Beatrix

"This is a good hand. I’m sure you’ll grow stronger."

- Beatrix to Cid

Beatrix (ベアトリクス) is the first champion of the Bushin Festival, hailed as the War Goddess for her unrivaled mastery of swordsmanship. She is also heavily implied to be the long-lost aunt of Alpha, whom the former is currently searching for.

Appearance
Beatrix is a beautiful Elf with well-refined features and a voluptuous figure. She is always seen carrying her sword by her side. She has long platinum hair, blue eyes, and pale-colored skin. Cid notes that she greatly resembles Alpha, so much so that one would't be blamed for assuming they are related.

Her attire comprises of a gray robe with tattered edges, a white bikini top, and black short skirts with gold accessories. She wears a leg stocking on her right leg with length starting just above the ankle and ending at middle of her thigh, while her left leg is mostly bare aside from two straps. For accessories, she wears black gloves, a jewel-adorned hairband and a necklace with what appears to be a sapphire.

In the novel and manga, she has a double-edged longsword with a gold hilt decorated with black and blue accents, with the scabbard designed in white with gold and black accents. While in the anime version, the weapon is a single-edged straight sword, like a katana without the curved warping.

Personality
"Do you know of any elves who look like me?"

- Beatrix to Cid Kagenou

Beatrix is ​​shown to be a mature person, but is typically passed of as stoic individual that is socially awkward and with an aloof attitude. This confuses others and makes them question whether her title is a true testament or exaggeration. Her tactless nature may be seen by others as someone who speaks her thoughts out loud without filter, but she is still polite to those that engages with her.

Beatrix has a degree of self-confident and seems to have a determined attitude as seen by her unyielding desire to achieve her goals by finding her niece. Beatrix, like Shadow, also feels a strong attraction to face off against powerful opponents when she is able to find them. She is not above teaming up with others to defeat larger threats as shown by her alliance with Iris Midgar.

Beatrix maintains her friendly, kind and loving presence with people she likes, and is intuitive enough to avoid the possibility of death in combat when faced with very strong enemies. This is in contrast to Iris Midgar, who is carried away by her rage and revenge to the point of willingly sacrificing everything to kill Shadow.

Powers & Abilities
Beatrix is hailed as one of if not the strongest swordswomen in the world, with Iris Midgar, the strongest swordswoman in the Midgar Kingdom, openly admitting that Beatrix is stronger than her. The Cult of Diablos believes that she had inherited the power of her ancestor; the "Elf Hero" Olivier. She even managed to hold her own against Shadow, until the latter got a "little serious".

Physical Prowess
Beatrix's strength and speed are on par with Shadow, at least while the latter is holding back. Cid himself notes that her movements are so fast that a normal person would not be able to perceive them.

Her physical resistance and supernatural strength are at extreme levels, being one of the few, if not the only descendant of the Hero Olivier, to be alive and without contracting the Diabolos Curse. She was able to withstand multiple forceful attacks by Shadow, who was gradually increasing his strength with time and handle it better than Iris Midgar. She recovered soon after her defeat and was quickly back at normal capacity, though Shadow was holding back throughout their fight.

Movement Reading
Due to much intense training, in addition to a century worth of experience and battles of swordsmanship, Beatrix developed the ability to read the movements of her opponents when she faces them. This allows her to study, analyze, and counteract their attacks before they reach her. This ability was also displayed by Shadow during their fight. During the Bushin festival in the kingdom of Midgar, both Beatrix and Shadow were able to counteract each other's attacks, while fighting at super fast speeds, almost as if they were teleporting inside and outside the stadium.

Although Beatrix has said ability, her level of skill and practice appears to pale in comparison to the mastery that Shadow has over his. Beatrix has shown that she tends to depend on her fast attacks instead of her ability to read the attacks opponents, possibly due to not having strong enough opponents in the past to use it on.

When Shadow decided to test Beatrix's title as the "Goddess of War", by applying a little more pressure in his attacks, swordsmanship and supernatural speed, true to his words of getting a little more serious, in both the manga and the Light Novel, Beatrix admitted that she became unable to see the trajectory of his attacks and was unable to feel, hear, or capture the speed to which shadow was moving, and along with his presence, which terrified her a lot. The way her opponent fought, was as if it was a natural phenomenon, from which one could not know, when or where he would attack. Thus, she shifted to full defense and was only able to defend effectively out of sheer instinct, impressing Shadow of her skills.

Master Swordsmanship
Hailed as the only legendary master swordswoman, symbolized by being given an epithet with a deity title, Beatrix is extremely skilled with the longsword. She was the first champion of the Bushin Tournament. Hence, her skill in swordsmanship was a force to be reckoned with and was described to be the apex of the art along with Shadow. She is an adaptive combatant, whether alone or in a team, even if she never fought with the other person before, she is able to bring out the best of their abilities. As a testament to her abilities, she was able to fight on par with Shadow for a short while, successfully slicing the raindrops that ran past them along with Shadow, as well as create and close brief moments of open space between themselves, in just a few moments. However, this was only because he was holding back, and she was easily overpowered once he decided to draw his "true sword", and apparently got a little serious.

In the anime, there are several of her special techniques shown that involves sheathing her blade before executing a powerful attack, According to Shadow's own words, Beatrix's handling of the sword is at least almost equal to the same level as that of his subordinates and himself. She was able to start getting use to Shadow’s suppressed attacks before he surprised her by attacking from her blind spots without any warning. In the beginning, she was only able to parry after he gave her the opportunity to react on time after attacking her using his abilities.

Eventually, Beatrix was able to genuinely counter and block Shadow’s abilities of attacking her blind spot despite completely erasing his presence. Through her sword dexterity and strength, she was able to destroy both of Shadow’s magic enhanced crowbars. Both occasions elicited shock and awe from Shadow since it was the first time someone did so well against him, barring his subordinates. This implies that she improves quickly and can replicate what she just learnt even in the heat of battle.

Superior Senses
Beatrix possesses superhuman senses, being able to see right through the intimidation tactics Shadow used against Iris and sensing something was wrong with Raphael Oriana despite Perv Asshat's attempt to hide the king's drugging using perfume.

Beatrix has a strong sense of smell, being able to discern the smell of other races on other people. Her eyesight can keep up with Shadow even as he moved at his fastest pace during their sparring session.

Warrior Perception
Beatrix also has sharp instincts honed through her experiences as a swordswoman. She can determine the strength of others just by her instincts alone, being the only person that could discern his true abilities despite his facade. She was also able to defend against Shadow's 'invisible' blade for a short duration.

Although it should be noted that this ability that Beatrix has is not fully perfected. Although she may know how strong and powerful a person can become just by a touch, she does not know exactly what kind of warrior they are, as seen with Shadow when she didn’t see through his suppressed strength and identity. When she came face to face with Cid, after shaking hands with him, she knew that he possessed great talent and power but could not guess his secret identity despite confronting him afterwards as Shadow on the tournament field.

This is a very special ability that can only be gained with strong experience in both swordsmanship and frequent usage of it. Shadow also possesses the same ability as Beatrix but at a higher level.

Magic
According to Shadow words in the anime, he admitted that although Beatrix's swordsmanship is almost the same in development as that of the Shadow Garden members, her magic, on the contrary, leaves much to be desired. Beatrix is able to use it to perform powerful attacks and resist heavy damage, but it can't heal serious injuries to herself or others or further enhance her abilities.

Standard Equipment:
Beatrix wears almost no armor, shield or body protection. She wears short yin clothing (sometimes a short skirt), a cape with a hood, and a kind of warrior bra. Although she has rightful confidence after inheriting the strength of the Hero Olivier, if necessary she can also use weapons such as:


 * Long Sword: So far the only main weapon she uses is a magical semi-adorned longsword, which allows her to fight and channel her magic in a very extreme way. Although the weapon is made of a kind of metal that is good as a conductor, more than normal metal, it is still inferior to the magic conductivity of Shadow Garden's slime weapons and suits. It is speculated that being a special metal (possibly stainless steel), its conductivity of magic must be 20-30% at most, compared to normal metal which is 10%.

Deadly Quick Cut
Beatrix's strongest attack whereby she channels her magic into her sword to perform a powerful, rapid-flash slash, capable of slashing the middle of her enemy's body into shreds. It only takes a few seconds and is done by momentarily tracing lines running across a person’s body. However, unlike Shadow, her’s does not extend into the surrounding environment.

When Beatrix and Iris Midgar faced Shadow, seeing that they couldn't do anything to him, Iris offers herself as a sacrificial decoy so that Beatrix could kill him. She used her strongest technique which was able to make Shadow lose his footing and sword despite blocking it. However, Shadow was able to quickly regain his balance, easily dodged her follow-up strike and counterattacked using hand-to-hand combat.

Speed Flash Special
Beatrix uses her magic to move across large distances in less than a second, something learned upon reaching the elite level of Magic Warriors and Dark Swordsmen. Unlike those who learn this, Beatrix has honed it to a degree that allowed her to be on par with Shadow for a few moments. In the anime, Beatrix was the only one who managed to keep up fully with the fight against Shadow, unlike Iris Midgar who could only do so for a few moments. She contributed to the destruction of the four corners of Midgar capital and her battle with Shadow climaxed at the top of the clock tower which was the capital of the Kingdom of Midgar, all before anyone felt the shockwave of their first clashes.

Hike on the Water
Through the use of her magic, Beatrix can walk and run on water. She can use this whenever she has to fight on non-rocky terrains, such as rivers, lagoons, and other bodies of water. It is a skill that can be learned but so far only Shadow, Iris Midgar and herself are able to handled it in combat at extreme conditions.

Trivia

 * The name Beatrix means "voyager, traveler" in Late Latin and it is later influenced in spelling by association with the Latin word beatus or "blessed."
 * It also means "she who brings happiness; blessed" in Latin, and Dutch.
 * Both the name of Beatrix, and in part her nickname, refers to the supposed Goddess Beatrix, mentioned by Nelson, during the "Goddess's Trial", from the magical world that many churches and sanctuaries worship. It is speculated that the supposed goddess is just another deception of the Cult to gain more support from the people, from the early days of the time of the Demon Diabolos.
 * Beatrix so far, is one of the only few descendants of the Hero Olivier, not to contract Demonic possession from the demon Diabolos, apart from his deceased sister, from his early childhood, to his maturity as an adult.
 * Despite her appearance, her way of dressing and behaviour, Beatrix is a very strong warrior and is older than she appears to be, since she is an elf. But due to her appearance and mannerisms, she is often mistaken as a vagrant without any poneticial and without value as such. Iris Midgar, Cid Kagenou, Annerose, are among a few who know how powerful she is without needing to fully recognize her by reputation as a warrior, unlike the general audiences, and without get carried away by appearances as such.
 * In the game "The Eminence in Shadow: Master of Garden", Beatrix's real age is stated to be over 100 years, (It is not yet clear if the information that the game provides about the characters can be considered canonical).
 * Similar to the Beastkin, Beatrix apparently has a strong taste for the powerful and talented people that she foresees. In the anime, Beatrix apparently has a love interest in Cid Kagenou, when she first meets him, In the game, she feels an interest to such an extent, that she wanted to marry Cid Kagenou when she first met him.
 * According to the game, Beatrix, like the other girls in Shadow Garden, has become romantically interested in Cid Kageno. An irony because without knowing it, her presumed niece "Alpha" is also romantically interested with Cid Kagenou, to the point that if he becomes someone strong like Beatrix would say, she would hallucinate what their possible child would be like if he married her, implying that she is single.
 * Beatrix, like Shadow, shows a strong interest and desire to face powerful people she meets for the first time. Through this way, she can know how strong she has become and how powerful they are. When Beatrix noticed that Cid Kagenou was someone strong, he also showed some interest in fighting her. Also, when she witnessed Iris Midgar defeat against Jimina Sehnen, Beatrix desire to face him grew stronger.
 * By her own words, when she first fought against Shadow and he decided to get a little serious against her, and take out his real "sword", he discovered that the way his enemy wielded his sword, and the sword itself, was as if it were fused with nature itself, akin to some kind of natural phenomenon like raindrops and lightning. This makes it very dangerous for her and for anyone who comes up against him, given that, like any natural phenomenon, it is not known where or when it will attack until it is too late to protect oneself.
 * Shortly before losing to Shadow, he confesses to Iris Midgar and Beatrix that only his name and his way of acting are all that he is, that everything else that has happened is just a pure fictitious invention of his mind (without know that everything is real), but they only take it as a strong insult that motivates them even more to fight.
 * By his admission, Beatrix is one of the few powerful individual that Shadow himself declared to be deserving of being remembered and live in his memory. She was able endure a prolonged battle with Shadow longer than anyone else including his shadow gardens.
 * The color of Beatrix's magic is a bright white which is juxtaposed to Shadow’s dark blue.