Esdeath

Esdeath is a high-ranking general of the Empire. Eventually, due to Night Raid's effectiveness as an assassination unit, she becomes the leader of the Jaegers under the orders of the Prime Minister. She is deeply in love and obsessed with Tatsumi.

Appearance
Esdeath is a tall, beautiful and slender woman with long blue hair and blue eyes. She wears a General's apparel with long sleeves, a blue scarf on her neck, and high-heeled boots. She also has a tattoo on her chest, which is the proof of her Teigu.

Personality
Esdeath is a sadist who lacks empathy for people of whom she deems weak, since she lives by her father's philosophy ("The strong survive and the weak die"). She enjoys putting her enemies through great pain, both physically and emotionally. She has no qualms about killing innocent people to get what she wants, and rationalizes her behavior with her father's old creed. Esdeath however is not completely heartless, since she cares about her comrades and adores them, and this in turn inspires their intense loyalty and devotion. When the Three Beasts were killed she viewed it as being natural for the weak to be destroyed by the strong, but still went and put flowers on their graves and said that she will take revenge for them.

Esdeath has been shown to comfort her comrades when they are in emotional pain, as seen with Seryu Ubiquitous, despite the fact that this seems to contradict her views on the strong and the weak.

Upon seeing Tatsumi's victory smile in a tournament she held, she instantly became deeply and genuinely in love with Tatsumi and immediately claimed him as her own. She then seeks advice from Bols on how to win Tatsumi's heart, and plans to have Tatsumi fall for her using Bols advice. Believing him to be uniquely worthy of her affection, she refuses to show romantic interest in any one other than him, claiming he is the only one she can see as a man and is willing to do anything to protect and keep him saying that she burns with the passion to possess him completly in order to see his smile and have his feelings. She shows little concern when Tatsumi tries to convince her to join the rebellion army saying that its understandable that people hate the Empire and that he would no longer have to worry about it as long as he remained with her, as she would not allow anything to happen to him.

When Tatsumi escaped from the Jaegers on mount fake, Esdeath only became more infatuated with Tatsumi, saying her desire for him was hotter now that he left. But while she said that, in the case of Tatsumi fighting the Jaegers that the jaegers would have to fight back, she held on to the believe that Tatsumi was not that weak, and that his will to fight and survive was a wonderful thing, vowing that when they would meet again she would force all her feeling into him.

Her affections for Tatsumi also change many aspects of her cold and battle fanatic character as she even goes on what she claimed to be a night patrol but in truth she wanted to stroll because the moon looked pretty, saying that such a thing is out of her character and that it's Tatsumi's fault. Her personality also changes a great deal as she becomes incredibly loving and caring for Tatsumi, making her happier, gentle and more at ease. She even goes so far as to improve the abilities of her teigu to the point she could freeze time and space for the sole purpose of never letting Tatsumi run away. Her love for him is to such an extent that she hesitated to fight him (in Incurso) despite all the openings he had, feeling like a part of her did not want to fight Incurso, despite not knowing that Tatsumi was inside Incurso.

Esdeath has also shown to be feeling down whenever Tatsumi is not present and tends to feel sad and lonely when thinking about him. She also has a book of where she drew pictures of Tatsumi that she looks at from time to time. Also, despite being a battle fanatic and smiling at the thought of more rebellions, her smile instantly faded when her thoughts turned to Tatsumi as she hoped they would meet again soon.

Even after she realised that Tatsumi was a member of Night Raid, she protected him from being violated by members of Wild hunt, and despite all the questions she wanted to ask and have answered, she stopped caring about such things as soon as she saw Tatsumi and embraced him, saying that she missed him despite knowing that they were enemies. Her kindness however does not get in the way of her desire for only strong fighters, as she orders her soldiers to fight back against Tatsumi if he refuses to surrender peacefully, but she did so believing that Tatsumi was not that weak and that he would survive and they would meet again. She also subjected Wave to light torture as punishment when he failed to prevent Tatsumi from escaping the Jaegers and letting a member of Night Raid escape (not knowing that the one who was inside Incurso was Tatsumi at that time).

Esdeath loves to fight and holds special respect for strong opponents, which she shows when she openly recognizes Susanoo as a warrior rather than a simple Teigu. Her love of battle has occasionally inspired her to take actions that would incite more hatred against the empire, in the hopes of being able to put down more rebellions.

After the events of Run's conversion to a puppet due to Wild Hunt, Esdeath claims that they will not get away with it; despite Wild Hunt's leader being the Prime Minister's son.

History
Esdeath was born in the Northern Frontier Lands and is the sole remaining survivor of her village, the Partas Clan. She spent most of her childhood in the north with her Tribe and she was very close with her father, the clan chief due to the death of her mother at the hand of an ultra-class Danger Beast. She was a skilled and formidable fighter at even such a young age. Whenever she caught prey for the tribe her father would begin gutting the creature without killing it. Due to this she became comfortable with the idea of inflicting pain on living things. However, her father was worried that this might cause her to lose something that she can't regain, but in order for her to survive this was fine with him. Her father told her that in the North "The strong live and the weak die", a creed she kept close to her heart. One day she returned from an outing to find her Tribe destroyed, with everyone either dead or dying. Her father was still alive but mortally wounded, and she vowed to herself to become strong. Later, she joined the Empire's Military, rising through the ranks rapidly, and at some point the Prime Minister allowed her to choose a Teigu, she noticed one that was chained off from the others (Demons Extract) and chose it.

After she chose her Teigu some point later she would become aware of General Liver's incarceration and free him. Later, she would be ordered by The Empire to go with Boss and "Make an example" of the Ban Tribe that had rose up in rebellion against The Empire. Using her mastery over Ice, she froze an entire river that cut her army off from the Tribes' main village and used this makeshift ice bridge to cross over and defeat them, capturing their leaders. She then ordered her army to "violate this town until [they were] satisfied," resulting in the mass murders of civilians as well as the burning of the village to the ground. She forced the leaders to watch their village "violated" to encourage future insubordination to the Empire. Some time after this she is told to go subjugate the Northern Tribes. Her forces defeated them faster than anyone expected. During this conquest she buried 400,000 of it's people alive, and broke the hero Numa Seika's sanity and pride, forcing him to strip naked and lick her boots before killing him. Following her return to the capital, Esdeath has stated that she wishes to try her hand at falling in love. She provides a list of short but incredibly specific qualifications to The Emperor and the Prime Minister.

On a request from Honest she sends The Three Beasts to lure out Night Raid by having them kill his political enemies. After the death of her three bodyguards at the hands of Tatsumi and Bulat, Esdeath forms a new group of Teigu wielders she subsequently names "Jaegers" to hunt down the members of Night Raid and to maintain peace and order throughout the empire.

Following the formation of The Jaegers, The Emperor holds a tournament in order to determine a new wielder for Ecstasy, the Teigu secured from Sheele following her death. Esdeath also takes advantage of this event in order to find a proper lover that will fulfill her requirements. Tatsumi participates in the tournament in order to gather information and hopefully, if he wins, obtain money in order to send back to his village which was ultimately his original goal before becoming entwined in the war between The Resistance and The Empire. His incredible skill and bright, warm smile attracts Esdeath's attention and she instantly falls in love with him, completely oblivious to the fact that he is a member of the opposing force. Snapping a collar on his neck, Esdeath knocks out Tatsumi and drags him back to the Jaeger's headquarters.

Seeing an advantage in her affections, Tatsumi tries unsuccessfully to defect Esdeath to Night Raid. His attempts to convince her to leave the empire fall upon deaf ears, and Esdeath sternly retorts that it is she who will change and control him and not vice versa. After a few days with the Jaegers, Tatsumi manages to narrowly escape from Esdeath, and a hostile Wave, who spotted Incursio and recognized it as a Teigu belonging to Bulat, and attacked. Tatsumi's departure only serves to increase Esdeath's longing.

After she lost him, Esdeath begin to feel depressed and noted the change in herself while she was on night patrol (while riding her dragon) and how she went out because of how pretty the moon was. Something that was very out of character for her. When she noted a person on mount Fake, she jumped down to fight him only to find that it is Tatsumi, much to her delight (and his horror).

During their encounter, a mysterious individual clad in a coat appears after Esdeath easily cuts down a group of Danger Beasts. Before she can attack or capture the man however, he activates his own Teigu, Shambhala, and instantly teleports both Esdeath and Tatsumi to an unidentified South-Eastern island. On the island, they encounter a danger beast nearly identical to Dr. Stylish's final monster form, and using her Demon's Extract Teigu, she fairly quickly dispatches the colossal Danger Beasts. Esdeath later sits down with Tatsumi to discuss their pasts before the mysterious Teigu user activates the previous portal, allowing Tatsumi to slip away into it and back onto the mountain. Esdeathchases after him, but loses sight of Tatsumi after he engages Incursio's invisible ability, and hides behind a rock.

After Esdeath is done reminiscing and wondering where Tatsumi had gone, she received word that Night Raid was spotted on the outskirts of the Empire. Along with the Jaegers, she headed toward them in expectations of Najenda and her tricks. The entire ordeal ended up being part of a rouse by Night Raid as their plan went astray, and even went as far as to lose a member of the Jaegers. Unfortunately for Esdeath, she was played skillfully and was used to clean up a large group of Bandits.

Immediately after their battle in the outskirts of the Empire, Esdeath & her Jaegers received their new mission of protecting Bolic, an Empire spy in the ranks of the Path of Peace. The Jaegers were assigned to overlook the well being of Bolic under the assumption that Night Raid would attack. Just as predicted, Night Raid invaded. During the Invasion, Esdeath shows exceptional skill which is well beyond the level of a mere soldier (just as expected of the Empires Strongest). It is during the fight where she reveals her Demon Extract's Trump card "Mahapadma" which can "Freeze" time and space itself. After Bolick was successfully eliminated, Najenda activated Susano's ultimate ability

"Magatama Manifestation", in an attempt to create a diversion for Night Raid to escape, intending to sacrifice both herself and Susano. Esdeath attempted to hinder Susanoo from throwing the Night Raid members out of the building, but fails. After Night Raid's escape, an angry Esdeath strikes down Susanoo and shatters his core, killing him permanently.

After the conflict between Wild Hunt with Run turned into a corpse, Esdeath returns from the invasion with the Western Tribe Nation, leaving her army there. And from hearing the news about Run, Esdeath is vexed with Wild Hunt and claims that they will not get away with this; despite the close relations Wild Hunt has with the Prime Minister.



A week later, Tatsumi and Lubbock are trapped inside the palace, Tatsumi is agitated by numerous attacks from Wild Hunt causing him to wield Incursio. Esdeath appears and is ultimately shocked, finally realizing that Tatsumi is a member of Night Raid. As Tastsumi tries to escape, successfully eluding the members of Wild hunt and is almost successful in escaping with Lubbock, Esdeath stops Tatsumi by knocking him down to the ground, claiming she will never let him run away again. Tatsumi is then defeated by Budo and he and Lubbock are then captured.

As Tatsumi regains consciousness, he is met by Dorothea and Suzuka who mean to violate him, through means of torture. As they begin their attempt, Esdeath arrives and quickly smashes Suzuka's face into a wall. Esdeath then threatens Dorothea and tells her to inform the rest of Wild Hunt to never touch Tatsumi again, emitting a powerful aura as she does so, leaving Dorothea terrified at her killing intent. Upon meeting Tatsumi's eyes, she sighs that while she has lots of things she wants to say and questions she wants to ask him, when she see's his face none of it matters to her anymore and she embraces Tatsumi while blushing. Tatsumi, however, says that he still has no intention of joining her but Esdeath tells him they can talk about that some other time and that he should not think about whether they are friends or enemies as she leans in to kiss him. Tatsumi then pushes her away, leaving her shocked. She asks why he is refusing her kiss, Tatsumi then confesses that he already has someone he likes and that he is already going out with her, leaving Esdeath shocked.

Despite being surprised about Tatsumi's relationship, Esdeath makes Tatsumi food and tries to feed him, claiming on of the dishes as her specialty. Esdeath then plans to win Tatsumi over by making him her subordinate, making the arrangements so that his past crimes will disappear. Tatsumi then says to her that until she has done something for Lubbock, he refuses to negotiate. Esdeath then informs Tatsumi of Lubbock's fate, as well as saying that he only has that night to accept that offer before he is executed. Enraged by the loss of Lubbock, Tatsumi blatently rejects Esdeath's offers, saying he would not serve the Empire that he is prepared to die. Esdeath begins to panic, and tells him to not think about it as serving the Empire but becoming hers. Tatsumi again rejects the offer, causing Esdeath to panic with a worried face. Esdeath is then taken by surprise as she realizes that the sun has risen and that the time Tatsumi had is up, with Tatsumi once again saying that he would not change his mind. Esdeath then concedes that Tatsumi is not going to change his mind, and says that if it is not possible for him to be hers, then she will kill him herself so that no one else will touch him. She then grips her fist and declares that 'Tatsumi of Night Raid' will die.

Equipment and Skills
Esdeath is considered the strongest soldier in the Empire's army and one of the strongest in the series. She possesses a powerful Teigu called Demon's Extract that allows her to manipulate ice and create ice from nothing. She uses it to create icicles, freeze people to death and more. She has been able to freeze an entire lake within moments with her ability. Her trump card allows her to freeze time.

Esdeath usually carries a long rapier that she wields with her into combat. She has shown herself to be quite adept with this weapon even without having to resort to her Teigu. She is shown to be a highly skilled hand-to-hand combatant as well, possessing great physical strength, such as when she sent Tatsumi crashing to the ground in one kick, or when she slammed Seryu through the ground in their first meeting. She was also able to slam Suzuka into a wall with relatively little effort.

She also has a strong sixth sense, being able to sense killing intent even at long distances. She was perfectly able to sense that someone was spying on her. Also, her sense of smell is strong as she conformed that it was Tatsumi after checking his scent when she reunited with him on top of Mt.Fake from one sniff.

Esdeath has an extensive knowledge of human physiology due to having been a torturer for a long time; as seen when she dissected the body of Chelsea after her death looking for anything telling. Overall, she is quite intelligent and invents new torture methods and moves, such as her trump card Mahapadma.

Esdeath also has a pet dragon that she flies around on.

Trivia

 * She is the last survivor of the Partas Clan.
 * Esdesu is a play on the phrase "S, desu!", which means "I am an S(sadist)".
 * In early translations of the manga, as well as on the list she wrote the requirements for her lover, her name is written as Esdese.
 * She has kissed Tatsumi twice, giving him her first kiss as well as her second kiss.
 * She has a small book that she uses to draw Tatsumi as well as advice on how to make Tatsumi fall in love with her.
 * Her Army has its own symbol; a black cross, which was originally the emblem of the Partas Clan.
 * Her hobby is hunting High-class Danger Beasts.
 * Her measurements are 87-54-85.

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Esdeath 艾思黛絲