failure, Larva's face and voice are sealed behind a mask for all eternity. In the TV series, Larva faces Miyu after she has become the Guardian. After he has struck her down, she drinks his blood. In both cases, Larva starts out as an unwilling ally, but later pledges to be by Miyu's side because he can sense her sorrow, something he was able to glimpse at during both blood-bond scenes. Larva can use his nails to slash things and (in the TV series) he can also wield a scythe. He is very powerful, as he is seen to win against every shinma without getting mortally wounded. In addition to this, in the TV series and the manga, he is able to access Miyu's flame powers, but does so rarely (so he says) as it reminds him of his greatest defeat. Unlike in the OVA, in the TV series and Manga, Larva can speak and will occasionally remove his mask; there's a possibility that Larva is in love with Miyu. The name "Larva" is taken from Roman mythology, which like "Lemures" refers to a restless spirit of the dead. Many of the Western Shinma appearing in the second manga series also follow a naming convention drawn from various European demons and spirits. Larva's name and signature mask may also have been inspired from the white, ghostly Venetian Carnival mask "Larva", also called "Volto." In Volume 1 of the TV series, Larva was called Lava in the English dub and subtitles. The following volumes referred to him as Larva. Shinmas are god-demons that take advantage of human souls for their own gain. Escaping from a dark world after being sealed into the darkness thousands of years, they hide in the human world and Miyu seeks to return them to it. Shinmas tend to haunt weak-hearted people by luring them to illusions that are supposed to achieve the dreams or desires of those people only to leave them in ruin. It is the job of a guardian vampire (namely Miyu) to send them back to the original dimension which simply named as "The Darkness" (also known as the Dark World). They seem to feed on human emotions, although there are some examples of blood-sucking, such as Ga-Ryu or even devouring whole humans as with Koh-Waku. However, not all shinma are inherently evil. Some use their abilities simply to interfere in humans lives