- timeline
Claire and Chane don't appear often in Baccano! series as a whole, but when they do take some decent screentime: be ready to drool and rejoice.
1931 is an important year in Baccano! universe: most key characters from the series are introduced during this period, including Claire Stanfield and Chane Laforet. Think about it: they would meet each other for the very first time at nowhere other than the roof of a running train!
Assassin & Terrorist
Claire and Chane were enemies while on board Flying Pussyfoot. Despite his front career as an assassin, Claire enjoyed his job as a conductor very much and was furious when he found his passengers placed in great danger by two groups of people: a team of ex-Mafia trying to hijack the train for money, and an assembly of terrorists planning to take the entire train hostage in exchange with their leader held captive by the federal government. In an attempt to satisfy his twisted sense of justice, Claire disguised himself as the legendary monster Rail Tracer and began mass-"cleansing" the intruders. It was then he encountered Chane, the beautiful woman in black who attracted him at first glance before the train departed Chicago.
At the same time, Chane was not happy with her state of life. Her father Huey the Immortal had just been arrested and while she joined his followers to rescue him, she knew that they meant to dispose of her at the end of their journey: she had been against taking hostages since the start and thus posed great threat to their plan as one of Huey's best soldiers. When Claire got wind of Chane's true intentions, he kept her safe and proposed to her before she left the train. Imagine Chane's face when the word marriage popped out of such a bloody scene! Yet the monster in front of her was in dead honesty about everything he said, which Chane understood better than anyone else.
In the end, Claire remained on board to finish his "conductorly duty" while Chane jumped off the train based on Claire's advice in order to avoid the police. However, she didn't forget to carve her answer to Claire's proposal on the roof of the train first.
- Chane: I'll be waiting for you in Manhattan. Please come and find me, I will look for you too.
- Claire: Manhattan? Boy that's big... by the way, does she want to find me and kill me or actually marry me? I haven't even told her my name!
What a way to start a romance.
