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Cain Knightlord
Cain Nightroad
カイン・ナイトロード
Personal information
Aliases: Mein Herr Contra Mundi

Krusnik 01

Residence: Germanicus
Birth: 2088 AD, Berlin, Germany.
Age: 976
Gender: Male
Species: Crusnik
Occupation: Colonel who oversaw The Red Mars Project (former).
UN ID#: UNASF94-8-RMOC-666-01-ck
Relative(s): Abel Nightroad (younger brother)

Seth Nightlord (younger sister)

Weapon(s): Lance
Affiliation(s): Rosenkreuz Orden (leader, rank 10=1)
Other information
Novel debut: Overcount
Manga debut: Date with an Angel (flashback)

The Neverending Story

Anime debut: Overcount II. Lucifer's Choice
Japanese seiyū: Junichi Suwabe
Hirofumi Nojima (youth)
Kazuya Ichijō (drama CD)
English V.A.: Mike McFarland

Cain Knightlord, also known as Krusnik 01, also referred as Contra Mundi by Rosenkreuz Orden, is the main antagonist of the series.

Cain is the leader of Rosencreutz Orden and the older twin brother of Abel Nightroad.

Appearance and Symbolism[]

Cain is referred as Abel Nightroad's older twin brother. In both the manga and anime, he is shown to have blonde hair, but his hair is the same color as Abel's in the light novels. In the manga, he is also shown to have piercings in both of his ears. In the anime promotional art, his hair is considerably longer than in the novels and manga. In the novels, he is usually depicted with his hair spiked up. His outfit consists of a white, red and bronze version of his brother's priest uniform. In the manga, he typically dresses in a white tuxedo and top hat, with a few casual variation on it displayed in his various appearances. He also possesses his novel attire, and is apparently capable of forming it from his own blood.

His manga cover portrait depicts him with red roses and a red banner inscribed with the "igne natura, renovatur integra" ("through fire, nature is reborn whole"). Medieval Christians identified the five petals of the rose with the five wounds of Christ. In The Throne of Roses Arc of the manga, he is portrayed as a white-eared White Rabbit, as opposed to his brother, the black-eared rabbit. In Thores' tarot cards, this arcana is The Tower. Cain is usually shown with a ram head in his novel artworks, a reference to Baphomet, an occultist figure that is usually associated with evil or the devil.

Personality[]

In Cain's childhood before the fusion with the Crusnik nanomachines, he was extraordinarily compassionate and sensible, and he showed wisdom far beyond his years. During the Red Mars Project; when he was on Mars with the colonizers he apparently retained his childhood traits and was a well-liked and effective leader. But his personality harbored a darker side as well. Like his brother, Abel, Cain hated and resented humanity for treating him as a laboratory experiment. But unlike Abel; he was able to hide both his hatred and reason his way past it.

After Cain's fusion with the Crusnik nanomachines, his personality became a warped caricature of what it had once been; due to the bloodthirsty nature of the nanomachines combining with his native and largely positive, character traits. While he displays no malicious or sadistic traits, his moral capacity and overall behavior appears to be quite childlike and he seems to either care nothing for the suffering that he inflicts on others or he does not truly understand the consequences of his actions.

But Somewhat tragically, Cain still appears to be capable of experiencing a facsimile of love, particularly for Abel Nightroad. For instance, when he met Abel for the first time after nine hundred years, he greeted him with tears in his eyes and apologized for having left him alone for so long. But a few moments later he violently blew away Abel's head, and afterwards he lovingly embraced his brother's headless body. He seemed later to show no regret for his actions while speaking with Isaak Fernand von Kämpfer about Abel's death (Isaak in fact seemed more concerned about it than Cain did) and maintains a kind of childish apathy when speaking of the subject.

Cain even lightly joked about it with Isaak, humorously noting that Abel always had terrible luck. Additionally, though he had apparently befriended Esther Blanchett and appears to like her enough to have saved her life on two occasions, he seemed completely incapable of understanding why she reacted with anguish and violence towards him; when he killed Abel right in front of her. A mere twelve hours later, when arriving to retrieve Abel's body, he coincidentally encountered Esther again and greeted her with joy and enthusiasm despite having utterly traumatized her during their previous encounter.

In the anime, Cain's personality is severely toned down to a seemingly permanent state of aloof disconcern.

Synopsis[]

History[]

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Preteen Cain from anime

Cain is oldest of the four genetically-enhanced test-tube babies, and was made from the same genetic source material as Abel Nightroad. He was once the gentle, beloved leader of the Mars Colonization Project, ranked Colonel, and appeared to be both a model administrator and an exceedingly kind, gentle man. However, like Abel, he harbored a great deal of hatred towards humanity in general for creating him and his siblings to be disposable people for the Red Mars Project. Unlike Abel (Cain's younger twin brother), Cain managed to keep his resentment an almost complete secret, and only those who were closest to him ever received any hints of his hatred.

Decades after the colonists went to Mars, Abel and Lilith Sahl accidentally discovered the Ark, an alien spacecraft with numerous extraterrestrial corpses on board it. A monumentally important scientific find, the ship and it's deceased inhabitants were examined thoroughly, and it was discovered that many of them were possessed life-extending bacillus within their bodies. The colonists came to call these Bacillus Kudlak, and found that they drastically enhanced their own physical capabilities and lifespans. But another form of bacillus was found on the craft as well, which came to be called bacillus Crusnik by the colonists. But these were in fact nanomachines could not be integrated into any of the normal colonists without killing them.

One day, Cain and a normal colonizer was injured in an accident while at work. The explosion mortally wounded both men, leading Seth Nightlord to inject both of them with the Crusnik nanomachines out of desperation. The process, as she had feared, killed both of them. However, Cain was revived from the dead shortly thereafter. Unbeknownst to everyone else, the Crusnik Bacillus had fused with Cain's mind, but Cain, or Crusnik 01 as he now thought of himself, was apparently able to hide his newly deranged personality from even his siblings.

Back on Earth, the nations of the world had gone to war, resulting in Armageddon. Cain, decided to return to Earth, ostensibly to aid in the reconstruction of Earth. The colonists, now Methuselah, built a duplicate of the Ark and returned to Earth, but conflict broke out between them and the humans due to their vampiric nature. Cain, as well as a newly Crusnik-fused Abel and Seth, joined the war and took the side of the colonizers (or "Returners"). While Abel and Seth wanted to purge the world of all normal humans, Cain, having been fused completely with his nanomachines, wished to eradicate all life on the planet in accordance with the destructive nature of the Krusnik which, unbeknownst to anyone on Earth, had originally been created as a weapon of mass destruction.

Lilith Sahl; who had also fused with the Krusnik nanomachines, took to the side of the humans after witnessing the atrocities committed by the other three Krusnik. She supplied the humans with the technology to combat the Returners and took command of their military. During one crucial battle, she managed to defeat a Methuselah army led by Cain, Abel and Seth in Paris. Due to Lilith's influence; Abel had begun to question his reasons for fighting and by the time of the battle at Paris, was decidedly conflicted about his actions. Cain, his affection for his brother perversely twisted by his madness, came to believe that Lilith's actions were causing Abel undue suffering and decided that she had to be eliminated both for Abel's sake and for the sake of the war effort.

In light of this, Cain offered Lilith a truce. He invited her to the Ark to meet with him to discuss terms, but was in fact simply attempting to lure her into a trap. Once she reached the Ark, Cain engaged her with the express intent of killing her. Though only fused at 80% with her nanomachines, Lilith put up enough of a struggle to gravely wound Cain. But in the end, it was not enough and Cain decapitated her and took her nanomachines. After the deed was done, he then presented her severed head to Abel, believing in his twisted state of mind that killing her would make Abel happy. Instead, his actions enraged Abel, and he and Seth pushed Cain out of an airlock on the Ark. Whether or not there was any kind of struggle in doing so is unknown, but Cain later described the incident as "a big fight he had with his brother a long time ago".

Cain plummeted through the atmosphere and was reduced to mere ashes. Over the centuries since the incident, his nanomachines were able to reconstruct his body, but it had been so thoroughly destroyed during his fall that his genetic material had become unstable. As a result, he found himself unable to hold himself together over long periods of time. Even worse however was the fact that his partially regenerated body was not able to handle stress very well, and any meaningful exertion of energy, such as using his Krusnik powers, drastically decreased the amount of time he could hold himself together for. Additionally, even his reformed body did not regenerate completely, and he was left with a large hold in his abdomen that apparently never heals over but also appears not to bother him in any significant way.

Nine hundred years later, Cain would meet Isaak and take control of a terrorist organization known as the Rosenkreuz Orden; a small, insignificant group in Berlin that consisted of enemies of the Vatican. Through Cain and Isaak's charisma and power, the Orden grew into the world's leading terrorist organization, and adopted the motto of "igne natura, renovatur integra" ("through fire, nature is reborn whole"). The stated goal of the Orden is essentially to destroy human civilization in its current form and create a new, superior world from the ashes of the old order. However, Cain's ultimate goal of simply eradicating all life on Earth has not changed, and it is unknown if any of the other members of the Orden know of his omnicidal plans.

Manga[]

The Iblis/ Angel of the Burning Sands Arc[]

21k

Cain's first appearance in the manga

Cain is first seen in Abel Nightroad's flashback while he is under Carthago, during which he remembers Cain warning him that he will soon make an enemy out of the world.

Empress of the Night/Night Lords Arc[]

Tb09-016a

Abel remembering Lilith.

When Dietrich von Lohengrin mentions Cain to Abel Nightroad, Abel is enraged as he remembers Cain holding Lilith's decapitated head in his hand. At the end of this story arc, Seth Nightlord mentions to Abel that Cain has survived the fall and has regenerated. Stunned at this new revelation, Abel sets out to kill him.

Cain's first appearance outside of flashbacks is brief, as he appears without clothes and holds Dietrich still as Isaak Fernand von Kämpfer almost puts out his cigar into the boy's eye. After Dietrich collapses from fear, Isaak and Cain hold a brief discussion, in which he expresses joy at hearing his brother is doing well.

The Throne of Roses Arc[]

211

Cain's debut in The Throne of Roses.

Soon after the events of the Night Lords arc, Cain journeys to Albion hoping to gain access to the genetics research facility where Abel was created. Unable to find a conventional solution to the problem of keeping his body intact, he hoped to retrieve the genetic blueprint used to create both he and Abel Nightroad and use it to fully reconstitute himself. While randomly wandering through Albion's streets one night, he happened upon Esther Blanchett while she was being harassed by a reporter named Clement.

When Cain gently suggests that Clement should leave Esther alone, Clement grabs Cain's wrist and begins threatening him. But Cain's apparently uncoordinated flailing sets off a chain of small, seemingly unrelated accidentals that result in Clement being chased off by an angry restaurant owner. With Clement gone, Cain exuberantly praises Esther for helping him, though all that happened was that Cain hid behind her for a few moments before Clement was chased off.

Though annoyed at Cain's mannerisms, Esther agrees to help him look for his hotel after he provides her with the map that he was presumably using to navigate. But once she takes possession of it, she discovers that it is actually a map of the world rather than of Albion, and crumples it up in agitation. She then asks him what the name of hotel that he is staying at it, only for Cain to reveal that he has no idea. Infuriated, Esther stalks off with Cain following her, behaving in an embarrassingly cheery manner.

After a short while, Esther resorts to shouting at him to leave her be, when she is recognized by Isaak posing as the Albion gentleman Isaak Butler. Having met him on a number of occasions, Esther amicably chats with him for a short time before he reveals that he is looking for someone. That someone turns out to be Cain himself; who excitedly introduces Esther to Isaak as a friend of his. Cain then suggests to Esther that she hitch a ride with he and Isaak to the palace.

although Esther doesn't want to impose, Isaak insists that she obey Cain's suggestion, informing her that the palace is on the way to the hotel that Cain is staying at. Though not looking forward to Cain's continued company, Esther accepts Cain's offer, and asks him what his name is. Seemingly a bit surprised that he had forgotten to introduce himself, he tells her that his name is simply Cain. Esther is later shown to have arrived back at the palace without incident.

Cain next appears with Mr. Butler when Esther and Pope Alessandro XVIII are buying fish and chips from a city vendor. Complaining loudly about the poor quality of the food, Cain suddenly recognizes Esther and exuberantly greets her, promising to tell her all about how fish and chips should properly be made and eaten. Cain takes Esther's fish and chips from her grasp and throws it away, infuriating Esther, before getting his own and adding an extraordinary amount of salt and vinegar to it.

As Esther looks to the fish and chips that Cain had just thrown away, she is stunned to find a cat who had just died after consuming it. Realizing his plan had been foiled, Sweeney Todd tries to shoot Esther, only to be interrupted by an underwater explosion.

When Abel is recuperating from an attack in the underground Ghetto of Albion, he remembers that he had been here in his youth, locked up and shackled. A young Lilith Sahl questions why he would have tried to activate "that thing" in B-VI, and asserts that had he thought his actions might have destroyed Albion, he would not have done what he tried to do.

Abel denies this, stating that was precisely why he wanted to activate it. Abel appears to be delighted at the idea of killing everyone there. Lilith tries to reason that those people were also human like them, but to no avail.

TB53010a

Cain questions what kind of future Abel desires.

A young Cain then reminds Abel that killing a few humans will do nothing, as it will only make them look like "defunct products" and make things worse for them in the future. Abel questions how people like them, who were created to be sent to "Mars Project the ends of the Earth" could possibly have a future. Cain responds that he himself is very happy to be born into this world with a purpose, and that there is nothing more blissful than that.

Abel struggles to understand how he can live a life dictated by others locate him, to which Cain responds that it is up to Abel to decide how to live his life. Cain elaborates that it doesn't matter where he lives, as long as Abel has a will, he can shape his own future. The flashback ends with Cain questioning Abel what kind of future he hopes for.

039a

Cain later shows when Esther is about to be killed in the underground Methuselah Ghetto by Jack the Ripper and Sweeney Todd. Cain throws his roses at them,  injuring one of the assassins. Jack the Ripper throws knives at Cain and Esther, but all of his weapons are mysteriously reflected back at him. After both of them flee, Esther collapses into Cain's arms, insisting they find Abel, who had gone off to stop Vanessa from activating the B-VI. Cain quietly agrees.

Abel is about to kill Isaak when Cain calls out to him. Crying, Cain speaks of how glad he is to see his brother again, and apologizes for leaving him for so long, and promises he would not leave him alone again. The shock of seeing Cain reminds Abel of how he killed Lilith. Enraged, Abel lunges at Cain, but is decapitated in the process. Cain holds Abel's decapitated body fondly while Esther watches, horrified.

The Crown of Thorns Arc[]

Cain8

Cain in his regeneration chamber.

Cain appears in Esther Blanchett's flashback when Esther had fired several rounds into Isaak Fernand von Kämpfer and Cain, but Cain's body remains unscathed. However, his clothes are damaged, which reveals a large hole in his torso body, which he explains it was a burn sustained a long time ago. Disappointed that Isaak could not recover the DNA blueprint, the key to restoring his body, Cain realizes he could just use Abel's body instead. Cain offers to buy food for Esther when they return to the surface, and tries to grab Abel Nightroad's body, but the Krusnik 02's body deflects back with a hold of lightning. Cain and Isaak leaves as his body begins to crumble, but not before warning Esther that things will be difficult from then on, and makes her promise him that she will not cry or give up.


Cain is next seen talking to Isaak while he is in his regeneration chamber. Cain asks him whether he thought Esther would like his present, and while Cain appears hopeful, Isaak seems skeptical that she would like her new status. Isaak questions Abel's status, and Cain confirms he is dead. Isaak appears to be disappointed that Cain and Abel had not been able to talk, to which Cain argues in a carefree and comical manner that he had simply gotten scared when Abel lunged at him. Their new problem, however, was now transporting Abel's body to their location, considering the only two people who can approach the body would be Seth and Cain himself. Disappointed that he cannot leave the regeneration chamber for another twelve hours, Cain begins to worry that the Vatican will move Abel's body back to Rome. Isaak suggests he will to the the city to buy them some time, explaining that he had stumbled upon something interesting the night before, which he can use to bring Abel's body next to Cain's. Just as Isaak is about to leave, Cain asks him to bring him some fish and chips with extra salt and vinegar for breakfast.

Anime[]

Cain6

Cain's background is stated in the anime DVD booklets as follows:

He is a Colonel in the Alliance Aerospace Navy, and the General Supervisor of the Mars Colonization Project's Administration; his ID Number is UNASF94-8-RMOC-666-01-ck. The eldest of the Nightroad siblings, who were artificially created as test subjects for the Mars settlement project, and the first "Crusnik". Seems to be unusually gentle and thoughtful person, and a popular director, but deep within his heart lies a profound anger and hatred for the whole of humanity.

In the series, Cain is first shown in Abel Nightroad's flashbacks as Cain is seen holding Lilith Sahl's decapitated head and Cain is also shown in Abel's flashback when they were children.

Later, Cain leads the Rosencreutz Orden on an attack of Albion and the two brothers have their first clash. Cain kills Abel with relative ease while Abel is distracted by Esther Blanchett who stumbled upon them. Realizing Abel had destroyed the control panels of the rocket, he plans to merge himself with Abel's body to get the access codes from Abel's memory. However, Abel is revived with Lilith's nanomachines thanks to Cardinal Caterina Sforza and Hercules Tres Iqus. This puts Abel at the same power level as Cain and their next clash ends in a draw. Accompanied by Ion Fortuna, Abel has pledged to hunt Cain for eternity, if need be, until he is destroyed.

Powers[]

PDVD 154

Anime Cain Krusnik Form

When Cain's Crusnik powers are activated, his lips and eyes turn red, his hands grow blue claws, he grows six white wings and a black lance materializes in his hands. In this state, he can generate destructive red energy. When not in Crusnik form, he appears to have the power to launch a destructive and invisible force from his hands and to possess superhuman strength. Among the four Crusniks, Cain is the only one who has fused 100% with his nanomachines in the novels. But in the anime, Abel Nightroad also achieves 100% fusion; without the insanity, after being infused with Lilith Sahl's nanomachines.

As a 100% fused Crusnik, his regenerative powers are unparalleled and he appears to have his powers active at some level with or without any physical changes being present. He also has the power to reduce himself to a black liquid (presumably his blood) and reconstitute not only his body from it, but clothes and other adornments as well. At one point, he also materialized his body slowly from the back of an armchair.

This weapon is likely a reference to the Spear of Longinus, also called the Spear of Destiny, keeping in line with the many Catholic references in the series.

Quotes[]

  • (About Abel Nightroad) Good... as long as he is doing well... That makes me very happy.
  • (To Dietrich von Lohengrin) Messing around too much... Will get you thrown out, you know.
  • (To Abel) That's why... You... Have become an enemy of the world, Abel.
  • Who would have thought... that Dietrich would be such a dumb child?
  • (To Esther Blanchett) I haven't told you yet Esther? I'm Cain. My name is Cain.

Etymology[]

  • Cain's name comes from the biblical Cain, Adam's first son who murdered his brother, the biblical Abel.
  • Isaak refers to Cain as "Mein Herr," which is "My Lord" in German. "Contra Mundi" means "against the world" in Latin.
  • Corresponding to the last two digits of his UNI ID number, Cain's official surname was written as "Knightlord" in Trinity Blood: Canon,[1] but was translated as "Nightroad" in the anime DVD booklets.

Gallery[]

Novel[]

Anime[]

Manga[]

References[]

  1. Trinity Blood:Canon
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