper hand. However, Arcueid then uses some super-powerful move to completely destroy Roa. Only his ankles remain. But his ankles immediately reform his body and he kills Arcueid. She falls down and Shiki rushes to her side. He begs Arceuid to drink his blood so she can get her strength back, but she refuses and asks for a kiss instead. They embrace, and Arceuid dies.
Shiki turns to Roa, who gloats he's going to suck Shiki's blood and make him his slave, then kill Ciel and rule the city as top vampire. Shiki then gets an idea and asks Roa if he can see the lines everywhere or only on living things. Roa responds that of course he only sees the lines on living things because only living things can die. Shiki realizes their abilities aren't the same: Shiki sees the lines everywhere. Shiki's next speech is so bad-ass I'm going to include it:
"All you're seeing is life. You don't understand death at all. That's why you can't kill me, and you're only able to kill a weakened woman."
"If you could see death, you couldn't maintain your sanity. All you can perceive is the part which keeps things alive.
If you could see death----you couldn't even manage to stand."
"Being able to see the 'death' of things means you are forced to see the world's uncertainty and fragility. The ground is like it's not there, and the sky seems about to fall at any moment."
"...... You don't know of the illusion that the whole world could perish in an instant.
----That is what it means to see death.
These eyes, this power isn't something you can boast about like you did."
"That's your mistake, vampire. Life and death may be back to back, but they will never face each other."
"----I'll show you.
This is what it means to kill something."
Shiki then stabs the floor in the hallway they're standing on. The floor breaks up beneath them and Roa is completely taken aback. They fall, and Shiki stabs Roa, killing him. Shiki starts to relax, but then Roa tries to crawl back to Shiki and bite him. He screams that if he can bite Shiki, he can transfer to Shiki and avoid dying. His fangs get closer... and then Ciel shows up and stabs him. Ciel announces that means she killed Roa, and Shiki can rest easily knowing he didn't murder a human. (Despite the fact Roa was a vampire and not human.) Shiki passes out.
Arcueid's True Ending
Shiki wakes up a few days later having recovered from his injuries enough he can move around. The murders in the city have ceased. Shiki waits in his classroom after school to keep the 'promise' he made with Arcueid to meet there again. To his surprise, Arcueid appears in front of him. She explains that Roa was the only person she ever drank blood from, and that when she did he 'stole' some of her vampiric powers. When he died, she got it back and she revived. But now her impulse to drink blood is too strong and she has to force herself to sleep forever so it doesn't overwhelm her. Shiki tells her to drink his blood so she can recover, but she refuses because: "I like you." She tells Shiki she loves him and to live his life happily, and that she'll be happy because she can dream of their time together. She disappears. Shiki is glad at least he has good memories of Arcueid.
Arcueid's Good Ending
Shiki wakes up a few days later having recovered, the murders have still ceased. Shiki resolves never to forget about Arcueid and walks to school as usual. He finds Arcueid waiting at the cross-walk just like she did when she revived after he killed her. Arcueid greets him as normal, but Shiki yells at her asking how she's still alive. She explains that she forgot to tell Shiki, but the reason she was hunting Roa in the first place was because Roa stole some of her power when she made him a vampire. Since she got it back, she was able to revive. But her urge to suck blood was too strong, so she spent a week hibernating before she could finally come back. Happy to be reunited, Shiki decides to skip school and take her out for the day to do fun things. They reaffirm their love for each other and she tells him that she hopes he's prepared to be with her forever because "I'll make you take responsibility for killing me."
I thought I would try writing up a condensed version of the plot of Tsukihime. Unfortunately, this is a huge project. This took me about three hours to write up, and it's only the first part of the story. Future additions will likely be less long because a lot of scenes build on previous ones.
Pictures are included to give some faces to the characters. The story of Tsukihime operates in a standard 'visual novel' format: you attempt to get close to a different girl each time. The best succession (the game forces you to play this way) is:
Arcueid -> Ciel -> Akiha -> Hisui -> Kohaku.
So this summary will start with Arcueid.
Prologue
The game begins with an ten-year old boy named Tohno Shiki waking up in a hospital. He is told he was involved in a car crash and that he has been unconscious for a number of days. All well and good, except Shiki now sees something strange. Not dead people; every object he looks at has 'lines' drawn on it. He cuts the 'lines' on a table one day and the table falls apart. He tries to explain this, but no one believes him. He runs away from the hospital and meets this woman. They get to talking and Shiki eventually tells her about the lines. She gives him a set of glasses that block the lines when he's wearing them, tells him she's a witch, and then leaves.
Arcueid Route
Flash-forward about eight years and Shiki is now a high school student. Through a long monologue we learn that Shiki was unable to return to his family because he developed anemia and was considered too weak. He has been living with distant relatives for the past eight years. This all changes when he receives news his father has died and now that his old man has croaked his sister Akiha wants him to return. Oh, and Shiki apparently only has two friends, Arihiko and Ciel. They talk about how there have been murders in the city where people's blood has been drained, because that's an ordinary topic of conversation.
Shiki returns to his family's house, which is actually a huge mansion. His family is ridiculously wealthy. He is greeted by Kohaku and Hisui, twin sisters who work as maids. Akiha browbeats him a little for never writing and the day ends. During the night Shiki is awakened by dogs barking, goes outside to see a strange man in a black coat. He leaves and goes back to bed. When he wakes up no one else seems to have noticed so he drops it and goes to school. Before he leaves Kohaku gives Shiki an old knife, saying it was a present from his old family.
Shiki has a pretty normal schoolday until he has an attack of anemia and leaves early. While walking home, he sees Arcueid. For some reason he starts following her until eventually he cuts her up with the knife. Thinking he's been possessed, he blacks out. He wakes up in his own bedroom, and is told he passed out coming home from school and Kohaku found him. He assumes he just had a bad dream or something because no one mentioned any blood on his clothes. He starts walking to school, only to find Arcueid waiting for him half-way. She chases him into an alley and begins the info-dump:
Arcueid is a vampire, and she's in town hunting another vampire. Shiki cutting her up drained her of about 80% of her power since she needed to revive herself. She figures Shiki must be some sort of trained killer so she's 'recruiting' him to guard her and help her kill the other vampires. "I'll make you take responsibility for killing me," she says. While talking, they're attacked by an evil looking wolf, which Arcueid tears apart. They retreat to Arcueid's hotel room where Arcueid will sleep the night and Shiki will protect her. Shiki explains how he was able to kill her because he sees her 'lines' and Arcueid deduces Shiki has something called the "Mystic Eyes of Death Perception" which lets him see the death of all things. Some time passes and Shiki finds more animals are watching them.
The animals belong to this man. His name is Nero Chaos and he is freaky. Shiki tries to fight him but has a flashback to his childhood where he vaguely remembers killing someone. Arcueid drives Nero away and then passes out. Shiki carries Arcueid off to another hideout where she eventually wakes up. Shiki finally apologizes for killing her. Arcueid explains Nero is a vampire who can make animals pop out of himself and is freaky. They decide to set a trap where Arcueid will distract him and Shiki will stab him in the back.
They meet Nero in a park at night. Nero easily tosses Shiki aside, but Arcueid rips Nero in half. Then Nero stands back up and explains if they want to kill him they have to kill every animal which makes up his existence at once. He holds Arcueid in a trap and tries to eat Shiki. Shiki FLIPS THE FUCK OUT and with skill we've never seen him have before, stabs all of the beasts and kills Nero. He passes out.
Shiki wakes up in his bed. Everyone is pretty pissed at him for disappearing for two days. Shiki apologizes to Akiha and leaves. He has a normal school day except Ciel is acting a little weird. Shiki goes out, thinks he sees Arcueid, then goes home. During the night he has an erotic dream. He wakes up, freaks out, and runs off to school.
The television news (for some reason the school cafeteria has a television) reports that some new murders have taken place. Shiki is surprised because he thought since Nero was killed they would be over with. He goes out at night searching for Arcueid and eventually finds her. She explains that the deaths weren't caused by Nero, Nero ate his victims, and the killings were all done by a different vampire. She then asks if Shiki enjoyed his dream last night. Arcueid explains that as a 'gift' for killing Nero, she had her dream succubus send Shiki that dream. (Note: The game lets you choose which girl Shiki meets for his dream. If you choose anyone but Arcueid, he yells at her. If you chose Arcueid herself, he awkwardly admits he dreamed about her.) They go out walking and meet some zombies, apparently created by the real vampire. Arcueid kills it. Shiki tells her he'll fight with her to the end.
Shiki goes home and has another flashback to his childhood where he thinks he's killed someone. Everyone at the mansion is pissed because he didn't come home until late at night. He goes off to school only to find Arcueid is out in the courtyard waving at him. He makes up some excuse about his anemia and drags her off. They talk for a while about how the school could DEFINITELY NOT BE THE VAMPIRE'S HIDEOUT and Shiki goes back to school. Ciel continues to act weird.
Shiki returns to the mansion and is asked by Hisui if he plans on running around at night. He decides to be truthful so Hisui gives him a key so he can get back in when he wants. Shiki goes out at night with Arcueid and they hunt some zombies. Shiki goes back to the mansion where this fellow is waiting to kill him. They fight and Shiki realizes he's aiming for the lines of death on his body, which means he has the same ability Shiki has. He has another flashback to his childhood about killing someone in the middle of the fight, and when it looks like the man is going to kill him, he suddenly sees Ciel standing on a lamp post looking like this. She throws those huge swords at him until he runs away, then runs off.
Shiki wakes up the next day. After some wandering around the mansion having more flashbacks of him killing someone, he spies Hisui walking off into the forest around the house. He follows her, but his anemia goes off and he passes out. He wakes up to Akiha yelling at Hisui, but intervenes by saying he's really fine. Akiha begs him to stay home for the night, and Shiki agrees. Shiki goes to bed and is woken up by Arcueid breaking into his house and demanding to know why he didn't show up to help her. Shiki promises to spend the day with her to make it up to her. "Spending the day," actually turns into a date. He takes her to see a movie and then out for fast-food. They go to the school and talk about meeting together there again after their vampire-killing crusade is over.
Shiki tells her he was attacked and how a MYSTERIOUS ROBED FIGURE SAVED HIM, and Arcueid tell him that the robed figure was probably an assassin sent by the Catholic Church. Yes, apparently in this game, the Catholic Church has a secret organization that hunts vampires and other super-natural entities. She explains that though they would both have killing the other vampire as a common goal, they want to kill her too, so they can't really cooperate. Shiki asks: "Are you really a vampire?" because he hasn't seen her act too vampire-ish. Arcueid starts a joke where she pretends to suck his blood, only to look like she's actually going to do it for a second. She runs off and Shiki looks for her. He finds her hunting more zombies. She accidentally stares at Shiki with her 'mind-controlling' eyes and Shiki starts to go crazy but calms himself down. They call it a night.
Shiki goes to school only to find out that no one seems to remember Ciel. The teachers, Arihiko, no one remembers who Ciel was supposed to be. Shiki goes to wait at the park for Arcueid to show up. He waits two hours before Arcueid shows up, who was just watching him and seeing how long he would wait. Suddenly some zombies come and attack them. Arcueid is weakened by the attack, and tries to suck Shiki's blood again but is stopped by a robed Ciel throwing a sword at her. Ciel and Arcueid exchange a few words before Arcueid runs off.
Ciel gives Shiki another info-dump: there are two types of vampires in the world, those who become vampires through getting their blood sucked or by experimenting with magic (called Dead Apostles) and those who are created by the world as vampires from the beginning (called True Ancestors). Arcueid is one of the latter. However, True Ancestors are never supposed to drink blood. If they do, they go crazy with blood-lust and start killing everything to get more blood. This happened to Arcueid about 800 years ago and she killed every other True Ancestor and went on a rampage which she eventually recovered from. The enemy Arcueid is looking for is named Roa. He's a Dead Apostle who needs to suck blood to maintain his immortality, but he has a special ability called reincarnation. Whenever his body is destroyed, his 'consciousness' passes to another host. When the host reaches maturity, Roa's personality takes over and he starts tearing up wherever he spawned. Arcueid has been hunting and killing him for centuries, but he just keeps respawning. Ciel then says that Roa can somehow 'choose' which host he ends up in and he looks for families with wealth and prestige, as well as special abilities. In other words, Shiki was the most likely candidate. But, it's apparently not him. Shiki hears about Arceuid's sad backstory where she was basically woken up a few times a century, told "Go kill this vampire," and then went back to sleep. Shiki resolves to find Arcueid so they can create more happy experiences together.
Shiki goes and waits in the park again. Arcueid eventually shows up. She explains she's so weak that she can't suppress her instinct to suck blood. Shiki says that doesn't matter because he's going to help her to the end and he loves her. They go back to Arceuid's room for a sex scene. Arcueid says she loves Shiki too, and then leaves. Shiki wakes up and looks for her but can't find her. He goes back to his house. Everyone sorta senses Shiki's upset about something. Shiki goes to school and then searches for Arcueid at night. He finds Roa lurking around at his school.
Roa then reveals what Shiki has had a bunch of flashbacks about: there was another child at the mansion beside him and Akiha when he grew up. This child was also named Shiki. (In the original Japanese, both names are pronounced the same, but are written with different kanji. For the translation, fans use Shiki for the protagonist we've been following up until now, and SHIKI for the Roa-incarnate.) Shiki realizes that SHIKI has been taken over by Roa. Roa is about to kill him, but Ciel shows up and drags him away.
Shiki gets back to the mansion, dreams ANOTHER flashback, and is wakened by Akiha. Akiha gives him another info-dump: Shiki is not really Akiha's brother, or related to their family at all. SHIKI tried to kill Shiki when they were young. That was why Shiki was taken to a hospital, there was no car crash. SHIKI was supposed to be killed, but instead his father imprisoned him for eight years. Eventually he escaped. Akiha explains that their family is not entirely-human: they have mixed their blood with demon-blood, which gives them awesome super-natural powers. However, there is a risk that these powers will overwhelm the human side of them and they'll go crazy and start killing everyone. This is what happened to SHIKI. But Shiki doesn't need to worry about that because he's not related to them. Shiki didn't remember SHIKI or the true nature of his injury because his father did something to his memory. Shiki asks where he came from, but Akiha says she just knows that her father adopted him because he thought it was interesting he had the same name as his son.
Ciel sneaks into the mansion. She reveals that of course, Roa took over SHIKI's body. Ciel explains SHIKI probably wants to kill Shiki because in his mind, Shiki took over SHIKI's role and got him locked away for so many years. Shiki decides he's going to go have a showdown with SHIKI/Roa to help Arcueid. Ciel tries to talk him out of it, but eventually agrees to help him. They go to school and Ciel says she'll hide and wait for an opening while Shiki looks around. Shiki quickly finds Roa and Arcueid fighting and Roa has the upper hand. However, Arcueid then uses some super-powerful move to completely destroy Roa. Only his ankles remain. But his ankles immediately reform his body and he kills Arcueid. She falls down and Shiki rushes to her side. He begs Arceuid to drink his blood so she can get her strength back, but she refuses and asks for a kiss instead. They embrace, and Arceuid dies.
Shiki turns to Roa, who gloats he's going to suck Shiki's blood and make him his slave, then kill Ciel and rule the city as top vampire. Shiki then gets an idea and asks Roa if he can see the lines everywhere or only on living things. Roa responds that of course he only sees the lines on living things because only living things can die. Shiki realizes their abilities aren't the same: Shiki sees the lines everywhere. Shiki's next speech is so bad-ass I'm going to include it:
"All you're seeing is life. You don't understand death at all. That's why you can't kill me, and you're only able to kill a weakened woman."
"If you could see death, you couldn't maintain your sanity. All you can perceive is the part which keeps things alive.
If you could see death----you couldn't even manage to stand."
"Being able to see the 'death' of things means you are forced to see the world's uncertainty and fragility. The ground is like it's not there, and the sky seems about to fall at any moment."
"...... You don't know of the illusion that the whole world could perish in an instant.
----That is what it means to see death.
These eyes, this power isn't something you can boast about like you did."
"That's your mistake, vampire. Life and death may be back to back, but they will never face each other."
"----I'll show you.
This is what it means to kill something."
Shiki then stabs the floor in the hallway they're standing on. The floor breaks up beneath them and Roa is completely taken aback. They fall, and Shiki stabs Roa, killing him. Shiki starts to relax, but then Roa tries to crawl back to Shiki and bite him. He screams that if he can bite Shiki, he can transfer to Shiki and avoid dying. His fangs get closer... and then Ciel shows up and stabs him. Ciel announces that means she killed Roa, and Shiki can rest easily knowing he didn't murder a human. (Despite the fact Roa was a vampire and not human.) Shiki passes out.
Arcueid's True Ending
Shiki wakes up a few days later having recovered from his injuries enough he can move around. The murders in the city have ceased. Shiki waits in his classroom after school to keep the 'promise' he made with Arcueid to meet there again. To his surprise, Arcueid appears in front of him. She explains that Roa was the only person she ever drank blood from, and that when she did he 'stole' some of her vampiric powers. When he died, she got it back and she revived. But now her impulse to drink blood is too strong and she has to force herself to sleep forever so it doesn't overwhelm her. Shiki tells her to drink his blood so she can recover, but she refuses because: "I like you." She tells Shiki she loves him and to live his life happily, and that she'll be happy because she can dream of their time together. She disappears. Shiki is glad at least he has good memories of Arcueid.
Arcueid's Good Ending
Shiki wakes up a few days later having recovered, the murders have still ceased. Shiki resolves never to forget about Arcueid and walks to school as usual. He finds Arcueid waiting at the cross-walk just like she did when she revived after he killed her. Arcueid greets him as normal, but Shiki yells at her asking how she's still alive. She explains that she forgot to tell Shiki, but the reason she was hunting Roa in the first place was because Roa stole some of her power when she made him a vampire. Since she got it back, she was able to revive. But her urge to suck blood was too strong, so she spent a week hibernating before she could finally come back. Happy to be reunited, Shiki decides to skip school and take her out for the day to do fun things. They reaffirm their love for each other and she tells him that she hopes he's prepared to be with her forever because "I'll make you take responsibility for killing me."
