Anise Slywood

Anise Slywood, remembered as the Faithful Anise, is the Saintess who supported Vermouth's party in its first war against the Demon Kings. Created by Yuras as an artificial incarnation of the Light, she turns the power forced upon her into a means of saving others, remains in the world as an angel after death, and later shares both her miracles and her unfinished life with Kristina Rogeris.

Biography

Saintess, Companion, and Second Life

Anise was raised by Yuras as a Saint Candidate rather than allowed an ordinary childhood. Her body was the result of generations of experiments using the remains of earlier Saints and the Holy Emperor, and repeated rituals in the Fount of Light cultivated an exceptionally powerful Stigmata at the cost of pain and a shortened life. She hated the nation that had made her and once wished for its destruction, but after Vermouth drew the Holy Sword, Yuras appointed her to support his journey. Leaving the institution that had defined her gave Anise her first chance to choose what her power would mean. (Chapters 71 and 196)

Traveling with Vermouth Lionheart, Sienna Merdein, Molon Ruhr, and Hamel changed Anise's despair into responsibility. She came to regard the five companions—and the people who kept fighting around them—as miracles created through choice and effort, not merely gifts from an absent god. Anise sustained armies with blessings and repeatedly restored comrades whose bodies had been broken or dismembered, even though each great miracle spread her Stigmata and left her back bleeding. Hamel's quiet care after those battles mattered because he treated her as a suffering person rather than a sacred weapon. (Chapters 189, 204, 271, and 273)

Hamel's death at Babel left Anise unable to accept the peace won through Vermouth's bargain as a finished victory. She returned to Yuras, but when her failing body made another sacrifice inevitable, she rejected the Church's demand that she produce or empower its next imitation Saint. After visiting Hamel's grave, she chose suicide on her own terms; she then refused the Light's invitation to ascend, remaining as an angel so the unfinished fight and the future Saint would not be abandoned. Yuras nevertheless divided her remains into relics and used them in its long attempt to create a compatible copy, eventually producing Kristina. (Chapters 196, 197, and 579)

When the Fount ritual awakened Anise within Kristina Rogeris, Anise disclosed the system that had made both of them and chose to act as Kristina's Stigmata, supporting miracles without allowing a forcibly engraved mark to consume Kristina's life. She treated Kristina as a distinct person, recovered her old relics only as tools for Kristina's journey, and warned her never to become a replacement Anise. After the Church's hidden laboratories and abused relics were cleared, Anise accepted one day in Kristina's body to celebrate the birthday she had never been allowed to enjoy, face her feelings for Eugene honestly, and experience happiness without surrendering her sister's autonomy. (Chapters 197 and 202–205)

Shared Body and the Final War

Sharing one body became a partnership rather than a struggle for control. Anise advised Kristina, lent her divine power, and could assume control when her experience was needed, but she deliberately yielded the public role of the era's Saint to Kristina. During the war against Iris, for example, Anise briefly wielded her old flail before returning control because she refused to usurp Kristina's place. Her caution was personal as well as ethical: she feared that enjoying life through Kristina might become greed, while Kristina answered that trust by repeatedly inviting her to live rather than disappear. (Chapters 204, 293, and 368)

The arrangement also restored Anise's place among her surviving companions. She helped create the dream through which Eugene first reached the sealed Sienna, confronted Molon's century of isolation without pretending that healing could repair despair, and resumed the familiar work of treating their injuries while challenging their self-destructive choices. Her sharp humor often concealed grief, yet it also let her meet Sienna and Molon as companions rather than relics of an idealized legend. By sharing Kristina's senses and power without erasing her, Anise could rebuild the old party while making room for the Saint who had come after her. (Chapters 242–245, 306, and 404)

As the conflict widened, Anise again became a battlefield support on the scale demanded by a war against Demon Kings. She and Kristina healed Eugene through the battle with the specter, supplied holy water and divine magic for the Divine Army, and entered Babel beside Eugene, Sienna, and Molon. Her faith also changed decisively: after recognizing that the Light lacked the personal will she had long sought, Anise chose Eugene as her god and herself as his Saint. That declaration produced a genuine new Stigmata and strengthened the miracles that she and Kristina could wield, transforming imposed devotion into a commitment they had chosen. (Chapters 488, 504, 576, and 582)

Anise fought through the battles with Incarceration and Destruction as one of Eugene's sustaining wings, restoring Molon's severed arm and later healing the ruinous damage he took while opening Destruction's wound. After victory, she publicly presented her return as an angelic miracle and then confronted a quieter choice: with her old mission complete, she could finally depart, but doing so would again make self-erasure seem like her only virtuous option. Kristina persuaded her that she deserved a life chosen for happiness. Anise transferred into a doll body modeled on Kristina, gained an independent physical existence, and stepped beside the Lionhearts openly rather than continuing as another person's hidden soul. (Chapters 585, 603, 614, and 622–625)

Appearance and personality

Anise has blonde hair and blue eyes. In her angelic manifestation she bears a halo and eight wings of light, while her later doll body resembles Kristina so closely that most observers distinguish them only by Kristina's teardrop mole, their clothing, and the different impression each gives. During her original journey Anise habitually wore a spotless white robe marked with a red cross, even while the Stigmata hidden beneath it bled from repeated miracles. (Chapters 109, 202, 581, and 624)

Her serene, saintly smile is both genuine discipline and practiced concealment. Anise is compassionate enough to exhaust herself healing strangers, yet also sharp-tongued, profane, teasing, and willing to wield a mace against comrades who test her patience. She loves alcohol and uses irreverent humor to keep grief from defining her relationships. Her most consistent principle is that another person's life must remain their own: this guides her refusal to turn Kristina into a replacement, her fear of taking too much time in their shared body, and her eventual willingness to pursue happiness only after Kristina freely urges her to do so. (Chapters 196, 202, 204, 286, and 622)

Abilities and powers

Anise is a specialist in divine power whose miracles combine large-scale healing, protection, purification, and battlefield support. Her original strength came through an artificially cultivated Saintess body and Stigmata; after death, her angelic soul supplied the power Kristina's incomplete transformation lacked. Their later devotion to Eugene produced genuine Stigmata and expanded the miracles available to them, while Anise's final transfer into a doll body gives her an independent vessel at the end of the corpus. (Chapters 196–197, 504, and 624)

Saintess body, Stigmata, and divine power

Yuras made Anise a near-perfect imitation of the Light's Incarnation by exposing her to the Fount from childhood and implanting remnants connected to the Holy Emperor. Her Stigmata stored immense divine power, grew as she performed miracles, and could even provide lesser artificial marks to high-ranking priests. The mechanism exacted a bodily price: great miracles made the mark spread and bleed, and her engineered body still had a limited lifespan. Her power was therefore exceptional rather than limitless, and prolonged use could leave her pale, dizzy, or unconscious. (Chapters 196, 204, 273, 286, and 579)

Anise can channel divine power offered by nearby priests into effects far beyond what they can produce individually. On the Red Plains, she gathered their power into light that healed allied forces, replaced fear with courage, restored stamina, pushed back the Black Fog, and purified exposed demonfolk. This dependence creates practical constraints: supporting a large force consumes divine power rapidly, and without other believers to draw from, mass-producing holy water exhausted both Saints. Dark power or isolation can also interfere with her support, and some non-divine damage—such as the recoil of Eugene's Ignition—remains beyond even her healing. (Chapters 245, 273, and 286)

Healing, blessings, and sacred support

Anise can close torn tissue, reconnect muscles and nerves, mend shattered bones, and, at sufficient strength, reattach or regenerate severed limbs. These miracles let the original party continue fighting through wounds that would otherwise have ended a battle, and in the final war she and Kristina restored Molon's severed arm almost immediately. Her healing is not omnipotent: she could not simply cure Molon's accumulated psychological collapse, and before the genuine Stigmata appeared, the shared body had not recovered all of her former limb-restoration capacity. (Chapters 242, 245, 488, 504, and 585)

Her wider miracles include barriers, mental stabilization, blessings that suppress fear and fatigue, purification of dark power, and the creation of holy water. She can make contaminated food or water safe when material is present, but cannot create supplies from nothing. Anise also uses light defensively by spreading her wings within magical barriers, and her prayers can combine with Kristina's or Sienna's work to resist destructive forces. These applications make her most effective in coordination with fighters, priests, and mages rather than as an isolated source of unlimited power. (Chapters 53, 87, 158, 286, 412, 591, and 610)

Angelic existence and shared incarnation

After death, Anise awoke as a self-aware angel within the Light and refused to ascend. She can manifest a halo and eight wings, fly, appear in spiritual form, transmit memories or revelations, and help form otherwise impossible dream spaces. Dwelling within Kristina lets the two communicate internally, share memories and senses, exchange control of the body, and combine their divine power. Anise initially serves in place of a lethal artificial Stigmata, bearing part of Kristina's burden while preserving Kristina's own consciousness and identity. (Chapters 109, 197, 229, 306, and 504)

The shared incarnation has boundaries. Only one consciousness normally directs the body at a time, Anise's access depends on Kristina's consent and safety, and travel through unstable dimensional spaces risks expelling Anise's soul. Anise also considers unchecked possession a moral danger because her desire to live could consume Kristina's time. After the final battle, Sienna's doll provides a separate vessel that can eat, drink, and reproduce Anise's appearance, though it cannot bear children at the point described. Her successful transfer ends her dependence on Kristina's body while preserving her angelic soul and chosen life. (Chapters 204, 212, 368, and 622–624)

Power progression

Relationships

• Eugene Lionheart: Anise knew Eugene as Hamel, the abrasive comrade whose concern made her feel human rather than holy. His death influenced her refusal to abandon the unfinished war, and their reunion lets her state the affection she had suppressed in life. She becomes his chosen Saint while continuing to oppose his willingness to ruin himself for victory. (Chapters 196, 204–205, 488, 504, and 576)
• Kristina Rogeris: Kristina is Anise's clone, successor, host, and chosen younger sister, but Anise consistently rejects any idea that this makes them interchangeable. Their relationship grows from Anise protecting Kristina from the Stigmata into mutual trust, shared power, and finally Kristina's insistence that Anise claim an independent life. (Chapters 197, 202, 204, 368, and 622)
• Sienna Merdein: Sienna is Anise's longtime companion, fellow survivor of the original party, and romantic rival for Eugene's attention. Beneath their arguments and teasing lies confidence built through years of coordinated warfare and a shared determination to recover both Eugene and Vermouth. (Chapters 71, 204, 273, 306, and 581)
• Molon Ruhr: Anise supported Molon through catastrophic wounds in their first campaign and later met his emotional collapse with sympathy disguised as familiar scolding. She resumes healing him in the final war, but recognizes that companionship rather than a miracle is what answers his centuries of isolation. (Chapters 242–245, 273, 585, and 603)
• Vermouth Lionheart: Vermouth's recognition by the Holy Sword brought Anise out of Yuras and into the party that changed her life. She resents the secrets and bargain that separated the companions, yet enters the final battle determined to save him and afterward welcomes him back into their shared future. (Chapters 71, 196, 581, 603, and 625)

Items

• Anise's Mace: Her adamantium sacred weapon, used as a miracle catalyst and against demonfolk before being modified into a flail for Kristina. (Chapters 202, 204, and 368)
• Anise's Rosary: A devotional relic that accelerates the recovery of divine power and amplifies miracles; both Anise and Kristina use it as a focus for prayer. (Chapters 202, 242, 293, and 576)
• Anise's Holy Water Bottle: A Fount-blessed vessel that converts ordinary water into holy water capable of treating allies and harming demonfolk. (Chapters 202 and 313)
• Anise's Robe: Her self-cleaning white Saintess robe, marked with a red cross and capable of amplifying miracles, which she passes to Kristina as support rather than an identity. (Chapters 202–203, 249–250, and 424)