Cassia "Araqiel" Silva

### Gate Quantity/Quality/Output

A+ (Originally B but the Sabragash in her body amount has increased dramatically) /A/A

### Principle

Connection

**Cassia Silva**, also known as “O Calamidade Artilheiro” or "Araqiel", is a magus from the Silvia Family, formerly a student from the Anansi Islands, and currently a Powers Rank member of the Heavenly Hosts. She is the current scion of the Silvia Family, a position earned after her twin sister was sold off for having no capacity for magic, and her killing her half-brother in a duel. Cassia has gone through the intrigue and dangers of mage-family succession through power. By her father's will, she serves the Heavenly Hosts, despite not sharing their religious beliefs, although she has learned enough to fool others. The power of the Stars and an Angel is in the hands of the heir.

## Background

The Silva family is a family of astrologists who hailed from Europe and migrated to Brazil during the 1700s. Being an opportunistic family, they established themselves by securing land, connections, and sustainable wealth for a time. While there they integrated knowledge of native astrology into their knowledge and had gained so much knowledge and familiarity with it, that they found a way to use their system of astrology that borrows from European and South American culture. The family had studied astrology to the point that resulted in the lack of pigmentation in most of their family members which they believed to be a blessing as if the stars had blessed their hair to shine like starlight.

This brings us to the current generation of the Silva family where Cassia was born along with her twin sister Clara. Unfortunately, when the twins were four years old, the family decided there was no point in raising Clara because she possessed no ability to cast magic. They sold her to a Shiai-shi mage and so because of that, Cassia did not have much memory of her sister besides her being considered as a failure to the family. She was raised as the sole heir of the family however that soon changed when her mother passed away from an illness. Not even a year had passed since her death, and her father already found a woman from a resourceful family to marry. As soon as the woman named Aurelia moved into the family, she did not take a liking to Cassia at all because she wanted her newborn to be the heir of the family instead.  Unfortunately for Aurelia, her son’s potential was deemed to not be as good as Cassia’s unusual gate composition so she was still the heir of the family.

Cassia was pleased to learn her position was unchallenged and continued her studies diligently. Unknown to Cassia, Aurelia did not stop trying to ensure her son would become the heir. On her twelfth birthday when most of the relatives were invited to the celebration, she was so badly poisoned that she could have died if a maid didn’t find her passing out on the floor quickly enough. It took her a month to return to her normal life but it left Cassia worrying who poisoned her. She had a suspicion it was Aurelia and told her father that she poisoned her but her father did not believe her because she had no evidence to prove it. Cassia was frustrated by her lack of evidence and ordered a servant to investigate further into the poison.

The investigation took a lot longer than she expected because each time she sent someone to search, they disappeared shortly after trying to investigate the subject. Eventually, all the servants close to Cassia were replaced by new people, making it difficult for her to trust them to not inform Aurelia what she was doing. It took a year to finally compile enough evidence to prove Aurelia was the reason why she was poisoned. With confidence, Cassia showed them to her father but her father simply replied he would talk to her about this. Cassia demanded Aurelia to be gone from the family for nearly killing her but her father disagreed because he still wanted the connections he could have through Aurelia. They had a big argument and it ended with her father stating Cassia wasn’t seeing the big picture and she survived the poison so it doesn’t matter. She begrudgingly accepted her father had a point.

After Aurelia figured she got away with her poisoning attempt, she tried again multiple times through different methods over time. It got tiring for Cassia but she managed to stop every time she did however she wanted to find a way to get back at Aurelia eventually for all she had done to her. Cassia eventually got old enough to attend the Anansi Island Association and devoted most of her time to studying. It was these years she felt safest away from her home. Although she cannot compete with the top students from the noble families, she does shine when it comes to combat magic ability. She did come back to her home during the summers.

One summer, she finally decided to get her payback. Cassia proposed a duel to the death to determine who would be the heir of the family with her half-brother. He had no problem with it because he wanted to prove himself to be the better candidate but Aurelia did not like her son’s chances and tried to talk him out of it. He was too stubborn to hear and the two candidates both signed a binding contract to agree to the terms and conditions of the duel. On the day of the duel, Cassia had confidence she would be able to win the fight easily and couldn’t wait to see Aurelia’s expression. The duel was over in just one attack when Cassia unbottled her years of anger and shot a large beam that immediately killed her brother before he was able to do anything. It was a one-sided fight and Cassia was stunned by how quick the fight was. Aurelia was devastated and was held back by the servants to prevent her from lunging at the murderer who mercilessly killed her only child. Cassia felt a brief sense of satisfaction but it quickly turned bitter for killing him because he wasn’t that bad of a person and didn’t deserve that death. She couldn’t understand her feelings and immediately returned to her studies to keep her mind off of it.

Shortly after, her father wrote to her for the first time. She was expecting her father to be furious with her but he commended her magic ability in that duel and that he was proud of her. Any doubts she had about the duel’s outcome were cast aside because all that matters is that her father is proud of her. She then became a yellow-rank magus when she graduated from the Anansi Island Association but her combat ability is comparable to the level of a Blue rank. She came back to her house to find out Aurelia had taken her son’s death and hardly left her room. Cassia didn’t feel bad for what she did.

Her father called Cassia to come to her office that he had already set her up to join the Heavenly Hosts to hone her magical abilities there for a few years. Cassia didn’t mind much of her father making plans for her and she wanted to get out of the house too. Soon enough, she found herself as a member of the organization and joined Azazel’s squad. She was then promoted to the rank of Powers after she learned more about the angel she was bound with.

## Personality

Cassia possesses the arrogance of a traditional mage who tends to look down on weak people. She won’t go out of her way to demean them but she will avoid teaming up with them as much as possible because she will be the one doing most of the work. Unfortunately, she isn’t given much choice as someone who recently joined the Heavenly Hosts. She also doesn’t see the point of saving people who can’t protect themselves because sooner or later, something else will endanger them. This makes it hard for her to understand people like her squad leader Azazel, who is willing to sacrifice himself for the so-called greater good. Those views of hers are a common debate topic between her and Araqiel. Although she dislikes weak people, she frowns upon people who are unnecessarily cruel to the innocents but she won’t say no to torturing those who deserve it.

She doesn’t believe in the religion Heavenly Hosts dedicate themselves to but she goes along with it when she needs to. She had studied enough about their faith to pass off as a worshipper to avoid being questioned. The only reason why she joined the organization was because her father told her to do so. As the heir, Cassia is duty-bound to her family and will do anything her father asks because she believes he knows best for the sake of the Silva family.

Being nearly poisoned to death as a child still affects her to this day. After learning she was poisoned by food, she became paranoid about outside food. The exceptions to this are sealed food packages and food prepared by people she trusts. It took her several weeks to finally accept eating the Heavenly Host’s provided food instead of wasting her time preparing her food. If anyone questions her paranoid behavior toward food, she will brush it off that the food is not to her taste. Her pride refuses to let anyone know about her fear or weakness because she doesn’t want to be viewed as a weak person.

## Araqiel

Araqiel is the Angel or a Sabragash who took on the qualities and name of the angel Araqiel. He is sympathetic toward living creatures of the earth and has the mindset that the strong should protect the weak which clashes with Araqiel’s beliefs. He often criticizes his hosts’ moral compasses if they conflict with his morals; however, it is strange that he always forms relationships with hosts like that or perhaps he has the mindset of “I can fix them.” He is a straightforward angel to bond with and enjoys getting to know more about his host.

He always pesters his host to update him on new video games to see if they pique his interest and then nags Cassia to go buy them for him. She found it to be an annoying chore to do especially when Araqiel occasionally asks her to play games with him. Araqiel speaks straightforwardly because he rather have his host understand what he is saying than keep on repeating the same thing. His inner world takes the form of a forest which is strange especially when he manifests a gaming room out of nowhere for him to play his video games.

## Abilities

### Angel Techniques

Cassia does not have the highest resonance with her angel at the moment but if given enough time, perhaps that will change. She has become familiar with Angel Vision and exorcism. Angel vision Is an extrasensory perception, or “sixth sense”. Those who use this ability can instinctively see how people and objects relate to them, which manifests as a colored glow, much like an aura. This even relates to the normally unseen such as spirits and can even allow them to see through basic illusions. Or even being able to see if one is possessed or being controlled by a magical entity. Exorcism is a simple technique of use against basic possession. Instead of using magical energy the energy of the soul temporarily floods the target usually by physical touch to force out and purify the target.

#### Advent: Ludicium

An Advent is the First Stage and requires knowledge of the Angel’s name and compatibility with each other. Upon activation, a bow will manifest. With Araqiel being the protector of the planet’s living creatures,  the user can use it to shoot at her allies to apply a shield around them. The shield can protect them from “evil” beings and the shield’s strength will depend on the host’s resonance.

### Magic

Cassia is a Yellow Rank magus upon graduating from the Anansai Island Association but has combat ability in magecraft on the level of a Blue rank. Being an expert in their family craft, she boasts great offensive capabilities in using their special brand of magic earning the title 'O calamidade artilheiro' (The magic gunner in Portuguese). Cassia has an unusual gate composition that allows her to cast spells faster than average magi and anyone else in the Silva family. The Silva family borrowed from both European and South American astromancy magic to create their unique magic spells. The Inca believed everything was connected under the sky including inanimate objects and living beings. This is one of the concepts Silva incorporated into their magic.

As the heir to the Silva family, she is familiar with astromancy and it is what she used as a base for her casting style called “Star Against Star” and “Black Type” based on the two groups of constellations the Incas classified. The first group is constellations that are joined with imaginary lines the distances between the stars. Spells under this category have a more fluid motion and take a longer time to cast. The “Black Type” is the second group and they are figures that stand out as black clouds over the higher-density parts of the Milky Way. Spells under this category are faster to cast and it is what Cassia mainly used to shoot magic bullets. Magic bullets are simply materialized magical energy fired as heat. The result is a destructive force equal to the amount of energy she can handle. For some reason, she always uses a finger gun gesture to shoot her small magic bullets even though it isn’t necessary for someone her level but old habits die hard.

Her Magic Bullets Have Three Levels:

**Bam (Level 1)** - A “Black Type” spell that favored rate of fire over firepower. It is like a machine gun volley. She used this the most.

**Wham (Level 2)** - A “Star Against Star” spell that is the opposite of Bam. It favors firepower over the rate of fire. This is the equivalent of her artillery shot.

**Kaboom (Level 3)** - Her most powerful type of bullet or it will be once she masters this spell. It combines both types of spells that allow her to shoot several magic beams simultaneously.

### Physical Abilities

Heavenly Hosts members are taught the form of combat known as Jacob’s limbs. It is a secret art not meant to be shown unless necessary. The original Levites learned from Moses as they never lost faith in God. It is the same form of combat Jacob used to allegedly fight with an Angel. As a long-range fighter, Cassia is only familiar with the basics of Jacob’s limbs and still has room to improve.