Canon: Diabolik Lovers
Canon Point: Haunted Dark Bridal ( ʜɪs ᴏᴡɴ ʀᴏᴜᴛᴇ— ᴅᴀʀᴋ, ᴇᴘɪʟᴏɢᴜᴇ )

( content warning for mentions of abuse. )
About:

“Listen up and remember this. The one you should cling to isn't God. It's me.”

From the outset of the game, Ayato very quickly establishes that he’s the best and the strongest— and by virtue of those characteristics, that he’s entitled to anything and everything in the world. Merely calling him ‘self-centered’ would be an understatement; Ayato is arrogant and assertive, and when things don’t go his way he’ll use force and/or make threats at his volition. He’s not above cutting people off or just outright telling them to shut up if he doesn’t agree with their words, and it’s because he truly places and views himself as superior to everyone else that he’s able to completely dismiss other’s thoughts and feelings, as well as see them as if they’re dirt beneath his foot. By the same token, it puts him in a rather solitary position— and is the result of having never felt genuine affection and never having been able to rely on or trust in anyone around him. Growing up, Ayato’s only ever had himself to believe in and count on, which is why he has so much contempt for Yui when she tries to reach out for anyone that isn’t him, and anyone else, for that matter.

Yui is Diabolik Lovers’ heroine, and she likens Ayato’s possession of her (should the player opt for his route) to that of a child’s when they obtain a new toy. He bosses her around and comes and goes as he pleases, treating her much like an elementary school boy would to their crush by bullying her at every oppotunity. Except, he trades most of the innocence a child would have for malice, as far as his words and actions tend to go; Ayato is sadistic, and he thrives off her and other’s pain and fear. He demeans Yui when she tries to defy him, and Ayato derives fun and pleasure from being able to break her down (and why not, since she’s his toy), finding enjoyment in physical and mental torture in general.

Suffice to say, Ayato is the resident troublemaker, doing whatever he wants whenever he wants simply because he can. His antics include but aren’t limited to stealing objects and waving them out of reach and shoving others into various torture devices (some even deadly), solely on the account that he finds their reactions to them hilarious. He’s incredibly self-indulgent and won’t hesitate when it comes to fulfilling his desires, and while subtle and charming aren’t the exact words to describe his pursuits (unless, well, you’re a masochist), he is domineering and provocative, able to drop flirtatious lines at will. As far as temperament goes, he’s fairly predictable due to his childish behaviour— it’s easy to get under his skin and anger him, as he’s possessive to the point where he takes advances on his own ‘things’ as challenges to himself. The biggest instance of this is when he berates Yui for talking to others or allowing his brothers to drink her blood; he constantly feels the need to mark and stamp her as his, and when the latter happens, he feels obligated to erase their every trace on her skin. Ayato’s violence doesn’t stop at outsiders either— in one of the endings to Diabolik Lovers, Ayato goes as far as murdering his entire family to eliminate his competition for Yui. But we’re talking about the guy who kills his own mom, so it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that offing his brothers isn’t much of an issue either, even if he feels slight remorse for it down the line.

All that being said, Ayato’s tough guy exterior does begin to crack when Yui starts to honestly care for him in spite of his surmounting misdeeds against her. Never having received affection aside, Ayato doesn’t actually know how to— as harried as he is by his continual need for her validation (of her need and love for him), it’s difficult for him to take her words as they are, truth or not.

“Ahh, how funny. To think there’s someone who’d actually wish for their parents to come save them.”

Through childhood flashbacks, we’re shown that Ayato has always been naturally confident and playful— albeit, his desire to be strong had arisen from wanting to be a hero rather than wanting to possess the world and be heir. Having been physically and mentally abused from a young age, many of Ayato’s warped tendencies can be attributed to his mother’s (Cordelia’s) treatment of him, who, for the record, never wanted children to begin with. Feeling threatened by her husband’s mistress (who’d already given birth to two sons), Cordelia delivered triplets to get back into his best graces— and because Ayato had been the most talented of the three despite being the youngest, she groomed him into being the perfect heir. At his young age, Ayato had questioned why he couldn’t play as much as his brothers Laito and Kanato could, but from using torture devices to drowning him and telling him that he’d get no love from her and that he’d be discarded if he couldn’t be heir, Ayato had grown up with the sense that ‘love’ was conditional. And, needing ‘love’ as a child, he followed Cordelia’s commands as flawlessly as he could and studied his days away so he could obtain it. The end result is that Ayato and his siblings snap (Cordelia abused them all in different ways), and Ayato becomes a reflection of her, at least out of necessity.

“… … I don’t know how to believe in anything.”

“Is Ayato-kun…afraid?”

“…! Haha, afraid? Me? What is there to be afraid of? Why are you acting like you actually understand anything? It’s impertinent.”

Through this conversation, Yui suggests that Ayato is scared of losing her, and that even if he isn’t the best that she’ll continue to love him. Of course, he silences her before she can complete that sentence, but it’s the biggest evidence for his inferiority complex— which is where many of his ‘Cordelia-like’ traits have surfaced from. At his core, he’s incredibly insecure; it’s hard not to be, when your existence and whether or not you deserve to be loved hinges on where you stand in the world and how well you perform. It makes sense, then, why he treats others so poorly and unequally. Ayato is contradictory in this way— because his attitude is so reminiscent of his mother’s, he finds himself hardpressed to believe that Yui could come to love him— he couldn’t for his mother, after all, so if he isn’t the best or strongest, what more does he have left? He’s at a constant battle with himself, telling Yui to tell him she needs him and loves him, but at the same time feeling that it’s impossible; it’s a more complicated side of him that barely emerges throughout the game, and is only touched upon every so often in the others; it’s a convoluted issue he’s dealt with his entire life, and to fix them, much less come to terms with them— is going to take a whole lot more than ‘I love yous’, absolute obedience, and a span of a month.

Still, Ayato’s many pitfalls aside, there are parts of him that are more traditionally endearing— sides that likely would’ve been more prevalent if he weren’t a vampire. His childishness, for instance, sometimes actually does translate into innocence— he can get excited over simple things like his favourite foods and he does engage in lighthearted banter on occasion. He even shows he’s more sensitive than he lets on at times, abstaining from drinking Yui’s blood after he knows she’s had a particularly bad day (and she’s had many since arriving to their manor) and trying to warm her up when she’s cold. Yui even theorizes that they probably could’ve been a pair of friendly classmates if he weren’t born a vampire— and he actually comes close to that, or as close as he could be considering his circumstances at the end of his route. (Being one hundredth closer to being a decent person might be a minimal improvement, but… steps to improvement are steps.) All this takes into consideration though is the best case scenario, so for the most part and for the foreseeable future, Ayato is simply an egoistic and sadistic person to the masses.

Not that he minds, as scars are best kicked under a rug and ignored.