--- QLIPHOTH ---

-- 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.

-- 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.