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. Iris is very delusional to think she will defeat Shadow only to be easily defeated by him.

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 Kagenō whose brother, Cid Kagenō 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.

Midgar Academy Terrorist Attack
TBA

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.

The Academy Disappearances
TBA

Powers & Abilities
Iris is widely considered to be the strongest swordswoman within the Midgar Kingdom, being the top student as the Royal Spellsword Academy before her graduation. However, by her own admission, her skills are nowhere near the level of legendary figures like Shadow and Beatrix.

Swordsmanship
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 Shadows", 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.

Equipment
In the anime, Iris wields a broadsword. In other media, she just uses a regular-sized sword.

Klaus Midgar
Unfortunately, Iris does not seem to have a good relationship with her father due to his constant inaction regarding Shadow Garden and the Cult of Diablos as well as his fanatical following of the Church’s preachings. Still, Klaus does seem to have a good understanding of his daughter, seeing that she is trying too hard to meet people's expectations.

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 let 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 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 his and his sister's close relationship, stating that she wished to have a similar bond with herself and Alexia. Iris is not aware that Cid and Alexia were dating and not just friends.

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.

Claire Kagenō
After the Alexia kidnapping incident was resolved, Iris and Claire developed a level of friendship and empathy as they both cared deeply for their younger siblings, and are willing to go to any lengths for their sake.

Hubb
The new vice-commander of the Crimson Order under her following Glen's death. Unbeknownst to Iris, Hubb is, in fact, a member of the Cult of Diablos who successfully manipulates her into believing that the organization is merely a fabrication by Shadow Garden to justify their crimes.

Sherry Barnett
Despite her being just a student, Iris acknowledged Sherry's mechanical skills and trusted her with repairing the Artifact that the Crimson recovered from a Cult of Diabolos base.

Beatrix
Iris had heard of the famed "Goddess of War" and, as a fellow swordswoman, held great respect toward her. During the events of the God of War Tournament, she teamed up with Beatrix against Shadow and worked quite well together, though they were ultimately still defeated with ease.

Perv Asshat
Iris held an obvious dislike toward the chancellor of the Oriana Kingdom. However, she remained blind to the true depths of Perv's megalomania and his brainwashing of king Raphael Oriana.

Zenon Griffey
Her sister's ex-fiancé. Iris had always greatly trusted Zenon, to the point of placing him in charge of investigating Alexia's disappearance. Because of this, she was greatly shocked upon learning that he was, in fact, the mastermind behind the whole abduction plot.

Trivia

 * Although everyone in the academy knows it, Iris is not aware that Alexia and Cid had a "love relationship".
 * Iris' mana color is bright red, the same color as her eyes and hair.
 * 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.
 * According to her own words, when she fought Jimina Sehnen in the final match of Bushin Festival, she realized from the moment she lost, because what Jimina exercised was a skill that Iris's teacher told her, called, "Glance of the empty", something that only very powerful and above all skilled magical warriors possess and develop. But, what Jimina used on her was at a much higher level than she could ever reach, no matter how much she trained it in her own way.
 * After learning that even Beatrix would not be sure of winning against Shadow, Iris offers herself as a bait to sacrifice herself in order to have a chance at defeating him. But, in the end it was of no use.
 * After her defeat and humiliation in public and in front of her father, King Klaus Midgar at the Bushin Festival against Jimina after realizing that it was Shadow, she was traumatized by losing uselessly against him again, even along with Beatrix. Afterwards, Iris had strong nightmares to which she swore to herself that anyone who stands in her way of vengeance against Shadow, she would have no mercy, not even his own younger sister, Alexia Midgar.
 * It was because of this that the Cult of Diablos, had already infiltrated their men into the Crimson Order to manipulate Princess Iris for their own benefit.