𝑃𝑎𝑢𝑙 𝑉𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑛

𝑃𝑎𝑢𝑙 𝑉𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑛.

Is an ability-derived life-form created by the French researcher Pan, under whose servitude he was known as Black No. 12. He later becomes a spy for France as trained by his eventual partner, Arthur Rimbaud. Originally the host of the singularity beast Demonic Beast Guivre, Verlaine possesses a gravity-manipulation , which he prominently uses in his assassination missions as the notorious King of Assassins.

𝐴𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒.

Verlaine is a tall, young man with a slim physique. He has dark brown eyes 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.

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 Chuuya 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 Chuuya 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 Chuuya despite being the stronger of the two, and he was very deliberate about his targets to force Chuuya to kill N. However, despite his planning, his downfall was that he did not expect Chuuya 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 Chuuya 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 Chuuya a human and refused to deviate from the mission. Verlaine then decided to betray Rimbaud and shot him in the ensuing fight. Soon after, Chuuya and Arahabaki were released, causing a massive explosion.

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 Chuya's Upon the Tainted Sorrow, and it is considered a transcendental ability like those of Shakespeare, Goethe, and Rimbaud. 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. Which is why 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.

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 Chuuya and Adam Frankenstein, an android with a wide skill set himself, had considerable difficulty fighting him to an extent. Verlaine was also able to fend against Mafia guards on his own in complete silence in their own turf and brutally murder the Flags, who were all quite adept with their skills and capabilities. Intelligence: Verlaine is quite elusive, which makes him difficult to be caught even by Europole. Furthermore, he inputted a command sequence in Chuuya 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.

𝑅𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝𝑠.

Chuuya. Verlaine has a rather intense obsession with Chuuya due to his isolation and identity issues chipping away at his sanity. As a fellow product of experimentation, he believes he and Chuuya are the only people capable of understanding each other, and he refers to himself as the boy's older brother before they are even properly acquainted. He is also rather selfish in his endeavor to take Chuuya with him, fully disregarding the mafioso's desire to remain with the Port Mafia and killing off people Chuuya has formed attachments to force him to go with Verlaine. Dazai. Quite indifferent to Chuuya's partner, who at first glance seems very cold and gloomy to everyone. But nevertheless, he did not even hesitate to mocke the mafioso about his place of residence in a shipping container, saying: "Charming place you have here, Dazai. What frightens you so much that you choose to live in such a dreary place? Real estate tax?" But coming to him only for the Mafia's internal file that Dazai retrieves him, including learning from the brunette about the whereabouts of the Flags. Only for Verlaine to go kill Chuuya's colleagues first, and not the port mafia boss Mori Ogai. Mafia members, Flags. "Well, you don't need your old friends anymore, do you?" Verlaine says rather mockingly to his brother after he killed Chuuya's colleagues, and Chuuya's new friends with whom the boy barely had time to celebrate his anniversary in the mafia in their usual, cozy bar. But despite how annoying the group of 5 mafiosi may seem due to their different characters and positions, Chuuya has already become quite attached to them. At least for the fact that his colleagues joined forces to find out more about Chuuya’s past and even gave him various documents related to his past even if it was confidential mafia data to which only the executives had access. But knowing how their youngest participant worries about this because of his own ignorance of his biography before the age of 7