Minerva Stryx

**Minerva Stryx** is one of the Arcana Witches who embodies **The World**.

## Story

### From Principal to Queen

A school principal who touched the Grimoire of Eliphas, she became the first Magical Girl crafted by the Grimoire. As a result, she was infused with part the soul of Eliphas's old lover, **Eugenie Chevenier**. This gave Minerva troubles of the self, exceptional power due to her bond with the **World Arcana**, and a strange duty to protect the mysterious Jacob Osea.

When more and more Magical Girls were created, Minerva sought to enforce rules and became known as the Witch-Queen, ruling over all Arcana Witches and keeping their existence a secret to protect them. She managed to hold back most Arcanas during the first Samhain, albeit with great losses and almost dying in the process ; nevertheless, her administration, or **Senate**, was strong and enduring.

### Times of Strife

Opposing Mara Tianma who sought to reveal her presence and sow chaos, Minerva was forced to wage war upon her while preparing for another, more devastating Samhain. She received help in the presence of the last Magical Girl, Coquelicot Tulipa, who offered her her help with preparing for this Samhain. Coquelicot united everyone and gave Minerva control over the operations.

While seeing Coquelicot manage to befriend and get close to all other Magical Girls, while she herself was unable to due to her duties, Minerva felt pain and almost gave in to her own Negative Arcana but due to her great self-control and Coquelicot's help, finally managed to regain control over herself. Thanking Coquelicot and promising herself to change, she entrusted her powers to her.

During Samhain, Minerva used her powers to alter reality in order to slow down the Negative World Arcana, giving up most of her life force, but this time, she was no longer alone ; people by her side protected her, healed her and supported her, allowing her to triumph. When the dust settled and everyone survived, Minerva celebrated this victory alongside those she viewed not only as subjects but as friends.

## Appearance

Minerva is a woman with short blond hair kept in ponytails and crimson eyes. As the Witch-Queen, she usually wears a majestic white dress and dons a crown ; however, most of the time, she wears a standard formal attire required for a school principal.

## Personality

Minerva was a woman of order who viewed herself - perhaps not wrongly - as the axis upon which all Magical Girls rested. Enforcing cosmic order even if it meant to be hated for it, she made harsh decisions in order to protect her fellow witches from harm. However, it ended up torturing her from within, making her feel unfufilled and unable to truly get close to them.

Minerva is calm, intelligent and possesses excellent self-control, as shown several times. She is a master strategist and organizer and can be considered a genius ; however, her mind is plagued by the tormenting Negative World and the lack of understanding about her true nature. She however eventually comes to make peace with those torments.

## Powers

* **Arcana Powers:** Mastery over the World Arcana allows her to alter reality at will, although her powers consume most of her life-force upon each use. However, these powers are double-edged, and as the Witch of the World, she risks summoning the Negative World into the material realm if her emotions falter.

## Storylines

* Tarot Hearts shows Minerva watching over all Arcana Witches.

## Trivia

* Minerva and Stryx both refer at the same thing : Athena, goddess of wisdom, whose symbol was the owl - and Strix is a genus of typical owl. It should be noted that the Strix is an owl-like mythological creature whose name gave the italian name for Witch, "Strega" ; this is of course no coincidence.
* The parallel between Minerva and Coquelicot - the woman who controls all yet is close to no one, and the girl who controls nothing yet functions as an emotional bond for everyone - is reflected in the opposition between their Arcanas, the World and the Fool.