Zafkiel

Not to be confused with Zadkiel.

Zafkiel
Japanese (Ruby)	ザフキエル
Japanese (Base)	刻々帝
Base meaning	Time Emperor
Rank	S-rank Angel
Wielders	Kurumi Tokisaki Shido Itsuka Kurumi Tokisaki (Date A Bullet) Hibiki Higoromo Cistus Beast
Media
Novel Debut	Volume 3
Anime Debut	Episode 9

Zafkiel (刻々帝ザフキエル, Zafukieru^?) is the Angel of time corresponding to the third sephira. Its original wielder is Kurumi Tokisaki. When summoned, a giant clock materializes behind the wielder, who becomes armed with a short-range flintlock pistol and a long-range musket.

Usage

Date A Live

Kurumi Tokisaki

Through a combination of using time, shadows, and Reiryoku as fuel, Kurumi can manipulate time through her twelve named bullets. Her flintlock pistol and musket both possess special bullets that can cause different effects on the subject's time depending on the number of the bullet.

To activate any power she needs, she first needs to call the name of her Angel (regardless of whether the Angel has been summoned already or not) and position her firearm at the corresponding number on the clock behind her, in which the power is loaded from the number into her firearm. Next, she fires that loaded gun at her target; if Kurumi intends to use the effect on herself, then she shoots herself. The bullets take effect the instant they connect with their target, and they do not cause injury despite appearing no different from the bullets used offensively.

The downside of these bullets is that they consume her time, or in other words, her life force. This is visually represented by the clock in her left eye moving clockwise. The cost also differs between bullets, in which one may cost more time than the other. For the last two bullets, they can even cost her her entire remaining time. If Kurumi cannot use one of the bullets, its corresponding numeral on <Zafkiel>’s clock loses its light.

• First Bullet Aleph (一の弾アレフ, Arefu^?): Accelerates external time on its target.
• Second Bullet Bet (二の弾ベート, Bēto^?): Slows down the external time on its target.
• Third Bullet Gimmel (三の弾ギメル, Gimeru^?): Speeds up internal time to cause the subject to age.
• Fourth Bullet Dalet (四の弾ダレット, Daretto^?): Rewinds time on a target.
• Fifth Bullet Hei (五の弾ヘイ, Hei^?): Allows Kurumi to see a glimpse of the future.
• Sixth Bullet Vav (六の弾ヴァヴ, Vavu^?): Sends the consciousness of its target into the body of a past version of themselves.
• Seventh Bullet Zayin (七の弾ザイン, Zain^?): Temporarily freezes the target's time.
• Eighth Bullet Het (八の弾へット, Hetto^?): Creates a temporal clone of the target.
• Ninth Bullet Tet (九の弾テット, Tetto^?): Allows Kurumi to share her senses with someone on a different time axis.
• Tenth Bullet Yud (十の弾ユッド, Yuddo^?): Peeks into the past of any object struck.
• Eleventh Bullet Yud Aleph (十一の弾ユッド・アレフ, Yuddo Arefu^?): Temporarily sends its target to the future.
• Twelfth Bullet Yud Bet (十二の弾ユッド・ベート, Yuddo Bēto^?): Temporarily sends its target to the past.

The bullets' properties are summarized in Kurumi Refrain. However, throughout the course of the main story <Gimmel> and <Hei> have never been used by Kurumi. Bullets that have been sealed are marked by their corresponding Roman numeral fading in color. <Vav> was sealed after Kurumi kissed Shido as gratitude for saving her from Kotori, which allowed him to partially seal only that bullet. Any damage to the clock is usually reverted on the re-summoning of <Zafkiel>, but Kurumi was only able to recover <Vav> after kissing Shido's corpse. In addition to the time-manipulating bullets, Kurumi can load her firearms with ordinary ammunition generated from condensed shadows. Each clone created from <Het> gains her own copy of <Zafkiel's> flintlock pistol and musket, but cannot fire any of the time-manipulating bullets.

Shido Itsuka

Kurumi had never been fully sealed for the majority of the main story, thus, it was originally assumed that Shido never had access to <Zafkiel> until then. When Shido is told by a clone of Kurumi that <Vav> had been sealed when the real Kurumi kissed him, he does not immediately interpret this as him having gained <Vav>, and only realizes this when faced with the inevitability of losing his memories of the Spirits.

After Kurumi is sealed, the only other bullet Shido uses in the main story is <Yud>. The short story Mukuro True Route from Date A Live Another Route takes place in an alternate timeline after Kurumi had been sealed, and features Shido using <Tet> and <Yud Bet> on Mukuro.

• Sixth Bullet Vav (六の弾ヴァヴ, Vavu^?): Sends the target's consciousness into the body of a past version of themselves. However, unlike the Twelfth Bullet, the user is only able to travel back to a few days at maximum regardless of how much time is used. Shido later uses the bullet to escape from Mio and return back to the day before Ratatoskr and DEM's final battle.
• Ninth Bullet Tet (九の弾テット, Tetto^?): Allows Shido the ability to connect senses with someone on a different time axis. In the Mukuro True Route Timeline, Shido fires this bullet along with the Twelfth Bullet to Mukuro. This allows Shido to experience what Mukuro felt while she was in the past. However, due to his near-death state, he wasn't able to communicate back with her. Nevertheless, this link formed a waypoint that allows Mukuro to return to the present rather than having her existence annihilated like Kurumi had theorized.
• Tenth Bullet Yud (十の弾ユッド, Yuddo^?): Allows Shido to observe the past of whatever person or object the bullet pierces. Shido is instructed by Kurumi to use this bullet on himself to regain his altered memory of Tohka (actually Tenka) taking Mio's Sephira Crystal.
• Twelfth Bullet Yud Bet (十二の弾ユッド・ベート, Yuddo Bēto^?) Allows Shido to send the target of the bullet to the past. Shido uses this bullet in the Mukuro True Route Timeline to send Mukuro back to the past. Due to the sheer amount of Reiryoku Shido gathered, Mukuro is able to stay in the past for over a year. However, Mukuro offering her Reiryoku to Shido in the new timeline to save Origami caused an unintentional side-effect of Mukuro's body cracking and breaking down before she returns to her proper timeline.

Beast

The parallel-world Spirit codenamed <Beast> has indirect access to <Zafkiel> via the Third Sword (三番目の剣, Sanbanme no Ken^?), a thin sword with four clock gears attached to the hilt. During <Beast>'s confrontation with the former Spirits in Shido's world, Kurumi regains access to <Zafkiel> but finds that it has six of its twelve bullets sealed (specifically, she doesn't regain access to <Dalet>, <Vav>, <Zayin>, <Het>, <Yud Aleph> or <Yud Bet>). As a result, she does not join the fight against <Beast>. This is later revealed to be because the Kurumi from <Beast>'s world managed to survive. Afterward, Tohka and Kurumi begin traveling their desolated world in search of the spiritual vein so that Tohka can transfer <Zafkiel> back to Kurumi fully. In doing so, <Yud Bet> could be used to reset their world for the better.

Date A Bullet

Kurumi Tokisaki

While in the Neighboring World, this Kurumi clone can also summon <Zafkiel> with largely the same properties as the one summoned by the original Kurumi, and of the twelve bullets, only <Vav> is not used in the story. However, the last two bullets' original properties were incompatible with how time flows in the Neighboring World. As a result, prior to their use, they were modified to their new powers when Kurumi completed the dungeon-crawl in Gevurah:

• Eleventh Bullet Yud Aleph (十一の弾ユッド・アレフ, Yuddo Arefu^?): Freezes time around the target to make them indestructible against opposing attacks.
• Twelfth Bullet Yud Bet (十二の弾ユッド・ベート, Yuddo Bēto^?): Sends both the user and target to a mental world where consciousness is shared and time is halted.

In addition, Kurumi had reservations over using <Het> due to being a clone herself, with her two initial uses of <Het> only able to recreate two distinct versions of herself (Cistus, and a child version of Kurumi). During the final battle against White Queen, Kurumi had gained enough time to create upwards of 50 clones of herself using <Het>.

Hibiki Higoromo

During the time Hibiki disguised herself as Kurumi, she gained access to <Zafkiel> but could only summon the clock and the flintlock pistol. She was also able to use <Aleph> and <Bet>, but whether she knew of the other bullets' effects before she could use them, remains unknown.

Cistus

As a clone of the main-story Kurumi, Cistus had knowledge of <Zafkiel> and was able to use its bullets after borrowing Kurumi's musket. After being devoured by Kurumi and reborn through <Het>, Cistus gains her own musket and flintlock pistol but can no longer access <Zafkiel>'s bullets.

Trivia

• The archangel Zafkiel (sometimes spelled "Zaphkiel") is sometimes equated with Zophiel/Jophiel, but other times considered to be a different angel. Zaphkiel is the "chief of the order of thrones", one of the 9 angels that rule Heaven and also one of the 7 archangels.
• Zafkiel's bullet names are derived from Gematria, a system that uses letters from the Hebrew Alphabet to represent numbers. For example, Aleph, the first bullet (from 1 o'clock) represents the first letter. The bullets are numbered from 1 to 12 in this system.
• In early drafts, Zafkiel was a fork and knife-type Angel to fit Kurumi's theme of eating people.