The Qwaser of Stigmata

The Qwaser of Stigmata (聖痕のクェイサー) is an ongoing manga series authored by Hiroyuki Yoshino and featuring art by Kenetsu Satō. It is notable for its heavy violence and use of fanservice, and in particular, the use of breast milk as an actual plot device. The manga is serialized in the shōnen manga magazine Monthly Champion Red. It will be published in North America by Tokyopop. A 24 episodes anime television series adaptation is completed broadcast on television in heavily censored form and streaming on Biglobe in its uncensored form. The anime will be getting a OVA adaptation called The Qwaser of Stigmata : Portrait of the Empress (聖痕のクェイサー: 女帝の肖像) and based on chapter 16 to be bundled with the tenth volume to be shipped on October 20, 2010. On December 26, 2010 JBook announced that a second season was greenlite

Overview
The story chronicles the school lives of Mafuyu Oribe and Tomo Yamanobe at the Japanese Eastern Orthodox school St. Mihailov Academy where they have endured persecution and ostracization from the other students led by the daughter of the current dean Miyuri Tsujidou and her second-in-command Hana Katsuragi. Mafuyu and Tomo's lives take a drastic turn when they nurse the silver-haired Russian-born Aleksander "Sasha" Nikolaevich Hell back to health upon encountering him unconscious during their home commute one day. Almost immediately, Sasha begins to repay Mafuyu and Tomo's humanitarianism as he repels their tormentors; unfortunately, this does not change Sasha's prologue as a throw-away Qwaser from the Adepts and that the Adepts have no qualms about making an absolute war zone of the Academy in order to acquire the Theotokos of Tsarytsin from Athos who wishes to keep the icon's existence a secret from the world.

Crucial Concepts & Terminology
Athos -- an espionage and special operations agency of the Eastern Orthodox Church not unlike the CIA or the FBI in the United States and even Interpol whose alpha objective is to prevent the Theotokos of Tsarytsin from becoming global community discourse. The inception of the series depicts the Iron Qwaser Aleksander "Sasha" Nikolaevich Hell performing this function alongside his Maria Magdalen partner Teresa.

Maria Magdalen -- designation given to the alter-ego combat partner of a Qwaser whose primary function is to provide soma not unlike how one may refuel a car or even a warplane while in flight. In the series, Sasha and Ekaterina each demonstrate that the relationship between a Qwaser and its Maria Magdalen can vary on the spectrum of being purely professional to very personal.

Qwaser -- any of the anthropoid beings who possess supernatural powers affording them utility over a single chemical element. This specialized utility can vary widely in quality between different Qwasers and even under different circumstances; in order to maintain this specialized utility, it is necessary for a Qwaser to always have an adequate supply of soma.

Soma -- the sacred substance that fuels a Qwaser's elemental powers especially in battle. Whenever a Qwaser is replenishing its soma by breastfeeding from a nubile maiden, the Qwaser is draining away the maiden's life force through the breast milk whose quality and potency can be magnified (or diminished) by the situational emotions of the maiden not unlike how coffee or tea is sometimes modified by adding cream or sugar. The personality of the quarry maiden also plays a role as well; although in the case of very childlike maidens like Tomo, this ends up working to the Qwaser's detriment. Even then, the perspective is that the benefits are worth the risk since Ekaterina tries to capitalize upon Hana's sadomasochism for this reason.

Theotokos of Tsarytsin -- the legendary icon depicting the Virgin Mary breastfeeding an infant Jesus fabled to alter the homeostasis of the world.

Twelve Adepts -- a religious sect whose leadership comprises thirteen Qwasers whose alpha objective is to acquire the Theotokos of Tsarytsin in order to purify what they see as pollution in the world using the secrets of the Sacred Mysteries. The Adepts' ancillary beta objective is to accumulate a huge reserve of high-quality soma by kidnapping nubile maidens and torturing them into becoming human storage tanks. Sasha's vendetta with the Adepts lies in their gamma ancillary objective of manufacturing high-level Qwasers through barbaric and medieval practices.

St. Mihailov's Academy
An Eastern Orthodox private school once directed by Tomo's father Yamanobe Yudai, which is home to most of the main characters, including Sasha, Mafuyu and Tomo, and which often is targeted by the Adepts due to its apparent links to the Theotokos - links of which little is known as of now. The following characters all attend the school.

Athos

 * Alecsander "Sasha" Nikolaevich Hell ("サーシャ" アレクサンドル＝ニコラエビッチ＝ヘル):
 * He is the main protagonist. Tomo literally stumbles over the Russian born Alexander during her home commute with Mafuyu after a particularly difficult school day. After Mafuyu and Tomo nurse him back to health, Alexander wastes no time demonstrating his prowess as a Qwaser with the element of iron as he stalemates and eventually vanquishes the Magnesium Qwaser with such capabilities as forming an enormous black scythe that is at least twice his size along with vibrating the atoms in the iron to generate the immense heat necessary to forge alloys of iron without the need for an external blast furnace.  Besides the hostile heretic Qwasers whose neutralization Athos charges him, Alexander is very austere with anyone that decides on her own to refer to him as »Sasha« and has a difficult time adhering to the social mechanics of Japanese society much to Mafuyu's frustration in the early going.  Sasha's primary vendetta with the Adepts is the murder of Olja (オーリャ) at the hands of the Aurum (Gold) Qwaser who exiled him with a large scar on the left side of his face shaped like an inverted Eastern Cross that tends to bleed in response to Sasha's excitement during battle -- the acme of which characterized by Sasha's left eye becoming red and the scar glowing prior to bleeding heavily during power-down. Driven by his bitter prologue with the Adepts and the parallels that he sees between Tomo and Olja, Sasha's ferocity reaches its zenith when the Adepts target Tomo for her high-quality soma; during his time with Mafuyu, Sasha comes to realize the infinite value of human life as he demonstrates a copious contempt for the Adepts endangering innocent people.  Aside from the comedy of refracting Miyuri's persecution to her detriment and the situational remarks in Russian (though such quotations are often authors' errors), Sasha is shocked to find that Mafuyu gives as good as she gets when he obdurately ignores the social conventions of human civilization and forces him to partake her consummate cooking -- particularly when it is his favorite dish borscht.  Over the course of the series, Sasha's arsenal expands from his trademark scythe and kunai to a katana-like sword he wields in tandem; even though he rejects the prospect in the early going, Sasha and Mafuyu begin to become attracted to each other even as they deny it when confronted about the prospect. He was involved in the most serious confrontations that happened in the series, the last one being the one against Shin'Ichiro Ootori, where he managed to reach the 4th (on a scale of eight) grade of elemental control. Nevertheless, he was recently forced to separate from Mafuyu, much to his dismay, and undertake training sessions to prepare for future confrontations but came back and had his first kiss with Mafuyu.

The following Qwasers join Athos during the course of the series.


 * Ekaterina "Katja" Kurae ("カーチャ" エカテリーナ＝クラエ):
 * Reeling from a particularly harsh riposite from Sasha as he again rejects her overtures, Miyuri drags Hana along in her scheme to wield the newly-arrived Ekaterina as a means of restoring social homeostasis with Mafuyu unaware that Ekaterina is merely being an authentic actress to secure herself a readily available supply of soma to fuel her copper-based powers as a Qwaser that are usually manifested through her extremely versatile gynoid guardian Anastasia that has the capability to channel electricity, concurrently constrain multiple assailants, manhandle adversaries physiologically impossible for a human being, and create copper objects from scratch. When not constricting and cleaving apart her adversaries, the ten-year-old Russian-born Ekaterina devotes her energies to visiting unto her Maria Magdalen partner Hana Katsuragi several BDSM activities along with the age-appropriate activities expected of young kids.  Perhaps because of the following she has in the student body of the St. Mihailov Elementary School of being their queen due to her doll-like features and childish demeanor, Ekaterina has also taken to attempting to subjugate her fellow comrade-in-arms Sasha who she almost defeated when the two Qwasers first met. She has no underwear unlike the other females characters. One interesting fact about Ekaterina is that she is often hinted to have deep connections with the late Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family, the last monarch of Russia, and in fact, it was hinted briefly that she herself could be related to the Tsar's wife, Tsarita Alexandra Feodorovna, or that she could in fact be the late Tsarita herself. It is yet unknown if these fact are truth, or mere similarities.


 * Elizabeth (エリザベス):
 * Assisting her master Shin'ichiro Ootori with nursing Mafuyu back to health after literally plunging into their lives, the tomboyish Elizabeth, nicknamed Lizzie, quickly bonds with Mafuyu because the two are orphans that engage in boy activities such as kendo and swordplay -- the latter case being how Elizabeth wields her titanium-based powers as a Qwaser. As the helium-wielding Adept disciple Qwasers are shocked to learn, Elizabeth primarily wields a massive double-handed greatsword she calls Excalibur whose every swing paralyzes her enemies with an acoustic disturbance prior to cleaving right through them.  Ignoring the fact that she devours beef stew with the same zeal, Elizabeth loves to make fun of Sasha's affinity for borscht along with his Russian origins as a "northern savage".  This rivalry and her loyalty to Shin'ichiro drives Elizabeth to prosecute a duel with Sasha in order to buy time for Shin'ichiro's plan to draw the Aurum (Gold) Qwaser out of hiding.  Shin'ichiro's final instruction for Elizabeth prior to his suicide is to fight alongside Athos with Teresa as her Maria Magdalen partner.


 * Tasuku Fujiomi (藤臣):
 * A Japanese boy with a wild look and an aggressive personality, not to mention something of a womanizer, he confronted Sasha soon after his appearance, revealing himself to be a powerful Qwaser, whose abilities initially surprised Sasha, as Tasuku apparently had his same powers, though he managed to use them better. He is indeed a Qwaser, but his element is neodymium, which allows him to control any kind of metal through magnetism, not by interacting to it at the molecular level. He is also very skilled in Buddhist incantations, as he is the sole heir of a family of sorcerers and shamans, and thus can create elaborate incantations or even Buddhist-related weapons. His explosive personality and his occasional foolishness harbor a dark secret however: as a child he was greatly traumatized when his mother was brutally raped in front of him, which led him to become mad with ideas of revenge and turn to a life of constant conflict, slowly drifting to senseless anger. His encounter with Mutsumi Sendou saved him, and the two became inseparable since then. Though initially antagonistic, Tasuku quickly became a valuable ally, though he was accused of raping Hana and had to fight Ekaterina, when Friederich Tanner pitted the two against each other. When angered, he fights with a murderous frenzy that makes him attack with blind fury, especially if it's Mutsumi who's in danger.

The Qwaser mentioned below has abandoned the Adepts for his own reasons but is in the rat race for himself unlike Sasha is for Athos.


 * Shinichiro Ōtori (鳳 榊一郎):
 * As the helium-wielding Qwaser triplets are shocked to have demonstrated, Shin'ichiro's prowess with his sodium based powers as a Qwaser is an experience that burns itself to memory as all the possible applications are brutal and indefensible; in addition to combustion at the atomic level, Shin'ichiro's molecular filaments have the capability to hack into the neural network of another living creature to force the quarry to think and perform the way he wants through the potassium-sodium electron conveyance. For reasons obscure and arcane that possibly include guilt, Shin'ichiro abandoned his role of the Aurum (Gold) Qwaser's right-hand man after Olja's murder and Sasha's scarring to unsuccessfully challenge his former master.  Undaunted by this setback, Shin'ichiro takes Elizabeth on as his protege and intercedes for Mafuyu in the hopes that she will lead him to St. Mihailov's Academy.  The gambit paid off when Shin'ichiro discerns the meaning of the Theotokos along with the procedure to avail the icon's activation incantation which requires Tomo and Teresa as his aide along with plenty of time for the procedure to prosecute its full course.  In spite of Elizabeth's inhibitory efforts, Sasha arrives on the scene to rescue Tomo as the Sword's Maria incantation divides itself between Tomo and Mafuyu; having nothing to show for his subterfuge to reach or seal away the Theotokos after losing to Sasha, Shin'ichiro ignites the sodium in his body after bidding farewell to Elizabeth.

Human Students

 * Teresa Beria (テレサ＝ベリア):
 * A Serbian Orthodox nun that serves at St. Mihailov in a variety of ordinary chores, such as taking care of children in the school's kindergarten or tending to flowers, she is notable in that, for most of the beginning of the series, she never shows any form of emotion, reacting with fright only when Mafuyu was about to close a door on her. This is explained when her past is revealed: as a child she was part of a Serbian Orthodox convent in Krajina, during the Yugoslav Wars, a jovial and hyperactive girl until the day a group of Croatian militiamen, led by "Gas Chamber" Croa, assaulted the convent and pillaged it, slaughtering and raping its occupants in a bloody carnage. The sole survivor, Teresa observed the whole massacre from inside a closet, and when later found, she was so shocked that her emotions were locked away by the trauma. Only when Sasha gave her his support and they both avenged the slaughter by killing Croa, did she manage to smile for the first time in years. Teresa used to offer her Soma to Sasha, but since Ootori's death she partners with Lizzy. While an ordinary human, Teresa is well-versed in combat, using a bow for long-range attacks or fighting bare-handed, or using blades concealed in her gown. A running gag involves two curious locks of hair that she has on her head, which look and behave like a puppy's ears, flipping when she is happy or excited, dropping loose when she is embarrassed, and so on. Teresa might be hinted for having feelings for Sasha in Episode 22.

The following are students at the Academy.


 * Mafuyu Oribe (織部 まふゆ):
 * Mafuyu is the adopted daughter of St. Mihailov's last dean, and the self-appointed protector of Tomo Yamanobe. Upbeat and cheerful, she is so proficient in kendo that she carries a wooden sword with her all the time. She has to endure hardship on a daily basis in form of her classmates picking harshly on both her and especially Tomo. This changes when she encounters Sasha for the first time, when she starts living with him and, little by little, is pitted herself in the fights between Qwasers. Though at odds with Sasha's coldness, Mafuyu has started to open up to him and the two have formed a stronger bond. This is especially true as she has recently taken on the habit of feeding Soma to Sasha when in need, and it has become quite clear that both of them hold feelings for each other. After recent events she is the current holder of half the Sword's Maria, a powerful incantation which was kept hidden in a Fabergé egg. The power she gained are still unclear, though apparently they at least boost her physical prowess enough to let her challenge low-level Qwasers head-on. Also, in the latest chapters it was hinted that she shares some sort of connection with Joan of Arc, though it is unknown what such connections may be.


 * Tomo Yamanobe (山辺 燈):
 * Daughter of St. Mihailov's last dean and currently best friend and roommate of Mafuyu Oribe, Tomo is her exact opposite, both physically and mentally: she herself is very childish and naïve, and while having the largest bust of the whole female cast so far, she is physically weak. Tomo is the spitting image of Sasha's original protector, Olja, which explains why he took so willingly the role of Tomo's guardian, much to Mafuyu's chagrin. Also, sometimes an upside down Eastern Cross (with its third slab being a scar), the symbol of the Adepts, appears between her breasts. This is later revealed to be the presence of the Qwaser of Gold, which apparently inhabits Tomo's body as a disembodied projection and, as itself stated, is slowly draining her of her life, which is why she has to constantly replenish herself with Soma. Indeed, it was revealed that the Qwaser of Gold does have some control over Tomo, as he/she possessed her and tried to unseal Sword's Maria. The plan backfired however, and now Tomo is apparently free from his/her control and possess the other half of the incantation, with Mafuyu possessing the first.


 * Miyuri Tsujidō (辻堂 美由梨):
 * The daughter of the current dean at St. Mihailov Academy, who succeeded Tomo's father. While beautiful and well-endowed, Miyuri is extremely bossy, arrogant and prideful, making nothing to conceal her disrespect for Tomo and Mafuyu and to bully them on a daily basis, supported by Hana. Greatly humiliated by Sasha, who correctly defines her as a leecher of others' powers, she "takes revenge" by welcoming and taking care of Ekaterina Kurae, the Qwaser of Copper. It can be noted that Miyuri is very rich and appears to have a sheltered upbringing, based on her drowning Ekaterina with expensive gifts. However, being treated as a fool after Sasha's arrival made her somewhat of a comic relief character. On a positive note, it can be assumed that she truly cares even for those she bullies, as she stripped naked for a group of terrorists so as to spare the same ordeal to Ekaterina, Mafuyu and the others. She briefly enjoyed Qwaser-like powers, donning a magical girl-like outfit and wreacking havoc before being stopped by Tasuku Fujiomi and becoming normal once more.


 * Hana Katsuragi (桂木 華):
 * A student of class 1-A, she acts as an enforcer on school grounds, but also she is the main architect of the physical abuses that Mafuyu and Tomo have to endure every day, such as regularly throwing the class' garbage can on them or forcing them to fill it after "casually" tripping on it, to covering Tomo's desk with writings and trash. As Miyuri's braws, she encountered Ekaterina shortly after her arrival in Japan, heavily hinting at something that greatly troubled her in the presence of the young girl - something that appears to be homosexuality or a fondness for lolicon, as when the occasion presented itself, she kissed Ekaterina out of lust. This made her Ekaterina's personal tool and reserve of Soma, and from then on she had to endure daily abuse and sexual torture by her malicious mistress, abuse that she apparently enjoys to a degree and that gave her amazing BDSM-related skills. Unfortunately for her, this relationship with Ekaterina meant that she was often exploited by the enemy, as it happened with Yuu Kuchiba, who abducted her and drained her of Soma to the point of exaustion, or with Friederich Tanner, who mind controlled her in order to pit Tasuku and Ekaterina against each other. Currently she is training with Sasha to improve herself as a partner to Ekaterina.


 * Mutsumi Sendou (仙道 六実):
 * Former partner of Sasha and currently both partner and lover of Tasuku Fujiomi, Mutsumi is an upbeat, cheerful and well-endowed girl who rarely lets her inhibitions restrain her - for instance, she is bisexual and openly flirts with Mafuyu, much to her dismay. She encountered Tasuku shortly after Sasha left Athos, nursing him back to health and winning his trust and, with that, his love, which she reciprocates. Like Tasuku, she lives formerly at Seiganji High School with her different uniform as St-Mikhailov Academy.. Similarly to Teresa her primary role is to provide Soma to her partner, though she can defend herself using a pair of bladed tonfa.

The Adepts
A secret group of thirteen Qwasers who, much like Athos, desire to uncover the Theotokos, though apparently to use its powers for their own ends. They were introduced as a cult-like organization best known for its extreme brutality and harsh ways to initiate new members, willing or not, to their cause. Sasha was part of their ranks before being wounded and banished by the Qwaser of Gold, who appears to be the sect's leader. However, recent chapters have revealed the group to be far less sinister, showing them to be respectable - albeit still sinister - people. They entered a truce with Athos since they currently hold Tomo Yamanobe captive, and thus half of the incantation necessary to unseal the Theotokos. Subsidiary to the Adepts appears to be a secretive organization known as Paracelsus, formed from the remnants of Japan's Unit 731 and the Nazi eugenics program, whose members, through demented medical science, can conquer feat deemed impossible and blasphemous, such as reviving the dead and cloning at will. Their base appears to be a secluded place named Magnolia, the ruins of a fortress splendidly decorate by lush gardens, which stands in stark contrast with the grim portrait of the organization.


 * Ayana Minase (水瀬 文奈):
 * A bespectacled classmate of Tomo and Mafuyu, Ayana appears to be one of the only students of class 1-A willing to take their side despite them being bullied or ignored while mistreated, though she feared to stand with them due to possible retaliation by Miyuri and the other students. Although she appears to be a weak-willed and timid student, she was one of the Adepts, the first Qwaser introduced in the manga with her element being magnesium, with which she created razor-sharp chakrams or chains that she could ignite and control at will. Ayana terrorized St. Mihailov's premises as a mysterious assailant that targeted girls and drained their Soma, often leaving them severely injured, before trying in vain to find where the Theotokos was held. Confronted by Sasha, she tried once more to find the icon by kidnapping Tomo, and in the ensuing fight she was mortally wounded by Sasha. She burnt herself instead of succumbing to the wounds, giving a first impression of the Adepts' fanatic zeal. Unexpectedly she re-appeared as a reanimated corpse when Friederich Tanner summoned her and other fallen Qwasers to fight Shin'Ichigo Ootori, against whom she was easily dispatched and burnt once more, this time apparently for good. Her nickname as an Adept is unknown.In the manga it speculates she never really treated or even considered them as friends.


 * Croa (クロア):
 * Known as Gas Chamber, he is a tall, wicked-looking member of the Adepts, and as a Qwaser he wields the element of chlorine, with which he can create noxious and lethal gases or, in conjunction with water, generate hydrochloric acid. He was the one that led the vengeful militiamen to Teresa's convent during the Yugoslav Wars, and appears to be highly xenophobic, often lamenting that his preys smell awfully bad. He threatened to turn St. Mihailov in a massive grave by gassing all its occupants before Sasha fought and defeated him. A clone of him, reanimated and controlled by Friederich Tanner, was used to force the awakening of Sword's Maria by fighting and being defeated by Ootori.

Both:
 * Aoi Kuchiba (朽葉 葵) Yū Kuchiba (朽葉 悠)
 * Third member of the Adepts, nicknamed Double Face, a single person which was originally two twins, brother and sister. It is unknown what life they lived before being captured by the Adepts, but they had to endure their harsh trainings by themselves, with Aoi supporting Yū, much like how Olja had to help Sasha. Unfortunately, this connection resulted in their damnation, and Yū became a homicidal maniac as a result. Not only that, but he also became a massively powerful Qwaser with the element, oxygen, which allowed him to walk in the air with impunity, create pressures of enormous proportions, air currents capable of large destruction and more devious acts, such as suffocating anyone he wished with no more than a thought or incapacitating them by saturating their surroundings with oxygen. His sister, Aoi, contacted Sasha and begged him to kill Yū and stop his rampage, though initially both him and Ekaterina were no match for someone who could oxidize their metal with a whim, rendering them powerless. However, when Sasha fought him for one last time it was revealed that there was no Yū, as he died long ago, it was Aoi all the time: deemed unfit for combat as a Qwaser, the Adepts wanted to use her as a supply of Soma, and when she was about to be assaulted, she unleashed her powers in self-defense, slaughtering her assailant only to discover, to her horror, that it was her brother. The event shattered her mind and drove her to complete madness, forcing the creation of a split personality of anger and hatred that took the identity of Yū, plaguing her with fits of rage and hallucinations of her brother raping her. Devastated by the revelation, with the last of her sanity she begged to be killed, a plea Sasha mercifully accepted. Though seriously wounded, Aoi did not die, and thanks to Paracelsus' efforts she was saved, with the procedure also sealing her identity of Yū away, reducing it as a "voice in her head".

Eva-Q: Eva-R:
 * Eva-Q (エヴァ＝Q（クー）) & Eva-R (エヴァ＝R（エル）)
 * A pair of deranged, ghastly twin sisters dressed in scandalous, bondage-looking suits and armed with a wide variety of obscene BDSM tools, which suddenly appeared at St. Mihailov, searching for Sasha, begging those they asked informations to "order" them - that is, to torture them to death with the array of gadgets they carried, with refusal immediately followed by "disqualification", the gruesome death of their would be-master. Probably the most extreme example of the brutality of the Adepts, Eva-Q and Eva-R were clones of their original, Eva Silver, engineered to be physically immortal, no matter how massive their injuries, capable of using the element mercury like their mistress, and also completely crazy, driven by constant rape and torture to such extremes of insanity that they recognized pain with pleasure, crying out in bliss even when superficially wounded. Possibly due to their pitiful condition, Sasha fought them only briefly, leaving the job to Ekaterina, who was much more eager to kill the twins. She only managed to keep them at bay however, until their "mother", Eva Silver, was wounded by Sasha and used them to cure herself. Another clone, Eva-S, briefly appeared when Eva kidnapped Mafuyu, though she was quickly incinerated from the inside-out by Shin'Ichiro Ootori, who ignited the sodium in her body and, thus, prevented her from regenerating.


 * Eva Silver (エヴァ＝シルバー):
 * The Queen of the Living Silver, controlling the element mercury, able to summon it in vast quantities and solidify it at will, turning the substance into razor-sharp wires and blades, droplets as powerful as bullets, and other solid objects or even traps. While Sasha and Ekaterina were fighting Eva-Q and Eva-R, the real Eva Silver appeared out of nowhere in Mafuyu's class, killing their teacher by smothering him with mercury and then proceeding to "teach" the class about the beauty of cruelty and humiliation upon others, ironically also reprimanding the students about their bullying of Mafuyu. One of the most sadistic and deranged characters appeared so far, Eva was the original source of all of her clones, younger versions of herself who were given physical immortality so as to endure the atrocious tortures imposed on them by their mistress, whom they adored as their only queen and were then massacred and reabsorbed into Eva's body, so as to keep her young and beautiful. Highly prideful, Eva was initially defeated by Sasha, when she was crucified and set ablaze, yet she reappeared shortly after, gruesomely disfigured, kidnapping Mafuyu and forcing Sasha to fight once more. It was Ekaterina who shed light upon Eva's identity, unmasking her as Eva Braun, the wife-lover of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Believing her acts of depravity, especially cloning and reassimilating herself, as the true manifestation of the Nazi idea of a supreme being, she was defeated nonetheless, and completely torn apart by Ekaterina's gynoid, in the end revealing herself to be fearful of death. A cloned corpse of Eva Silver was later used in the botched attempt, made by the Qwaser of Gold and Friederich Tanner, to summon Sword's Maria. Her position in the Adepts' hierarchy is unknown.


 * Joshua Phrygianos (ジョシュア＝フリギアノス):
 * An unnumbered member of the Adepts, and a true rarity among them, serving somehow as the faction's comic relief character. A young man whose sister, Jita, is ranked number four in the organization, he was mistreated by his peers due to his element, roentgenium, being weak and useless, which led others to treat him as inferior, someone unfit to be a Qwaser. He boasts himself with the title of Successor of Hermes Trismegistus, though he is in fact generous and caring, if somehow foolish sometimes. He tried in vain to kidnap Tomo, who peacefully succeeded in making him realize his mistake, and then he was the first one to welcome her to the Adept's hideout.


 * Friederich Tanner:
 * Older of the Tanner brothers, he is a man of aristocratic Prussian descent who, while not being a Qwaser himself, holds strange powers akin to sorcery that lets him create many seals and incantations that allows him to assume other's identitis, hypnotize and force others into doing his bidding, or to summon and teleport others at will using tarot cards. Nicknamed Double-Headed Crest Maker, he is an international terrorist much feared across Europe, who believes the current state of that continent to be miserable and uses terror to destabilize the European Community, in order to lead it to collapse, striving to revive the Holy Roman Empire with Germany at its lead. He sought the Theotokos for such an end, using both Athos and the Adepts as mere pawns in a game he orchestrated from the shadows, until he appeared to end it personally, first disguising himself as a teacher at St. Mihailov, and then trying to finally unseal the sanctuary where the Theotokos was hidden, using Mafuyu and a crest-infused Hana to reunite the two halves of Sword's Maria. He almost succeeded, however he was defeated and then killed when Sasha, Ekaterina and Tasuku combined their efforts to stop him. He has Blonde hair.


 * Georg Tanner
 * Younger brother of Friederich Tanner, known as Gamma Omega, he is eighth in the Adepts' hierarchy and he can control both cobalt and gamma rays, creating destructive laser-like beams from an elaborate ornament he has on his right hand, which he constantly cleans and admires. He is highly narcissistic and arrogant, boasting his aristocratic origins with pride and treating others as inferior beings. He shares the same beliefs as his older brother Friederich, hoping like him to destabilize Europe and bring back the Holy Roman Empire, led by his native Germany. He has an especially bitter rivalry with Jita Phrygianos and her brother, considering them unwhorty to be Adepts, and almost had her killed after provoking her into a fight, forcing her to take the blame. When his brother attempted to unlseal the Theotokos, he was to defend him from Sasha, Ekaterina and Tasuku, aided by Aoi Kuchiba and Milk. The fight proved to be too much for him however, and he had his face greatly disfigured by Sasha's scythe before being almost burnt when the three Qwasers united their efforts to stop Friederich. Severely wounded, he was dragged from the battlefield by Aoi.


 * Jita Phrygianos
 * Eleventh of the Adepts, known as Black Diamond, she is Joshua's sister, whom she treats as a fool. Her element is carbon, she can create bladed weapons at will. She was initially very harsh towards Tomo, addressing her as a loose woman due to her good looks, though she apparently developed a crush on her, slowly opening up, especially after Tomo saved her when Georg Tanner forced her to take the blame of a fight he had provoked.


 * Milk
 * Fourth of the Adepts, nicknamed Whisper Bomb, currently little to nothing is known about her. She is a young girl, as young as Ekaterina probably, who appears dressed in a regal gown but, oddly, has her face always concealed by a gas mask and, even more oddly, is often sorrounded by cartoonish explosives, such as bombs, missiles and torpedoes. She never spoke since her introduction, but it is known that her element is hydrogen, as she combined her powers with Aoi Kuchiba, who wields oxygen, to manipulate water and reveal the concealed sanctuary of the Theotokos.

Other characters

 * Yuri Noda (ユーリ＝野田):
 * Urara Oikawa (及川 麗):

Manga Volume List
The manga is written by Hiroyuki Yoshino and illustrated by Kenetsu Satō. The Qwaser of Stigmata is currently serialized by Akita Shoten in Monthly Champion Red magazine and the chapters collected in tankōbon. As of April 2010, nine volumes were release with the first one released on December 20, 2006, and the last one on April 20, 2010. The tenth volume will be released on October 20, 2010.

This series is licensed in France by Asuka, in Italy by J-Pop Edizioni, and Ever Glory Publishing in Taiwan. In English Tokyopop announced the licensing of this series in September 2009.

Anime Internet Radio Show
Lantis has taken the opportunity presented by the Seikon no Qwaser anime to produce an Internet radio show starring Aki Toyosaki as Tomo Yamanobe and Yōko Hikasa as Hana Katsuragi alongside commercially releasing the five theme songs as indicated in the table below. They released also a original soundtrack composed by Tatsuya Kato on June 7, 2010.