Lutheran Barnett

Lutheran Barnett (ルスラン・バーネット) was the Assistant Principal of Midgar Academy for Dark Knights and a member of the Cult of Diablos, being formerly the 12th seat in the Knights of the Round. While working in the cult, he assumes the identity known as 'Sir Gaunt'.

Appearance
Lutheran was a middle-aged man. He had black slicked-back hair with grey streaks. In the light novel, he has a beard.

Personality
In public, Lutheran puts up a facade of being a humble man with a close relationship with his stepdaughter, Sherry. He always tried to support her in her activities and pushes her to interact with others.

In reality, however, Lutheran is a power-hungry yet also a pitiful person. Having at one point been the 12th Seat of the Knights of the Round, before he was demoted due to his illness, he is completely obsessed with regaining his former glory. He is also highly manipulative, using Sherry and her late mother as means to an end. He even expressed pride in having killed Sherry's mother, making him a true psychopath who disgusted even Cid.

Background
Lutheran Barnett used to be a knight who participated in the Goddess of War tournament until he reached the top of the swordfighting world, but to his misfortune, he became seriously ill and had to retire. With his strong desire to return to glory, he began to searching a way for curing his disease. During his search, he met Lukreia, Sherry's mother who was a brilliant scientist and a genius at deciphering ancient things and languages. Since then, he began to work with her under the guise of helping her work and funding her research, until he found an artifact called the "Eye of Avarice", which was an artifact capable of sucking and accumulating magic from its surroundings.

Upon learning the artifact used, Lutheran tried to use it. But Lukreia said that the artifact was too dangerous to use and that she wanted to give it to the Kingdom for her confinement. Upon knowing this, he sadistically murdered her without Sherry knowing who killed her mother. After the funeral, he took Sherry in as her daughter to continue her mother's work without her knowing.

At some point after that, he joined the Cult of Diablos to further achieve his goals, which holding the position of the 12th seat of Knight Rounds before relinquish his position.

The Midgar Academy Terrorist Attack
Lutheran and Sherry Barnett are visited by Princess Iris Midgar and Alexia Midgar. Iris gives Sherry an artifact belonging to the Order of Diabolos and asks her to decipher the text on it. Lutheran encourages her to do so, stating its a rare opportunity.

Later, he sees Sherry having a chocolate and she explains a boy gave it to her. He tells her that its hard to obtain such good chocolate, so the boy must really like her and she must consider well what she will reply.

With his ambitions to reinstated his position into the Knights of Rounds, he disguised himself under the identity of a Thin Gentleman and ordered his henchmen of the Diabolos cult to commit misdeeds throughout the kingdom of Midgar while claiming to be from the Shadow Garden, so that this organization would earn the contempt and enmity of the world. When he heard the lost contact report of his men, he states that its fine because he located the item he need which is his priority to retrieving the item.

The cult forces under Lutheran took over Midgar Academy by creating the magic blocking field using the artifact, also rounded up all the students and killed anyone that opposed them, in order to frame and discredit Shadow Garden as a public enemy number 1. Then, he ordered Rex to go find the catalyst for the Eye of Avarice, but failed to retrieve it. After hearing this, he threatens Rex to go and find the artifact or he will kill him until he heard Rex's reports that some of their men had been taken out by someone skilled and guesses that they manage to get the Shadow Garden's attention before Rex and his men immediately went out to search for the artifact, unknowingly that Rex is already killed. When the magic blocking field around the Academy suddenly disables and the students start fighting back. As the fight starts, the Shadow Garden organizations arrives and engages the Cult forces.

Lutheran leaves, but activates a system that causes the auditorium and the rest of the school to burst into flames and sneaks into his room to burns some books to cover his track. He decides to leave, but unknowingly Cid appear at the room and tells him that he already knows who he is, which surprised Lutheran and praises Cid for his perception as he took off his disguise. Cid asks why he decided to abide by the academy and Lutheran replies that he did everything to reach the top he once was, confessing to Cid all his misdeeds, as well as the murder of Sherry's mother and the manipulation of Sherry. Cid He tells him that despite all this, he didn't know how to answer him after hearing everything, but he tells him that even if it's a little bit, it bothers Cid, which causes Lutheran to strike him down with his sword.

When he decides to leave after killed Cid, Shadow appears before him. Lutheran knows that he is at disadvantage against Shadow because his experience with strong fighters and using the Eye of Avarice to its full potential, acquires an immense magical power and his disease has been cured. Lutheran then starts attacking Shadow, but seeing that even with all the magical power he has, he is not able to making a scratches on Shadow and still continues to attack him. Lutheran acknowledge Shadow's strength and explains to him that he will fail, because he already devised the plan so that the world will despises him and his organization, but Shadow tells him that doesn't matter to him, because they will continue on the same path they choose. Lutheran claims that Shadow isn't afraid of becoming the world enemy is an arrogance and prepares to kill him. But, Shadow then disarms Lutheran and proceeds stabbing his limbs. He then recalls how Lutheran stated he killed Sherry's mother and Shadow stabs him the same way he killed her and also discovers that Shadow identity is actually Cid before he dies.

Powers & Abilities
Being the former 12th seat in the Knights of the Round, Lutheran was highly skilled in both swordsmanship and magic. However, even with his illness makes him very weak, he showed to have enough strength and ability to deal with a normal magical swordsman, a magical teacher and magical student of Midgar. But, in a regulated way so that the disease does not do more damage, which is said that in his current state has the strength of a "Second Children" of the Cult of Diablos.

Having an experience with strong fighters, Lutheran knows that with his current state, he is at disadvantage against Shadow.

By combining the Eye of Avarice and another artifact, he was able to cure his disease and regain his powers in a way that was too great to last for a short time, though Shadow made no effort in the fight they had. In the end, Lutheran dies at the hands of Shadow while he realizes who his true identity.

Trivia

 * Despite his deceased status, he is the only Cult member who knows Shadow's true identity.