Iris Midgar

Iris Midgar (アイリス・ミドガル) is the first princess of the Midgar Kingdom and the elder sister of Alexia Midgar. She is also the leader of the Crimson Order.

Appearance
Iris is a red-headed beauty. She has fiery straight hair that reaches down to her back and has red eyes.

Personality
She is a brave and diligent person, upholding her duty to protect her kingdom with seriousness. This leads many to revere her as an exemplary warrior.

However, she is not without flaws. While by no means arrogant, Iris has a degree of stubbornness that prevents her from seeing that there are beings in this world far stronger than her. Also, despite being a princess, she lacks political and leadership skills, being incapable of managing her Crimson Order. She even acknowledges this herself, admitting that Alexia is smarter than her.

Life of the First Princess of Midgar
Iris entered the God of War tournament, presumably when she was just a student of Midgar Academy. There, she had single-handedly defeated Viscount Olba. As time passed, Iris gained fame and popularity among the masses for her strength. Iris later watched Alexia practicing her swordsmanship. She complimented her sister that she liked it but Alexia wrongly interpreted the meaning causing a rift between them.

Kidnapping of the Princess
After learning her sister's disappearance, Iris desperately ordered the knights to find her. She later get into a fierce confrontation from Claire Kagenou whose brother, Cid was suspected of kidnapping Alexia. Iris looked at the window, crying for her sister's return.

Later one night, the kingdom is under massive panic and Iris and her men head into the city to stop the chaos, eventually encountering a giant monster. Despite easily defeating it many times, the monster regenerates. Before Iris could resume attacking, Alpha stopped her and ended the monster's rampage.

Iris witnessed a huge explosion and head to its location where she finally finds Alexia much to her happiness.

Bushin Festival Incident
Fearing for her kingdom's future, Iris participated in the Bushin Festival in hopes her victory would raise her people's confidence. She also contacted a previous Bushin Festival champion, Beatrix, possibly to have her as an ally. When the festival began, Iris looked after Cid Kagenō.

As the festival progressed, Iris started noticing one of the contestants, Mundane Mann and his apparent strength however she was confident that she could defeat him. When the two finally meet in the arena, Iris charged in first and attempted to take him down before he could strike. However, Iris stopped herself as her instincts was wildly warning her about the dangers Mundane posed. Iris began to hallucinate herself suffering gruesome deaths and eventually came to realize that Mundane was responsible, having thrown feints at her. Iris came to the horrific discovery that Mundane might possibly be the strongest Dark Knight in the world but her pride and stubbornness refused to let her back down and she tried to once more attack Mundane. One strike later, Iris fell and was defeated.

After Mundane revealed himself to be Shadow, an enraged Iris got up and teamed up with Beatrix to try and stop Shadow. Iris distracted Shadow allowing her to grab hold of him long enough for Beatrix to deliver a strike. Unfortunately, Shadow defeated the both of them in an instant. Despite her injuries, Iris still got up and readied to continue the fight, as well as Beatrix. However when Iris called Shadow out for fleeing, Shadow unleashed a massive whirlpool of magic out of his body in anger. Witnessing such power caused Iris to stop in her tracks in fear.

Powers & Abilities
From an early age, Iris has been considered to be a prodigy with the sword, being the unquestionably strongest student at the Spellsword Academy during her time there and arguably the greatest swordsman in Midgar overall. However, her abilities are still far inferior compared to Shadow Garden's Seven Shades, with Alpha effortlessly disarming her and defeating a monster the princess was struggling against in a single blow; albeit, she did get caught off guard.

Alexia Midgar
Alexia is her younger sister. When they were younger both Iris and Alexia used to spend entire afternoons training together, although Iris always defeated Alexia. With the passage of the next years, their relationship became very distant and strained due to her job as the first princess and leader of the Royal Knights. Iris confesses that she doesn't even remember the last time she and Alexia talked to each other, nevertheless she still cares for her sister and looks up to her most of the time. When she learned that Alexia was kidnapped, Iris did everything in her power to rescue her sister and when she found out the location where Alexia was taken, Iris didn't hesitate and went to that place. After discovering that her sister is safe and alive, Iris hugs her and feels relieved.

After the incident their relationship begins to improve and now are closer than they used to be. Iris also trusts Alexia enough to letting her participate in the investigation about the Cult of Diablos and all their connections with royal knights and the academy. They even spend time off together, with Iris going out with Alexia for shopping.

Cid Kagenō / Shadow
Being one of Alexia's few friends, Iris was kind towards Cid and even looked after him when he was at the special booths during the Bushin Festival. She admitted that she was envious of him and his sister's close relationship, stating that she wished to have a similar bond with herself and Alexia.

Iris' opinion about Shadow contrasted that. She initially viewed Shadow as an enemy that needed to be vanquished but after suffering brutal defeats at Shadow's hands, she begrudgingly accepted that he was one of the strongest Dark Knights in existence.

Trivia

 * Despite her mature and dignified image, she sleeps hugging a teddy bear and has bunny-print underwear.
 * Iris bears resemblance to Rias Gremory from the Light Novel, Highschool DxD. Fittingly enough, both characters were voiced by Yoko Hikasa.