Van Arkride

Van Arkride (ヴァン・アークライド) is self-employed at Arkride Solutions Office as a Spriggan. He is the protagonist of.

Profile
Van lives in his office, above the Monmarte bistro in Edith, Calvard. He also serves as an external tester for M.T.S.C's Combat Research Department through his weapon Stun Calibur and Core, Mare.

Appearance
Van is a young man with blue eyes and dark bluish-black hair styled into a spiky, swept-back style with a long fringe. He wears a long cobalt jacket with a fleece lined collar, two front pockets and leather patches on the shoulder. The jacket's sleeves are partly rolled up, revealing a single unique red band worn on the left wrist. Van also wears a red shirt under a grey vest with a shorten centered zipper. He wears black dark trousers, two belts and blue-grey loafers. Around his neck, Van wears a dog tag along a cord and leather strap. On his right ear, a small ear ring can be seen.

Van is armed with a Stun-Calibur, a long-blunt weapon resembling a sword but with no sharp edges. The blade portion of the sword is partitioned into segments and there is a blue gem installed into its pommel.

As Grendel, Van appears clad in a fit, flexible full-body armor larger than his human body by one whole head size that prominently dictates his thin, but defined musculature. Van has glowing waist-length hair falling from behind the armor's head covering helmet while possessing extended glowing 5 claws and toes per each respective limb. Van's Grendel form possesses a gray-bluish prominent armor with turquoise glowing energy lines. The glowing hair has a dominant turquoise gradient offsetting to a yellow-orange tip. The claws and toes are also turquoise colored.

Personality
While Van comes off as dry and pragmatic, he tries not to be insincere and is not bad at looking out for others. He has contact with people in various industries due to his work, and seems to have a wide range of personal connections, but also has a side that does not allow people to get too personal with him.

Although he began working as a Spriggan almost by sheer coincidence, he seems comfortable with its way of life, and even though he complains when he has to deal with bad jobs, he still makes sure to handle it.

Background
Van Arkride was an orphan who lived in an orphanage of Oracion, Calvard. He became childhood friends with heiress Elaine Auclair and scholar Rene Kincaid. At 7 years old, he was adopted, but the adopter was a member of the D∴G cult that raised him with others and used them in various painful, traumatizing, but mostly non-lethal experiments.

At 14 years old, Van had the chance to be free and transferred to the Aramis High School in Edith, reuniting with his two childhood friends. In the autumn of his 2nd school year, he realized his first love's feelings towards Elaine and both confessed together. By the time he graduated, Van broke up with Elaine, but remained friends.

Before becoming a Spriggan, he was taught "proper" martial arts by Gunther Barkhorn around S.1203. He later heard of Barkhorn's death at the Nord Highlands, but Van did not seek out his fellow disciples because of his hidden status.

At some point in the past, Van met Nadia Rayne and Swin Abel back when they were both still on the run from Garden and helped them both out by giving them a ride.

In S.1203, Van, who was in-training at the time, met a young Renne and befriended her after her encounter with the Recluse Cube. His simple kindness gave the young girl hope for herself, which later arrived in full circle during her initial days as a transfer student in Edith (Van was the private investigator mentioned in the ).

In S.1206, Van met Walter Kron the Direwolf, who was his client at the time, but an enounter with a Panzer Soldat along the road after the request completion made Van wanting to never work with the Enforcer again. At the time, Walter was riding in Van's preciously "raised" vintage orbment car, however, when both were fighting the Panzer Soldat, Walter singlehandedly use Van's first generation car as a bludgeon to disable the Panzer's movements. While the result was a combative success, Van lamented about his destroyed car even when Walter full purchased another vintage orbment car of the same origin and kind to compensate him. Van still holds a grudge and fear of the violent man and he remembers it every time he is with his second car.

Van has been working alone from his Arkride Solutions Office for several years. Due to his reliable side and humanity towards his clients, the young Spriggan has amassed a large network of contacts from Calvard's intelligence sector and underworld to secret or renown groups beyond borders such as Ouroboros' Enforcers and Bracers. He is most famous as a private investigator. On August 27th, S.1208, he is requested by first year Aramis High School student, Agnes Claudel, to find her great-grandfather's lost memento.

Trivia

 * Similar to Estelle Bright and Lloyd Bannings, Van Arkride uses a non-sharp weapon (Sword Breaker Combat Orbment) Stun-Calibur as his main weapon. The weapon consists of a "Blade" Main Module and its "Trigger Handle" Sub Module. This weapon is based on the Jian, a narrow bludgeon used in China to break swords. However, unlike the other previous protagonists, he also has close-combat ability.
 * He transforms into the Nightmare-Clad Grendel. In this form, he conducts close-combat abilities. As Grendel, Van can attack twice in quick succession and combine different Crafts for special effects.


 * Van is the first protagonist to officially kill someone.
 * Van is the final boss of Kuro no Kiseki, despite being its protagonist.