Mathilda Barbatron

"Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope."

- Kofi Annan. Mathilda Barbatron (バルバトロン・マチルダ, Barubatoron Machiruda) is a female S-Class Mage belonging to the guild bearing the name of Hydra Head. Known for possessing a rare kind of Magic called Ancient Archive, she often assumes the role of a librarian or a teacher when around others. Even though she is regarded as knowledgeable and looked up to by both normal people and her fellow scholars, her apparent absentmindedness and forgetful nature tend to cause much turmoil. Despite this, she is considered to be quite powerful in her right; she masterfully utilizes Ancient Archive in combat and supplements her lacking physical prowess with the special Take Over she has mastered, Kaiju Soul. As a result of her friendly personality and generally pleasant demeanor, she has been perceived as easy to like by many, especially by the ordinary population. Spending an unusual amount of time lecturing potential Mages, she has more than once been scolded by the Magic Council for being too lenient with her information and for teaching Magic to the public unlicensed. Too ditsy to even remember the critique, she persists living on the edge. Preferring to remain inside of her guild's headquarters instead of participating in missions, she is somewhat akin to a matron to the members. Usually offering her help to the guild masters whenever she can, Mathilda is quite fond of helping others in the need of assistance.

Appearance
Taking on quite an unusual appearance, it is difficult to believe that Mathilda's mother is a blonde and blue-eyed woman. Standing somehwat tall in comparison to the average female, she is still somewhat short when it comes to Mage standards. Despite this, she finds her height to be more than adequate. Tall enough to tower over average women, but short enough to be towered over by most men, she rests comfortably in the middle of two large dominating groups. Coupled with her stature comes long and elongated limbs, although not freakishly so, being quite feminine in nature. Skin as soft as it is pale, one can question how often she goes outside. Alternatively, alongside her other somewhat freakish features, one may question whether she is albino or not. But due to the strange circumstances surrounding her birth, one may deduce that she is not necessarily an albino. However, her likeliness to one is striking. Possessing reddish eyes, their shade of redness appears to fluctuate between different the occasions. When teaching children and caring for the young, they appear warmer and quite brown in terms of color. However, when hostile or feeling disgust for another living being, their shade easily tilts over to the red scale; resulting in a rather menacing disaplay. However, these eyes are not nearly as menacing as the eyes of her Kaiju form when she uses Take Over. The shape of her eyes seemingly differ when her state of emotion changes as well. Being wide and somewhat child-like when cheerful, they amplify the youthful features of her face. But when in a state of fury, her eyes become narrow, the pupils constrict and become tiny black dots, the deep scarlet shade is displayed and the eyebrows gently caress the upper part of her eyelids. Teeth usually gritted during this process, the calm teacher has basically been replaced by a monster seething with white-hot rage. But taking into consideration that she seldom succumbs to anger or has reason to become furious, people will more frequently observe the gentle creature who assumes the role of a teacher.

As for her other physical details, it would seem as if her body is not particularly muscular in general. However, it is also quite different from her mother's quite brittle body. Slim, but with some body fat here and there, particularly around the chest area and her hips, she has a slightly curvaceous figure. Alas, this is mostly covered by the wide dress she wears, so Mathilda only showcases her body when she is attending a hot spring or a poll event, which seldom happens, since she prefers to remain inside her study in order to read books. Having long and slender legs, they are obviously the most fit part of her body. Jogging every morning in order to maintain a healthy body, she has a tendency to get up much earlier than anyone else. Falling asleep on her study desk too frequently, Mathilda suffers from back- and neck pains every now and then. Remedying this by being physically active in the morning, she has lost the bad posture she had in her youth and has instead gained a more straight posture, which her back benefits from.Even though they are rarely showcased, Mathilda's feet are deceptively soft and well-pampered. Having long toes, almost all her toes are as long as her big toe. Preferring to keep the nails short, since they seldom see the light, they are not painted with nailpolish either. However, since she exposes her shins just about constantly, she maintains them and makes sure that they remain hairlessly smooth by shaving just about every day after jogging. Further examining her body by moving upwards, one can notice that her hips stand out even in the dress; adding to her curvaceous appeal. Although her waist is not necessarily narrow, it is actually rather straight, but due to her moderately large breasts, it is subjected to a visual illusion. Further tracing her body upwards, one meets her shoulders, small and seemingly quite tense due to the fact that she spends most of her time reading. Following the shoulders down, the eyes will be greeted by a pair of slender arms ending with a pair of slim and pampered hands. Bathed in sake every now and then, they are surprisingly soft to the touch. Even so, one can notice shallow dents when touching them. A result of cutting herself on paper frequently, Mathilda's love for books is noticeable even in her appearance. Going up once more, her face is now in plain view. Having a youthful face, the first trait one usually notices are her lips. Naturally full, her upper lip is noticeably larger than her lower. Soft to the touch as well, one may deduce that she uses the same sake solution on her face as she uses on her hands. Having no blemishes on her face, she benefits from a healthy diet and exercise. Just like her bizarre eyes, Mathilda's hair is abnormal. Taking on a bluish white hue, it is quite long and reaches her coccyx. Wavy when it comes to quality, it moves down like a river on her back. Keeping short bangs swept away from her face, they frame her jaw-line and reach the middle of her face. Allowing a single fashionable lock to rest between her eyes, it points to the left.

When it comes to clothing, Mathilda usually sports the same attire to be recognizable by the townspeople. The majority of her abdomen and legs are clad in a blue dress which reaches the middle of her calves. Somewhat simple in design, with the exception of hem, it possesses a marine blue hue. Being slightly puffed out, the dress is not tight, but neither is it loose and in the need of being kept up by petticoat either. Having rather short sleeves, only reaching a little past her axilla, they are poofy in terms of design and are kept in said positions by lace bands with a color equally blue as the dress. Further examining the opening around the neck, one may notice the the strange collar around her neck. Shaped like a flower, it is almost completely flat in nature and has rather jagged edges; similar to petals. Placed in a manner which causes them to be placed above and below, every other "petal" is placed below the next. Separated from the rest of the dress by a white linen material,

Personality
Despite her status as a scholar and academic reputation, Mathilda is a surprisingly lenient and friendly person. Often carrying over her enthusiasm to her role as a teacher, she attempts to be fairly friendly towards her students while assuming the role of a teacher. Generally cheerful towards even those who outright despise her, it is obvious that she does not discriminate between those who she view as her students. Attempting to be as good as she can be when it comes to teaching, she is fairly open to criticism and always willing to listen to those who feel ignored by others. However, this trait has always caused her to feel obliged to teach others, thus also making her seem slightly arrogant towards others. However, this is not arrogance, but merely ignorance and a slightly condescending attempt at helping others. Since Mathilda is aware of her own superior level of knowledge in comparison to the average Mage, but this is not necessarily not the same as arrogance. However, some may interpret it as that, which will without a doubt cause a strong sense of dislike towards the teaching Mage. But taking her preference to solve conflict into consideration, it is understandable that she desires to change her demeanor towards other people if that is necessary. While she attempts to be strict whenever someone rebels in her classes, Mathilda often acts too kind and tends to sanction her students too softly. As a result, her own mother has chastised her for this and advised her to never get any kids until she has learned to be stricter. Looking up to her mother as a role model, Mathilda has a tendency to always listen to her. In fact, it was her mother who inspired her to become a walking encyclopedia and spurned her interest in books and academic research. Despite the fact that her mother functioned as a motivator, this was not initially a positive thing. Scolded for being too academically inept as a child by her strict mother, Mathilda initially felt like a disgrace to her brilliant mother and decided to please her by becoming the most literate individual of Fiore. And apparently, she succeeded.



At least to the point where her mother decided to recognize her feats and openly proclaim Mathilda's status as her daughter to others. But as a result of her mother's coldness during her childhood, she has developed an obsession to please others, even if it needs to happen at her own expense. This pseudo-sycophantic manner of behavior does not usually apply to her inferiors, but usually her seniors. Going as far as being willing to humiliate herself to please others, it is fairly easy to notice that her childhood has caused serious psychological trauma. There is actually a specific reason behind her mother's disappointment: her ditsy nature. Lacking the ability to concentrate and properly remember things, she often mistook one thing for another in her childhood and had issues concentrating for extended amounts of time. Because she lacked the focus her mother required in a daughter, Mathilda was treated with disdain and often scolded without reason. Gradually becoming better at focusing on the task at hand, she gained her mother's approval over the course of a few years. However, she is still somewhat of an airhead around those she are comfortable with and has a terrible tendency to forget even the most basic of knowledge. Her forgetfulness does not just apply to abstract phenomenons such as memories or thoughts, but practical everyday events as well. Forgetting scrolls here and there, she leaves a terrible mess wherever she goes, unless instructed to clean up. Therefore, her room is quite messy and Mathilda has issues finding lost items there. Almost like a black hole, it absorbs most of her belongings and they have a tendency to pop up inconveniently. The most notable example of her forgetful, is the bento (弁当, bentō) box she wears on top of her head. Always packing her lunch before heading out for the day, she somehow manages to place it on top of her head and forget it there until someone else points it out or she bends over. Sticking to her head for reasons unknown, her act of repression is more than slightly comical. One of her most remarkable quirks, however, is her apparent inability to remember the names of her fellow guildmates. Only properly remembering the senior members, she has a terrible tendency to either mispronounce their names, rearrange the letters or use homonyms.

Despite her ditsy and somewhat clumsy nature, Mathilda has proven herself to be serious when necessary. Even though she is kind towards her students, despite their antics and her lack of knowledge about discipline, Mathilda is rather harsh when it comes to punishing those who fight her fellow guild members. Willing to retaliate with violence, she is by no means a pacifist. Although she does not believe that violence is the solution to any conflict, experience has hardened her; her naiveté is basically non-existent at this point, despite acting giddy and innocent most of the time. When in dire situations, one may ponder whether her other personality is a ruse, since she makes such an abrupt change of character, but she simply adapts accordingly to the situation, which is befitting of her status as a figure of authority. Preferring to remain giddy and follow orders, she seldom switches to this authoritan mode, despite the fact that she is quite a capable leader. Viewing herself as a pillar of support, she wants to help her leaders by acting in the manner of a co-leader. Essentially, Mathilda can be described as carefree, but recognizes situations where it is norm to act more mature. Despite being serious when facing a threat, she can also be slightly overconfident. Believing that her versatility in Magic more than makes up for the relative lack of firepower, she often boasts to her fellow guild mates when sparing about her prowess in combat. But this is radically different from an actual situation of combat, where one needs to be alert and on-guard for quite some time. When engaging opponents seriously, she has a tendency to use her Take Over, Kaiju Soul, which alters her personality slightly in tandem with her change in appearance. Becoming more stern and silent when using this form, Mathilda is also enraged easier and thus has an increased audacity. Becoming more primal as well, she has a tendency to let loose animalistic screams to frighten her opponents. Finding this form to be unrefined and uncontrollable, despite the fact that it is easier to control than most Take Overs, Mathilda obviously treasures her status as an intellectual human being; indicating a slightly vain disposition towards herself.

Especially noticeable is the serious aspect of her personality when someone threatens fragments of history.

History
One year after joining Hydra Head, Mathilda was promoted to the rank of S-Class Mage after a tough S-Class Trial where she faced many of her guildmates. Coming out victorious much thanks to her ability to redirect their spells, she was the first S-Class Mage of the guild, besides the Guild Ace Peter Reyes. Fighting in a library where the books served as clues, this was obviously an arena which she benefitted from.

Powers & Abilities
Ancient Archive (古代古文書, エンシェント アーカイブ, Enshento Ākaibu):

Requip (換装, Kansō lit. Express Equipmentary):

Take Over: Kaiju Soul
 * History Eater (歴史喰い, Rekishi Kui): Possessing an ominous name and an equally ominous effect to back this up, History Eater is the most powerful spell in Mathilda's arsenal.