Merraid Oarburgh

Merraid Oarburgh (メラルド・オールベルグ, Merarudo Ōruberugu), also known as "Madam Mera", was the leader of the Oarburgh clan.

Appearance
Merraid was a young woman with long, black hair. Under her left eye, she had a birthmark. Her fingernails were long and also lacquered in purple. In addition, she wore a purple, free-flowing dress with a black and white plaid belt. She also didn't wear underwear.

Personality
She was a homosexual, as well as a sexist, who was very gentle towards girls and severe towards men. However, she did trust her butler, Daniel, due to his mild-manners.

History
Merraid was a stated to have been born and raised by the Oarburgh Clan since she was an infant and has been extensively trained by them in the art of assassination and combat since she was child as their clan's heiress and future leader.

As part of her training as an assassin, in order to get real world experience, Merriad had chosen to enter into a Martial Arts Tournament in order to test out her skills and gain practical combat practice. On the same arena, Esdeath was fighting other opponents as well. Even as a child, Mera was strong, but Esdeath was stronger. Merraid was impressed by Esdeath and started having feelings for her. Mera tried to kiss Esdeath, but Esdeath rejected her and attempted to kill her. Mera escaped by using a poison smoke bomb.

Before Babara, Taeko and Chelsea went out on a mission, she tried to convince Taeko to be homosexual, but Babara always stopped her.

After Taeko and Babara’s death, Merraid (along with other members of Oarburgh clan) arrived to eliminate Elite Seven. Before the ambush on Elite Seven, Gilberda with Chelsea spy on Merraid and a random girl from the village. Merraid found out and she involved Gil, Chelsea, and Cassandra into her orgy.

Merraid with Daniel kidnapped Akame, Kurome, and Natala. After that, the Oarburgh clan attacked Elite Seven's hideout. In the beginning, Merraid fought with Gin. Mera won and killed Gin by exploding her from inside using her danger beasts. After that, she met Gozuki. He was the stronger opponent for Merraid, but she won again. Gozuki fled from battle.

After the battle, Merraid came to Akame and Kurome. She tried to learn about them a little. She noticed that Kurome would never betray Empire, but Akame could be one of Revolutionary Army. Chelsea told Merraid that she must go on the other mission. Merraid asks her to change into Natala, so Akame didn't realize what happened to him. Then Chelsea left.

One day, Merraid and Gilberda found Empire spies. While Merraid took the girl, she ordered Gil to deal with the man. After finding out information about the place where Empire spies gather, they came there and they killed a spy who was there.

Mera tried to convince Akame by showing her what people think about Emperor and Honest. They traveled around. Later, Merraid told her about Kusuri and why Kurome would never be a member of Oarburgh clan. Then Mera kissed Akame, stealing Akame's first kiss. Later Merraid and Akame were continuing their travel. They saw Syura who was beating up other people. When Merraid and Akame met with Dora and Gil, Merraid involved Akame into the orgy, kissing her in front of both Gil and Dora. When Akame later distracted the Oarburgh's for Kurome to get the insect cure, Merraid and the others tried seducing Akame, and it was strongly hinted that Akame was sexually assaulted.

When Mera started trusting Akame, Akame came to Merraid's bedroom, and Akame kissed Merriad, and the two rolled onto the bed, seeming to enjoy the pleasure. While kissing, Akame tried to bite Mera's tongue, but Merraid was able to dodge it. Merraid attacked Akame with Wrigglers and used it to escape. At the same time, Elite Seven and Four Rakshasa Demons started to ambush the Oarburgh's hideout. When Merraid was escaping, she left some of her insects to Dora. However, Akame was able to catch up Merraid. Thanks to spending so much time with Mera, Akame defeated Merraid and killed her, although Mera used her butterfly form. Before she died, Merraid confessed that she loved Akame.

Legacy
After her death, several of her former subordinates within the Oarburgh Clan had managed to escape thanks to the efforts of Gilberda, most notably, two of her Protege's, Meela and Loris had joined up with the Retribution Group in an attempt to avenge her.

After her death, Akame would continue to hold on to and remember the lessons she taught her in combat and what it means to be an assassin and her interactions with Merriad was the first step Akame took to realizing the corruption of the Empire and begin questioning the truthfulness of Gozuki's teachings regarding her work as an assassin under the Empire.

Power & Abilities
Merriad had shown herself to be one of the most formidable assassins in the entire series due to being Heiress and Leader to the Oarburgh Clan and being trained by them since early childhood. Merriad had shown to have a variety of skill in combat and assassination, with her strength and power having made her more than a match for Gozuki of the Four Rakshasa Demons and easily allowing her to overpower members of the Elite Seven.

Due to this, Merriad had displayed superhuman levels of physical strength, speed, durability, and senses as seen when she was able to easily travel through the vast wilderness of the Empire untroubled, outpace Akame in a race through the mountains, and physically tear off a grown man's arm with a simple swipe of her hands.

Another testament to her power was the fact that while guarding the Revolutionary Army's salt factories, Merriad was able to completely hunt down, kill, and apparently eat all of the gigantic Danger Beasts located within the region with ease. Merriad herself was shown having only deemed them to be nothing more than "sparring partners" and not actual threats to her person.

Her skills and abilities were dangerous and deadly enough that Green, Gozuki, Mez, and Suzuka deemed it impossible and practically suicide to fight her head on without back up or a plan.

Hand-to-hand Combat
Due to being trained since childhood by the Oarburgh Clan, Merriad had displayed immense skill in hand-to-hand combat, as seen when she was able to easily enter, qualify, and fight in a professional martial arts tournament with ease and successfully defeat and overpower grown men in martial arts despite still being a young girl.

Merriad's skill in barehanded fighting was high enough to the point that she could easily contend with Esdeath, who similarly to her was also a prodigal genius, as seen when the two girls were able to fight each other on even ground during the tournament without actually trying to kill each other and later displayed her strength by being able to easily smash a large boulder with a simple kick.

Later, her skills in hand-to-hand combat were further shown by the way she easily fought Gozuki, Gin, and Akame barehanded with no trouble despite all of them being armed.

Hypnotism
Merriad had also displayed some skill in hypnosis, as seen when she attempted to put Gin in a hypnotic trance via spinning her umbrella at her, similar to the classical spiral hypnosis tool used by hypnotists.

Stealth
Another one of Merriad's noteworthy abilities was her immense skill in stealth. As seen when she was able to easily sneak up behind both Gin and Natala undetected, observe them the moment they entered into the Salt factory, attach one of her Wrigglers on to Natala and later disappeared without a trace the moment they turned back to look behind them without them ever noticing her.

Wrigglers
As the current leader of the Oarburgh Clan, Merriad inherited the clan's Teigu-like insect weapons, Wrigglers, that were created by the same alchemists that came to the Empire to engineer the Teigu one-thousand years ago.

The Wrigglers are shown to be a horde of insect-like creatures that are typically controlled and guided by their "handler" to attack their specific targets. The Wrigglers themselves come in a variety of different types, all of whom possess some sort of unique function that makes them deadly in combat. Typically the Wrigglers would hide inside Merriad's shadow when she is not in combat and follow her around as she moves around while during actual combat they would swarm around and attack their given target and accordance to her orders and due to their small size and massive numbers, making them the ideal weapon in assassination, recon, and spying due to their ability to move quietly and subtly without garnering any attention, allowing her to assassinate her targets from a distance.

Merriad was also shown to keep Wriggler Eggs hidden underneath her nails, allowing her to infect her opponents wounds with eggs by slashing at them with her nails. Once inside her opponent the eggs propagate and multiply at an incredibly fast speed as they are incubated by their victims body heat and Merriad needed only to give the signal and they would hatch all together, tearing their "incubator" apart from the inside out as they flew out of victims body and leaving it a mangled mess.

Merriad herself was shown to preference using the insects during her battles and missions despite her own immense physical abilities due to it being much more "in her nature".

So far the different types of Wrigglers and their different functions used by Merriad were:
 * Beetle Wriggler: A beetle-like Wriggler that possess a scissors like claws in its head, allowing it to easily tear through flesh and thanks to its small size it makes fro excellent sneak attacks, as seen when its pincers was able to easily cut thorough the flesh and bone of Gozuki.
 * Moth Wriggler: During her battle against Gozuki, Merriad secretly released this moth-like Wriggler that releases poison into the air in an attempt to stealthily kill her opponent.
 * Beetle Shield: This type of Wriggler is shown to have incredibly tough shells, as seen when Merriad was able to use them to protect herself from the blade of the Teigu Murasame and the Shingu Kiriichimonji.
 * Blood Butterfly Wriggler: This butterfly-like Wriggler is noted to be heavily attracted by the stench of blood and has been shown to easily find and tack even the smallest hint of it, as seen when Merriad was able to easily identify spies sent by the Empire due to the heavy traces of blood found on them by her Wriggler.
 * Bee Wriggler: This bee-like Wriggler is shown to possess a powerful paralysis-type poison secreted in its stinger, as seen when its was able to easily subdue two trained spies within second of stinging them.
 * Explosive Ants: These ant-like Wrigglers are shown to create a highly explosive enzyme inside their bodies, allowing Merriad to use them as mobile mines and explosives for sneak attacks.
 * Wriggler Flies: These fly-like Wrigglers were used by Merriad for communication purposes as seen when one of them informed her of successfully location the Elite Seven's hideout. Merriad also employs this type of Wriggler when she implants her insect eggs into her target, as seen when a swarm of them exploded from Gin after Merriad had the eggs hatch.
 * Centipede Wriggler: The actual function and abilities of this Wriggler is unknown, but it has been implied by Merriad that she primarily uses it during interrogation and torture.
 * Caterpillar Wriggler: This type of caterpillar Wriggler is seemingly used when Merriad Activates her Trump card, as seen when they would fire silk and wrap her in a cocoon as she transforms.
 * Trump Card: During her final battle against Akame, Merraid unleashed her Trump Card Merraid Oarburgh’s Metamorphosis form.jpeg her Wriggler's would wrap her in a cocoon of silk as she transforms into a human/butterfly-Wiggler hybrid. In this new form all of Merriad's physical abilities are enhanced and she is given several insect based powers, as seen where she was able to create web like silk from the tips of her fingers to entangle her opponents, fly using her newly gained butterfly wings, shapeshift her arms into insect-like scythes to attack her target and the ability to create a scale-like dust substance that impedes and damages her opponents eye sight. Another benefit to this form is the fact that the transformation not only changes and enhances her body, but completely "rebuilds" it, as seen where the slashes and cuts inflicted by Akame's Shingu Kiriichimonji was completely healed due to her body being "fixed", despite the Shingu's ability to inflict wound that never heal. However a major drawback to this ability is the set time limit on how long she could maintain this form before reverting back to her normal human body.

Other Skills

 * Merriad had also shown various other abilities due to her profession.
 * Medical Skills: She had a high understanding of the human body, demonstrated when she was able to easily analyze the body builds of Akame and Kurome by simply groping them. Merriad was also able to tell that Kurome was heavily addicted by her performance enhancing drugs and detected the immense strain done to her body as a result by simply licking her.
 * Poisons: Merriad had also shown a level of skill in creating and identifying various poisons due to also having been trained on how to use, create and identify poisons, as implied by her during her meal with the young Esdeath.
 * Cooking Skills: During her meal with Esdeath, it was also shown that she also possessed a level of skill in cooking. Having been taught/picked up on how to do so due to her profession as an assassin, likely in order to administer poisons to a target or in order to survive in the wilderness.


 * Teaching Skills: Merriad had also been shown to be a competent teacher and mentor in the art of assassination and combat, having been able to easily see all of Akame's flaws in her fighting style and was later able to help her improve herself during their short time together. Merriad was also have implied to have trained both Cassandra and Gilberda, as well as Loris and Meela on combat as well.
 * Interrogation/Torture Skills: It was also heavily implied that Merriad was also an accomplished interrogator and torturer, having personally oversaw the questioning of Natala and later seen having questioned and interrogated several Imperial spies with little trouble.
 * Microexpression Reading: Merriad was also noted to be extremely skilled at reading a person's facial expressions and tell what they are feeling and thinking. She managed to easily see past Akame's attempts to lie to her and later was able to detect that "something good" had happened to Akame the night before due to now seeing a "glimmer of hope" in her eyes due to Suzuka's visit and subsequent report to them about their escape plan.
 * Psychological Reading: Merriad has also shown to be highly skilled at dissecting the thought process and psychological condition of others. This is seen where she was able to immediately tell the mental differences of Kurome and Akame and their overall loyalty to their mission. This is seen where she immediately deduced that Kurome had been heavily brainwashed since childhood to follow the Empire and Akame had received a lighter mental conditioning and already questioned her place in the Empire after a single conversation with them.
 * Intuition: Merriad has also shown to have immensely honed intuition as seen when she was able to sense the rapid approach of the Elite Seven and the Four Rakshasa Demons the moment they commenced their attack on her hideout.
 * Acting Skills: Merriad had also shown immense skill in acting and deception, with her having successfully mastered the ability to completely hide her bloodlust and pressure and portray herself as being an ordinary non-combatant in order to move undetected in enemy towns and locations. Merriad had also showcased an incredibly effective "Poker Face". When in critical situations, Merriad can completely hide her emotions and conceal all facial external expressions, rendering it impossible to read her train of thought, intentions and emotions. Akame herself compared this ability to her being like a "bug".

Trivia

 * During Merraid's Battle against Gozuki, Merraid found Murasame to be a "Beautifully Ominous Blade", hinting that Merraid herself was also compatible with the Teigu and may have the capacity to use and bond with it.