Lavi

Lavi is a main protagonist and member of the fictional religious organization known as the Black Order and successor to the Bookman clan, in the anime and manga series D.Gray-man, by Katsura Hoshino.

Appearance
Lavi is a red-haired Exorcist of mixed race with a green eye. His hair is usually worn spiked with a bandanna wrapped around his head, and sometimes worn without the bandanna. He also wears an eye patch on his right eye for reasons unknown, but he has stated that it is not due to an injury. He is 5'9 in height, and grows to 5'10 later in the series. Lavi initially wears an Exorcist uniform with a long coat and a long orange scarf around his neck. He has since changed his uniform twice and has donned a new bandanna and scarf. For casual wear, he has a variety of shirts, often worn with white pants. He also wears dark brown boots that goes up to his knees. He has a holster on his right leg where he keeps his Innocence when its not in use.

Personality
Lavi has a cheerful demeanor, and is always on hand to offer support, encouragement and guidance to his friends. Lavi has a complex personality; at times he is mischievous, laid-back, and relaxed, but at other times he is cold and bitter. He has a darker side to him as well, as being a bookman means that he is not allowed to make connections to the humans he works withalthough, his heart goes against these teachings and he will fiercely protect his friends. Despite his generally playful attitude, Lavi can also be very mature. He often acts as a big brother and mentor to the people he is around, particularly Allen and Lenalee, and usually tries to calm Allen and Kanda down when they have one of their many arguments. Lavi is very intelligent and strategic when it comes to battling, working out tactics that would be most effective and is very knowledgable about facts and history.

Lavi enjoys giving nicknames to various characters, naming Bookman "Old Panda" due to the thick black circles around his eyes, a converted Akuma "Chomesuke", and Arystar "Kro-chan" and "Fang Boy" in the anime and "Kro-chan" or "Krorykins" in the manga. He is the only character other than General Tiedoll to call Kanda by his given name and apparently speaks to him outside of missions, as hinted when he called Allen "beansprout" (モヤシ, moyashi, Short Stack in the english dub), saying that if Kanda could call him that, Lavi could as well, as he is the same age as Kanda. He has a habit of teasing both Allen and Kanda. Lavi also loves sleeping, usually sleeping in much longer than Allen and Lenalee, and collapsing to sleep when arriving back from Noah's Ark.

A recurring gag in the series is Lavi's fondness for beautiful older women. Whenever he sees a woman his type he'll yell out "Strike!" with hearts in his eye.

History
As a Bookman Lavi began training when he was very young. He has had many different aliases, currently totaling 49, with "Deak" being the most recent. During his training and meditation he developed his photographic memory and other skills associated with the Bookman lineage.Throughout his upbringing Lavi witnessed many wars and deemed humankind as foolish for their constant fighting and inability to stop the inevitable outbreak of war. This began to change when Lavi joined the Black Order and becamed friends with its members.

Shortly after joining the Order Lavi met a finder named Doug. Doug was initially distrustful of him, commenting, "Your eye is like glass. It reflects me, but that’s all. Nothing reaches inside." Lavi earns Doug's respect and affection, however, when he risks his life to save him. They reunited a little over a year later to investigate the events in a Elysee, a French town. During their investigation, Doug became fond of a girl named Colette. When Lavi departed after the investigation, however, Colette was killed and Doug attempted to resurrect her, becoming an akuma. After sneaking into the Black Order and killing many finders and other personnel, Lavi confronts him. Grief-stricken, Lavi struggles with his emotions until he is finally able to defeat Doug, unaware of his tears. Shortly later, Lavi and Bookman are dispatched to join Allen and Lenalee in the Rewinding Town.

Rewinding Town Arc
Lavi is introduced into the series after the "The Rewinding City" arc alongside Bookman while Allen is resting in the hospital. Komui calls them in to ask for information about the Noah family, but when Lavi tries to explain them on his own, he is scolded by Bookman and kicked out of the room. Lavi and Allen then go outside to make snowmen, but Allen gets upset by the idea of fighting the Noah, who are humans, and leaves. When Allen finds himself unable to distinguish human from akuma due to his injured left eye, Lavi saves Allen from being killed by an akuma. Lavi explains that other exorcists do not have Allen's advantage and cannot tell human from akuma. Instead, they are forced to suspect everyone of akuma, although Lavi notes that unlike other exorcists, he considers humans to be the Earl's allies.

The Vampire from the Old Castle Arc
Along with Bookman, Lavi joins Allen and Lenalee to find General Cross Marian. When Allen is separated from the group, Lavi is the one that goes after him on his hammer to find him since Lenalee forces him to. He finds Allen, he found Allen being tied up by the villagers and was also referred as "black clergyman" and was roped into a "vampire" hunt forced by the villagers. He and Allen reluctantly joins the villagers in the vampire hunt, he becomes shocked as he finds the vampire, Arystar Krory. In the midst of battling Arystar Krory (the presumed vampire) Allen gets bit by him and Lavi keeps a wooden stake and some garlic on his neck with him while chanting Lenalee will never speak to him again.

As they enter the castle and run into Krory's man-eating flowers, Lavi spots Eliade and he instantly becomes smitten with her. Allen stopped him from trying to become her "lover" and the two fought Krory again. Before the fight however, Allen and Lavi discovered that Krory has been killing Akuma instead of people. As Allen battled Eliade, Lavi tried to convince Krory to join them before realizing Eliade was an Akuma. Krory was uninterested and threw both him and Allen into the man-eating flowers. Realizing they only eat people with negative attitudes, Allen told Lavi to proclaim feelings of love to the flowers like him so they could escape.

Finally freed, Lavi watched as Allen converted Krory to the Black Order. He watched alongside Allen as Krory burned down his castle to find a new life with his first friends. As he reported Krory's joining to Komui, Lavi explained to Komui Lee that at first, he thought Allen' s cursed eye would be really useful, but after seeing what Allen sees, he decides the world Allen sees "is hell".

Edo Arc
He later helps Lenalee to look for Allen after he's attacked by Tyki Mykk. Along with the other Exorcists, he goes to Edo to find General Cross and helps fights off the attacking Akumas. He is almost killed by a level 3 akuma before being saved by Bookman (see pic to right). Lenalee, to protect him and everyone else, leads the akuma off to fight him alone. When she does not return to the ship later, he gets deeply worried, so he uses his Ōzuchi Kozuchi (see below) to go look for her. When he did, instead he finds the converted Akuma, Chomesuke. He, thinking she was the one that hurt Lenalee, he threatened to destroy her. After he finds out the she is on their side, he is forced to apologize to her. Both him and

Bookman find out that Lenalee's Innocence saved her life, which has never happened before, meaning hers is an "exception". They start to think that her Innocence might be the "Heart". When Lenalee is broken out of her crystel innocence, Lavi runs to her, finding she is alive. Lenalee begans to cry after asking him if she's still alive, which causes him to cry, thus leading to his inner conflicts soon to come. After arriving in Edo,When Chomesuke returns to human form, he is thrown into a dilemma over lusting after an Akuma. The group is attack by a Level 3 Akuma. After they escape from them, one of the Level 3 Akuma caught up with the group. Using his "Fire Seal" to attract two other Level 3 Akuma, the three Level 3 Akumas then fight each other and the group escapes.

After being found by the Millennium Earl, Lavi tries to kill Tyki for what he did to Allen, but when the Earl makes the Giant Akuma, he has to help the other Exorcists destroy it, with no success however. When Chomesuke dies fighting a giant Akuma Lavi becomes emotional before focusing on the battle. But they were saved by General Tiedoll's group.

Noah's Ark Arc
After Allen's return, Lenalee was captured by the Earl's golem, Lero. Lavi and some of the members, including Allen, follow her to the Ark. They are found by Tyki, in his human form, who after changing to his Noah form, gives them a key to use Road Kamelot's "door". After they use the key to open one of the door, they run into Skinn Bolic. Kanda then stays behind to let the others go on. They then encounter Jasdero and Debitto who takes the key and makes copies of it, and then makes the group find the "real" key while fighting them at the same time. Lavi has the others fight off the two Noahs and uses his incredible memory to find the "real" key by using his seals to create a tornado and find the real key. Krory stay behind to fight Jasdevi (after they joined their bodies) and along with the remaining 4, they move on. Reaching the top of the Ark, they run into Tyki and Road. When Tyki reveals that his Tease ate through Allen's heart, Lavi realizes that there are two "exceptions" to an equipment type saving its accomodator (the other being Lenalee's) and ponders that one of them may have the Heart. After Allen starts to fight Tyki, Lavi goes to help Allen but is stopped by Road, who uses her power to create 'another' Lavi, of his past self. Road toys with Lavi's mind, making him fight allusions of his friends and mentally torturing him. Road shows him Lenalee supposedly dead in a coffin Lavi goes to hold her but the other Lavi merely states that she is just another Historic Relic and not worth caring about.It is then that Lavis other friends start rising from coffins and calling Lavis name. Lavi looks down and sees the 'dead' Lenalee is alive and she attacks Lavi with a knife. Lavi ignores his sight and attacks all of the illusions with a knife destroying them all. During this time, 'Allen' walks up to Lavi thanking him for not telling Bookman about the card he dropped when he was 'killed' by Tyki Mikk, 'Allen' is suddenly killed by the other Lavi. Illusions of Lenalee, Kanda, Bookman and Krory all stab Lavi causing him to collapse while the other Lavi states that if Lavi dies there is no bother as he is the 'real' Lavi and will merely take over, telling Lavi he is no longer a bookman and merely calling him number 49.

During this time, his 'heart' was supposedly destroyed. This caused his past incarnation, under the control of Road, to emerge in his physical body and savagely attack Allen. Unwilling to hurt

Lavi, Allen attacks Road but fails to harm her, as her current body was not her true form. Lavi's current self managed to resurface and suppress his past self. Inside the Dream world Lavis Current self stabs himself with a knife in the chest to drive off his past self, another past Lavi appears but this one much younger being Lavi as a child, crying asking Lavi if he wants to be a bookman anymore, Lavi simply says he must leave and sometime his other side will find the answer. He then stabs the dream Allen through the heart, simultaneously stabbing Road through the heart within her dimension, defeating her.

Lavi begins to prepare to sacrifice himself to save the others by engulfing himself in a massive Fire Seal to attack Road in the real world, while Allen used his Crowned Clown to shield Lavi from the fire, keeping him from dying along with Road.

The group prepared to exit the ark, only to be attacked by Tyki Mykk, who had entered a sort of berserker mode and destroyed the only door leading out of the ark. Lavi and Allen battled Tyki while trying to protect Lenalee and Chaoji, but were serverly outmatched.

After Cross Marian appeared to aid them against Tyki, more sections of the Ark crumbled and disappeared. Lavi and Chaoji were caught on a crumbling piece and began to fall. Lavi attempted to lengthen his Innocence to save himself and Chaoji, but it had been damaged in the fight with Tyki and shattered when Allen grabbed it in an effort to pull them up. Like Kanda and Krory, he was lost in another dimension as the Ark disappeared; he was shown to have been revived along with the rest when Allen restored the Ark.He reunites with the others and they leave the ark.

Invasion of the Black Order Arc
Now back at the Black Order HQ, Lavi waits for his Innocence to be fixed. When Lulu Bell and her Akuma attack the HQ, he is unable to assist Allen as he cannot activate his shattered hammer. To prevent him from attempting to aid in the battle and likely become injured, he, along with the similarly unarmed Lenalee, is locked in the infirmary. However, after Levellier coerces Lenalee into joining the battle, Lavi follows Lenalee to Hevlaska under the guise of wanting to record history but in actuality wishing to protect Lenalee. Lavi fights alongside Kanda, whose Innocence is also under repair, to protect Komui and later briefly battles the Level Four before he takes too much damage and is forced to withdraw, watching Allen and a re-empowered Lenalee finish off their foe.

After Lenalee becomes a crystal-type exorcist, Bookman cautions Lavi never to become the same and should he ever notice signs of such a change, they would have to leave the Order. Lavi acknowledges him, but expresses great distress when Bookman turns his back to him. Bookman also confides in Lavi that there may have been a reason that the Millennium Earl has allowed the Black Order to exist for so long, but does not elaborate on this.

During the headquarter's moving process, Lavi and Kanda are affected by a potion that turns them into children and later is affected by Komuvitan D. Later, however, he is returned to normal when Bak distributes an antidote to those in the headquarters.

Disappearance of Cross Marian Arc
After Allen opens a gate to the new headquarters in London, Lavi and Bookman immediately cross through, despite the fact that move-in is not until the next day. When questioned, they simply state that they have business to attend to and when Allen is taken into custody by CROW, they both follow. When Allen goes to meet with General Cross, Bookman instructs Lavi to observe the meeting, cautioning him to remember the Bookman code while Bookman listens in from another room. Lavi observes as Cross informs Allen that eventually the Fourteenth will erode Allen's personality and completely take over his body and that there is a secret side to the war between exorcist and Noah. When Lavi later comments on this to Bookman, he is told not to mention it again and Lavi becomes concerned. Roughly ten days later, he asks Bookman about Cross's disappearance and asks him once again about the secret side of the war. Bookman simply responds that they should be careful; since they were witness to Cross saying such a thing, they may be in danger.

Third Exorcists Arc
Lavi is later seen with Bookman and Chaoji in China. As with the other locations, a Noah appeared to challenge and/or delay the team while the Earl attacked the North American Branch.

Seed Of Destruction Arc
Both Lavi and Bookman were abducted by Fiidora and Lavi was infected by Fiddler's "parasite" in an attempt by the Noah to coerce Bookman into divulging all the information he possesses regarding the Fourteenth.

Powers and Abilities
Physical Prowess: While Lavi notes that his hammer doesn't actually seem to weigh anything to him, he is more physically gifted than most humans, able to lend his power to Allen and Kanda to hold back a Level Four Akuma.

Innocence
"Ōzuchi Kozuchi" (大槌小槌, Big Hammer, Little Hammer, lit. translation Ootsuti gavel): Lavi's Anti-Akuma Weapon is a size-shifting hammer. It can grow (満, Man) and extend (伸, Shin) at Lavi's command. He also uses it as a mode of transportation by standing on the handle and continuously extending it in one direction. The weight increases with its size, but since Lavi is the Accomodator, this weight change does not affect him. The hammer is destroyed whilst fighting in Noah's Ark but later the hammer is rebuilt as a much sleeker, easier to use weapon, now looking more like an average war hammer. Besides using it for brute strength, Lavi can also use the hammer to summon several "judgments" by hitting elemental seals (written in Kanji) that appear around his head. When using this in the anime (English dub), he calls out Innocence level 2, Release. His techniques, as shown so far, are as follows:


 * Hi Ban: Gouka Kaijin (火判 劫火灰燼, lit. Fire Seal: Configuration of Ash. English dub: stamp, fire circle, hell fire devouring fire stamp): Lavi uses the Fire seal to create a torrent of flames in the form of a snake.


 * Ten Ban: Raitei Kaiten (天判 雷霆回天, lit. Heaven Seal: Thundering Lightning Whirling in the Skies): Lavi uses the Heaven seal to generate a vast storm of lightning.


 * Moku Ban: Tenchi Bankai (木判 天地盤回, lit. Wood Seal: Roots Entwining Heaven and Earth. English dub: Wood circle, Wood stamp, spinning disk of Heaven and Earth): Lavi uses the Wood seal to control objects in nature (i.e. the clouds, wind).


 * Konbo Ban: Gouraiten (コンボ判 剛雷天, lit. Combo Seal: Strong Thunder of the Heavens): Lavi uses both the Fire and the Heaven seals to create a huge snake of fire and iron. He can also create a shield-like flame wall.

Some of the seals have not yet been revealed and appear as question marks interspersed around the seals. This probably means that Lavi has yet to learn some seals from his Innocence. When Bookman berates him for not using the Wood seal to move the clouds, Lavi states that he had forgotten that he could use it to affect nature directly, and as he remembers, the question mark turns into the kanji for the Wood Seal. The Wood Seal can actually be seen throughout the manga whenever Lavi summons his seals (e.g. during the use of the Heaven seal), long before the use of the actual seal itself. The seals for Water and Earth can also be seen, but Lavi has not yet used them.

Trivia

 * He was originally going to be the main character of a series called Book-Man.
 * He previously had 48 other names in the past.
 * His previous name was Deak.
 * He and Kanda are listed as "Friends?" in the fanbook.
 * Lavi has been 3rd in all the popularity polls held for D.Gray-Man, just behind Allen Walker andYu Kanda.
 * Lavi's favourite food is yakiniku, his least favourite food is wasabi and his hobbies are sleeping, reading, teasing Allen, and annoying Kanda.
 * Lavi is noted to have a particular fascination with numbers. He attributes this to his occupation as a chronicler.
 * Lavi and Bookman share a room.