#By the way we don't know who Tazusa's mother is. Only that she fought at Antarctica

[leagueofgardens]

The Chairwoman of Yurigaoka

This is Yuyu and Riri's Schutzengel contract, which Riri proudly shows off in Episode 3 of Assault Lily: Bouquet. I don't think any English version of Bouquet translated it. If they had, it would say this at the bottom:

Witnesses Yurigaoka Girls' Academy Chairwoman—Takamatsu Shiera Yurigaoka Girls' Academy Acting Chairman—Takamatsu Kogetsu

Who's Takamatsu Shiera?

Let's find out.

The Battle of Antarctica

First, we need to talk about the Battle of Antarctica.

Actually, we know so little about it that "Battle" may not even be the right translation. It could have been a series of battles, or an entire war (the Japanese word is ambiguous.)

What we do know is that it happened before any of the Lilies currently in their first year of high school were born, so no later than 2036 (Bouquet volunteered the information with extreme reluctance, but the current year in it is 2052.) An Ultra-class Huge was spotted in Antarctica, so several thousand people went there to fight it.

In the end, less than 10% of those people survived. Nevertheless, the Battle of Antarctica was considered the first decisive conflict against the Huge, whatever that means. It might be because they won, or it might be because some equipment still being used in the present day (like the "Anti-Huge Weapons" used by Madecs) was first jury-rigged up in the field in Antarctica.

The survivors of Antarctica are world-famous heroes and still have strong bonds with one another. They included Tazusa's parents, Miriam's parents, a number of teachers and other staff at Yurigaoka, Takamatsu Kogetsu, and Takamatsu Shiera.

Antarctica is shown in a brief flashback in episode 11 of Bouquet. This is where the screenshot above is from.

Male CHARM Users

While it's not that relevant to the topic of Shiera, the list of survivors above might make you wonder what Tazusa's dad, Miriam's dad, and Kogetsu were doing in Antarctica. The answer is "fighting alongside the Lilies there." Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that they were Lilies (though we don't know if the term was in use yet at the time.)

If you have a really good memory, you might remember a passing mention of "Skiller Values" in episode 7 of Bouquet. Skiller Values are a measurement, on a scale of 0 to 100, of how effectively a person's body can channel magie. You need a Skiller Value of at least 50 to activate a CHARM and be a Lily. Lilies' Skiller Values go up to 98, and are commonly above 85 when they're in their prime.

Men sometimes have Skiller Values of 50 (but no higher, ever), and can activate CHARMs. A handful of sources call these "male Lilies," though it's more common for them to be called "male CHARM users." Some were present at Antarctica, including Kogetsu, and Tazusa's dad. Miriam's dad has a Skiller Value of 40 and couldn't use a CHARM, so he fought with the Anti-Huge Weapons built by an Arsenal named Debora, later Debora von Gropius (after the two of them came back from Antarctica and got married.)

Male CHARM users can't fight the tougher varieties of Huge effectively, nor use the Neunwelt Tactic at all, so eventually people stopped giving men CHARMs (they're really expensive to build after all.) But there was a time, early on, when men fought the Huge too.

Takamatsu Shiera

There are were no pictures of Shiera, so have another picture of Fumi instead for no reason

Sorry for the tangent. Let's get back on topic. Though the amount I can tell you about Shiera herself is somewhat limited.

Shiera is Kogetsu's older sister. She fought in Antarctica as a Lily. She has a Rare Skill called "Amatsukami" that to our knowledge no one else does; we don't even know what it does or if she's ever used it.

After Shiera returned from Antarctica, she and quite a few of the other survivors of Antarctica became staff members at Yurigaoka Girls' Academy. Yurigaoka already existed prior to this (it's existed since the Taisho era,) but it's unknown when it transitioned from being an ordinary girls' school into a Garden. It couldn't have been that much earlier than Antarctica itself, because the Huge only appeared around the year 2000.

Currently, Shiera is in poor health, and spends most of her time convalescing. Her brother Kogetsu, as the acting chairman of Yurigaoka, has been doing her job for the most part.

Shiera is a Boosted Lily, and she hates being one. In my previous blog post, I mentioned a Boosted Lily who said "I don't want anyone else to become like me"; that's Shiera. It's because of Shiera herself that Yurigaoka is anti-GEHENA to the point of breaking Lilies out of GEHENA labs. Some sources mention that, because she fought in Antarctica together with Tazusa's father, Shiera personally arranged for Tazusa to be rescued from GEHENA.

Like most Boosted Lilies, Shiera has a Boosted Skill. I mentioned that in my previous post, too:

Nosferatu, which causes a Lily to stop visibly aging and halts the decline of her magie capacity as well. Only one Lily has ever been given this Boosted Skill successfully.

Futagawa Fumi (she has a Twitter account where she tells us a lot of stuff) claims that she's seen Shiera before. According to Fumi, she looks like she's around twenty years old and is "beautiful, but has this super intimidating aura around her."

And that's pretty much all we know. She's still very mysterious, huh?

But I hope you found all this interesting.

(If you somehow ended up reading the original version of this post, check the reblogs for an important update.)