“ | ...Vlad and I, are destined not to meet each other. | ” |
–Tooru Sayonaki |
Tooru Sayonaki (小夜鳴 徹 Sayonaki Tōru) is the century-old vampire, Count Vlad Dracula (ヴラドドラキュラ), and was the second ranked member of IU as well as the the father of Hilda Tepes. He was originally introduced into the series as the part-time Ambulace instructor at Butei High. Following his defeat at the hands of Kinji Tohyama, Aria H. Kanzaki, and Riko Mine, he is being held and questioned in a special jail, but for political reasons his Sayanaki identity and capture is being kept secret due to his affiliation with IU, which is a heavily enforced non-disclosure topic.
Appearance[]
Sayonaki is a pale-skinned young man with long gray hair that he keeps partially tied up in a small ponytail, pale red eyes, round glasses and he almost always sports a black suit with a red tie.
When Vlad emerges, his appearance drastically changes. He is much, much larger, growing a thick coat of black fur all over his body. His hands become massive claws and his head becomes akin to a wolf's, bearing canine like fangs. In the light novel and manga, he also has a pair of bat like wings.
Sayonaki has been noted to be extremely tall and handsome, particularly by the female student body of the academy.
Personality[]
Vlad as a vampire assimilated DNA in order to survive yet also to gain more power, Through assimilation of human blood, he eventually took on the form of a human, although he can revert back to his beast form by activating Hysteria Mode. The current look he has is due to the many DNAs he took which also had the side effect of creating the Sayonaki persona. This is why Sayonaki always refers to Vlad as a separate individual that he's destined never to meet. He has a sadist fetish, so abusing someone is necessary to activate Vlad, which is why he imprisoned Riko Mine completely naked and abused her in an underground dungeon. In the Light Novels he tells Riko, Kinji Tohyama and Aria H. Kanzaki that due to living so long all other forms of stimulus aren't enough to summon Vlad anymore because he got too used to them and therefore can't get worked up enough to trigger the change.
In his vampire form, Vlad is practically immune to any kind of damage, with the exception of four weak points. Three of these points are marked with an eye-shaped tattoo as a result of the efforts of a knight sent by the Vatican to slay Dracula. The source of his invincibility are four "demon entrails" located around his body which allow for near instant regeneration. Since the last one can restore the other three in a second, destroying all four at the same time is a must to break the system. Upon destroying all four, his old vampire weaknesses will re-emerge, and his instant regeneration will be impaired, making it now possible to kill him.
Background[]
Initially, Vlad was one of many feral Ogre Vampires living centuries before the start of the series. At some point he consumed human blood and slowly began to develop human levels of self awareness and intelligence as he drank more and more human blood. Eventually, his consciousness fully developed but he still required constant human blood as a crutch in order to retain it. Initially he ruled as a prince of Wallachia, donning the name of Vlad, in order to keep a fresh supply of blood through brutal conquest. However it proved only to be a temporary means of retaining his consciousness.
His solution came in the form of a completely human shell in order to seal Vlad. Through this, Vlad was able to slow down his deterioration while retaining the ability to return to his true form through neural stimulation. Taking the form of Tooru Sayonaki, he would live on for many centuries now only seldom needing blood to survive.
For reasons unknown, Vlad in his true form would fight two descendants of Jeanne d'Arc and Arsene Lupin on top of the freshly build Eiffel Tower.
During the second World War, Vlad would come face to face with Sherlock Holmes himself and join IU as his second-in-command. As more joined, Vlad began developing a means to share everyone's talents with each other and through the use of Kana's blood, he successfully developed a means to let members copy the passive genetic abilities of other members.
Following the death of Riko's parents, Sayonaki would imprison Riko and experiment on her with the hopes of making a better specimen for the Lupin family, since she lacked any redeeming qualities. He and his daughter also tortured the girl to fuel their sadistic needs. Besides for her genes, Riko had to be kept around as she was born with the same rare Rhesus--River B blood type as them, which only 1 in 1,700,000 people have, meaning she'd be necessary in case either ever required a blood transfusion to save their life.[1]
Vlad would later offer her freedom in exchange for killing Aria to surpass her ancestry, a mission which she failed.
Trivia[]
- J. Michael Tatum (Sayonaki's English voice actor) also plays two demonic beings like:
- A vampire named Issa Shuzen from Rosario + Vampire
- A demon butler named Sebastian Michaelis from Black Butler
References[]
- ↑ Volume 9, Chapter 3