-- KETER --

LEVEL: ???
CLASS: ???
PROFESSION: Mastermind
GENDER: Female
STAR SIGN: ???
BLOOD TYPE: ???
AGE: ???

An enigmatic, hooded figure that was first encountered by our heroes at the end of the Mars Mission arc, though her forces had appeared and referred to her multiple times beforehand. Shrouded in a black, custom hooded coat and wielding insanely powerful magical abilities in addition to her already formidable statistics, this shadowy individual leads an extensive organization separated into two branches - the Sephiroth and Qliphoth, named after the tree of life and its dark shadow in the mystical tradition known as Kabbalah, who seem to be acting as agents attempting to instill chaos and strife in the world ever since the System came to be three years ago. Prone to ominous monologues and questions impossible for our heroes to answer, the shrouded Keter brings destruction and chaos whenever she deigns to appear in person rather than sending her lackeys, and her disturbing level of knowledge about our heroes leads them to question if she could be somebody they know. Whatever the case is, this mysterious figure is truly terrifying, from the sheer scope of her ambitions, her deadly combat prowess, and her mysterious identity - a true threat in a story that had for the most part up to this point been somewhat light hearted, with only rare exceptions like Nossu draining Azumi's levels in the Monster Clan arc.

The most prominent element of Keter's personality is how unperturbed and calm she is in battle, no matter what enemy she is facing at the moment - even powerful ones - though to her credit, she is so powerful she has reason to behave this way. Even in the midst of extremely serious situations such as the last stages of the Mars Base crisis, she maintains an atmosphere of complete apathy to the events that would panic or worry others all around her. This mood continues into battle, and she never seems even slightly excited, anxious, or even feeling any sort of sensation at all in combat, even when her enemy is fighting to their last breath and giving all their strength just to beat her in any way they can. If anything, the one emotion she seems to have towards the crises of others is stoic amusement - not even enough to laugh, but to have an entertained tone to her voice. Of course, all this furthers the stress their enemies feel - as though they aren't fighting a human being - but a comet racing towards them, impossible to avert, devastating in its consequence. Keter seems to recognize this, often asking them if they're afraid or what worries them in battle in a sarcastic, mocking tone, all carried by a voice distorted by some sort of magical protection. As such, it's quite likely she has an element of sadism towards her, even if she is, by and large, focused on her own enigmatic goals and plans. When she speaks, she has a quizzical tone to her voice, adding to the vibe she doesn't treat anything other than her own plans seriously, and that if anything, her conflicts with our heroes are little more than idle distractions as she goes about her work that dwarfs individual human lives in aspect. She of course lacks any empathy for other people it would seem, instead displaying an attitude that people who do not serve her are interesting at best and pointless at worst, and she cares not what suffering or trauma they've recently been through - stoically ignoring even [PROTAG]'s pleas for help to prevent the Mars Base's destruction, instead entering a fight for no reason other than what seems to be a pure whim, as her organization's work inside the Mars base was complete. Even her rare interactions with other members of her organization carry this dark tone - whether it be while encountering the heroes or during chapters which focus on the villains. She talks to them in a fashion that would almost remind one of a sarcastic parent or other adult figure talking to a child, and seems to think very little of them as people, instead seeing them as extensions of herself. Even her most loyal servants are treated this way, and despite how many would consider it upsetting, it seems few if any of her servants and conspirators even care about this treatment or see it wrong in any way, adding to the disturbing atmosphere of her appearances and the entire organization she leads. As such, almost all her encounters carry a dark, somewhat intimidating tone, due to the combination of these many factors, her strange and powerful abilities, and the fact she always appears completely hooded - though one could see it as a miracle her hood even stays on, yes?

Despite how stoic and apathetic she in her mannerisms, she does sometimes find a chance for extended dialogue with individuals - especially enemies during encounters, which exposes much of her way of thinking and personality traits her dark, unnerving atmosphere may otherwise hide. She is prone to asking three questions to every enemy she faces on their first encounter, seemingly purely out of curiosity as to other people's thoughts and possibly how well they line up with her own. The first is always what they think of the System, which she seems to value exceptionally, as when the person she asks indicates a sense of negativity towards the System or how it's changed the way the world works, she often responds by treating them as ignorant and lacking in passion and drive, while those who answer positively - especially with regard to improving one's self - she responds more warmly, though still as an enemy - essentially saying that they're rather wise for somebody so ignorant. Her second question is always what they want to do with their life, to which her responses are less binary - if somebody answers that they want to do something especially grand or ambitious, she acts both impressed and also rather condescending, as though mocking their confidence in an impossible dream, while if they answer that they don't know what they want to do in their life yet, she acts neutral and strangely considerate for such an evil figure, saying that it is normal to not know what it is you are made to do until it comes to you. However, if somebody says they want to do something mundane or humble, she becomes far more hostile, outright treating them like a waste of knowledge and a speck of dust in the long run. Finally, her last question is asking what they believe the meaning of one's life to be, of which she is by far the most hostile to answers other than her own, treating them as objectively wrong despite how loaded and uncertain the question is. Specifically, she believes that the meaning of life is to improve one's self and seek ever greater tiers of enlightenment, ambition, and potential. To her, any alternative answer is completely incorrect, and not only that, a sign of truly pathetic levels of ignorance. The only answer other than her own she'll respond to warmly is that the one interrogated does not know the meaning of life, Keter praising their humility and honesty. In general, Keter is rather condescending to the enemies she meets on the field od battles, even faux-bemoaning how little they know, how little they understand, and how little potential they have to even come to understand the deeper truths of the world. She seems to be obsessed with the idea of enlightenment, but the exact meaning of the term in regards to her plans is extremely unclear, due to how much of her motives and the goals of her organization are shrouded in mystery - with the only thing being clear right now is their desire to further exacerbate the tensions the System has induced in the world, either directly or by manipulating the actions of other villains, such as Flora's conspiracy to create a classist society on Mars. The truth is obscured as to the real goals of Keter and her lackeys... all that is certain is that whatever they are planning will devastate this world.

Owing to her unknown stats and class, much of what Keter is capable of is a mystery, and at best all the heroes have to go off of are her showings whenever she appears, which helps almost none due to the sheer variety of her abilities and techniques. It's at least clear she is primarily a magic user due to how light her uniform is and how she doesn't seem to wield any weapons, and she's assuredly high level due to the many bizarre abilities she displays, several of which don't seem to have been documented anywhere in System research. Her abilities include more common displays such as releasing coursing lightning from her hands, unleashing arrays of laser beams, summoning pillars of light that drain the CON stat, releasing shadowy orbs, summoning waves of flame, freezing enemies solid, lifting and throwing objects telekinetically, creating hex-plated forcefields to protect herself, summoning small tornadoes,  raising spikes of stone from the earth, and more, while her more unusual abilities include transforming herself into a miasma of darkness surrounding a core of light to avoid attacks, releasing swirling paths of roaring flame that transform into icy spikes after a few seconds, transforming nearby earth into dust, which she flings at her enemy using heavy winds before turning them back into large chunks, releasing swirling tendrils of darkness and light that, upon crashing into each other, become jagged white rifts in the air, sucking people into place to leave them open to attack, summoning four floating crowns, each holding something evoking one of the four classical elements, such as a flame, a shard of ice, a swirling orb of wind, and a chunk of stone, which hang behind her in an ominous array with the kabbalistic tree of life at the center, rendering her immune to all damage from these elements and making her attacks with these elements much stronger, and finally an ability where she summon six crystals - one for each of the four classical elements, darkness, and light, which crash into each other to create a swirling, shadowy vortex with a white hole at the center giving the vague impression of a vertical eye, which releases white beams of apparent nothingness that slowly erase any matter they touch. Her Limits are largely unknown, but she does appear to have at least one - and one that seems extremely powerful at that, a strange ability that teleports both her and her enemy into a massive, shadowy city almost reminiscent of Manhattan, with 15 prominent skyscrapers in the distance, surrounding a massive twisting center of roots that reach up towards the sky, which is seemingly always in the dead of night, with a massive moon taking up the majority of the skyline.

---

-- AZUMI ITO --

LEVEL: 294
CLASS: Devourer
PROFESSION: Highschooler/Enforcer
GENDER: Female
STAR SIGN: Virgo
BLOOD TYPE: [FILL]
AGE: 17

The girl who lost her way in the aftermath of a tragedy. After getting her level drained to Lvl 1 by a Lich during the Pirates arc, Azumi has taken upon herself a dark path and has joined the forces of the mysterious Keter, being granted the rank of Gamchicoth in the Dark Tree. Very little remains of the optimistic and spirited girl, as anger, greed, and pride have polluted her mind and she seeks power endlessly - claiming to seek it so that she can help [PROTAG] defend the world, but clearly having lost so much of herself to Keter's influence that she simply seeks power for the sake of power alone. Alongside Hikari and Yoru she acts as one of Keter's bodyguards and enforcers, imposing her will and protecting her from enemies that would dare attempt her harm - even if Keter is leagues more powerful than Azumi herself. Her new class, Devourer, is built around draining from others - taking their stats, their traits, and even their EXP/levels, gathering them and growing stronger and stronger with every feast, leaving her foes in the dust she herself was once so traumatized to be left in. But... How is it that Azumi could undertake such a sudden cruel and savage personality? Something seems awry...

Azumi's personality has experienced a sudden and sharp change in outlook - she is no longer an optimistic girl who dreams of protecting people, but rather a violent, belligerent, and smug girl who is only obsessed with protecting [PROTAG] and getting more power for herself personally. Where she once dreamed of being a knight who lives to protect others, she now sees herself as a warrior whose only concerns are protecting [PROTAG] and gaining more power with which to protect [PROTAG]. Her idealism has faded considerably, and she carres a cynical streak that believes happy endings are impossible and the only way to protect the things you care about is through raw strength along, even considering her past self who believed in things like hope and friendship paving the path towards the future as idealistic drivel which has no relevance in the real world all around us. In particular, she no longer believes in fighting fair, and will use any dirty trick she can manage to set things up in her favor, recognizing how most enemies people will face won't extend the courtesy of honor or fairness to you, and instead only take advantage of the limitation you've put on yourself, and to be fair, she does have a point. She spends almost all her time attempting to get stronger, and her sweet voice now carries a rough edge that matches her new, darker fashion sense - going from wearing warm colors like white and yellow to cool colors like black and burgundy, as well as not caring to cover the sinister mark underneath her left eye that her new class choice has given her, and even seems to like the intimidating factor it brings to battle. She hates when people go on idealistic speeches, reminding them of her old self, who she of course views as a fool compared to her new self, and often takes the time to brutally counter anything they say and instead remind others of the realistic outcome. She has a partricular distaste for Hiro due to how he himself is following a similar path to her old self - both because she is even more envious of him now, and because he is advancing up the path himself extremely quickly, whereas her old self did horribly. She is now extremely possessive of [PROTAG] and gets angry when people try and talk to her, even her close friends, and outright threatens [LI2] when it seems she and [PROTAG] are getting close, forcing the poor girl to act as though she had suddenly, out of nowhere, lost all interest in [PROTAG]. Whereas before Azumi was at least passing friends with the rest of [PROTAG]'s group, she is now hostile to them, seeing them as rivals and enemies, which, after the reveal of her changing to the side of Keter, is quite right honestly. In particular, she often agrees to [DELINQUET]'s offers of a fight between the two, and the one time [DELINQUET] follows up on it leads her to be brutally defeated by the new, stronger Azumi, and Azumi isn't afraid to mock her for it, even quipping that maybe Azumi ought to take her places the heroes' heavy hitter. Likewise, she considers Normal pathetic and often mentions that despite her own cruelty and creepy abilities, she's nothing compared to what's out there in the greater world, almost seeming familiar with whatever exactly is out there...

She feels no shame towards joining the Qliphoth, and in fact believes it's the only logical choice, believing that Keter is too powerful to stop and that anyone who wants to survive the coming conflict should join her and her armies, or else be crushed underneath her foot. In particular, she wants [PROTAG] to come join Keter, as she believes that once they're on the same side that they can finally be together, and likewise does NOT want the rest of [PROTAG]'s friends to join her, believing that it would ruin that chance, though she would not contest Keter's decision if she did end up letting them join, as she is quite afraid of Keter's great power. Indeed, whereas Hikari and Yoru are loyal to Keter genuinely, Azumi is simply afraid and believes that she has no choice now that she's accepted Keter's offer to join her forces, and believes as a result that she has no choice in the matters of what she does, deflecting any comments that she is doing evil with the idea that she'll be destroyed if she doesn't do what Keter demands of her, and likewise that she has no choice but to harbor a sliver of Keter's Heart inside her own, believing it's the only way to gain a will to become strong and proect the one she loves, even if the influence of Keter's power is making her more and more obsessed with gathering strength and power merely for the sake of power and nothing else, with the idea that she'd be able to protect [PROTAG] with it just being an excuse she uses to avoid blame and not feel like she's betraying her mission to protect her with her life. Indeed, she feels great pleasure and thrill from draining others of their levels, both out of a mixture of the feeling of growing power the darkness gives her, and because of the catharsis it makes her feel for when she herself was drained of her levels earlier in the story line. She doesn't mind her class change in the least, and even believes that she was an idiot for trying to go for a goody two shoes like class such as Paladin, and happily embraces the power of darkness that is innate to the Class, and that it makes her feel more alive than she's ever felt in the past. Her relationship with Hikari has changed drastically, with Hikari and her now being friends and partners in crime, seemingly mostly due to Azumi's attitude change - it lead her to see Hikari's point of view and in turn lead Hikari to think that she's not that bad after all, and they often join together to face the enemies of Keter. Her relationship with Yoru isn't cold either, though it's not quite warm - she simply sees Yoru as her direct superior and will obey everything she says, and turns deathly quiet in her presence in order to avoid upsetting her - a trait that is only earned by Keter herself otherwise, which indicates both a rgeat deal of respect and a great deal of fear on the part of Azumi. Azumi feels no hesitation to destroy the enemies of Keter, and even seems to take great pleasure in it, often cackling as she faces off against any foe - even if they were previously a friend, devouring their essence like they were any other obstacle in her way. The only enemy who is an exception to this is [PROTAG], who she is extremely hesitant to hurt, and will usually fight to knock her out rather than to kill her. She despises losing, and whenever forced to withdraw becomes full of anger, working even harder to try and gain more power in order to rectify it the next time she faces said enemy.


In a stark contrast to the weak, cutout build Paladin she was before her change in alignment, now that Azumi is a devourer, she's an extremely strong magic/might fighter with the power of Darkness and many stat-draining and even level draining abilities as well, all supported by a healthy assortment of stats and traits which make her a pain to deal with. Her abilities range from simple things like summoning wisps of darkness which float around her until she selects an enemy for them to fly at, summoning a pool of pitch black darkness which hunts after a target before binding them with shadowy tentacles, summoning a dark claw over her hand that drains HP and MP from them to give to her - and more complex abilities, such as summoning a floating, massive orb of darkness that radiates a shadowy aura that temporarily drains nearby enemies of their stats, casting a spell which explodes the corpses of nearby enemies, releasing blasts of shadowy spikes when they do so, summoning massive spiky crosses from a pit of darkness, and, of course, grabbing onto an enemy with her hand to drain their levels. Her new weapon proficiency is the Greatsword - having preferred using a sword even now rather than the Scythe or Claws also given as proficiences to the Devourer Class, and her armor preference is heavy armor and light armor at the same time - wearing an advanced custom suit made by the Sephiroth to normally function as light armor, and take the form of heavy armor when appropriate. Having reached Level 200 in her new class - mostly by draining unlucky victims - she now has access to two Limits. Her first, called Abyssal Maw, is the standard limit used by Devourers, which summons a massive pool of darkness below her, from which, after a few seconds, a massive, exoskeletal, claw-like maw emerges and chomps on those inside it, permanently giving 25% of their stats and levels to Azumi if the attack kills them. Her second limit, Abyssal tendrils, summons a similar pool to the Abyssal Maw, but instead of a maw emerging, several pitch black tentacles do - all on the edges of the pool, grabbing and lifting enemies within with extreme strength, rendering them completely vulnerable to Azumi and her allies. Her stats have been reticulously refined due to Yoru's training, and she is an extremely balanced fight with a focus on CRS and STR stats.

---

-- HIKARI NAKAMURA --

LEVEL: 410
CLASS: Luminary
PROFESSION: Highschooler/Fixer
GENDER: Female
STAR SIGN: Gemini
BLOOD TYPE: [FILL]
AGE: 18

Once considered to just be a rude bully, Hikari has made it clear - she's far worse than that. Serving as one of Keter's bodyguards and her fixer - one who "fixes" obstacles to Keter's mission, she has taken the Qlipha Sathariel has her rank on Keter's orders and continues to be as much of a complete pest when assassinating people who know too much as when she was just a bully with a tendency to steal the thunder of others. Her unrepentant dark side unveiled, she illuminates the true natures of her rudeness as genuine cruelty and her ego as complete pride, all while zipping across the battlefield quicker and deadlier than she ever was before, carrying the same disgusting attitude as always, just in service to a dark master. While she doesn't hide how she's secretly been working for Keter all along, one must wonder what would drive a simply bratty highschool girl to sign onto an insidious conspiracy that intends to shake the entire world - is it simply pure greed and ambition, or is there a hidden, deeper reason for her joining the forces of Keter and the Qliphoth? Either way, time will tell as to her true reason for joining this group - it does not change somebody who was once a nuisance is now a deadly enemy, and the outlook is grim for our heroes...

Hikari's horrible personality has only worsened with the reveal of her true allegiance, and she seems all too eager to play the role of a villain now that her cover is blown. Shje's prone ot mocking her enemies constantly in combat, as well as gloating not only about her own superiority but the inevitability of her faction's victory, Keter's invincibility, and how unprepared the world is in general for what's coming. She seems to take a dark sort of thrill from letting her cruelty loose instead of having to play the role of a simple highschool bully, and it's hard to see her without a smug look on her face and an utter absence of light in her eyes. In particular, she's fond of making fun of the failures of her enemies to stop her organization's many schemes, rubbing it in an only slightly more sophisticated way than just calling them losers would - though, of course, she's prone to doing such as well - blending her school bully antics with the darkness and cruelty of her real job and all it entails. Now that she's directly facing her former classmates as direct enemies, her arrogance is even more pronounced, believing it's impossible for her to be defeated and usually excusing any defeat she actually does suffer as nothing more than her being tricked, outplayed, or cheated against, bemoaning that such things aren't fair, even though she's perfectly willing to perform such dirty plays herself in order to win, even mocking her enemies for falling for them. She will often become dismissive whenever the hypocrisy is pointed out to her, especially by enemies, acting as though it's their fault they're so stupid as to fall for such tricks, completely unaware that such would imply she's stupid for falling for theirs. She enjoys playing the role of a villain immensely, and enjoys actually killing enemies rather than knocking them out even more than the fun she has whenever knocking them out instead, often being a little disappointed whenever Keter gives her orders to kidnap somebody rather than permanently silence them. Nonetheless, she'll do it, and usually takes the time to at least get her murder-kicks by slaughtering their guards instead - as it's very rare she's sent to kidnap somebody who doesn't have an armed security detail of some form. She is less enthused by her work as a bodyguard, owing to how she rarely if ever actually gets to fight anyone doing it, given Keter's own immense strength and power, though she of course relishes it whenever she gets a chance to do it, usually whenever Keter considers an enemy's strength being worth testing, rather than an irritant that can be destroyed and forgotten easily. She treats battle as an art form just like before, aided by the many new skills she's gotten over time, and is often annoyed whenever she faces enemies who don't battle in a similarly beautiful/graceful manner, often saying that they're not treating things seriously - ironic given that's easily something you could describe her treating battle like a dance as. No longer being restrained in the form of having to hold back her punches allows her to truly show off the deadly strength of her form of battle nonetheless, and it'd be wrong to say that she's fighting inefficiently, despite the strange attitude.

Despite her crude attitude and vicious temperament, Hikari is completely loyal to Keter, and even seems to admire her as a role model, appreciating her secret tutoring and claiming that it's the only reason she's as skilled and powerful as she is today, a surprising show of humility in addition to its showing of loyalty. This loyalty is one of the reasons she's content with her role as bodyguard, even though Keter really doesn't need it and she'd prefer to have two hostile jobs instead. She takes a sick sort of pleasure in Keter's showings of her own power, often watching in glee from the side, making sure not to interrupt in any way she can, and similarly tries to hush less loyal members whenever they question Keter - though she doesn't do this as much as Yoru does. Her loyalty is to such a great degree that when Keter is temporarily trapped by [PROTAG]'s Card Castle Null limit in the World Ender arc, Hikari fights with her life in order to wait out the Limit and prevent the primarily-magic using Keter from suffering any harm during the magic-nullifying Limit. Her relationship with her fellow bodyguards is mostly positive, seeing Yoru as a big sister figure, acting relaxed and chill around her, contrasting heavily with Yoru's completely stoic attitude and behavior, and even sharing jokes and quips with her when she can - oddly enough Yoru doesn't actually mind, which is unusual compared to her other activities as one of the Qliphoth, where she's dead serious on average. Similarly, she's developed a friendship with Azumi, despite how she used to frequently bully her back at Fujimori Academy, seemingly due to Azumi getting a darker and crueler outlook which matches Hikari's quite well, and they often attack enemies together while Yoru supports from a distance - Hikari being light, Azumi being dark, and Yoru mastering both, creating a unique sort of teamwork between the three - one that becomes even more pronounced whenever Yoru deigns to fight alongside them, unleashing a true maelstrom of light and dark all together. Her attitude as to being a part of the organization in general however is a little less spotless, as indeed she sees herself as better than almost all the other members except her fellow bodyguards and Keter herself, and acts in an insubordinate, cocky tone to other members - whether they be lowly Lilith or Malkuth-ranked members, or other high-ranked members of either the Qliphoth or the Sephiroth, and may even disobey direct orders from other superiors not named Yoru or Keter, instead going off to do her own thing as she pleases, not fearing retribution in the least due to how she knows Keter and Yoru value her more than most other members which would have authority over her - and she's not afraid to rub it in. Similarly, unless a mission is given to her by Keter or Yoru, she will not put much effort into making sure it succeeds, and may even intentionally sabotage it if the results amuse her. However, whenever given her missions by Yoru or Keter, she puts her full effort into them, making sure to satisfy their objectives to the letter and fighting as hard as she can to make sure she doesn't fail in any way, often becoming full of shame whenever she does fail, often inducing a sense of schadenfreude in her enemies whenever it comes to pass, especially our heroes.

Hikari's abilities in her earliest appearance have been described above, but by the time she is revealed to have been a part of the Qliphoth, she has gathered plenty new ones and improved her statistics even further. New abilities include splitting herself into several motes of light which will bounce in multiple directions, letting off CON-draining vertical beams in the process, before re-converging back into Hikari, teleporting rapidly by briefly transforming her body into pure light, at the cost of not being able to attack in this form and it rapidly draining MP when active, generating five massive vertical beams of light which move outwards, each creating five smaller ones (which drain CON upon hit), releasing sparkling motes of light which, upon touching the ground, transform into large vertical beams, and finally releasing an orb of light which explodes in a blinding flash, draining MP from whatever it hit. In addition to her previous weapon proficiencies, she has obtained an extra proficiency via a trait - specifically the Whip proficiency, and can fashion her blades into an energy whip to use as needed. As she has leveled past level 400, she has gained an extra Limit slot, and has filled it with the Photon Limit, which makes her move as fast as light at the cost of draining MP at an extremely high rate, essentially functioning as her stopping time.


---

-- MAYUMI "SCHWARZ" SCHWARZSCHILD --

LEVEL: 14,6807
CLASS: Grand Magus
PROFESSION: History Professor/System Researcher/Mastermind
GENDER: Female
STAR SIGN: Ophicius
BLOOD TYPE: Rh-Null
AGE: 51

The true identity of the mysterious Keter has finally been revealed, and it's none other than Mayumi "Schwarz" herself,having secretly been using her great power and assets to aid her mission of destabilizing the world for reasons initially appearing completely insane, but become increasingly likely as our heroes learn more about the nature of the world they're in in the midst of Act 2. The mastermind behind most of the story's previous villains and arcs, even if she and her followers did not appear personally, she pursues complete unrest and chaos across the world in hopes that she can awaken a strange sword named "Sin Eater" she discovered in an abandoned laboratory from sort of unnatural slumber, and has spread pieces of her soul - or more accurately a specific piece of her soul she calls the Heart into her followers in order to effectively transform them into past reincarnations of a mysterious figure - one she believes she is the last of them all, fated to finally satisfy her original self's mission to achieve enlightenment. Insane and narcissistic, this once kindly history professor exposes her true colors as a complete self-centered madwoman obsessed with fate and rebirth, seeking to plunge the world into chaotic anarchy - all while still behaving like her old, eccentric self - if mixed with her persona as the hooded Keter.

One of the most immediately striking elements of Schwarz is how little she's changed in outright personality. While it's clear that she was lying about many stances she had in her civilian life, very little of her attitude seems to have changed, and the extremely stoic and cold persona she put on as Keter seems to have mostly been to avoid incurring suspicion regarding her personality given she was a well known public figure. She is still extremely eccentric and humored individual, which blends with her now-apparent sense of sadism and cruelty far better than it should, lacing her dialogue with mocking sarcasm and jokes in extremely poor taste from time to time, and seemingly just having fun now that she no longer needs to hide what truly drives her in this world. She has a pronounced sense of sadism, where despite her misison not being to cause havoc for the sake of it alone, she nonetheless takes a cruel thrill from destroying the hopes and lives of others, like icing on the cake in her own words - technically the cake doesn't need to have it, but it just adds to how sweet and fulfilling it all is. She doesn't seem to like pain though - not exactly - and instead prefers things like despair, shock, betrayal, confusion and horror instead, considering torture to be better left in the hands of her capable followers instead. She is quite mocking and dismissive of her enemies, especially those who knew her personally before the reveal and those who had faced her in her pure Keter persona - thus, our heroes end up counting in both regards. In particular, she likes to still play the role of an eccentric but friendly professor from a nearby university to them, even after she has turned Tokyo into a canyon of raised earth and ruined buildings. She seems to take a special delight in the feelings of confusion and doubt her reveal prompts, even offering another "three questions" like her Keter self angled around exactly that - though they're more rhetorical in delivery and just another way to get under her enemies' skin - "Who do you think you can trust, What secrets fo you think the people close you are keeping, and if you knew someone close to you was going to betray you, what would you do?" She has an immense ego in comparison to the humility she tried to portray as a civilian, and even regularly engages in theatrics and displays of power simply for the sake of it, despite acting as though she wasn't interested in them before, and in general she seems to immensely enjoy playing the role of a villain, saying it's something every legend needs, and she's more than happy to provide. She relishes the level of power she has over other people, and one can easily see her having bodyguards as just her way of testing to see if certain enemies are worth her time. She is thrilled when displaying her great power, and even muses that even if her heart-hopping plan was the main reason she chose to pursue the path of a mage, she more than enjoys decimating vast swathes of land with a flick of her wrist, throwing buildings at her enemies, and creating a range of cliffs and mesas from effectively nothing. Despite how she likes lording her power over weaker enemies, she also seems to enjoy facing enemies actually able to challenge her, as she very much enjoys doing battle with the Tokyo Hero and the ensuing fight between her drained self, her minions, and the heroes. Despite this, she doesn't seem to like the possibility of actually losing, often attempting to belt out completely unfair abilities whenever she feels like she's at a genuine risk of danger.

Despite her dropping many of her stances and beliefs from her time as civilian, not all of them have been completely betrayed or revealed to have been mere fabrications. In particular, she still believes that the System is an overall benefit to the world and it was what allowed her to become as powerful and capable as she is now, even if her discovery of a strange laboratory even before the introduction of the System is what lead her to truly set on her path. She believes that the System encourages people to advance and that it destroys many of the artificial barriers people foisted on each other by allowing any person to become truly powerful if they worked hard enough for it, rather than the false sort of success that can only be obtained via swindling others that the world before the System had in spades, though, of course, she also admires the System for deeply unsettling and less moral reasons as well, such as it creating a system that is competitive and brutal by default, where those who have worked the hardest and are the most intelligent have power that cannot be compared to the lowest of the low, creating a world where might makes right, which she herself is happy to encourage with her desire to shift the world into chaos, even if it is mostly to awaken the Sin Eater. This is of course all colored by her narcissism as well however, she is one of the most powerful, smartest, and hardest working people in the world, and the third most powerful individual in general, and most powerful mage period, so of course she values the System for allowing her to achieve the level of power she ended up having. The true, ugly nature of her appreciation for the system further shows itself as she reveals her beliefs espoused by Keter were not illusions or lies, and she indeed believes the meaning of life is to better one's station and achieve enlightenment at all costs - essentially a philosophy worshiping the unrestrained ego's endless ambition, and her own desire to achieve her goals regardless of the suffering or resistance of others to her objective. She looks down on those who do not share this view of life just as she did when hidden by her hood, seeing them as portraits of ignorance and stupidity, content with their life due to being worms that cannot leave the earth, and thus do not regard the sky from which birds will snatch them and feed them to their children. She believes that because the System makes it so that one can endlessly gather power to achieve their dreams, resigning to mediocrity is not just foolishness, it is unjustifiable, and exposes a weak character. She does show some respect for th abitious like her, but her own narcissism makes it so this is done in a condescending way, seeing them as a step closer to perfection, but forever unable to reach it, due to not being her. Even her interactions with people like Yoru, who she likes - to a degree, show this, seeing the way to reward their loyalty or hard-working nature to be infecting their Hearts with the dark Hearts of her 14 past incarnations, making them literal extensions of herself rather than valuing or accepting them as actual individuals with their own merits and strengths. Her interest in topics like the Kabbalah and other ancient mystic traditions are self-serving as well, as she freely interprets whatever she wants from them, remaking them in her own image, rather than actually following their tenets and concepts herself - best shown by her treating the Qliphoth as an equal to the Sephiroth rather than a dark, imperfect shadow.

The root of perhaps all her insanity and malevolence spurs from her discovery many years ago of an abandoned laboratory which seemed impossible for other people to notice, despite being right in the middle of an archaeological dig she was visiting. The sprawling abandoned laboratory seemed to ages old, and no matter when she tired to tell others of its existence, they seemed to be unable to even recognize what she was saying. Inside she discovered an ancient, strange sword and some sort of record which she describes has having spoke to her like she did it herself, she became convinced, due to her being the only one able to acknowledge the laboratory's existence and thus enter it, that she was tied to this person in some way. While she does not elaborate on what these things were she discovered, she kept them in mind many years, and ever since she read them, she started having strange dreams of living lives separate from her own, and thus, in time, she began to believe these lives were her own past lives, despite having been an atheist beforehand. Due to her inability to talk to anyone about this for years, it effectively became something she buried, only thinking of it rarely in the back of her mind, and instead focusing on continuing her life in the present. However, once the System came into being, she quickly obtained the resources and means to research her potential past, using an esoteric Personal Skill she developed called Deep Dreaming, which allows her to see strange visions akin to the Inspiration skill afforded to Inventors or the Prophecy skill afforded to Soothsayers. These visions were effectively strange, dream-like images of her past lives, 14 of them in precise, but not of the original life she was sure was the origin of all this. However, the first of the 15 lives she lead came to understand her origin in the same fashion she did, and the visions of her life of the past 14 were the most useful to her, giving her vague pieces of knowledge she would come to use in pursuit of greater knowledge - knowledge of the nature of the living soul. She had come to conclude that the soul or spirit was made up of seven distinct pieces which gathered to create a greater whole - the core, which was the soul's connection with the world around them, and was informed by the Will, Fear, Desire, and Love, which in turn embodied a person's drive, limitations, desires and relationships with other people respectively, and these were informed by the most central, vital aspect of the soul - the Heart - the seat of a person's consciousness and identity, which, due to informing the four pieces, informed the core, and was thus the most vital part of the soul - the true spirit. She came to believe that she was the Heart of the original person who maintained that lab, and she and her past reincarnations were born to new pieces and new cores, as part of some long forgone gambit by the original being. She began obsessive research into the soul and the Heart that ruled the soul, and soon came to master knowledge of a power that seemed entirely separate from the System that had come to rule the earth. However, with this mastery, she came to realize that her heart alone - being a mere fragment of the original individual's soul - would not be enough to satisfy the weapon she found in that ancient laboratory, and that not only would she need the strength of her 14 past selves, but she would need to gather a force she called Curses - based off those ancient writings - negative emotions and emotions that would incite negative emotions in others, a force of impurity or "evil" - and thus, began to craft her organization, which not only served to help aid her harvest of Curses from the world, but would be filled with vessels for her to spread the Hearts of her past selves to in order to prepare for the ultimate ascension. In the years since, she has continued onwards to this end, but she soon realized something strange about the world she lived in, something which could bring her greater power...

As you most likely know by now, Schwarz was a professor of history at the University near Fujimori Academy, and thus was quite learned of the history of our planet earth, and as she was already questioning her reality early into the System's introduction into the world, she realized that many things about the world of today did not match the countless records of history she had come to know almost as well as the back of her own hand - colorful hair and eyes that were never before seen, extremely exaggerated personalities not only among commoners, but also among the rulers of certain nations, almost as though they were parodies of themselves, unrealistically massive followings for certain musicians, and even just the way the world reacted to the System itself - people adjusted to it extremely quickly when record books showed massive panics over much less potentially disastrous events. The people of america were overwhelmingly blonde on average despite the majority of recorded american historical figures not being this way, and the entire world felt unreal - like it was a parody of itself. Schwarz came to believe her world was a piece of fiction - or, more specifically, something created in imitation of a piece of fiction, working off the fictional roles and limitations of what it originally was. She believed that the System was not part of this imitation however, as its powers sent the world into an aimless tailspin rather than a structured narrative, but she also believed that the narrative there once was had power due to it being the "intended shape" of the world as it is, and thus those tied to the original narrative were more likely to have greater potential than those who had almost no ties to the narrative itself. However, due to the chaos that was wreaked upon the world, it was almost impossible for her to judge who was tied to the narrative and who was not, leaving her efforts to find the root of the story line - the protagonist - troublesome, as she could only rely on guesswork instead of knowing the truth. This thus leaves her ambiguous plans regarding the narrative of the story unfinished, for the time being... Her knowledge of the Heart and Curses leads her to often prod at her enemies deliberately, beckoning them into deeper anger or hate against her, so that more Curses fester in her heart, thus leaving them susceptible to her soul-manipulating abilities, and, with the exception of Yoru, who welcomed it completely, she relies on the anxieties and insecurities of her followers to infect their Hearts with her past iterations, the darkness in them born of these worries accelerating the rate at which their Heart becomes a copy of one of her past selves'. She is supremely arrogant and confident in her success in the long run, being a firm believer in fate, which shows in how she believes that fate and causality itself arranged for her life and victory, and that the heroes have no hopes of stopping her enlightenment, as the universe is on her side. Because of this, she often becomes more alarmed or enraged whenever she seems to actually be losing, but once she has escaped, she will always see it as a mere temporary setback on her path towards apotheosis, and that her destiny has not changed in the least.

As expected of the strongest mage in the world and the third most powerful person on the planet earth in general, Schwarz is an absolute monster in the field of battle due to a combination of high level abilities, smart choice of traits, and a variety of personal skills and traits. She has such an insanely high MP stat that she can use spells almost endlessly, even if they are extremely high level, and always carries layers upon layers worth of shields and other magical defenses that make it so despite wearing hardly any armor at all, she's more durable than most of the heaviest-armored individuals on the entire planet. The Grand Magus has no weapon proficiencies because it has no need of them, though she does have multiple spells that can summon bound weapons to fight enemies with... though she tends not to use them for their traditional use, instead summoning dozens of them and launching them at her enemies like projectiles. Her abilities are extremely varied, and many of them can be seen in her Schwarz and Keter individual profiles. Others include, again, summoning swarms of swords to launch at her enemies, releasing waves of shadowy, purple flames, rapidly freezing the area around her, summoning wall-like shields that hang in place at minimal MP over time costs, summoning swarms of dark and light orbs which crash into each other, creating white holes in the air that periodically release white flames which hunt after enemies and slowly erase matter they're "burning", reflecting attacks back at their users at 2X strength, and many more. In the realm of limits, she technically only has six, one for each element, and a mysterious seventh, but a personal trait allows her to use LP to supercharge any one of her spells into the same realm of power as a Limit, being used at multiple points to summon true monsoons of swords, release a light laser beam that would make DBZ blush, and even both telekinetically take shards from the broken move above the Tokyo skyline, but open portals to launch them at the ground as meteors without risking destroying the entire planet. Her six known limits are as follows: Ultimate Flare, an attack which releases a truly massive beam of roaring, unearthly hot (but not radiating) flames which can incinerate even the sturdiest of enemies - though it does have a significant charge up time. Ultimate Blizzard, which instantly summons a massive cloudy blizzard that sharply lowers temperatures and hails boulder-like balls of ice and massive, lance-like shards of ice. Ultimate Zephyr, which summons multiple massive, twisting cyclones under her control, picking up even the heaviest of objects and spinning them around inside the gust - but without ever setting them free, essentially making them massive barrage weapons under her control and direction. Ultimate Earthshaker, which functions less like an earthquake and more like a terraforming method, allowing her to create a massive, canyon-like cliff range from the ground below her, which she uses on Tokyo itself to make it more difficult for her enemies to try and traverse as she battles the Tokyo Hero. Ultimate Cure, which heals her fully no matter how badly damaged she is - though this takes the most LP of all her Limits, she can still use it multiple times before running out. And finally, Ultimate Abyss, which summons a swirling abyss of darkness from the deepest point of surface-level earth below her and coats it in a thick, sprawling abyss of darkness, from which demons emerge to attack her enemies and shimmering orbs of shadowy purple energy periodically rise and independently home in on targets they recognize as enemies. Her seventh and final limit is a mystery.

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-- YORU KOUMOTO --

LEVEL: 978
CLASS: Twilight Knight
PROFESSION: University Student/Apprentice
GENDER: Female
STAR SIGN: Aries
BLOOD TYPE: [FILL]
AGE: 22

It turns out that the esteemed and gorgeous star student of the local university was hiding many more secrets than just her parentage, and is a member of the insidious cabal lead by the individual known only as Keter. Her stoic gaze no longer shows a calm and collected mind, but rather an emotionless gaze that betrays how little she cares about the lives of others, and her willingness to serve an individual like Keter without any remorse. Her experience and skill hasn't changed any since she last appeared, and thus she has become a considerably powerful enemy to our heroes, wielding both light and darkness for her and her master's ill ends. Marked with the rank of Thaumiel, she is the head of the Qliphoth and thus the individual with the second most power in the entire organization, only succeeded by her master and teacher, Keter herself. Serving as her personal apprentice and one of her body guards, wherever Keter goes, she follows, commanding the forces of the Qliphoth and wearing a shadowy disguise akin to her master. Of course, if the person she is so loyal to and devoted to pleasing is Keter, that would mean her beloved Professor is...!

Yoru maintains her effortless composure and stoic atmosphere even on the side of the abyss it would seem, and in many ways she doesn't seem to be any different from her ordinary self, only harsher and more direct as a result of being in league with such evil - eagerly and willingly. Her cold gaze now carries a decidedly more chilling aspect now that her true allegiance has been revealed, as does her choice of learning the power of both light and dark - which compliments her two fellow bodyguards exceptionally well, and suits her title, Thaumiel, the Qlipha associated with clashing, dueling forces - pure discord. She has a decidedly harsh attitude that oozes professionalism and seriousness in comparison to both her fellows, and even her darkest dialogue is conveyed through a stoic contralto, completely apathetic to the suffering of others, as though she were an emotionless shell - even though that's clearly not the case, given her reverence of her teacher and master. She completely lacks any sort of moral compass, and will do all sorts of horrible things - including killing innocent witnesses - without any hint of hesitation or remorse, as she is so completely devoted to her loyalty and apprenticeship the lives of others do not matter to her. She does not feel the need to justify herself at all - not even over the fact that her operations as a terrorist and member of the organization completely contradicts her civilian persona's respect for society and authority figures, claiming that those statements were true at one point, three years ago, but her true loyalty ever since has completely been towards Schwarz - or should we say, Keter, and that her drive to learn from Schwarz and serve her ambitions outweighs any respect or loyalty she has to anyone else in this world, even the prime minister, her other teachers, the Tokyo Hero, or even her very own parents. She perpetually maintains her calm and cool attitude even in the midst of battle, and retains her belief that those who do not learn how to properly use their Class are fools who have squandered the gift the System gave them, and is all too happy to demonstrate this by destroying them with ease. Likewise, she still is exceptionally cultured and intelligent, and her turn to villainy allows her to highlight this by making metaphors regarding historical and mythological events, quoting figures demonized in their time such as Galileo and even Christ, and referring to advanced spiritual concepts from Gnostic, Kabbalah, and Hermetic texts. In general, she is prone to sweeping dialogues and monologues of a decidedly more understated and almost philosophical sort compared to her master's sadistic glee and smug confidence - though, depending on the mood, Schwarz can outpace her in this regard and then some. She is prone to philosophical musings on history and humanity's relations with the concept of both light and darkness - ranging from societies which demonized and feared the dark such as the Zoroastrians, those who saw it as just as divine as light such as the Jews, and those who simply saw it as a neutral force, same as light, such as the Hellenists. Her own opinion seems to be that they are perpetually in conflict, but this conflict, as Hegel said, creates a new, greater force - a synthesis of the strengths of both sides.

Yoru treats her job very seriously, and as such has an atmosphere of authority not only among the Qliphoth in general, but also her two fellow body guards - whereas either Azumi or Hikari may show relaxed or unprofessional elements in their behavior, Yoru is always serious, and will often remind her fellow bodyguards to focus on the task at hand and get serious about whatever it is that they're doing - this is especially prominent in her interactions with Hikari, due to Hikari being Hikari. Her loyalty towards Schwarz was never an act - and, in fact, it seems even more pronounced now that the truth about her and Yoru has been revealed, devoting her life to Schwarz and even willingly letting her Heart be parasitized by a piece of Schwarz out of loyalty alone, rather than having a personal reason to allow such a thing like most of the Serphiroth and Qliphoth. It is clear that she'd even be willing to die in service of her master, even slashing her own neck in a flashback when ordered to by Schwarz, with Schwarz healing it completely to reward her for her loyalty. Because of this, she has a deep hatred for traitors and the insubordinate, and will often instantly kill any Liliths who attempt to desert or betray their post, seeing traitors and deserters as the worst of all beings. She does not seem to have a truly warm relationship with anyone in the organization other than Schwarz, but traitors exacerbate this completely, and indeed bemoans a certain member after she betrays the organization to protect someone they care about as a useless puppet that can't even do the one thing they were good at. Her antipathy towards traitors is perhaps only matched by her antipathy to those she considers useless or weighing down the organization, and her response to repeated failures by Liliths is often summary execution, and, if allowed it by Schwarz, will pass similar judgment on higher-ranked Qliphoth without any hesitation. Not even her hatred for the enemies of the organization is matched by her hatred for traitors and dead weights, though it is still fearsome in its fury. She is not completely unfair to her enemies however, and always offers them a chance to step down and join the forces of Schwarz, genuinely saying that she will forgive all actions against her master should they pledge to serve her instead of oppose her. However, this is often met with refusal, which she of course anticipates, often mentioning that the unenlightened have no place in the organization anyway. Despite the cold, emotionless front she likes to put up, she shows a great enthusiasm towards destroying the enemies of Schwarz - albeit, a somewhat understated one. Her tone does not change nor does even her overall appearance, but she nonetheless displays emotions such as satisfaction and a cruel sort of pity mixed with catharsis whenever destroying her enemies, and may even chuckle or laugh to a subdued to degree in the middle of her onslaught against her enemies. Similarly, she's extremely proud of her skills, position, and her service of her master, putting another crack in the already frayed image of stoicism she tries to display, and instead exposing her darkness underneath it all. She is only truly angered whenever somebody rightfully questions this image or points out all the cracks, and will often respond with extreme prejudice in the ensuing onslaught she will unleash upon them.

Overall, when it comes to capabilities, armor/weapon proficiencies and statistics, one can look at her civilian self's profile, though in the level-ups she'd had since, she has obtained a few new abilities - and has revealed her actual fourth limit, one that was assumed to be Keter's - having only lied about not having filled her fourth limit slot. New abilities include summoning summoning a small, sun-like orb which will fly at an enemy and enter them, rendering them unconscious and creating a shadowy clone of them that will use their most basic abilities to attack their allies, releasing beams of light which summon jagged ridges of darkness wherever they strike, summoning a halo of fifteen bright orbs behind her head that rapidly absorb nearby light, growing in their own intensity while leaving the area around Yoru in darkness, and summoning two large orbs - one of darkness and one of light - which crash into each other and create a large, white hole in the space where they collided, sucking enemies towards it and thus allowing her to rapidly strike them while they have difficulty retaliating. Her secret fourth limit is called Roots of the World and will teleport her and any chosen individuals nearby to a shadowy dimension called Qliphoth, taking the form of a strange, dark cityscape of endless night, with a masssive white moon taking up the majority of the sky above - 9 prominent towers rising out of the surrounding environment, and a strange, twisted nettle of roots at the center. This functions as the headquarters for the Qliphoth, and she can use it either to trap enemies inside a battlefield on her and her master's terms, or travel vast distances using how the reality is outside traditional space.