Megumi Kiyono

Megumi Kiyono (清野恵 Kiyono Megumi) is one of the main protagonists of the Claire: Chronicles of the Carmine Blood series. They are an Archangel who serves as the leader of the Army of Heaven, God's Messenger of Love and Peace to mankind, and the guardian angel of many of the faithful. Despite being called Megumi Kiyono in all instances referring to them in the official games, the name isn't their actual name. In fact, they got two actual names, Megumi Rumi Kiyono (清野恵瑠美Kiyono Megumi Rumi, uses as their actual name in official web literature of the series), and Megumiel (メグミエル Megumieru), their "angelic codename", which is the name that God gave to them upon their creation.

Appearance
Megumi appears to be a young teenaged girl aged 14-16 with fair skin, light blue hair and blue-grey eyes. They displays an expression that is deemed by others as "inexpressive", but once acknowledged their true personality, their face is described as "full of serenity, and fills us with the same feeling in our souls". They wear a light blue long-sleeved shirt with two azure stripes on each sleeve. Over the shirt, they wear a darker azure vest with yellow buttons, and over their waist they wear a cyan sash, which holds their sword, the Sword of Empyrean. They wear brown shoes that look similar to sandals, and they possess two large feathery wings, which can split into six wings when entering their "true" form.

Their "true" form is exactly the same as their most commonly seen form, with the exception that their hair are now in a blueish-white color that is more white than their hair color in their usual form, and instead of two wings, they got six wings.

Personality
As an Angel (or more specificially, an Archangel), they do not display much emotion, but in general they are serene and loving, like most Angels in the Carmine Blood universe. As stated above, their serene facial expression is often misinterpreted as a poker face by many, but some managed to acknowledge their true personality, and correctly interpret the said facial expression. According to some of the Town's residents at the epilogue of Dæmonic Affright, their presence fills their souls with serenity, peace and love. According to CaraPrincess, they are very rarely seen overtly angry, and the only instance (s) that they are seen overtly angry are when someone "severely violates the Holy Law of God".

They are also a person who always have mercy on every being, and forgive most of their bad deeds. Those who receive mercy from them and accept to cleanse their souls of sin will receive their blessings, but as said above, if someone did something that severely violates the Holy Law of God, they will unleash their wrath on these sinners, manifested in the form of curses and misfortunes.

Being silent throughout the game, even when they appear to be "talking" with NPCs, Megumi's personality can be almost impossible to know verbally, but rather they show their kind and merciful personality through their actions. According to CaraPrincess, while they appears to be deadpan, in fact they are chanting a prayer to wish the recipient good luck deep inside their heart, indicating that they still HAVE an actual dialogue with NPCs, albeit the exact dialogue is not shown. Despite that, many NPCs appears to know what Megumi wants to say with them, even though they appear not to speak, hinting that their understanding of Megumi's emotions are given to them by God, who wishes them to understand the word of their Messenger of Love and Peace to the Earth.

They also have an archaic speech pattern. They refers to themselves using the pronoun "ware" (using the kanji "吾"), and refers to others using the pronoun "nanji" (汝). This is because of their divine origins.

Abilities of an Angel
As with most Angels (and to a lesser extent, Archangels), they possesses powers that are possessed by Angels, such as manipulation of light, flight, eternal life, and the ability to purify any beings' hearts, cleansing their souls of sins that can normally be forgiven by God. They also shown to have the ability to bring tranquility to every being's mind as well as all of the surrounding people, which is most explicitly shown when they pacify a being by embracing that being, or even in some cases, their presence alone can also bring tranquility to everyone's mind. CaraPrincess stated that Angels, including Megumi, possess "tremendous powers", and if they unleash it, it could cause great cataclysm. The exact strength of the power of the Angels are one of the greatest mysteries of the whole Claire: Chronicles of the Carmine Blood series.

Ability to grant blessings
This ability refers to their ability to grant blessings for "those who deserves to receive the Grace of God". The purposes of these blessings greatly varied, from simple things such as wishing someone good luck, to things that invoke divine intervention such as asking God to protect the recipient of their blessing, or sometimes even things such as the sanctification of certain people. Similar to Sanae's ability to create miracles, these also require certain words, or specificially, prayers. The simplest of the blessings can be invoked with just simple prayers, while that the most complex of them are invoked with very complex prayers that could take the most pious humans months to master. For Megumi, this is no problem for them, as they learnt all of these prayers by their heart.

Occupation
They are an Archangel who is God's Greater Messenger of Love and Peace to mankind, whose mission is to spread the message of love and peace as God wishes humanity to follow to the humans. They usually are the person who is responsible for announcing God's revelation to certain humans, and thus, they can be seen as the one who pass down God's revelations to humanity. They are also the one who is responsible to ferry the souls of the dead to Heaven, descend to them upon their deaths, as well as "weighing" their Pneuma Cores in order to judge their deeds before their deaths, deciding whether they are good enough to enter Heaven, and offer them a chance to redeem theirselves before they can enter Heaven, making their role similar to that of an Angel of Death. They are also the head of the Army of Heaven, who commands them to fight against the forces of evil. Being a military prowess, any battles that involve them will always result in victory.

They also serve as the guardian angel to many of the faithful, most notably Nanami Tenjou, who they deeply care for. Despite being not stated in official profiles, they in fact holding the position of a Healer, who, by God's order, cares for those followers who are very weak and are hopeless in life, in order to fill their souls with love and hope, helping them to recover from their mental damage, and comforts them when they are having worries that are deteroriating their mental strength. True to the literal meaning of their occupation, they also serves as a person who heals others' diseases, mainly through their blessings and their "healing prayer", which can heal just about any disease ever recorded in human history. Together, with Yoshika’s ability to create medications from “divine life essence”, they are both responsible for assisting people to survive through times of outbreaks, notably during the historical plague outbreaks, according to CaraPrincess.

Origins
They are based on Frisk, the playable character in Undertale, and is distinguishable by their blue jumper, blank expression, and short choppy hair. In fanworks, Frisk is either depicted as gender-neutral or as a female, and they are also commonly depicted as an angel and represents the True Pacifist Route of the game, similar to how Chara, the other human character, is portrayed as a demon and represents the Genocide Route in fanworks. As in religious senses, an angel have no gender, although many acquired gender-specific appearance traits in depictions, similar to Megumi, despite being called female by all characters and have a feminine appearance, they have no gender.

They are also appear to be heavily based on Sariel of Touhou Project from the PC-98 era. Both are angels, both have somewhat similar appearance (both of them have light-colored hair and eyes that appear to be colored in a shade of blue), and Megumi's appearance, as confirmed by CaraPrincess, is inspired by some fan artworks of Sariel that she seen in the music video remixes of Sariel's first theme, "Now, Until the Moment You Die", and if notice closer, fans can notice the coincidental similarities between these artworks and Megumi's artwork. Furthermore, they are both created by a divine entity who created a world that serves as a setting for their respective games. Another interesting fact is they both shown to have a rod-shaped object in their possession (for Sariel, it is a wand-like object, while that for Megumi it is a sword), and interestingly, they also seen holding the said object in their left hand (with Megumi commonly seen holding their sword with their left hand), which suggests both characters are left-handed. Despite Sariel's ability and occupation is not stated in the game that they appeared in, it can be suggested that Sariel might have an ability that is connected to death and being an Angel that attends at the moment of someone's death, similar to Megumi (Megumi also have the ability to put curses on people, and as stated by CaraPrincess, some of these curses can cause the death of those who they cursed, making this ability somewhat similar to inflicting death on someone, and thus, this is an ability related to death). Also, their names contain the syllable "el" at the end, a trait that is common amongst the names of Judeo-Christian angels (however, Sariel's name have it at the start, while that Megumi's name only have the syllable when considering their true name (the name that is given to them by God), Megumiel). Also, since Sariel is the boss of the final stage that the player can play (Highly Responsive to Prayers has yet to have an Extra Stage, but CaraPrincess also count the subsequent releases' Extra Stage (and Perfect Cherry Blossom 's Phantasm Stage as well) as the final stage (s) that the player can play in those games) in the game that they appeared in, this also explains Megumi's strength, which, according to CaraPrincess, can be as powerful as a Touhou game's final / Extra / Phantasm boss, specificially Utsuho Reiuji and Yukari Yakumo, who is considered by fans as the most awfully powerful characters in the whole series due to their abilities of manipulating nuclear fusion and boundaries, respectively. Also with the fact of Utsuho being portrayed in CaraPrincess' fan works as the Devil or a Devil-like figure, Megumi being compared as as strong as Utsuho can meant that they are the highest-ranking angel in Heaven, and also according to biblical sources, the archangel Michael, being the highest-ranking angel in Heaven, leads the army of Heaven in the battle against the Devil in the end of the world.

Two of the Touhou Project 's Windows era characters that serves as their biggest inspirations are Youmu Konpaku from the official Touhou games and Michel Sant'Angelo from the Touhou fangame The Last Comer, both of which are Stage 5 bosses of their respective games. They are both swordsmen (with Youmu, it's obvious, while that one can suggests that Michel is also a swordsman by judging the fact that she owns a sword), both are spiritual beings (Youmu is a half-phantom (ghost), means that she is still having human roots aside from the spirtual being's roots (but Youmu is still counted as a spiritual being by CaraPrincess due to she is part ghost), but Michel is an angel, which is a wholly spirtual being), all three characters' appearance are similar: Megumi's hairstyle is somewhat similar to Youmu, Megumi's eye and hair color somewhat matches each other, similar to Youmu (another resemblance to Youmu that Youmu in earlier games have blue eyes (except Perfect Cherry Blossom and a portrait used in Imperishable Night), similar to Megumi), and both Youmu's and Megumi's outfits are somewhat similar, consists of a vest over a lighter-colored shirt and a knee-length skirt. For Megumi's similarities with Michel, these are as the following: Both of them are angels, both of them are based upon the archangel Michael, both have light-colored hair, both of them wears blue, and their eye colors, if inverted, looks similar to each other (Michel's eye color is red, while that Megumi's is greyish-blue, and red is the opposite color of cyan on the RGB color wheel (greyish-blue being a color related to cyan). They also have subordinates with pink hair (Janet for Michel, Yoshika for Megumi), and their wings are much larger than that of their subordinates. Furthermore, Michel's first spell card in Easy/Normal difficulties of the game The Last Comer shares part its Japanese reading with Megumi's player Thaumaturgy Attack.

Another inspiration for them is Ralsei from Deltarune. In the game, Ralsei is portrayed as a kind, caring, and displays signs of affection to his teammates, similar to Megumi's attitudes towards everyone, as stated by some residents of the Town in the game Dæmonic Affright. Similarly, many of Ralsei's spells involving healing, similar to some Deeds of Megumi during some battles, which they can use to recover their HP in stressful situations.

Recently, CaraPrincess announced that another inspiration for Megumi’s character is Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion. She also stated that Megumi and Rei share several similarities: Both have March birthdates, both have short hair, both appears to be expressionless (which is likened to a poker face by CaraPrincess), and both can have a caring side towards their peers. Both belongs to the stock character type known as kuudere, a kind of stock character which does not express emotions, but can show a caring side towards others. Furthermore, her outfit (as seen in the original artwork and the remastered artwork) coincidentally resembles Rei’s casual outfit, as seen in the “Casual” outfit artwork on the Evangelion Wiki page about Rei. Similarly, initially Rei is intended to have dark hair and eyes, similar to Aoko's original artwork, but later her hair and eye color changed, similar to the remastered artwork of Megumi. Also, Rei's voice actress, Megumi Hayashibara, shares her given name with Megumi.

Etymology
Kiyono (清野) consists of two parts: Kiyo (清, also read as sei) means “pure”, which alludes to them being a “pure spirit” and having a pure heart. No (野) means field, and together, Kiyono means "a field of purity", which either refers to the concept of Pure Lands in Buddhism or the Christian Heaven. Megumi (恵) is a word in Japanese means "grace" or "blessing", and can be found on Japanese-language Christian contexts (in either the said written form or in the written form of 恵み (the difference being the presence of the hiragana "mi" in the word)). Their name alludes to their ability to grant blessings, and their status as a being "filled with divine grace". Furthermore, Megumi is a common given name to females in Japan. Megumi is a name started with an "M", making it somewhat alludes to the name of the Archangel Michael, whose Megumi's character is based after. Also, their role as stated in the series' canon is also heavily influenced by that of the Archangel. Also, their surname, “Kiyono”, if written in hiragana, will become きよの, and adding a dakuten on the kana “ki” in her name will result in “Giyono”. Since all of the kana that starts with the letter “k” will start with the letter “g” upon adding a dakuten, their surname can be interpreted as representing the name of the Archangel Gabriel, who Megumi’s character also drawn inspiration from.

It is revealed by CaraPrincess that “Megumi Kiyono” is not their full name, their actual full name is “Megumi Rumi Kiyono” (清野恵瑠美 Kiyono Megumi Rumi). The name “Rumi”, which is squished in the center of their name, means “beauty of the lapis lazuli”. Lapis lazuli is a stone that is blue in color, thus symbolizing them (blue is their theme color), and the stone is widely known to have been used as a pigment in the paintings of the Virgin Mary. “Rumi” is a name which start with the letter “R”, which can also meant to represent the Archangel Raphael, who Megumi’s character also drawn inspirations from. Together, their name is a representation of the name of the three Archangels in Christianity, and thus alludes to their species. Furthermore, Rumi, if written in Japanese as ルミ, can be a part of the word “luminous” (ルミナス), or “lumière” (French for “light”; can be written in Japanese as ルミエール), thus highlighting their assocation with light (particularly divine light).

Relationships

 * God: God have created Megumi from His powers since the time immemorial, and treated them as His most faithful servant, and cares for them with His unconditional love.
 * Yoshika Hakata: Their subordinate and comrade, who treats them as their “Big Sister” (Despite they are not blood-related and both of them have no gender). To most of the beings of Heaven, she is somewhat stupid and idiotic due to their ditzy personality, but Megumi found it “cute” and calls them the “uwu servant” (uwu being an Internet colloquialism for “cuteness”, perhaps they picked it from Yoshika theirselves (Yoshika being an enthusiast of popular culture, especially that of anime and manga culture), or it comes from their fondness of kawaii culture (despite their preferences over high culture), and cares deeply for them, even if their idiotic ditziness makes them look like that their brains have lost somewhere and they can’t retrieve it, as well as this can be annoying at times.

Trivia
Their birthday is on March 14.


 * Their star sign is Pisces.
 * The meaning of their birthdate can be interpreted as: 14 can be interpreted as 10 + 4, and these numbers, if spoken in Japanese, sounds like ten and shi, and when combining these words together will form the word tenshi (天使), means "angel", thus alluding to their species.
 * March being the third month of the year, and the number 3 can meant to represent the Holy Trinity, thus alluding to their divine nature. Furthermore, their character is inspired by THREE Archangels in Christianity, also an allusion to their species. However, since they are the ONLY Archangel in the Carmine Blood universe, and that their character is inspired by that of three Archangels, their nature can be interpreted as a single person who embodies all the three Archangels in Christianity, similar to most doctrines about the Trinity, which holds that there is only one God, but there are three "persons" residing in Him.

CaraPrincess said that she has plans for performing a fan lyrics version of this remixed version of Now, Until the Moment You Die dedicated to Megumi during Halloween, as a part to promote her series.

Also, CaraPrincess also has plans to cosplay as Megumi during Halloween, in the same manner as how she dressed up as Chara from Undertale (albeit her Chara costume is not accurate) during her 8th grade Halloween.

In Fanon
See also Megumi Kiyono / Fandom