Vivian Banshee — Zenless Zone Zero

Vivian spent some of her early life wandering without a secure home, feared as a bearer of calamity. Landon, a leader of the Exaltists, adopted her while she was still young; his daughter Dina became Vivian's first close friend. Landon presented Vivian's tear-associated premonitions as divine signs and made her select people to receive an alleged blessing. Believing that the ritual helped others, Vivian initially welcomed the chance to be useful.

The blessing was actually an early Sacrifice Serum. Vivian discovered that recipients could become Ethereals or mindless Sacrifices rather than acquiring the protection they had been promised. Even the Sacrifices Landon produced failed the Exaltists' requirement that they retain human consciousness, and his standing within the organization deteriorated. Vivian realized that her supposed gift had been exploited to select victims.

After Vivian cried in front of Dina, Landon planned to inject his own daughter with serum to restore his reputation. Vivian discovered the truth about the experiments, then publicly declared Landon himself the one who ought to receive the blessing. In the ensuing confrontation, Camille restrained Landon as he threatened Vivian with a gun; he accidentally shot himself. Dina blamed Vivian and Camille, and Vivian left the Exaltists, losing her first friendship as well as her adopted home.

With her former identity and shelter gone, Vivian endured a period of despair and unstable work. The in-game Close Trust Agent Intel states that a reply from Phaethon to one of her messages gave her hope to begin again. This personal experience helps explain why her later admiration goes much deeper than celebrity enthusiasm.

During the Season 1 epilogue, Vivian works with Phaethon and Mockingbird to trace dormant Sacrifices, Landon's remaining serum, and the people trying to profit from both. Hugo's apparently ruthless actions and confrontation with Lycaon unsettle her; she has every reason to fear the investigation could consume the people she trusts.

Hugo later reveals that he staged his death as part of his operation against the Ravenlock family. Vivian had genuinely mourned him and resents being kept in the dark. He also discloses that the genuine Sacrifice Core was hidden in a collectible pendant Vivian had given Phaethon at his suggestion. The revelation restores her colleague to her side but exposes the cost of his secrecy.

Vivian and her allies move to destroy the remaining serum and rescue captive workers. She refuses Dina’s claim that desperate people voluntarily chose their fates, arguing that the Exaltists preyed on their wish for a better life. The confrontation makes explicit her rejection of the moral logic she once accepted as a child.

Camille, who has spent years caring for Dina, finally refuses to assist in further experiments. She accepts responsibility for the conspiracy in an effort to give Dina another chance, then enters a fissure to dispose of the remaining failed subjects, sacrificing her life. Vivian begs Dina to leave the Hollow and start over. Dina instead clings to her hatred, injects herself with Sacrifice Serum, and transforms into an Ethereal. Vivian faces her childhood friend in battle; Dina does not survive.

Vivian has seen a vision of catastrophe involving Phaethon. When the transformed Dina endangers the Proxy, Vivian injects herself with a vial of Landon's serum, choosing to confront the danger rather than accept the future she foresaw. Her body begins to crystallize under Ether Corruption. The Proxy desperately tries to stop the process and both lose consciousness; later, Lycaon reports the mayor's theory that the Proxy's own Etheric energy caused Vivian's Corruption to recede. The mechanism is not yet understood.

Vivian survives, and a medical examination detects only mild residual Corruption despite the advanced crystallization the Proxy witnessed. She remains devoted to Phaethon, but the experience gives her a new answer to the terror of being an omen: she can choose to act for someone she loves instead of surrendering to a predicted ending. Neither her survival nor the Proxy's intervention establishes a controllable cure for Ether Corruption.