Isabella Theism

**Isabella Theism** (イザベラ・テイズム, *Izabera Teizumu*?) is a necromancer and member of Necessarius, introduced in *Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Agnese's Magic Side Work Experience*.

## Etymology

Isabella is an Italian name, a Latinized form of the Hebrew name Elisheba (meaning "God is my abundance" or "God is my oath"), from which Elizabeth is also derived. Theism is a term referring to belief in God or gods, derived from the Greek *theos* or *theoi* (meaning "god" or "gods").

## Appearance

Isabella is a gaunt, silver-haired and brown-skinned woman, who dresses in tattered rags, clothing of the dead. She wears a necklace with a cracked heart and has a skull symbol on her head.

## Personality

Isabella is described as an eccentric for her choice to wear the clothes of the dead as her regular attire, along with the stench of death. She is usually seen wearing a bewitching smile on her face.

Excitable and enthusiastic when it comes to subjects involving death and the dead, Isabella takes enjoyment in her work as a necromancer, and has expressed morbid excitement at the prospect of getting new research material, even if it might be the corpse of a colleague.

## Background

At various points in the past, Necessarius has had Isabella create and place fake corpses to deliver a desired impact against certain enemies. She has worked together with Stiyl Magnus on several occasions before the Agnese Forces training in Barcelona, with Stiyl having seen her casually cut down magicians just as they had managed to escape the labyrinth of fear and doubts she had created and thought that they were finally safe again.

## Chronology

### Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Agnese's Magic Side Work Experience

*Main article: Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Agnese's Magic Side Work Experience*
During Agnese Sanctis, Lucia and Angelene's training for Necessarius, Isabella fought Stiyl in a mock battle in Barcelona, Spain, which the nuns were to forensically clean afterwards. In the simulated battle, Isabella was playing the role of a member of the magic cabal Armada who had been burying people alive to create a graveyard for the burial shrouds needed for her magic.

Later on, she and Stiyl watched as the nuns dealt with a curse-fearing priest, who had applied magical cleaning techniques in order to frame and dispose of a Haitian restaurant owner whose wife had apparently died from a curse, with Agnese dumping the remains of Isabella's fake corpse on the priest. With the girls having passed the test, Isabella noted that they were about to be very busy.

During the Hood summoning incident, Isabella was present when the five magicians who had used the shared ceremonial ground within the past month were gathered and spoke to make them more compliant for interrogation. After the incident, Isabella talked with Agnese about the feelings that prompted Jack Prometeria's actions and their relation to her field.

While the nuns were in Frankfurt, Isabella mentioned information to Agnese concerning bike delivery workers in the city going missing, luring the nuns into carrying out a sting operation when they discovered Angelene had been doing a similar job part-time for snack funds. Later, when Angelene was being pursued by the demon from the Ceremony of Ba Moun and trapped in a restaurant, Agnese and Lucia captured Isabella, who was observing from a nearby rooftop, tied her up and had her tell them what she knew of the situation and how to stop the curse, under threat of catapulting her into the restaurant. Isabella managed to deal with the demon using two fake corpses modelled after its true target Frau Halveria, leading the demon to tear itself apart, before handing her a mop to clean up the remains.

## Abilities

Isabella is a necromancer who is skilled in creating corpses for fear, confusion and deception. Using only pig and cow remains in her work, she can rearrange the bones and organs to match human anatomy, treat it with chemicals, and produce a high quality imitation of a dead human body. These fake corpses can be designed after an enemy or ally and left in a crucial location to deceive or inspire fear and confusion. While some others might produce higher quality imitations, she is unrivalled in terms of cost-performance. She can also control her corpses remotely.

Isabella is skilled at creating and exploiting the doubts and confusion resulting from her use of corpses, and has been described as the type of magician who can win a battle without actually fighting, though she is fully capable of fighting if necessary.

One form of necromancy which Isabella uses involves the living donning the stolen clothes of the dead (clothing being a symbol of position) in order to become one with them and draw on their power. The tattered rags which Isabella normally wears are such clothes. In the mock battle with Stiyl Magnus in Barcelona, Isabella made use of a long cloth, a spiritual item created by sewing together burial garbs, apparently obtained via grave-robbing, and based on a mixture of Haitian Voodoo and the Christian Shroud of Turin. It was capable of spiraling around Isabella, bending down like a spring and launching her over ten meters upwards onto a rooftop.

In the same mock battle, Isabella made use of Voodoo-based techniques in conjunction with a substitute corpse prepared for the training exercise. With the vocal command "Detach the Ti Bon Ange and place it within me" and breaking open a capsule of zombie powder (which she might have stored within cnidocytes) hidden in the canine tooth, an entity (possibly a summoned soul or something which seemed to be one) was drawn into the body and moves it on its own, regardless of damage. When bisected, tentacles emerged from the lower half of the body, and when the upper half would have been burned away, a disembodied brain in a transparent shell and supported by many tentacles (resembling a jellyfish) burst out of the skull and leapt away in a final effort to escape.

The corpse in the training exercise was apparently infected with a Voodoo curse, meaning the nuns needed to be careful during cleanup and disposal. During the cleanup, some clumps of flesh started to tremble and move, with the possibility of coming together to form a globster. It was also noted that AEDs and epinephrine were off limits as trying to revive the corpse could cause the soulless doll to get up and start moving. During the battle on Thira, Isabella made use of a catapult, with twisted human skin used in place of a rope, to propel corpses filled with curses and disease towards the Guild base.

Isabella is capable of using her necromancy for divination, although the invoked dead spirits can only reveal lost information which cannot be found through methods available to the living (though not necessarily known to Isabella herself). In the case of finding where the destroyed stolen statue on Thira came from, Isabella began her spell by spreading her arms wide, with fluttering scraps of paper, clippings from newspapers and magazines filling the area. Invoking a dead spirit, drawn in by unsalted rye bread and unfermented grace juice, she demanded that it don a temporary garb to draw out information once formed by human hands but lost through death, declaring what she sought. As she completed her incantation and commands, the mini-whirlwind of papers took the form of a life-sized human. With no safety measures in place, it promptly began to attack the living (Isabella included), who then had to attack and tear all the articles from the raging dead spirit, with the last one left being the result.

Isabella can also use a Voodoo-based lime poison to temporarily stop someone's heart. She has gathered many techniques relating to death from various cultures besides Christianity and Voodoo, including Greek and Roman Mythology.

## Character Art Design

### Gallery

Isabella Theism's character design by Haimura Kiyotaka
## Quotes

* *“We rob graves, steal the stained clothing within, and wear them to become one with the dead so we can provide otherworldly answers from the mouths of the dead. That might sound like a cursed thing to do, but ours is the correct way to hear the words of a specific dead person.”[...]“As long as enough people come seeking our techniques, our field will never die out.”[...]“Eternal life will bring only loneliness. It is much more comforting to contact the dead and speak with the deceased. Twisted as it might seem, that’s just how humans are.”*
* *"“We’re talking about a Greek secret society here, so what do you think? Orpheus, Dionysus, or Persephone maybe? I can’t wait to find out☆”[...]“Necromancers like me have a fondness for this genre. Like Japan’s Izanami or the Egyptian pyramids. …Yes, a true magician can’t just rely on the Arsenal. You need to see things for yourself! Yes, yessss! The world is awash with death!!”*
* *"Eh heh heh. Now, this is getting interesting. A fresh corpse with no external injuries is rare indeed. Drool. And this isn’t just a pickled Hand of Glory or a body compressed into a diamond! It’s a full corpse I could do anything I want with!! I need as much reference material as I can get for the corpses I construct out of animal meat and bones and I was hoping to try out some new things. This really gets my imagination running wild! Ahh, the ideas just won’t stop! Is this further proof that I’m a genius? I could do so many cool things with this!!"*
* *"I’ve gathered all techniques related to death and the Greek and Roman mythologies are no exception. I was already madly in love with death that smells of pomegranate, so there was no need for me to convert. Of course, I love death that smells of lime, corn, and grapes just as much. My body carries far too much desire to remain faithful to just the one.”*