Vita (Nanoha)

Vita (ヴィータ) is a character in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, voiced by Asami Sanada. She appears in neither the previous series Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha nor the later story Triangle Heart, but she does appear in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. Vita is one of the Wolkenritter, a creation of the Book of Darkness. She is the most devoted of the four to Hayate Yagami, their mistress. Vita's weapon is a mallet called Graf Eisen, and as a magical creation, she has no familiar. She is named for the Opel Vita, much like characters of Magic Knight Rayearth are named for cars (for example, Opel Zafira). She is know in earth as Yagami Vita (Hayate's sister).

Personality
Vita is typically hot-tempered and stubborn. For much of her existence, she was constantly hostile and rude to the other Wolkenritter outside of battle, refusing to let them get closer to her. She is especially devoted to Hayate, and is willing to go to considerable lengths to protect her, but promises not to kill anyone in order to not "defile Hayate's future with blood." Vita shows hostility toward Nanoha in their battles, and often intentionally mispronounces her name as "Nantoka" ("Something or other" in Japanese), but eventually comes to recognize her as an equal and friend. By the time of Strikers, and after an incident when Nanoha was almost crippled from injuries sustained on a mission she and Vita were on, Vita shows a desire to protect Nanoha much like her desire to protect Hayate.

Vita in A's
Vita enters A's on a hunt with Zafira for strong Linker Cores to absorb into the Book of Darkness. She targets Nanoha Takamachi, believing that she can fill many pages.

Nanoha puts up a decent fight, but Vita, angered by her hat being blown off and damaged, seizes the advantage with two cartridges (bullet shaped things that contain high-pressure magic) manages to overpower her, obtaining a power superiority so vast that she heavily damaged the Raising Heart. However, before she could get the Linker Core, Fate Testarossa and Yūno Scrya come to the rescue. Vita fights them off with her fellow Wolkenritter, Signum and Shamal, and they declare themselves enemies. The battle ends with Shamal finally managing to get Nanoha's Linker Core and Nanoha breaking Vita's barrier.

Vita fights for the sake of protecting their mistress, Hayate, whom she is completely dedicated to, and is willing to continue fighting even if she is severely wounded. The Wolkenritter attack mages to steal their Linker Cores, their sources of magic, to fill the 666 pages of the Book of Darkness with this power before it saps any more of Hayate's and she becomes fully paralyzed. They continue to obtain Linker Cores and fight off interference from the Time-Space Administration Bureau (TSAB), mainly Fate and Nanoha- whose name Vita purposely gets wrong to annoy her- while they try to keep Hayate from knowing that they are stealing magic for pages; she has told them that as long as she is mistress of the Book, she will not allow anyone to be harmed over it.

The Wolkenritter, especially Vita, are determined to save Hayate even if it means going against her wishes. The Wolkenritter are unaware that the Book of Darkness, once completed, may stop sapping Hayate's Linker Core for pages, but will not stop hurting her or undo its damage. In fact, the master of the Book dies upon its completion. Vita is the first to recognize that something may be wrong with what they are doing and that they have forgotten something very important, but her devotion to Hayate keeps her fighting for Linker Cores regardless. Just before the Book of Darkness is completed, Suzuka brings Nanoha, Arisa, and Fate to visit Hayate in the hospital while the Wolkenritter are there. The warring groups recognize each other and their shared wish at once, and meet on the roof of the hospital. Nanoha and Fate try to tell the Wolkenritter about what will happen to Hayate, but their confrontation is cut short by both the interference of two masked men, who had previously assisted the Wolkenritter, and who use the Wolkenritters' Linker Cores to complete the Book of Darkness, finishing off Vita in front of Hayate.

The masked men are actually women, Alia and Lotte Liese, who frame Nanoha and Fate for the death of Vita and the others. Hayate screams in horror for all of this to stop and is taken over by the will of the Book of Darkness, becoming the fearsome, possessed woman inside of it just as the real duo escapes their prison. Meanwhile, Vita's spirit is trapped inside the Book of Darkness with the others. When Hayate rejects her own wish of vengeance, she reprograms the entire Book, but a virus still remains inside, the one that caused the evil aspect of the Book in the first place. Hayate awakens the spirit of Vita and her friends inside the book of Darkness, and she decides to join the fight against the automated defence program that Hayate describes as "the 'darkness' in the Book of Darkness." Vita finally recognizes Nanoha as an equal, though she won't admit it, and calls her by her real name.

In an epilogue that takes place six years later, Vita has turn 14 but still short for her age,and still lives with the other Wolkenritter and Hayate, posing as Hayate's Sister.

Vita in the manga
The two manga series each add a number of short chapters that supplement the latter two anime series. These chapters details the actions and thoughts of various characters at different points before, during or after the anime series.

Vita is still short teenager, living with Hayate. It has been mentioned in the manga, however, that she may use transformation magic to appear higher. She even notes that despite appearing to be a child,she plays croquet with (partly as a pretext for getting out of the house and hunting Linker Cores).

Vita is at times haunted by memories of a mission that she and Nanoha participated in that nearly ended in the death of Nanoha. In the TV series, episode 9 of StrikerS, it is explained that it happened two years after the winter when she joined the Bureau. Vita and Nanoha were on a recon mission when an unknown unit attacked them. While the unit was weak enough for Nanoha to easily defeat, the strain she had put on her body caused her to slow down, and she was severely wounded. Nanoha was thought to be unable to walk or fly again, but eventually recovered. As a result, Vita often becomes uncomfortable when seeing things that remind her of the incident, particularly gadgets with legs.

Vita in StrikerS
Four years after the A's epilogue, Second Lieutenant Vita is sub-commander of the Stars Squad in the TSAB, working directly under Nanoha, who, in turn, obeys Hayate. She and the other Wolkenritter were kept close to Hayate and each other-- Shamal and Zafira are support, Signum is with the Lightning Squad-- because they work most effectively as a team. In this season, Vita shows that she is still hurt emotionally from the times she couldn't be there for Hayate and Nanoha, and will go to extreme lengths to protect them. Vita recognizes that her injuries are healing more slowly over time, and believes that the Wolkenritter are becoming like humans, but resolves to protect everything she has to and come back alive in order to not worry Shamal. During the final battle, Vita infiltrated the Saint's Cradle with Nanoha, and, despite being severely injured from facing hordes of enemy drones, managed to destroy the engine. Despite her being one of the most severely wounded members of Section 6 along with Nanoha, the two were the first to return to action after the battle. At the end of StrikerS, Vita because of nanoha's recommendation becomes an instructor, despite previously showing an unwillingness to do so.

Powers

 * Hammerform &mdash; The default mode of Graf Eisen.
 * Raketenform (Missile Form) &mdash; Graf Eisen transforms into its more powerful rocket-propelled assault mode.
 * Gigantform (Giant Form) &mdash; Graf Eisen grows to many times its (or for that matter, Vita's) size.
 * Zerstörungform (Destruction Form) &mdash; Graf Eisen's Limit Break. It combines Gigantform's size changing capabilities with Raketenform's rocket propulsion. As opposed to a metal spiked tip like the Raketenform, this form features a spinning drill as the tip.
 * Transformation &mdash; Vita performs a group transformation with Signum and Shamal, or simply transforms.
 * Telepathy &mdash; Not notable, as like flight and teleportation, most other mages in the Nanohaverse have it; however, her links appear to be strong with the other Wolkenritter, so it is tentatively listed here.
 * Gegenstand kommt nah (Approaching Target) &mdash; Vita can use Graf Eisen to close in on a target.
 * Nachladen &mdash; Not a real attack, just Graf Eisen reloading cartridges.
 * Explosion &mdash; Also not an attack; Graf Eisen says this when using cartridges, analogous to the English-speaking devices' "Load cartridge."

Defensive Abilities

 * Knight Armour &mdash; A red Gothic Lolita-style dress with black frills and yellow ribbons, a large red hat with plush rabbit heads, and black and red boots.
 * Panzer Schild (Armor Shield) &mdash; Blocks all magical attacks coming from one direction with a triangular magic shield, much like Fate's or Nanoha's Round Shield.
 * Pferde (Horse Speed) &mdash; Briefly boosts Vita's speed by summoning up a localized wind effect focused on her feet.
 * Panzer Hindernis (Armor Barrier) &mdash; Creates a domed shield that protects against everything in Vita's field of vision, but fails to protect against attacks coming from behind.
 * Eisengeheul (Iron Howl) &mdash; Vita gathers pulsing red and white energy in her hands and explodes it with Graf Eisen, creating a growing circle of spinning red winds around her. It is used as a distraction, the winds and noise being enough to chase birds out of their trees and catch the opponent off guard.
 * Das Gef&auml;ngnis der Magie (Magical Prison) &mdash; A near-impenetrable dome surrounding a vast area, entrapping all inside. This dome also disables telepathic communication as well as visual display with any outside the barrier.

Offensive Abilities

 * Tödliche Strafe (Deadly Punishment) &mdash; Vita's first attack.
 * Schwalbe Fliegen (Swallow Flier) &mdash; Vita produces up to four red balls and strikes them with Graf Eisen. The balls home in on their target and explode.
 * Kometen Fliegen (Comet Flier) &mdash; Similar to Schwalbe Fliegen but performed with a much greater red ball and Graf Eisen in Gigantform.
 * Raketen Hammer (Missile Hammer) &mdash; Vita spins Graf Eisen around several times in Raketenform before flinging herself at an enemy and using the rocket-assisted momentum of her swing to break through whatever shielding they have in place.
 * Roaring Storm Gigant Crusher &mdash; Much like Fate's Jet Zamber, Graf Eisen stretches out to smash the enemy, however far away the enemy is from Vita's position.
 * Zerstörung Hammer (Destruction Hammer) &mdash; Similar to Gigant Crusher but is performed while Graf Eisen is in Zerstörungform.