harmless kitten

Well, that's certainly a better explanation for life-links than anything else I could come up with. Props. The only hole is that Ragna and Nu have a life-link even though there's been no mention of either of them being observers. There's also the question of how/when did they observe each other, but this is BlazBlue and I know better than to expect an answer to that question.

I think Jubei is just exaggerating here. Ragna, Jin, and Saya sure as hell aren't that young in the novel. At the very youngest, Ragna looks like he's 10 and Saya looks 6. Or at least, they certainly aren't developmentally that young. For all we know they're only a few weeks old in the novel.

Noel: Do you know Major Kisaragi well? Jubei: ...Yeah, I guess you could say I did. But that was a real long time ago... I reckon he don't even remember me. Noel: When he was really little? Jubei: ...Yeah, back when he still needed somebody to wipe his ass for him. If Jubei had met Jin, there was a good chance he had met Ragna before that point too. It is weird how Ragna doesn't seem to remember Jubei, but he's probably way out of it in the novel. He probably doesn't remember meeting him.

WOW, I thought Ragna's silver bracelet thing was just for bio stuff and would never be even mildly relevant. It doesn't make me think "decorative bracelet," though, more like "identification bracelet." There's some illegible writing scrawled on there too. That's some glare Ragna is giving Sister too...

I believe it only works temporarily, otherwise he wouldn't need an observer. Ragna's hate was enough to sustain him before Noel observed him, but he now he needs an observer.

Ragna undoing her tempering? Idk. The way Terumi planned on killing everybody before the Imperator showed up just suggested to me that he didn't give a fuck about Noel anymore and there was no more life-link between them. It's not like life-links are anything other than nebulous plot devices anyway. @BlackYakuzu94: That's probably because "Lambda" as we see her in CS is just a brainwashed Nu. The real Lambda was long gone by that point, if she ever existed as anything other than a cluster of memory data and residual emotion.

Noel's life-link is probably (hopefully) broken, but Nu's is most likely still intact. There's been no info on it other than Hazama's blah blah blah speech.

He has white hair in one of the illustrations. If not white, a blond so light that it looks white. I assumed it was an error, because trauma does not bleach your hair white like that. They pronounce it "Sword of Izanagi," but I suppose it's written to mean "Sword of the Imperator." But I could've sworn it was pronounced as the Sword of Izanami in CS. Might be me forgetting or some weird stuff going on. Ragna seems surprised at the name.

It's hard to glean anything meaningful out of Google translate, but in the CT novel prologue Very interesting. Also something I noticed: why is it that in Continuum Shift Hazama calls Nu the Sword of the Imperator/Izanami, but in CP she's called the Sword of Izanagi?

I think Kokonoe had to actively fish Nu's soul out of the Boundary and implant it within Lambda. Mori did some magazine-interview thing where he talked about Lambda having only a fragment of Nu's soul, but I don't even remember the name of it. It was prior to the release of CS though. Anyway, Ragna says "A Murakumo Unit that the Azure Grimoire doesn't react to? That can't be. Who is that Noel chick?" Not that Ragna is an authority on...much of anything, really, but he didn't think she was a Murakumo Unit.

@Ehecatl: Ah, I see. Forgive me, I'm bad at telling blunt teasing from ill will. I don't think the bodies were other DIFFERENT prime field devices at all. They're Nu's base bodies, and thus Nu. Spares, essentially, so if one body is destroyed (as is the case), she has a backup. Much like the soulless bodies of Mu in Makoto's story mode. If they weren't Nu, then Nu wouldn't remember the previous times Ragna killed those bodies, and wouldn't be asking him if it was the third or fourth time. I think Saya is being used as a host for something, and this something is what we know as the Imperator. She's described as a sacred vessel by Relius, and she seems completely unlike Ragna's memories of her. Nu experiences some of her memories as well, including a really messed up one in her story mode. Noel might have a part of Saya's soul, might not. I personally don't want her to have Saya's soul, but that's just me. @SkyBarrier101: I believe it's in his CS story as well as in CTR. It's after Noel collapses during her rant at him. They do say she was "tailor-made for our research," but he also says that "as long as no fatal errors occur, there is nothing to worry about." If she was a test unit, they likely still planned on tempering her. Deliberately ruining one of the few Murakumo Units they have left for the sake of research seems like a bad idea, and the older male scientist in CTR speaks as if they intended on using her, but took too long with experimenting and ruined her for tempering.

I don't think Lambda was meant to be a test unit, as the dialogue states that they "lost subject 11* to [their] own timidity.] Relius certainly thinks she's a failure. "I cannot believe that YOU are the basis for #12. I thought you an utter failure. Apparently, I've much to learn." Who knows if her tempering would've ever succeeded if Take-Mikazuchi didn't fire. Ragna doesn't even think she's a Murakumo Unit at first because the Azure Grimoire doesn't react to her, but at the time, she hasn't been tempered. *They SAY 12 in the English version, but they're obviously talking about Lambda and they state 11 in the JP version. That was a major screwup.

http://imgur.com/AYPhYkT Here's the highest-res picture I have. I cropped it because the whole picture is way too big. All of the pictures of Ragna's collarbone are only from phone cards or other sources like the CD booklet. We never see him clearly as a child (and most of the pictures are obscured or of his back), and as an adolescent his turtleneck covers the the thing. @Ehecatl: I meant my remark to be a small joke, hence the /pedantry comment. I didn't intend for it to come across as rude. I just don't see Ibukido being especially related to Ragna's tattoo. Eh. Also, those failures weren't separate Murakumo Units at all, but Nu's other base bodies. During the events of "that which is inherited," the NOL grabbed Nu's three base bodies. Ragna interrupted the tempering process of two of them, which is what his whole exchange about it being the third time is about. Given that the scientists speak of only 11-13, I think Murakumo Units 2-10 were not made by Sector Seven and were either failures or destroyed. I think that Ragna, Jin, and Saya are the artificial children made with the Black Beast's DNA that the CTSMC talks about. They were intended to be straight up attempts at supersoldiers with high armagus synchronization and resistance to seithr. Ragna was a huge failure, but came out of it with great sync rate with the Azure Grimoire; Jin has a good resistance to seithr and high rates, but not as high as Saya; Saya had crazy high sync rates, but was fragile and makes a great host for whatever's possessing her. They could be just prime field devices, I dunno. I don't have a lot of attachment to this theory, especially since there's, what, two lines to support it? The only that that's clear is that Ragna was artificially created. Maybe the prologue of the CT novel will shed some light on their origins; there's some really weird sequence with Celica and Ragna but google translate is probably just messing it up.

Yeah, Ragna's tattoo was noticed years ago. Note that the tattoo itself is different from Nu's and Noel's--their tattoos look carved into their skin, and have a stylized Murakumo symbol with their number in kanji. His tattoo is in black ink and is just No. 5 above a different symbol that appears every-fucking-where in BB. I used to think he was a prime field device, but now I subscribe to a different theory. The boss fight probably takes place in Ibukido because that's where Ikaruga was doing research and experiments upon Lambda, Mu, and Nu before Take-Mikazuchi wiped it off the map. It being the 5th City is just a coincidence. Technically his name would be ε-05 or Epsilon-5 if he was a Murakumo Unit. The lowercase letter is used (such as μ/Mu and v/Nu) instead of the uppercase. /pedantry

No need to be so aggressive. The story mostly uses Ragna's point of view, so it's not like it's NOL propaganda. The short story describes it as a massacre and directly says that Ragna shows no mercy. Not that Ragna cares anyway, as it's mentioned he doesn't even see them as human anymore. If pressed, Ragna would justify it as a part of bringing down the NOL and that the guards were in his way (even though he also killed escaping ones). The only strange part is why he interfered in the fight between Noel and Nu, as he very easily could've waited if he hates the Library that much, but you could always make something up for that. He wasn't as pissed at the time, doesn't want to see Nu kill a girl, her blue uniform didn't really register in his mind, etc. Personally, I find it interesting that Ragna is acknowledged to be ruthless when he gets that mad and a murderer, which isn't often touched upon in games that feature humans as enemies even as you cut down huge swathes of them. Even if it's in only one story and is never brought up again. @Alpha to Omega: That's true, you can read it like that. I think it can go either way.

He might've, or he might have just justified it as "they were Library soldiers and the Library has to die." Nu is a different case. Ragna has some abstract pity and sympathy for her, especially with regards to her fate, her origin, and just who she's created from, but she also really disturbs him. It seemed like he totally flipped out on her the first time he discovered her body. That's why he tries to dehumanize her and insists on destroying instead of killing; if he does, then he can pretend that he's not killing a real person who is actually a clone of his little sister.

Yes, it does say he murdered women too. He slaughtered everyone in his path, including the people trying to escape. Obviously, they didn't cry. Mind you, I'm mostly joking.

Ragna is weak to the tears of women and children. In CT, he says that her eyes freaked him out. Something about her being innocent. Somewhat offtopic, I hated that scene in Extend because the localization thought it'd be a great idea to inject even more dumbass memes into the game. @Alpha to Omega: "A number of NOL soldiers have already tried to subdue him, and...well...doctors say they'll all live, but they won't be winning any beauty pageants." He could be lying his ass off, but I read this as specifically Akitsu soldiers trying to stop Ragna, and Ragna just left them crippled or heavily wounded, but didn't kill them. No idea on the other bases, but considering it's only until after Akitsu that Ragna becomes truly notable, I don't think that he killed many people--if any--at previous bases.

Tbh, if I was in Ragna's position I'd kill the shit out of Arakune too. Ragna doesn't directly call her a hooker, although he does imply or joke that her real job is stripping or escorting.

I think Memory of Blue might have been retconned. Hazama says something along the lines of Ragna the Bloodedge causing few or no casualties at the Akitsu NOL base. I guess having a protagonist that indiscriminately slaughters military officials was a little too extreme.

Ragna would probably listen more to others if they actually explained things instead of just going "because I said so." In Calamity Trigger, he has no reason to believe destroying Nu is going to be any different from the other two times he's killed her. He actually could've interrupted her tempering process if not for Jin and Hakumen, but it's not like that could've been avoided. If Ragna could be diverted from Kagutsuchi, if Hakumen could be delayed, if Nu's tempering could've been interrupted--these things are impossible and would mean changing some of the constants of the time loop. If these constants could be so easily changed, the time loop wouldn't exist in the first place. In Continuum Shift, all he knows is that Rachel and Kokonoe are telling him not to fight Terumi. In Ragna's mind, this is them telling him that he should twiddle his thumbs while Terumi does god-knows-what with Noel. He doesn't even know why he shouldn't fight Terumi. Ragna's not someone who can take a peek at other possibilities of the continuum shift and see that this was a bad idea. Hell, for all we know there were Ragnas that chose to hold off, but this isn't the possibility that Terumi and co. want, so one of the continuum shifts where he does fight Terumi becomes the dominant one. In CT, I felt that he had SEVERE anger management issues ("That's when I began to hate everything," his rant to Jubei, and Nu's attempt at sweet talk), but this was dialed down for CS. What about Ragna is a quitter? He's impulsive, headstrong, mulish, and hates to back down even when it would make things easier for himself. That isn't quitting, that's just...being stubborn.

I'm all for Hakumen knowing all along (as soon as he found out the name from Jubei or Celica he'd probably figure out pretty quickly), but this piece of evidence doesn't really count. In that piece of text, he never calls Ragna just Bloodedge in the Japanese version. It looks like it's only present in the English.

It is. Or at least drove him to do it. I think that Ragna's existence itself is perceived as a threat, a tumor afflicting the world/reality to extend the whole pathogen/immune system analogy. Becoming the Black Beast is just how his destiny manifests itself. Even without Nu he's still in danger of becoming something like it, see his bad ending in CS although he's called a "heartless beast" by Hakumen (since Nu is said to have the heart of the Black Beast and Ragna the body). But I don't think his bad ending was supposed to happen, and when it goes berserk he says something along the lines of feeling like something within his arm burst and liquid sloshing within it. I think that the Azure Grimoire was simply damaged or strained in the fight with Rachel, and then Ragna loses his control of it. Does the CSSMC touch upon this? Possibly anyone may act as a host for a Black Beast but that doesn't mean they're a good one. Haku is like "this insect (Arakune) become as bad as the Black Beast? lol no it's pathetic in comparison" to Rachel. One part of the Black Beast is that it certainly wasn't a desirable outcome and is just a berserk Cauldron that doesn't know when to stop eating souls. I think that it's just an imperfect prototype. Terumi refined future Azure Grimoires to NOT be uncontrollable monsters. The darkness is just seithr. The Black Beast's body (at least the dragon-headed shell and Ragna's attacks) is made up of seithr. It's not really darkness so much as solidified, soul-draining, dark seithr. @BlackYakuzu94: no

The thing looks like it's taken over all the flesh up to Ragna's shoulder even though Ragna's arm was only cut off at halfway through his upper arm, i.e. it's spreading (compare the pics of Ragna that Mori has drawn to the image of Ragna as a young man). I don't think it's a lifeline, but he'd be in major danger of dying without immediate medical attention. I think that Ragna has an innately special connection with the Azure Grimoire that's part destiny, part something else. Unfortunately, this connection also makes him a perfect vessel for becoming the Black Beast.

I like him, but I know better than to suck up 16 pages of the thread with arguments about Jin's morality/character development. Although I do stare blankly at Jin being a "static character." Or Jin having to be relatable in order to be likable.