What is the difference between a crack and a break? Something cracked won’t necessarily shatter, but if enough pressure is applied, it can be broken beyond repair. That’s the point Noé and Vanitas find themselves at in this episode, with Mikhaïl’s machinations pushing them into a position they may not be able to recover from. Why he’s doing this doesn’t feel entirely clear – he says it’s because he’s trying to regain a memory of when the Vampire of the Blue Moon died, but it seems far more likely that he’s simply hoping to see Vanitas and Noé destroy each other because he thrives on the sort of carnivalesque chaos that Charlatan does. He’s playing with them like a cat with a small rodent, giving them the illusion of escape or agency when he has no plans to ever let them go.
It’s interesting to think of this as the point where the chaos represented by Naenia and Chalatan…
