CROSS:

The No. 7 ranked Crossbone and the overall second in command of the entire organization - alongside Harvest, of course, as well as its most prominent battlefield commander when Akane isn't present, and its recruiter as well. A demon from the Midnight Wind manga series, a dark fantasy story with a surprisingly intricate and in depth universe for a manga, with a variety of threats ranging from vampires, to demons, to mad alchemists, insane cults, werebeasts and more, all inside one shadowy world where the forces of light must combat them in any way they can. Born Nelri Klosse, a little urchin girl in the depths of Nerus city - the capitol of the Nerian Empire, the setting's ancient equivalent of the Roman Empire of our world, near the end of its glory - rife with decadence, religious strife, economic issues, roving bands of barbarians and monsters outside civilized society, and one mad, petty emperor who seemed to see the entire society as nothing but his own playthings. Klosse was an urchin girl, quickly turned orphan girl, who had no way to truly make an impact or leave her position of squalor in any real meaningful way, and instead had to swindle people out of their own money in various ways - rigged card games, hokey fake divinations, cup games with a magnetic die, and even good old pickpocketing through slight of hand. Cunning and swift, she always disappeared before anyone could realize they were being swindled by her, and she soon started to earn a reputation as a famous fortune teller and gamerunner in the slums, streets, and shadows of the great city, to the point even people outside her fellow poor folk started to know the name Klosse - and her handy Tarot deck. As she grew, she continued to draw more and more acclaim, but her dislike for the city around her - which cared not about her as a person, but merely her countless tricks, grew, and she began looking itno alternative ways to rise up in the world... in the books of occultism.

Once she was an adult she has learned many secrets of the art of Diabolism, the magic of the infernal powers and those who have paid the toll of blood to shed their humanity and become beings known as Demons, and... she wanted in. Just as it so happened, the emperor himself, in all his debauchery, had come to learn of Klosse and her many tricks and secrets, and so invited her to a massive banquet he and his fellow noble folk were to have, where she'd be invited to perform a game for them. She knew this was a trap - that as soon as they were bored of her, they'd "toss her away" like they did so many other performers, but she herself had a plan of her own... And so, when the banquet came, at the final act she unleashed her plan - a mass poisoning, hidden in the stylish, dissolving coins she had fashioned to give to the nobles in their wine, and they all came to drop like flies around her, their deaths paying the necessary blood toll - ending with the emperor himself - allowing her to ascend past humanity and become a Demon - specifically a Contract Demon, who specialize in more funky and reality-altering magical abilities at the cost of lacking somewhat for combat power. While her final act sealed the fall of the empire to invading monsters and barbarians in the coming years, she cared not, as she had already ascended past her humanity into immortality and power, and so took to her favorite passtime - tricks and games, going from city to city and suckering in the arrogant and foolish, offering her eternal servitude if they could beat her at a game, and various ironic fates if they failed to beat her - and every time she won, for centuries and centuries, up until the modern day of the story, where she had found herself bored by the predictability of the fools of her world - arrogant crime lords, kings who think themselves beyond all compare, vampire lords convinced they had obtained power, alchemists seeking to ascend to godhood, nobles with too much free time and more, and longed for new experiences - new challenges - new fools to dupe and ruin, and thus, when the invitation soon came to her, she had no choice but to except such a gracious opening into the Calling...

Cross' personality is, in every aspect, extremely smug and confident. This is not without reason, as she went for centuries without ever being defeated in any of her games, albeit mostly via her skill cheating and tricking others - both before and after she became a Demon, but that's a skill of its own, and one she is exceptionally well versed in, being easily one of the most cunning Demons in her setting, and by far one of the most influential due to how she set off the domino-like collapse that would eventually completely ruin the Nerian Empire - only survived by the Valetians in the south. She sees every single one of her encounters with enemies as nothing more than a game - a game she's sure she'll win, too, meaning that even in the most life-or-death situations, she always has an air that she's not completely treating the ongoing events seriously, and instead treats everything like just another distraction or time-waster for her to enjoy. She enjoys winning, but she enjoys being defeated even more, owing to how long it's been since she's tasted anything even close to actual defeat - and it's for this reason she doesn't mind being bound to Akane after Akane beat her in one of her classic "you win, I'm your slave, I win, I inflict some terrible fate on you" type games, especially as it gives her more options to give her enemies if they win against her, something that excites and intrigues her to the extreme. She loves both actual games - especially Tarocchi, her most famous game when she was a human - but also more abstract things which she considers "games," such as riddle competitions and fortune telling. What's more, after becoming a Contract Demon and gaining access to great, reality-altering power, she has a fondness for more out of this world games where the rules and environments are made up on the fly as she crafts illusions into reality and plunges her poor targets into the depths of their darkest dream. She is extremely well versed on the meaning of the various Tarot cards, both major and minor arcana, but is also well aware of their origin as just cards to be used in a game - which she doesn't believe strips them of their meaning or role at all. She is extremely impressed whenever her opponents manage to not only outwit her, but either cheat against her or outright deceive her, and her already glowing praise will become even more pronounced and excited whenever such a thing comes to pass. Despite her own talent for cheating and deceit, she is completely fair when it comes to rewards for her


Despite all this jollity and affability however, Cross isn't a perfectly nice individual - no, far from it - in fact she's rather cruel and mean-spirited in just as many ways as she is fun and jovial. She holds an extremely dim view of other people, seeing most people as extremely boring, predictable, and enslaved to their circumstances and vices, and isn't afraid to make that clear - often saying it's why they always lose to her - indeed, she even viciously mocked and demeaned Akane, even after learning of her history, when they first met, only coming to respect and appreciate her once Akane showed her cunning, beating her at her own game, and her surprising care and respect for her servants - not something you'd usually expect from an angry demon lord. She believes that in general, humans and beings like humans are doomed to fail and meet unhappy endings eventually because the nature of a human drives them towards self destructive behavior out of petty things like pride, though she's slowly been losing this mindset the longer she's been in the Calling and has met people who far exceed her expectations. She takes a special pleasure in punishing those she has defeated, often choosing a fate for them she specifically believes highlights their own flaws and poor attributes, with no intent to revert it - unless somebody else challenges her to do exactly that. Her pessimism and cruelty isn't limited to humans, and even inside her own world she was prone to seeking out and toying with other Demons, Vampires, alchemists and more on the daily, treating them like any other fool that she could dupe. It was because of this that she had a poor reputation even among other creatures of the Night, but this mattered little as her power was always known across the world, and those who sought power would always believe they'd be the one lucky person to know how to beat her and earn her servitude, sealing her fate. However, as she's begun losing battles more and more ever since she entered the Calling, she has begun to wonder if the only reason that she did so well in her world was because she was specifically written to always be the victor in any circumstance, which she herself considers rather lazy.

When it comes to interactions with other contestants of the Calling, she perhaps has the single most varied responses - largely because of how often she shows up in comparison to the other Crossbones, but also just because she's filled with such personality in general. In particular, she shows a great respect towards Akane, but is also prone to teasing and messing with her when she can, knowing that Akane would not risk trying to kill somebody she worked so hard to get on her side, and she has a pronounced, semi-friendly rivalry with Harvest, who she enjoys teasing and mocking due to her stuck up personality and distaste for explanation-less magic - which is exactly Cross' specialty. In general, Cross almost always seems to come out on top of their feuds, simply due to being the more cunning and less easily offended or bothered by remarks and cutting jabs. She likes Roa and considers her the purest Crossbone, and often finds herself playing games with Roa just to entertain the "young" Vampire - though it's worth noting that Cross is the only Crosbsone that is legitimately Roa's senior when it comes to age, and she doesn't have a poor opinion of Zero either, though she does like to scare Zero just for fun now and then. However, when it comes to the other major Crossbones such as Absynth, BP, Kreuz, and Malie, she mostly takes the role of a serious boss who helps them, especially on the job, and whenever she doesn't, she's instead a teasing, quizzical overseer whot hey can't really wrap their heads around whether she likes them or dislikes them - though, of course, she's fond of messing with each and every one of the Crossbones no matter what, as it's simply her personality. When it comes to those outside the Crossbones, she considers Magia showing exceptional promise as a wielder of magic and a master of games, and is even proud to say that Magia is the first person since Akane to beat her in the Calling, accepting the prompt ass-kicking she got from the young witch the moment her game was ended. She has a somewhat frienemy-like relationship with the other Protagonists and House of Glass, though in truth she has a dim view of most of them, especially Akira and Jade. However, unlike almost every other Crossbone, even BP, she has a great interest in Amber, considering her perhaps the most fascinating person she's met in the Calling as of yet - even if she initially saw the girl as nothing but another foolish human - this change in attitude coming to how Amber managed to quickly figure out how exactly she was cheating and warn Magia against it in their battle at the village, and ever since then Cross has shown exceptional interest in Amber's activities and her future among the contestants of the Calling.

Cross' powers are extremely unique and otherworldly, and oftentimes it seems she has no limit as to what she can do with her abilities outside what she personally wants to do at a given time and what she believes is fair. Most of her attacks are via warping reality in various ways, and every time she wants to play a game with an individual, she draws them into her endless Tarot Deck, leading to a strange, illusionary world where she is in complete control - being capable of summoning deadly spinning tops, chessboard soldiers, crushing checkers, massive rolling dice, and more, and even outside this reality she is capable of summoning massive cards which she can use to create barriers, attack enemies, float through the air, and more. In addition, she has great mastery of polymorphic magic, and is especially prone to changing people into cards during battle, though this is always temporary - whether it's innately that way or she limits the time to play fair is somewhat unclear, though she only ever permanently transforms people into objects if they lose a game against her, suggesting it may be tied to the "Contract" part of her powers. As well, she's skilled with illusion and glamour, and can easily disguise herself as others. This is all counterbalanced by how she has almost no actual combat ability outside her magical powers, and thus at close range she's easily stunlocked so to speak. Her Void Eye is imbued with the power of Challenge and makes it so that whenever she challenges an enemy to a game, they are unable to hurt her until the game completes - effectively forcing her foes to play along. Her named rank about the Crossbones is Joker and her symbol is a skull made from jumbled playing cards, with two giant black dice serving as the eyes.

Cross' body takes the form of a womanly upper torso with brownish red skin covered in white markings, particularly two diamond-like markings below the eyes and covering most of the front of her cheeks, with black fingernails on her hands, while her lower body appears like that of a satyr's, having goat-like legs covered in red, fluffy fur that looks vaguely like flames and ending in black hooves, and two long, black, furry tails energy from her lower back. Her hair is white with red, spike-like stripes around the sides, ande has two long trails which droop in front of her most of the time. She has black, goat-like horns curling from her head. She has prominent piercings in her ears, with both her earlobes pierced with golden earrings dangling designs of the sun, moon, and a star in that order, as well as two rings on the upper portion of both ears, a cup and pentacle hanging off the rings on the right ear while a sword and wand hang off the rings on the left ear. Her remaining non-Void eye is golden with black sclera, and has a horizontal pupil akin to a Goat's, while her Void Eye has black sclera and a golden Crossbone symbol pupil. She has no genitals. She wears a somewhat complicated outfit which primarily consists of a strange, black, hooded uniform, with a prominent, golden zipper down the middle of the uniform, stretching down to her waist, styled similar to the spikes on the Crossbone cross, and the tab is styled like a Crossbones cross outright, and when zipped hangs at the top of the zipper. The hood has a golden design at the top styled off of a skull, with holes corresponding with the eye sockets for her horns to stick out of. The coat has distinct tails at the bottom, each one created from four cuts in the material shaped like jagged crosses, and these tails flow as Cross moves. Likewise, she has long, large sleeves which have similar cuts at the top, which expose more tight, red gloves over the rest of her arms. The inner lining of the coat looks like a slowly moving black and red checker pattern, and the coat has a prominent golden mantle over the shoulders and back again styled off of a skull. The coat exposes the waist and thus the goat-like legs of Cross, and has a miasma of floating, black cards with glowing red outlines around the waist, which slowly slide and move over time, and overall she has an ominous dark aura around her at almost all times - only exceptions being when she's having fun or being casual.

Her invitation read: "Cross, Demonic Bane of the Foolhardy, we hereby invite you to the Calling, the festival which crosses all worlds. Should you partake of our offer, you shall find countless new fools to entrap in your gambits, strange sights your goat-like eyes have never seen, new and interesting faces to challenge you, and most importantly, experiences and challenges unlike anything you could ever find in your boring little home. Sign your name below, and the door shall open for you."