Vanitas no Carte – 13 – La Bataille D’Argent

I did not watch the Episode 12.5 recap of the first twelve episodes, instead catching up by reading my write-up of Episode 12…only to find it full of typos and grammatical errors! I do apologize for that; it’s all fixed up now.

It’s now Winter where I live, and freezing more often than not, so it’s only appropriate for Gévaudan to be cold as well when Vanitas and Noé arrive—with Dante and Johann tagging along. As is his wont, Noé gets separated from the others in the deep Silver Woods. Then, quite suddenly, the forest becomes a winter wonderland.

When Vanitas and the others spot vintage dragoons hunting the great beast (well, trying to anyway), he deduces that time has somehow rewound to the 18th century, when the King sent his best soldiers in to take care of the storied wolf. Unfortunately for those soldiers, they’re in the way of the Chasseur and Garnet Paladin Astolfo Granatum, who unlike Roland seems to be a bit of a sadist, and doesn’t consder it his job to protect humans, only hunt vampires like Noé. He’s not bad, either, as Noé isn’t fast enough to avoid getting cut.

Their duel is interrupted by the great wolf itself, and it’s not long before Jeanne shows up out of nowhere to battle the beast. Vanitas wants to save the Curse-Bearer who is in the form of the wolf. If Jeanne kills it, that won’t be possible. The thing is, Jeanne doesn’t care. She’s a bourreau, and considers it her job to destroy curse-bearers and eliminate the threat they pose—nothing more or less.

Once Vanitas and Noé reunite, Vanitas can tell that Noé was holding back in his fight with Astolfo for whatever reason. Vanitas in turn employs his inimitable gift for shit-talking by getting Astolfo extremely pissed off, and thus not at his sharpest. You have all the skills and talent in the world, but if you’re off-balance emotionally you won’t be able to fully summon those gifts.

Jeanne continues to battle the wolf, calling her “Chloé” and trying to get a dialogue going. When that fails, she re-commits to destroying the wolf. When she’s stopped by Noé, she warns the lad that if he gets in her way she’ll kill him too. That’s when Charlatan’s Naenia, who felt left out, shows up and creates an illusory world around everyone.

Some, like Astolfo, are unable to fight against the illusions and madly lashes out at Jeanne. But others, like Vanitas, can keep their heads, and he comes between Astolfo and Jeanne, paying back the favor when she saved him earlier. Sick of Naenia’s games, he whips out his titular Karte, only for someone to snap its chain, separating the book from its owner.

When the diamond dust settles, some dude with unkempt dark hair picks up the book, with Vanitas nowhere in sight. The man walks over to the silver-haired woman with azure eyes we caught a glimpse of back in episode 12; the Chloé Jeanne spoke of. Clearly she’s the Woods Witch referred to several times earlier in the episode, and if taking the Karte from Vanitas was the plan all along, then it went off without a hitch!

It’s a hell of a stirring start, introducing a new wintry woodsy setting, new characters, and big new stakes. All the while, the killer directive programmed into Noé looms over everything. Also, while I fully expected the OP and ED to not live up to their Part 1 predecessors, I’m please to report they both slap just as much! Vanitas no Karte hasn’t skipped a beat.