Mariana Ashengrotto

* Bio

**Mariana Ashengrotto**, also known by her title of "**Aías**," is one of the Paramount Heirs as the fourth-highest ranking member of the organization as the "**Nightmare Commissioner**".

Only a few years before the beginning of the story, Mariana was rescued by some Mizunoto-ranked members of the Paramount Heirs, having contracted amnesia while still remembering her original name but not the circumstances underneath which she contracted amnesia.

## Appearance

She is assumed to have delicate features, though how true this is remains a mystery at this point, due to her concealment of her face underneath a silver mask. Her younger half-brother has noted that Mariana is actually of above-average height for a girl of her age and is quite tall. Her has short, bob-cut hair that's a cool light-gray color. Her eyes are noted to be the same color as her hair, but a bit darker.

She is noted to don a more masculine look, as well as putting a hood constantly above her head. Her mask is designed to allow her to see through it with ease, while preventing other people from being able to take a glance at her face. On occassion, she has removed her mask and hood, revealing her similar facial features to her younger half-brother.

After the events of Book 2, she has abandoned her hood and silver owl-styled mask, allowing her facial features to be displayed in the open. She has also began wearing a puffy, long-sleeved, knee-length dark purple dress with a white underskirt. Layered above her underskirt is a dark purple overskirt divided in the middle, split into five sections. Her dress has a white mandarin collar fastened with a red cloverleaf knot, as well as a detailed black corset-like belt studded with gold. A gold medallion is pinned on the left side of her cape and a gold geometric symbol of unknown origin on her right. Her legwear consists of translucent lavender tights and a pair of knee-high, lace-up, dark purple boots.

## Personality

At first glance, appearing to be a bright and cheerful girl. A prankster, who despises sitting around and doing nothing, as she wishes to live her life to the fullest every single day. Of a eccentric nature and off-the-wall personality often leaves other people with a terrible first impression of her, especially Neige, who states that she has a "horrible sense of humor" and should improve her sense of humor. In contrast, Yaoyao enjoys her sense of humor, finding it irritating but also at the same time quite funny.

A person rooted in much tradition, she is much more solemn and careful when handling client's requests for funerals, never even once deviating from the given instructions. Due to the importance and traditions of the parlor's duties, she expresses a distaste towards people treating her or her employees with suspicion whenever they go to work at night.

Despite the negative impressions one might gain of Mariana, she is quite knowledgable about historical events and the past of the Paramount Heirs, able to accurately recite from memory all major events that have happened in the world. Being a spiritual being, means that she is deeply attuned to the world around her and is able to easily detect those people who are spiritual beings and those who carry merely the essences of spiritual beings inside of them.

## Background

Born to a strict and abusive father, a moray mermaid hybrid and a kindly, gentle, and passive mother, an octupus mermaid hybrid, Mariana was raised in a shattered household and was greatly mistreated by her biological father. What little children, the two managed to bring into the world quickly died, due to the neligance of her father and shattered the little trust that Mariana had in her father. Disappointed by his sole surviving child being a girl, her father abandoned their family.

At some point, Mariana managed to erase her mother's memory with help from an unknown benefactor (presumably one of the Paramount Heirs) and ran away from home, contracting amnesia in the process. She was then saved by the Storm Herrscher of the Paramount Heirs Minerva. Commencing her training underneath Minerva, she eventually rose in the ranks, until she became #4 of the Herrschers, aquiring the Cheimónas Sword as part of an agreement with Minerva.

Having found an abandoned baby Yaoyao in the forests outside of the main headquarters of the Paramount Heirs, Mariana took her in and raised her as one of her many students. To this day, Yaoyao still considers

## Students

### Yaoyao

Mariana and Yaoyao met when Yaoyao was only a mere baby of two weeks, Yaoyao's parents having originally been students underneath Mariana's instruction, leaving their master behind after an aftermentioned incident that involved them and six other students. At some point, Yaoyao was born and either unwilling or resentful of what she repersented (the tragic fate of their classmates), they abandoned her in front of Mariana's dojo, entrusting her to their old master. Yaoyao regards Mariana with the highest degree of respect and refuses to hear badmouthing of her teacher, even nearly killing somebody in anger after hearing their remarks about Mariana.

## Signature Spell

Her signature spell is called "Nightmare" and it's a mental-based signature spell that targets the mental faculities of the target's brain. Due to it's data-collecting aspect and ability to mesh seemlessely into the vestiges of a target's brain, it's considered more taxing than most signature spells and in order to maintain it, Mariana has to constantly sleep to prevent the blot from spreading any further.

## Trivia

* She has atrocious handwriting.
* According to Floyd, she is a sneaker's nerd.
* Mariana wears a Kitsune-styled mask to hide her face, presumably because she's quite shy.
* She didn't go home during the winter holidays in Book 4 because the ice that drifts in the Coral Sea makes it hard to safely steer a boat into port.
* Mariana was formerly a octupus mermaid before ascending as a spiritual being with the standard immortality granted to all spiritual beings.
* Mariana has a hobby of scaring people despite what her serious demeanor may suggest.
* She has a job as the 77th Funeral Director of Mariana Funeral Parlor.
* She is extremely skilled at fire magic, her style of fire magic being distinctly different from magic used by students of Night Raven.
* She doesn't accumulate blot due to the nature of her magic.
* There are some evidence that she might be an tengu-kitsune hybrid, as she doesn't need a broom to fly and can manifest black wings without a single thread of thought, and she has some youkai-related abilities that are all usually tied to the kitsunes.
* Her father is stated to have died young before Azul was even born, so Azul remembers having only one stepfather.
* Mariana was born when her grandmother was in her early 20's, which means Mariana and Azul's mother was a teenager mom.
* Azul has never met his "aunt" Mariana and only remembers her faintly, by the sound of her voice.
* Her mother's memory was erased whereas her grandmother's memory was not, leading to her grandmother to pretend that Mariana was her missing daughter, and the current Mariana (actually the original Mariana) is the original Mariana's daughter.

## References

1. ↑ 210cm when converted to feet is 6'8"
2. ↑ Yaoyao is one of the many human students of Mariana and has been underneath her tuterlague since the beginning of her life.