Ritsu

**Ritsu** (リツ) is a former servant of the Evangelist that serves as the Fifth Pillar's guardian as well as being the leader of the Knights of the Purple Smoke.

## Appearance

Ritsu is a young woman of average height with shoulder length teal hair and bangs that cover her eyes. She dresses similarly to the White-Clad, however her outfit resembles a cream-coloured maid uniform with high-heel shoes. In addition to wearing the cross of the Holy Sol Temple across her entire ensemble, her clothing has a prominent stitch mark pattern including her tights.

## Personality

As the Guardian of the danger-loving and excitable Fifth Pillar, Ritsu is calm, sensible and focused on Inca's safety. Despite their differences, the duo work well together and their powers complement each other well. While she is normally shows restraint, she is very insistent on only taking orders from Inca and being Inca's only guardian, snapping at Charon when he offers help. Despite this loyalty, Ritsu is capable of independent action, leadership and devising her own plots to ensure the Evangelist's goals. Schemes the she is has a great deal of confidence in. Resulting in either confusion when things do not work out or an inability to adapt when Haumea's meddling and chaotic nature knocks things off course. Additionally Ritsu sees nothing wrong with killing civilians or manipulating the corpses of her enemies to massacre others, believing humans and Infernals are all just kindling for her abilities. Taking a playful approach to forcing people to become part of her giants and seeing them as tools.

## Abilities

Ritsu's ability type is unknown. Necro Pyro allows her to control the ashes of the dead and Infernals. Using this ability, she can reanimate dozens of long-dead Infernals and control them. These reanimated Infernals can explode after latching onto an enemy. Those killed by these Infernals can also be reanimated and used as her puppets.

She is also able to fuse a living Infernal with the reanimated dead into a new form of Giant Infernal. The combined entity's power is defined by the humans that make it's base, so a giant made from an Infernal who had a strong body as a human will be stronger. These Infernals also have multiple cores, making them harder to destroy and demanding total destruction in order to be beaten. She is able to create several of these giants at once in a short span of time without losing control of her hordes of normal Infernals, allowing her to maintain pressure on the battlefield. While Ritsu is able to manipulate the fusion process to trap a person inside the Giant Infernal and control the giant, her captive can still use their abilities and could harm Ritsu or her allies.

## Plot

### Haijima Industries arc

Ritsu and Inca accompany Charon and his men in attempting to abduct Nataku Son, while Haumea and Arrow go elsewhere to deal with other combatants. At first Ritsu and Inca simply watch the battle between Charon, Company 8 and Haijima, until Inca orders her bodyguard to act as there are now enough bodies for her to exploit. Ritsu uses a fire bug to transform a security guard into an Infernal and uses the ashes of Kurono's victims to create a giant Infernal. This giant absorbs Nataku into it's body as it forms in order to capture him.
However, Haumea meddling with the boy's mind forces him to become more aggressive, causing him to create radiation and fire beams while trapped within the Giant. These wide-scale attacks and building nuclear threat endanger Ritsu and the rest of the combatants, which Ritsu notices is Haumea's fault. Ritsu relies on Inca's abilities to avoid harm and they witness both Charon reflecting Nataku's nuclear blast towards the moon and Kurono destroying the Giant and calming the boy down. Ritsu and her comrades flee the scene.

### Joint Investigation arc

Working alongside Doctor Giovanni, Ritsu creates a plan to simultaneously capture Shinra, crush the Fire Force and devastate Tokyo in one fell swoop. When Company 2, Company 8 and a member of the police force enter the Nether to investigate one of Giovanni's underground labs, Ritsu makes her move from the shadows. Using bodies buried within the Netherworld since the Great Disaster, Ritsu unleashes a horde of Infernals upon Company 8 and Company 2 and kills several Fire Soldiers. Those killed by these Infernals are reanimated to attack the survivors. She then orders her Knights to attack the investigating intruders.

As the battles rage, resulting in many deaths among Company 2 and the Knights of the Purple Smoke, Ritsu enacts her ultimate goal by placing her own Infernals and the corpses of Fire Soldiers throughout the Nether's foundations in a conical pattern. Simply waiting for Giovanni to capture Shinra before detonating her soldiers to cause the Tokyo Empire to collapse into the depths and misery. Her plan is discovered by Vulcan and Licht combining their knowledge and is only only avverted by Maki using her abilities to control fire over a wide range and Takigi's memorisation of the tunnels enabling Company 8 to disperse the explosions safely into the Earth. Ritsu, confident her plan would work, is left standing alone and confused after scarificing her Infernals only for there to be no massive national damage.

### Ōbi's Rescue arc

Wanting to change Tokyo to its rightful state, Ritsu joins Haumea in leading a group of White-Clad to Holy See. Taking control of Raffles III's mind, Haumea has him summon Leonard Burns. Upon him arriving with Company 1's priests and the group revealing their presence, Ritsu watches Haumea persuade Leonard in serving the Evangelist with them.

After the battles at Fuchū Prison end with Burns' defeat and Dragon's victory, Ritsu joins the other members of the White Clad as they try to capture the final Pillar and kill the remaining members of Company 8. Their attempts fail due to the arrival of Benimaru, who manages to block the White Clad's attacks long enough to allow the Fire Soliders to escape.

### Stone Pillars arc

Ritsu attends the final mass along with the other guardians. She promises to protect Inca until she dies in agony, to which Inca proposes it be a competition to see who can survive the longest.

### Battle of Amaterasu arc

With Ascension of the final stone pillar and destruction of Raffles' doppelgänger by Shinra, the Eight Pillars disappear from the world and are sent to Adolla. All but the final stage of their plan completed, Ritsu smiles as she, Giovanni, Dragon and Charon make their way to Amaterasu to insert the key and begin the Cataclysm.

Company 8, Ogun and Arrow arrive at the Generator just before the White Clad and establish a defensive line. Alongside Charon, Ritsu arrives on the battleground controlling an army of Infernals using her abilities. Completely surrounding the Fire Soliders with her horde, Ritsu forces Hinawa and Arrow to focus on her Infernals while Charon attacks. When they defeat her soldiers, Ritsu just fuses their ashes together into Giant Infernals so that they are unable to take focus away from her. As Charon is wounded by Hinawa and Ogun, Dragon emerges blasting waves of Infernals away while belittling the guardians and their efforts. As the battle drags out, Giovanni manages to sneak into the Amaterasu and use the key to trigger the Cataclysm. Ritsu seems to disappear in the aftermath while Charon loses his life and Dragon is briefly sent to space.

## Triva

* While Ritsu herself first appeared in Chapter 139, the effects of Necro Pyro appear as early as Chapter 30.
* Translator Notes in the English Edition of Volume 16 state that the chant Ritsu uses when creating her 'great fiery Infernal' is a homage to the chant used in the anime *Yattodetaman* to call the giant robot, Dai Kyojin, which is called a 'great giant god' and features prominent flame markings.
* According to her Character Profile:
	+ She is self-proclaimed, "The Pillars’ Maid."
	+ Her favorite foods are nuts. Her least favorite food is meat. She wants it to be cooked properly.
	+ Her favorite music is metal.
	+ Her favorite animal are bats.
	+ Her favorite color is white.
	+ Her favorite type are the type with firm legs and waist, easy to move.
	+ She respects the Evangelist.
	+ On the other side of things, she hates the type without firm legs and waist, difficult to move.
	+ She’s afraid of Haumea.
	+ Her hobbies include looking after Inca-ojou-sama.
	+ Her daily routine includes house chores and checking the death report.
	+ Her dream is to fulfill the goal of the Evangelist.
	+ Her shoe size is 24.5.
	+ Her eyesight is 1.5.
	+ Her favorite subjects are home economics, especially sewing. Her least favorite subject is society.