● ＳＵＰＰＯＲＴＩＶＥ
She is not nicknamed Ciel-senpai only for her seniority. Cheerful and compassionate, she is always ready to support someone in their time of need, willing to listen to their troubles and giving them some small assistance when she can. Shown clearly in the “Near Side of the Moon” routes, where she finds Shiki soaked and miserable in the park after he ‘kills’ Arcueid, and takes him in like a lost duckling. There, she also silences him of his pity speech, in thinking that he was a bad person because he killed, and tells him that the moment he is remorseful for whatever crime he thought he committed, then he is not a bad person (she never allowed him to tell her he killed someone and felt awful over it). That said, she’s no Samaritan and possesses a good judge of character: she may offer help to humans she has previously spoken to and have given her no reason to believe that they may be bad, but it would be an entirely different story with non-human beings, or another race that may threaten a human’s safety. …Vampires, most notably, for not only is that her night job and true job, she will also forever have a bone to pick with Arcueid. ……Still, maybe that’s JUST Arcueid. She may have almost fought to death with Akiha in the manga, but in the end, both nevertheless cooperated several times to bail the other and Shiki out of trouble when it mattered. Lenient of Sion, understanding of Satsuki, and courteous with Akiha, it IS more likely that Ciel just has an eternal ‘rivalry’ with the ditsy True Ancestor. This trait, additionally, is also the most present in the entirety of Tsukihime, even in the “Far Side of the Moon” routes where SHIKI and the Tohno household are much more prominent. As a constant of Shiki’s school life (or so he thinks, anyway), she is always there as a comforting presence, offering to eat lunch with him and hear him out to get him to relax and calm down.


● ＫＮＯＷＬＥＤＧＥＡＢＬＥ
In the same vein as the title “Ciel-senpai”, she is not featured as Ciel-sensei to teach the dumb players and inform them of their mistakes at every bad end once the 4th wall has been torn down as well. Even in the game itself, as an agent of the Church and Roa’s vessel once in the past, she is very well versed in Roa’s nature and vampires in general. When Arcueid isn’t feeling whimsical enough to explain, it is usually Ciel who clues Shiki in on everything that he should know – one step at a time, but also only when she evaluates it as necessary. While it will take Shiki some time to get Ciel to trust him enough for her to pass onto him the information that she has (since depending on the route she may be more or less actively investigating him specifically), she is precise and thorough when she does begin to talk.


● ＧＯＯＤ ＮＡＴＵＲＥ
Ciel might be a bit strange to follow sometimes (nowhere near as bad as Arcueid, just a note), but she generally gives off the air of a kind, mild, well-mannered, polite, reliable, smart, and even motherly older student – sure, she’s not without her quirks, but generally, she gives a nice and laid-back impression of someone who goes by her pace and can follow another’s. She makes use of honorifics and family names, referring to Shiki as ‘Tohno-kun’ and Arihiko as ‘Inui-kun’. She does seem to drop the family name with Akiha, calling her Akiha-san, and outright picks Arcueid out as a thieving cat and an airheaded vampire, but these people are special, so there’s no need to speak more of that. Even angered, she can hide her dismay well, and that is hard to notice for she is constantly smiling, so her presence is generally always considered to be a soothing one.


● ＲＥＳＥＲＶＥＤ
While Ciel is good at smiling and providing an ear to listen to and a shoulder to lean on to others, she is in fact very, very reserved about herself, and will rarely speak of her own circumstances to another, at least not without very good reasons. This stems strongly from her past experiences: as one who obliterated her entire hometown and drained the blood of all those whom she once loved, she does still harbor some guilt over this, so it will be very difficult to have her openly speak of herself. Since her body is also covered with the marks and tattoos of the 7th, she will stick to wearing long-sleeved clothing with high collars and prefer them, despite the fact that she can hide these marks fine (i.e. in the case of bathing suits). This reservation can also be perceived as modesty, which is not false, for Ciel isn’t one to boast about her assets and abilities.


● ＤＥＣＥＰＴＩＶＥ
As good-natured as Ciel-senpai may appear to be, she is not above lying and omitting truths to even those that she greatly cares about, in order to keep them safe and reach her own goals. Actually, it can even be said that she’s not honest at all. This goes on for at least a good half of Tsukihime, where she pretends to be Shiki’s upperclassman by deceiving the entire school. Fortunately, since she is a good person, she does hide information for good reasons, and in this instance, she kept quiet to try to keep Shiki out of this mess, and not involve innocent humans. She only finally told him when it became absolutely necessary, like when Roa is starting to make Shiki himself his vessel. Ciel is also very good at masking her emotions; only Shiki can tell when she’s angry, because she is always cordial and seems pleasant even in bad situations. She can say some very scary things while wearing a perfectly natural smile, so poor Shiki has to be a fast learner before he says something that he can’t take back. Again, Arcueid is exempt to this, like everything else that is nice about Ciel. She will not hesitate to call the True Ancestor a whore, if only Ciel herself was actually that vulgar. In the end, she does admit that if to no one else, to at least Shiki, she has to play innocent – as in, put up the smile of a knowing and kind older senpai no matter the situation, to preserve a fragment of normalcy in a student like Shiki’s life. She hasn’t failed that yet, able to switch between the brutal and heartless Executor and the annoyed but forgiving chiding senpai in less than a fingersnap, and that may be something that even Shiki has yet to fully accustom himself to.


● ＰＲＯＦＥＳＳＩＯＮＡＬ
Linking in to everything above, Ciel is still the 7th of the Burial Agency, first and foremost (though Shiki might disagree), and as some other characters have noted throughout Tsukihime and Melty Blood, a ‘dog of the Church’. The commands the Church has over her are absolute, and she will not go against their teachings or their orders. Faithful and determined, that means that if she is issued a mission, she will do everything in her power to complete it. Keen and careful, Ciel is an even-headed fighter who does not crack to pressure and can put on and leave on the cold mask of a vampire hunter for as long as she needs to. Staying true to her objectives, she can go so far as to willingly try to kill Shiki, whom she grew very attached to, in order to eliminate Roa. …In the end, however.


● ＨＵＭＡＮＥ
She is human, and far from being a mere killing machine. As “Talk”, a side story after Tsukihime notes, it is her very compassion to her colleagues and people she knows that makes her her, and keeps her that way despite everything that she has been through. Occurrences of characters being surprised at Ciel letting them go despite being a vampire are numerous, and that is exceptionally lenient, for a member of the Burial Agency – though she is also clever enough to cover up for it by saying something sensible. In Melty Blood, she ultimately lets Sion go because she trusts Shiki to keep an eye on her, and that her mission, first and foremost, was to eliminate the Tatari: catching the Alchemist and returning her to Atlas is second to that, so as long as the Tatari still roams, she can overlook Sion. In the same vein, she lets Yumizuka go when encountering her randomly one night, in her Arcade mode storyline in Melty Blood Act Cadenza ver. B. …Sure, there might be an ulterior motive, since all these people were connected to Shiki, but that does still show that she knows mercy and can be lenient, willing to turn a blind eye and use the bigger picture as an excuse to not follow her teachings as closely as she could have. The strongest example is her gambit with Shiki when the latter was having dreams of brutally killing people; she had him in a deadlock and each could kill the other in less than a heartbeat, yet despite having seriously fought and hunted Shiki, and even injuring him, she never intended to kill him, only going this far to prove to him that he was not the killer, nor a bad person, the moment that he drops his knife and they can call it over.


● ＭＥＧＡＮＥＫＫＯ
While she does not actually need them, as Ciel proves when she goes srs bsns vampire hunting in her priest garbs, she will still always wear them in public under broad daylight, to complement her image of the kind, knowledgeable, dependable and sweet senpai. This is important, so I’m making a note of it.


● ＣＵＲＲＹ ＡＤＤＩＣＴ
Played more for laughs in the fandom at this point but still an inevitable part of her character, Ciel loves curry. Anytime you want to get on her good side and have her forgive you for something, give her curry. She’s not AS shallow to accept it right away, but dear Akasha knows that it would DEFINITELY help.