Celica A. Mercury

""It's not good to go all out, Minerva.""

Celica Ayatsuki Mercury (セリカ＝A＝マーキュリー), sometimes known as the Sister, was the younger sister of Nine the Phantom. She was an excellent user of sorcery, being one of the few people in existence capable of exceptional healing sorcery. After surviving the Dark War, Celica became a nun and looked after Ragna the Bloodedge, Jin Kisaragi, and Saya before she was eventually slain by Yuuki Terumi. Kokonoe later materialized a copy of her soul from when she was a young woman.

Celica wielded at different times the Nox Nyctores - Deus Machina: Nirvana and the Ex Machina: Minerva. She made her debut in BlazBlue: Phase 0 before appearing in BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma. Celica was made playable in BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Extend and, as Little Sister, is one of the main protagonists of XBlaze Lost: Memories. She was revealed for BlazBlue Alternative: Dark War on the 10th of June, 2021.

Appearance
Celica is a young woman with medium-length brown hair she wears in a ponytail and red eyes. She wears a standard Mage's Guild uniform of a white shirt and black cape with gold trim, a red ribbon around her neck, a black and gold skirt, and brown steel-toed shoes.

Celica has an unusually long lifespan due a passive effect from her healing sorcery, and only looks slightly older almost a century later as the Sister. During the time she watched over the remains of the Black Beast, she dressed like a typical nun of the Roman Catholic Church.

As a child, Celica had shorter hair and wore a short pink and white dress with long sleeves and an orange bow around her neck.

Personality
"A young lady with a positive personality, who is kind to everyone. Her directional sense is beyond abysmal, and often it takes her several hours to reach a destination a few hundred meters away. She supresses seithr by nature, and holds the "Power of Order" within herself."

Sincerely kind to everyone who comes into her path, Celica struggles to find faults in anyone and does her best to appreciate the goodness in individuals. This outwardly trusting attitude has made others adorn her, but there have been times where Celica has landed herself in trouble because of her inability to sense the evil in others.

Family matters a great deal to Celica, and she loves both Nine and Shuichiro with all of her heart. Nine can be overly protective of Celica, leading to the latter developing a slight rebellious streak in order carry out her own will and defy Nine's orders. The two have had conflict in the past, particularly over Ragna and Shuichiro, but Celica will always sing her sister's praises. Celica's relationship with Shuichiro is more complicated - although she loves her father dearly, he does not reciprocate the feelings, having developed the Kushinada's Lynchpin which needed Celica's soul to activate. The one person who means the most to Celica, however, is Ragna. It is strongly implied that she harbors romantic feelings towards him and would do anything for his sake. This has lead to an interesting dynamic between the two.

Celica has a terrible sense of direction. To reach a destination by herself that only lays a few hundred meters away will take her hours; this trait is shared with her sister, Nine. It has been noted multiple times that Celica also holds maps upside-down. In her free time, Celica enjoys going for strolls, but given her sense of direction, these can take hours.

Powers & Techniques
As a former student of the Mage's Guild, Celica is versed in the application of sorcery, magic, and alchemy; although she did not tend to study during her tenure, Celica has an unparalleled natural ability in healing sorcery that outclasses nearly every other mage. This ability allows Celica to heal other's wounds - the worst it has been seen healing is broken limbs. Other than her ability in healing, Celica has some knowledge in the application of combat-based sorcery, such as lightning generation, but she has claimed that the sound produced scares her too much for her to frequently use it. The only other kind of sorcery that Celica seems to excel at is the ability to levitate, and was able to do so across the Atlantic Ocean.

Celica was born with the unique power to nullify the seithr around her. This power is because she is a product of Order, and was born to oppose seithr's power. The only disadvantage that Celica has with this ability is that she cannot use magic nor Ars Magus since both require seithr to activate, and in modern society, she would unintentionally cause massive disruptions in the everyday use of Ars Magus. However, Celica's ability means that she can turn off a cauldron with her mere presence or make someone such as Hazama sick just by standing near him.

In gameplay, Celica's Drive is , which has Celica use Minerva in battle. Celica's Drive allows for three hits to be done in any combination that will combo into each other will little effort. At the end of this short combo, she can finish with a special move. In Central Fiction, Celica will build a blue health bar on top of her current health whenever she lands a Drive combo, and can opt to "heal", making that blue health into health proper instead of using a special move.

As a current Chrono Phantasma, Celica's abilities are much weaker than they used to be. Her healing is weaker and the radius around herself that nullifies seithr is much smaller. She is destined to die because of the nature of the Chrono Phantasma; the only upside to this status is that she cannot be the target of Observation, and nor can those around her - she is effectively immune to the power of the Amaterasu Unit, but the environment around her, however, is not. Instead of wielding a Nox Nyctores like Nirvana, she now wields Minerva, who acts as both a limiter and amplifier for Celica's seithr nullification power. The two work well together and their complimenting relationship is clearly seen in battle. Despite Celica being a physically frail teenage girl, Minerva functions as a wall between Celica and the opponent, stopping others from being able to harm her mistress.

BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Official Site Profile
''A mage who lived during the Dark War, and the little sister of the Six Heroes' Great Mage "Nine." By nature, she excelled at restorative sorcery and innately had an unconscious ability to surpress seithr, so Kokonoe summoned her into the present era as a "Chrono Phantasma." Equipped with an Idea Engine created by that same Kokonoe, the automaton Minerva waits together with Celica for a reunion with Ragna, who challenges his new trial with resolve. ''

BlazBlue: Central Fiction Official Site Profile
''A mage who lived during the Dark War, and the little sister of the Six Heroes' Great Mage "Nine." By nature, she excelled at restorative sorcery and innately had an unconscious ability to surpress seithr, so Kokonoe summoned her into the present era as a "Chrono Phantasma." Awakening in the unfamiliar city of "Kagutsuchi," she wanders with Minerva at her side and searches for one important to her, Ragna. ''A young lady with a positive personality, who is kind to everyone. Her directional sense is beyond abysmal, and often it takes her several hours to reach a destination a few hundred meters away. She supresses seithr by nature, and holds the "Power of Order" within herself. ''
 * Story
 * Personality

BlazBlue: Central Fiction Library Entry
''The person who raised Ragna, Jin and Saya. A gentle yet strict woman.''
 * Sister

''She's one of the few pure sorcerers who is able to use magic without relying on seithr. She was tasked with protecting the area in which the Black Beast's fragments lay. However, Terumi murders her in cold blood, deciding she would interfere with his plans.''

Someone who doesn't belong in this timeline, a Chrono Phantasma.
 * Celica A. Mercury

''With Kushinada's Lynchpin as the key to activation, Kokonoe replicates her soul from the past, and binds it to a vessel in the present. As such, Celica does not show up on the Master Unit's or Takamagahara's records, which makes her 'un-Observable.'''

''In her normal timeline, she would be attending the Mage's Guild's school. She's Nine's younger sister, one of the Six Heroes. She is unbelievably cheerful, and is optimistic in virtually every situation -- she also never backs down on a point, once she's made up her mind.''

She heads to Japan in search of her missing father, and meets Bloodedge along the way, which will end up changing her fate forever.

''Since birth, she was adept in the usage of healing magics, which is one of the reasons she is able to suppress the forces of the Boundary. Her ability to nullify seithr is perhaps nature's way of resisting its influence.''

Her sense of direction is hopelessly awful, but for some reason she is not aware of this fact.

BlazBlue 10th Anniversary Official Site Profile
''The younger sister of the genius Mage Me. She wants to help her beloved sister who is always looking after her, so she goes off and does all sorts of things on her own, and in the end usually causes her sister trouble.''
 * (Little) Sister

''A young woman kind to all, usually optimistic, with a positive personality. From birth, the "Power of Order" that suppresses "seithr" has been housed in her body.''
 * Celica A. Mercury

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle Official Site Profile
''Kind to all; an optimistic and positive young woman. Her sense of direction is less than nonexistent, to the point where, more than once, it's taken her several hours to get to a destination only a few hundred meters away.... She naturally houses within her the "Power of Order," which supresses seithr.''

''When together with her partner Minerva, the two are powerful without parallel. Start with Celica's healing magic, Armure Sorbet, and her specialty in healing to thoroughly support Minerva and her teammates!''

Appearances in other Media

 * The mobile game Mabinogi Duel stars Celica as a playable card.

Trivia

 * In the BlazBlue 10th Anniversary Character Poll, Celica placed 7th out of the 84 candidates. She scored one place above Noel Vermillion and one place below Mai Natsume. She had 3,124 votes.
 * As Little Sister, Celica placed 73rd, sharing the position with Tomonori. She scored one place above Haruka Hayami, Kiiro Hikagami, and Spinner Superior, beating them with one vote, and one place below Akira Kamewari. She had 11 votes.
 * Most of Celica's movelist has a naming theme around food and medieval weaponry; an example is "Lance Quiche".
 * Despite being able to use sorcery, such as floating and lightning, she never does in gameplay.
 * Celica has an extremely bad sense of direction. She can easily get lost wherever she goes.
 * One of her intros has her holding a map upside-down to reflect this.
 * As Celica got older, her ability to use healing sorcery dwindled. By the time she was looking after Ragna, Jin Kisaragi, and Saya, she could not heal at all.
 * However, her sorcery slowed her ageing, giving her a more youthful appearance than someone who is nearly a centurion.
 * Terumi murdered the original Celica on the 1st of March, 2192.
 * In her win-quote against Es, Celica finds her familiar but cannot remember where she has seen her, seemingly having forgotten Es after the events in XBlaze Lost: Memories.
 * Celica has the Sector Seven VS theme despite not being a member of the organization.
 * Like Rachel Alucard, Celica does not get hit during battle, instead Minerva takes the brunt of the attacks.
 * Celica is illustrated in the following Grimoire for BlazBlue Alternative: Dark War:
 * ティーパーティ (Tea Party).
 * 癒しの光 (Healing Light).
 * 方向音痴 (Directionally Challenged).
 * 一人でできるもん ! (I can do it alone!).