So, to start off the confusion about Luna's gender has been cleared up! They don't consider themselves to be male or female! Given this new information that Luna is nonbinary I will be using they/them pronouns from now on. However, Luna doesn't actually seem to care what pronouns are used for them (since Misha thinks of them as a man and Vani thinks of them as a woman) so I won't begrudge anyone for using any pronouns for Luna. I myself may accidentally continue to use she/her sometimes since I've gotten used to referring to Luna that way. Also, in the future I may still refer to them as 'Vanitas's mother' or 'Misha's father' since those are roles they've taken up. But yeah! Gender!

Anyway, when Vani asks what Luna is after they say they aren't male or female they have an odd reply. They had previously wondered what they were and regretted trying to find out. So Luna doesn't seem to be a normal person and they're also unhappy with the answer they discovered. I guess it's possible Luna was made and not born, they're definitely related to Faustina somehow so I wonder what makes them different from all other living things.

Luna, Misha and Vani make a cute family and it's sweet that Vani gave Luna their name. (Even if he didn't intend to). And I like her reaction to it. Yes, I just want an excuse to talk about how pretty they look in this panel because Jesus, Mochijun has such nice character designs

I'll be honest, I never cared much for Misha but weirdly this chapter is making me feel for him just a little. Him tearfully saying he can't forgive Vanitas somehow hit me quite hard? I do kind of understand where he's coming from. Since Vanitas hasn't explained anything it really does seem like his 'father' got murdered for no reason. We also get the revelation of what Vanitas's promise to Misha was: that he'd never abandon him. Yikes. Even if he had to kill Luna I wonder why Vani abandoned Misha? One possibility is of course that he assumed Misha was dead. But the panel below looks like a flashback and Misha still has his arm. So I'm pretty sure Vanitas knowingly left him behind. Or at least planned to leave him behind before whatever incident caused him to believe Misha was dead occurred.

We see a flashback of the day Vani killed Luna. The text over it conveys Misha's thoughts since I'm pretty sure Noé is seeing these. In the top right there's what I assume is the bloody stump of Misha's arm with text about it hurting. Vanitas is crying, though we don't get a clear shot of his face, and he's holding Luna's bloody cloak. I don't know if Vanitas cut off Misha's arm but if he did he would have done so before killing Luna. The reason I think Vani may have been the one to hurt Misha is because "It hurts... It hurt, brother..." seems to imply Vanitas is connected to the injury. Misha could just be asking for help though. It's interesting that Vanitas says he killed the blue moon and not the vampire of the blue moon. I don't know what significance that could have but it seems like a strange way of wording it.

A lot of the next few pages are very light on dialogue since it is primarily the fight between the two boys. Mikhail's anger at Vanitas seems to be feeding into Noé's and Noé is fighting with a lot more violence than we're used to seeing. Vanitas is exactly as violent as I'd expect and he even seems to think he's won for a moment after setting off a bunch of explosions using the amusement park automatons. But he doesn't look happy to have potentially won. He just looks kind of... sad and worn out? We don't really get many clear shots of his face this chapter so it's interesting how absolutely empty he looks. There may be a bit of relief in his face as well admittedly.

The shot we get of Dominique this chapter is probably one of the most interesting things. I'm not sure what the representation of her as her child self means but she called out to Noé. Which makes it seem like she's regaining some awareness and perhaps she will join the fray in order to protect Noé. She looks so sad and I really want to give her a hug. If Mochijun does have her break free and help Noé of her own accord that would be kind of awesome! I've been looking forward to more Domi content since she reappeared in chapter 43 but since then most of her time has been spent on the ferris wheel.

I'm sorry, I just can't believe Vanitas beat Dante's ass and stole his gun? Like??? Dante probably would have just given it to him if he asked? Not only that but he did this in front of poor Amelia who probably feels responsible now. I do cut Vanitas some slack for some of the dick moves he pulls but this was just so uncalled for my dude.

And according to what Dante says Vanitas very likely took the gun planning to fight Noé. I assumed that he took it to kill Misha but Dante knows Vani really well and knew from his face that he was probably going to fight Noé so Vanitas really is even more ruthless than I thought he was. Man straight up decided as soon as he heard Mikhail was alive that he may have to end his partner's life. And, again, poor Amelia is going to feel responsible for this since she's the one who rushed over to tell Vanitas.

But yeah, when reading memoire 51 I was surprised that Dante assumed (correctly) that Vanitas wouldn't be on Noé's side. From his previous interactions with the pair of them Dante's clearly come to believe they are close. And he didn't know any of the details about Misha either so it's astounding he picked up on Vanitas's intentions from his face alone.

Why does Johann have beef with Noé's mindset? I get that it could be classified as naive or foolish or even a little cruel or whatever but calling him disgusting? Why? Also Noé straight up looks like he's about to cry and I am sad.

It deeply upsets me that Vanitas charged in towards Noé almost certainly knowing that he would hesitate. Vanitas really did take advantage of his kindness in order to hurt him and just... bro.

You can see that Noé's eyes changed so they aren't red anymore, he cares so much about Vanitas despite everything I'm going to cry. Noé absolutely could have won, he is way stronger than Vani and he's never gone this feral in a fight before. But in the end he doesn't want to kill his friend and that makes me so emo. Because Vanitas absolutely is willing to kill a friend. Vanitas is so used to people being selfish he can't afford to do anything other than survive at all costs.

So, uh, I have no fucking idea how they can ever reconcile from this if last chapter wasn't bad enough already. Obviously Noé can't die because he's the narrator but I'm pretty sure Vanitas was trying to kill him. And Vanitas doesn't seem sorry about it either. I'm usually still a little on Vanitas's side even when he's doing bad things because I understand why but his trauma does not excuse this. I want to throttle him for doing that to Noé even though I still care about him a lot and don't want to see him get hurt.

Another thing to consider though is that Vani did not speak a single word throughout the entire chapter and that's... weird for him? Yeah, maybe he's just focussed but considering the blank look in his eyes throughout the entire chapter + the end to the last one he may not be entirely aware of himself. He has a weird expression in the last panel too, though I'm not sure what it conveys. I just think it's especially odd considering how expressive Vani was last chapter when he was absolutely freaking out. Now by comparison he seems pretty calm.

Now, given Vanitas has set off 999 explosions it's pretty safe to say anyone who wants to find them very easily can. I reckon Jeanne is going to make her appearance soon and the dhampirs + Amelia may also end up pursuing them. Also, because of the giant ruckus I would not be surprised if a chasseur or two also arrived on the scene.

A chasseur would be bad news for Domi, Vani and Noé alike. Domi and Noé because they're both vamps and I'm fairly sure they've both attacked humans recently (if the blood on Domi's mouth in chapter 45 is anything to go by). Vani because he has power the church probably wants for itself.

I'm expecting this arc to get even messier and it's a distinct possibility that Vani and Noé will split up for a while. If not, then the only way I can see Vanitas repenting is saving Dominique or somehow sacrificing something important for Noé's sake. Because it absolutely is Vanitas's job to fix this shit this time.