Rereading 225 again and omg. The financial advisor from Vienna, the devil in Modri's flashback, is shorter than Modri. No wonder he wasnt sure, Sebastian 6'2" Michaelis must look completely different!
Does Modri... not remember Lady Anna's face anymore?
More under the cut. Spoilers for Kuroshitsuji up to chapter 225!
Has anyone else noticed just how blank Lady Anna and other character's faces are in this flashback?
It is one thing for the devil in the flashback to not have a face and to have his name scribbled out. It could be seen from a storytelling perspective that, if this devil is Sebastian, then the devil's face/name is not relevant, only his actions are. That despite the role he had in Modri's past, he is Sebastian now.
But that doesn't explain the blankness on Lady Anna's face. Someone that Modri held clear affection for, to the point that he brought someone who was essentially a stranger to their home in order to figure a way out of marrying Lady Anna off. All this, but her face remains noticeably blank.
And what of Modri's master? The one who saved Modri and took him in, that Modri has been shown to have clear loyalty for, and yet his name has yet to be spoken, and his face is always obscured?
You could argue that they are side characters, cannon fodder who had been dead prior to the beginning of the story. Except Yana has always consistently detailed the faces of the deceased if they held importance to the characters. Yana has even detailed the faces of side characters that we may never see again. So it feels very deliberate that characters who are written to be important to Modri are drawn lacking most of their facial features.
A part of me wonders if this is because he may actually be a bizzare doll, and his memories are incomplete. However, that brings in the implication that the Undertaker (and potentially any partners he may have) can not only extend cinematic records after a person's death, but can also defile already existing cinematic records by changing them- which he has not been shown being able to do.
Another part of me is more convinced that Modri is still alive theough other means, and his memory is faded due to the passage of time. That would suit him more narratively, as it would highlight just how much Modri has lost of himself in his obsessive pursuit of the devil who took so much from him.
I reread the chapter twice and I am going to stand by my previous post that this devil is still Sebastian.
(Though it seems kind of obvious based on the cover page lol)
The only real mark against this idea is how indiscriminately the devil in the flashback made that deal with Lady Anna. It was pretty careless, but I suppose if this devil's contract did not have the same binding stipulations that Sebastian's current contract has with o!Ciel, then it does make sense that this devil could really go anywhere, and do anything.
Edit: To clarify, I believe the devil in the flashback is either already under contract with lax stipulations which allows the devil to do whatever they want, or it's possible that this devil was already post-contract by the time they met Lady Anna (and Modri).
Also, we all remember how Sebastian in the beginning of his contract with o!Ciel had no issues restoring the manor and conjuring a feast, so having crops grow overnight is definitely not outside the realm of possibilities for him... and it also showcases that same lack of foresight our Sebatian exhibited in the past too. This devil in Modri's past did not care how they were perceived, just like our Sebastian didn't care in the beginning too.
My heart does hurt for the entire family though. We all know how it was going to end, but it is still sad to see how it happened.
Real quick though, the contract mark being on the back of the neck? Phew! 👌👌
Anyone else just tickled pink at the thought of Sebastian potentially being a court jester in his past? Him and his tired butler lines- did he ever say other punny, repetitive things to a previous contractor? I say this with love in my heart, but Sebastian is not funny imho.
Thinking about this hypothetical contractor assigning him the role of a court jester since Sebastian would hold no title with his manifested identity. Did the king ever laugh. Did the king force himself to laugh so this cringe, unfunny devil wouldn't lose his position? Did Sebastian come out of the contract thinking he was incredibly witty and hilarious?
Those sparkles in Modri's eyes were so cute tho omg? Like instant admiration for the baron's consultant. And, this does sort of confirm that the consultant (and demon) is Sebastian tho right? The shape-shifting shadows, the flowery way of speaking, the slutty palm window in his gloves- cough I mean who said that
I know its 0:00 JST so new Kuro chap very soon but I am so so worried that if that is Sebastian in the flashback that we won't see any more of his goopy form in this new chapter and Yana will leave us starving again ;_;
During my re-reading of Kuro, a silly thought popped up into my head. It is very possible that Yana has been teasing us with o!Ciel's true name during the Blue Cult Arc.
More under the cut. Spoilers up to ch169 ahead!
As we know, Yana had been foreshadowing o!Ciel lying about his identity since as early as ch2 as others have pointed out. Examples below being the name "Ciel Phantomhive" being in quotation marks, and then o!Ciel's line: "Grandfather... Father... and then..." several pages later, implying another successor after his father.
Once r!Ciel returned, it is stated that he has been following o!Ciel's journey from the beginning. So, we can assume he has been aware of o!Ciel's use of his identity from the get-go.
While we barely get much of r!Ciel's personality through the (likely biased) lens of o!Ciel's POV, we can guess that he is as clever as o!Ciel.
In ch150, o!Ciel speaks of r!Ciel being the one to prepare multiple methods to collect blood. This implies that r!Ciel is a large part of the blood collecting operation with Undertaker.
Just based on this assumption, we can loosely assume that r!Ciel possibly had a hand in naming the 4 different blood types: Canopus, Polaris, Vega, and Sirius.
And is it not curious that of all the different ways that one could catalog blood types, r!Ciel (and Undertaker) chose to use the names of stars? And that r!Ciel would choose the name Lord Sirius for himself?
...maybe he did that so that he can get back at his little brother for stealing his name?
It also does not help that in ch143 when Blavat names o!Ciel as Lord Sirius, only the servants (sans Tanaka) are shown to be shocked at this name.
Not Sebastian, and not Elizabeth either.
Also, in a cute, blink-and-you-miss-it moment, we see quotation marks again for the name "Sirius" in which the text bubble is placed between both brothers.
It's pretty interesting that the speech bubble is placed between them. The true identity of Lord Sirius... is it r!Ciel who is behind the disappearances and the culprit, or is it referring to Lord Sirius, the name of the younger brother of Earl Phantomhive: o!Ciel?
Could Sirius be o!Ciel's name? Sirius Phantomhive, the younger brother of Ciel Phantomhive? Could Yana have put o!Ciel's name under our noses? Considering how Kuro is very good at foreshadowing, I would not put it past her.
It is also very telling that during the carriage ride in ch145 Blavat continues to use the name "Lord Sirius", but neither Sebastian, nor o!Ciel correct him. But then in the next page of the same chapter Sebastian has no problems correcting Blavat's claim of divinations as hot reading.
Why not defend your master, Sebastian? Is it because you cannot? Would it be a lie to refute that name?
The page that really convinces me is ch169 with Lord Polaris, though.
There is no one to mock in this scene as you could take with Blavat's scene in ch 145. Nor are there any police to convince as in ch142-ch143. Here, this is just r!Ciel privately correcting Polaris. It is not r!Ciel who is Lord Sirius, but his little brother.
About to hit post limit for photos, so last one from ch133
Their parents compared their eyes to stars. It wouldn't be too much of a reach to name your youngest son Sirius the blue star in that case, right?
That's all I have unfortunately. I may be wrong, but it was a fun thought and I enjoyed writing it out. I hope you enjoyed reading it!
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