KREUZNACHTEN "KREUZ" ASURAN:

One of the two No. 9 ranked Crossbones alongside Malie, given a single rank due to their complimenting Void Eyes, homeworlds, and history in the Calling and in their original stories. In the case of Kreuz, she has the role of a fighter and assassin. Hailing from the From A Depressing Ordinary Life to the Champion! War against the 8 Demon Princes isekai light novel, manga, anime, and multitude of ridiculous spinoffs for such an innately banal story, the same world as Akira, one of the protagonists. Kreuz is one of the 8 Demon Princes, the children of Demon King Tarz, the ruler of all demons (though the term is used basically for what most other stories would call "monsters" instead), and the main enemies of the story alongside her father. The third youngest of the Demon Princes and one of the only two female princes, Kreuz was born into the same luxury as the rest of her father's children, and was, like the rest, given a specific Demon Tribe to rule over - in her case, it was the Alraune Tribe, a tribe of Demons with plant-based natures and appearances, ranging from vicious, man-eating plants, walking trees, rose-like maidens, and strange cacti men - a whole weird array. However, unlike the majority of her siblings, Kreuz had ambition beyond simply serving her father's will as one of the Demon Princes and hoping to one day succeed him in the distant future - indeed, she was rather power hungry, and instead desired to arrange a secret coup where her agents would gather the means that would allow her to kill her father and any resisting siblings, then take the throne by force - however, this would be quite troublesome, as she was actually the single lowest-ranking of the Princes, and thus had the least territories, least minions, and comparatively to the others, least power. Nonetheless, she still had a deep desire to achieve her goal, and regularly attempted to find the means to do so, often coming into conflict with Akira and his party - being easily their most reoccuring enemy among the Demon Princes, and most likely the first Akira would defeated - had a strange invitation not fallen from the heavens, intent to change fate - inviting her to some festival where she'd finally find the power necessary to take what she truly wants...

Kreuz's personality could only be described as "classically villainous," that being, you can look at her in almost any of her scenes and say "yep, that's a villain." She is extremely egotistical and proud of herself, believing herself to be the most beautiful of her siblings and even the Crossbones (Akane excepted), which isn't helped any by how Malie clearly believes that to be the case herself, and in particular is extremely proud of her style of fighting using her rose-themed magic and transforming weapon, claiming it's by far the most beautiful and elegant of all the Crossbones' weapons, which, to be fair, she might have a point regarding. As well, her ego extends to her own capabilities and personality traits, believing herself to have the most refined tastes of any of the Crossbones and thinking herself to be the most cunning of the non-Akane crossbones, and thus is quite jealous of Cross due to her status as Akane's second in command and the usual battlefield commander - and thus Kreuz's direct superior, something which annoys her greatly. She believes she is a masterful planner and attack commander, but this is not normally the case at all, and indeed - back in her homeworld she often failed miserably to command her troops to do anything serious at all, and at one point her forces lost to, of all things, a single village trained and armed up by Akira. It is for this reason that Akane limits her role to assassin and fighter - as she is genuinely quite skilled at both, despite her loud personality (this mostly owes to how in her very first appearance in the source, she was shown to skillfully assassinate a nobleman in dead silence, despite how much that conflicts with her later loud attitude). Nonetheless, despite all these flaws, Malie's hero worship means Kreuz continues to believe her own hype at almost all times, making an overall quite odd character. All this is of course not aided by how much she enjoys monologuing, and she is by far the single most monologue-prone Crossbone, surpassing even her master Akane in this way, and her monologues can range from more vain and somewhat humorous ones about how great she is, to more grave and actually somewhat frightening traditionally villainous threats and taunts towards her enemies. Either way, it certainly helps that she has a personal hype woman in Malie whenever she does start monologuing.

Kreuz is characterized not only by her immense vanity, but also her near-limitless ambition, which, while she's not become loyal to Akane for the most part (mostly due to recognizing the sheer divide in strength, as well as how loyal the other Crossbones are to her), is still a vital part of her personality, and she regularly uses small amounts of the Crossbone resources in search of various useful artifacts, secrets, and power sources which could improve her lot just like these searches did back in her original world, albeit now she's forced to share, which she's not completely enthused about due to her own vanity. Despite this ugly assortment of vain and selfish personality traits however, she does value the other Crossbones - seeing Akane as a strong and willful leader, and especially caring for Malie ever since their fateful encounter with Ermes that lead to them teaming up and eventually both joining the Crossbones. She cares for Malie deeply and wants to protect her from harm, and believes that Malie has truly found her calling by abandoning the side of good to join her and the Crossbones, and is happily acting as Malie's combat magic instructor, and often fumes with envy whenever Cross is assigned to help teach Malie more conceptual, non-combat magic types from other worlds. She believes Malie and her make the best team, and her personality becomes even more enthusiastic and confident whenever she and Malie are fighting enemies together. Despite all this, she is not interested in reciprocating Malie's crush due to their age difference. Her opinions on her family from her home world are far more sordid, and she sees them merely as obstacles, especially now that she's part of the Crossbones and doesn't feel the need to play nice with them anymore, and has a particular distaste for her father, whom she believes was intentionally holding her back from her true greatness most of her life, and often complains about it to the other Crossbones when she can. Other than that, she has a dislike for her little sister Nalma and her older brother Ostistan, disliking the former for how much more adored by her father she was, and disliking the latter due to his completely loyal attitude and suspicion towards Kreuz back in their homeworld. She has a deep hatred for Akira due to how often he ruined her plans back in their homeworld, and hopes that Akane or Harvest or whoever inflict some horrible fate on him - or, even better, she kills him herself. She takes a sort of sick delight in the fact she lead Malie away from his side and into the darkness, even if arguably Akane and Ermes had more of an impact on that course of events.

Kreuz's nature is that of a powerful Demon Prince, and thus she is far more swift, agile, strong, and durable compared to most humans, even enhanced humans from less realistic worlds, and is generally the third strongest of all the Crossbones physically - after Akane at the top and Absynth at the middle, with additional boons such as resistance to evil magic and a passive healing factor. Her magic is surprisingly graceful and elegant for such a cruel and vain figure, and has a prominent focus on rose petals flowing as she attacks, waves of light and strong wind, complimenting her already deadly abilities. In addition, she has the power to summon feminine, rose-like creatures to aid her in combat, though she only does this whenever she feels it's absolutely necessary. Her weapon takes the form of a strange, rose-like growth that coils around her left arm, and can transform into either a Scythe, a rapier, or a lance as she pleases, which she rapidly cycles between with exceptional grace. These weapons are quite dangerous in form and the rapier in particular carries a deadly poison that unless purged using magic, will slowly paralyze and kill the one struck with it. Her Void Eye is imbued with the power of Esteem and allows her to draw power from adoration directed towards her by Malie, the wielder of the Void Eye of Dualism. Her and Malie's named rank among the Crossbones are the Thorns and their shared symbol takes the form of a rose with a curling, thorn covered stem and petals that, when together, look reminiscent of a drooping, creepy skull.

Kreuz's body is of average height and has extremely pale skin, bordering on pure white in coloration, although there is a slight, pinkish complexion in certain places here and there. Her hair is a rosy pink in coloration, and a set of 9 bright red horns vaguely reminiscent of a rose's thorn in a 'crown" arrangement around her head can be seen. Her remaining non-void eye is a rich red color and both her eyes have dark reddish pink eyeliner and extremely prominent, pointy eyelashes, as well as triangular red markings underneath her eyes, while her lips are covered in red-pink lipstick, and her teeth are sharp and white. Her fingernails are red and claw-like. Her outfit primarily consists of hooded robe which covers her torso, but opens around the legs into a long tail, making it somewhat of a mixture of a robe and a coat. The robe is primarily black in coloration and has a leathery texture, and has a prominent, bright burgundy cross below the neck leading to the waist, as well as similar crosses on her shoulders, while there are six very dark burgundy crosses on the tail of the robe, with bright burgundy thorny rose designs running up the center of these crosses. The sleeves of the robe open at the middle, exposing burgundy lower sleeves which are made of several layers, which unwrap around the hands creating cuffs with a similar appearance to a rose's bloom and petals. On her hands she wears black fingerless gloves, and her weapon is wrapped around her left arm, giving it an extra ominous look. She doesn't wear a belt at her waist, but there is a burgundy thorn pattern around the waist underneath the robe that carries a similar vibe, and she wears black with similar thorn patterns along the sides, and simple black boots with skull-like tops. Her weapon in its normal state appears as a nettle of black rose vines covered in red thorns and burgundy rose blooms, and can transform into various similar-looking weapons with rich burgundy-pink blades.

Her invitation read: "Hail, Prince Kreuznachten Asuran, wisest of the Demon King's Children! We hereby invite you to the Calling, the festival which crosses all worlds. Should you partake of our offer, you shall find fools a plenty to crush under your bootheel, ample opportunities for revenge on those who have slighted you, new minions to command, and most importantly, powers and secrets which may finally deliver you to your deepest desire... Sign your name below, and the door shall open for you."