Shizuka Masou

About
Shizuka Masou is a powerful magic user who was one of the Four Witches of Kathtom and the leader of the group. According to her teacher, Ragishss, Shizuka had the greatest talent of the four and was considered the strongest among his students. With the additional power gained from the Phil Ring, she became even stronger than Ragishss and managed to best and kill him with her fellow witches help.

She is the daughter of two Souzou Masou and Athmaze, both powerful magic users. She was deeply affected by her father's death and her mother's disappearance and ever since Rance stopped her from altering the past during the events of the Kathtom Incident, she has been trying to find the man who destroyed her family in order to obtain vengeance.



Despite the fact that Shizuka is one of Rance's soulmates, she hates him and his brutish ways and will avoid him whenever possible. However she appears to still have some soft spot for him ( that he doesn't hesitate to exploit ), and her affection for him slowly increases after their myriad adventures.

She mostly lives with her best friend, Maria, as the two have been very close friends ever since learning magic together under Raghiss, even as Maria started dedicating her skills to Mechanics, while Shizuka continued her research on Magic.

She has a half-sister called Nagi Su Ragarl whom she is usually forced to fight despite herself, as Nagi utterly despises her.

Personality and Appearance
Shizuka is most of the time very serious and straightforward. She doesn't tolerate stupidity and shows no regrets in expressing her negative opinions about others in front of them. She's a bookworm and likes to spend most of her time studying and learning about magic and its different arts, to the point that she's almost anti-social and prefers to be alone. She's an easily irritable person but she only acts that way against people she doesn't like and is more tolerable and nice towards her friends. In bed, she claims to only enjoy rough sex.



She's very determined and strong-willed, not the type of person that gives up easily. She hates losing and she dislikes the idea of retiring or running away, showing that she can be very prideful.

During battle she's quite perceptive and tactical, being able to figure out her opponent's abilities and weaknesses and change her own fighting style depending on the situation.

She hates Rance with a burning passion. She hates the way he acts, the way he thinks, the way he treats her and pretty much everything about him, with the few genuine moments of kindness towards him leaning more towards "He's not a total asshole" moments. Even so, her hate for him has been progressively decreasing over the course of the series, growing to only dislike him a bit. She's worried about her friend Maria Custard, due to the later developing romantic feelings for Rance, which usually leads Shizuka to help her friend in situations where Rance is involved. She has a very close relationship with Maria, who she considers her most valuable friend.



However, the man she truly despised for most of her life was Chenezale do Ragarl, who had murdered her father and kidnapped her mother when she was a young girl. However Chenezale was also the father of her half-sister Nagi and ever since Shizuka got her revenge with Rance's help, Nagi has repeatedly tried to kill Shizuka, ironically to avenge her own father's death. Shizuka doesn't seem to share the same sentiment as she actually cares for Nagi, understanding her feelings because they both lost the most important person to them.

Shizuka is confident in her abilities but is constantly searching ways to improve her magic or learn about other sciences, and if she sees a good opportunity of doing so will often spend as much time as it's necessary to accomplish her objective restlessly.

She's said to have a very strong resemblance with her mother Athmaze. She has long and beautiful green hair and green blue eyes. Her clothing choice is very similar to that of a classic mage, with a blue hat and cape, a green robe that ends in a short skirt, and long boots.

Abilities
Shizuka is a very talented mage with a Lv2 skill in magic. Her teacher Ragishss believed that she was the best of his students and that she had the greatest potential. She's mostly proficient with offensive magic of the element of fire, being knowledgeable with a wide variety of mid and high level fire spells. Her most powerful and standout spell is the White Destruction Beam, a very high level attack that only the best mages can use. It's a very powerful force of light that takes a spherical form and is shot in a line in front of Shizuka, destroying everything in its way. It's incredibly potent and useful to take down several opponents. In Rance 03 she could use it to deflect a Black Destruction Beam performed by Dark Lord Ithere's apostles by herself, an impressive feat for a human, although it was only strong enough to alter its trajectory. She has an incredibly high level cap of 61, which is one of the human's highest caps The Continent in the current era. After a trip to the Calculator Cube, she gained the Crystal Rod, witch increased her magical power.

She's very smart and spends most of her time researching magic and it's uses. In Rance IV she was shown capable of decrypt an intricated and complex code left behind by the Holy Magic Sect in the Toushin Toshi Upsilon, and was able to perform a ritual to improve her own magic potential immensely(although it was messed up by Rance so it had no effect in the end).

LIke most mages, though her magic power and mental fortitude is high, giving her decent magic resistance, her body is rather frail and she has little defense against direct physical attacks.

In-Game
For more in depth gameplay information of each game refer to:
 * Rance 03
 * Rance IV
 * Kichikuou Rance
 * Rance VI
 * Sengoku Rance
 * Rance Quest
 * Rance IX

Personal History
Her father was Souzou Masou, a prodigy mage that studied in Mysteria Tou's magic school along with Chenezale do Ragarl, a woman named Athmaze and her future teacher Ragishss. Her father had a friendly rivalry with Ragarl and they were in constant competition with each other.

After a few years, Athmaze and Souzou fell in love and got married. However Ragarl, who was in love with Athmaze, went crazy with jealousy. Shizuka was born in a remote village where she spent the first years of her life. However, one day, Ragarl challenged Souzou to a duel for Athmaze in the outskirts of the town. When Souzou arrived for the duel, he was instead killed in a treacherous surprise attack upon arrival. As she grew worried Athmaze eventually left for the location of the duel, only to find her husband dead. Intoxicated by his victory and his lust, Ragarl proclaims his victory over his rival as he rapes Athmaze next to Souzou's corpse before kidnapping her. Shizuka, who was left alone in the house, is taken in by the village orphanage.

Athmaze eventually committed suicide years later after giving birth to Shizuka's half sister Nagi.

A few years later, Shizuka starts searching for her parents and eventually learns that they were mages. Wanting to follow in their footsteps, she starts studying under an old mage who lives outside of town.

Around the same time, the magician Ragishss was seeking to adopt girls with magic potential and no relatives, in order to train them at his magic cram school. Eventually, he comes across Shizuka and adopts her. Around this time Ragarl drops by the village where he murdered Souzou and finds out about Shizuka's birth. Becoming jealous and enraged he attempts to find Shizuka, but fails to find her current whereabouts. Instead, in order to prove that he was more worthy of Athmaze, he starts pushing his daughter Nagi into becoming a powerful mage, while indoctrinating her with one simple mission: to eventually fight and kill Souzou's child.

By the year GI1015 Shizuka had already enough knowledge to be a high-class mage but she continued to look for ways to improve. Ragishss mentioned his mentor Mysteria Tou to her and Shizuka left to see her in secret. Mysteria takes a liking for the strong-willed girl and teaches Shizuka some of her forbidden magic. She also recognizes her as the child of her old apprentices, Souzou and Athmaze; child and reveals that her that her parents were killed by another old pupil of hers, Ragarl, though she is unaware of his current whereabouts. Shizuka's hope to find the last of her family instead transforms into a desire for revenge.

In LP0001 Raghishss gives his four top students, Shizuka, Maria, Eleanor Ran and Mill Yorks the Phil Rings in celebration of their graduation and they become known as the Four Witches of Kathtom. However the rings were actually catalysts meant to supply Ragishss with unlimited power by sucking magic out of their wearers, but the four witches discover their master's secret and turn against him, fighting and killing him.

As a side effect of the rings, Shizuka and the other three witches of Kathtom all become mad or cruel. After killing Raghishss, Shizuka uses the town of Kathom and its inhabitants to power the forbidden spells she learnt from Mysteria, all in the hopes to travel to the past and save her family from Ragarl. She also convinces the other three witches of Kathtom to help her in her mission.

Appearances in the Rance Series
Rance 02



She is implied to be the leader of Four Witches of Kathtom who are responsible for the town's collapse, initially presenting her as the main villain. Her specialty is Fire Magic (or more precisely, offensive fire magic).

In the later events of the story, it's revealed that her true motive was to alter history in order to prevent her father's death, though to no avail, since Rance stopped her right before she could change anything. It's not stated what would have happened if she stayed on to confront Ragarl and insisted on altering the history, however she seemed to come to terms with this turn of events eventually. It's unclear whether she was truly possessed by the ring's power as well as the other three since she appears conscious enough when Rance confronts her and has a self-motivated purpose to her magical escapades in her desire to change the past. Eitherway, she goes back to her senses after the Phil Ring is destroyed by Rance.

She participates directly in the last battle along with Rance, Sill, and Maria. Her task is to prevent Ragishss from casting any spells.

Rance 03
Shizuka leads a force of mages alongside Eleanor Ran to repel the invading Helman forces, but Ran is incapacitated and they are forced to retreat.

Shizuka is amongst the four Custom Heroines when they rescue Rance after he get's out of the Devil Dungeon, and fights alongside him to free Princess Lia. Although she fights off his advances and treats him with scorn at first, one of Rance's terms in exchange for him returning to the Army involves having Shizuka have sex with him.

It is likely that the events of Rance 3 was the start of Shizuka's genuine dislike for Rance. However from other conversations it's known that she is also not happy about Rance stopping her during the events in Rance 02.

Rance IV
Shizuka is amongst the team that is sent to rescue Rance from the Toushin Toshi.

Shizuka is captured by Bitch during their search for Rance for her magic powers. Once she gives Bitch what he wants, Bitch then attempts to rape/torture her before being stopped by Dens Blau and Hubert Lipton, who set her free.

She is later found behind a magic barrier that only lets mages past, and she claims that she wants to use the secrets within the Toushin Toshi in order to make her more powerful. In the middle of the ritual, Rance decides to molest and then have sex with Shizuka. When she awakes, she worries for a short while that the ritual has been botched thanks to Rance, but then realizes that she does indeed have the power of a Level 3 mage.

Unfortunately, however, she finds out that, in battle, she loses Experience instead of gaining it. This phenomena keeps happening until she undergos incredible pain, reducing her level past the point of what it usually was, and reverting to a level 2 mage. Of course, she blames Rance for this.

Kichikuou Rance
She joined along with Maria, Milli, Mill and Ran after Rance conquered Kathtom town.

Rance VI
After meeting Rance and Sill inside Zeth's National Magic Museum, Shizuka (and Maria, with whom she was visiting the Museum at the time) see themselves forced to take part in the resistance movement of Ice Flame, of which Rance and Sill were part of.

At first, Shizuka helps the group unwillingly, but after some time, she decides to use the Information Net in order to find her Father's murderer, Chenezale do Ragarl.

She finds out that Ragarl is in fact in Zeth, in one of the Towers of Four Heavenly Emperors. Nagi's tower to be more exact. There she discovers that she is actually Nagi's half sister, who due to jealousy towards Shizuka and madness over Ragarl's sudden U-turn (Ragarl trained Nagi during all her life to kill Shizuka, using all kinds of extreme methods including regular sexual intercourse. But when Ragarl really saw Shizuka's photo, he realized he couldn't allow her to be killed due to her alikeness to Athmaze. Nagi, losing her sole purpose of existence and feeling betrayed by her lover, went mad), is holding him captive in a glass container and with half of his body gone. Shizuka loses to Nagi and is tortured by her little sister for some time until Rance arrives to her rescue. Once Nagi is defeated and Ragarl is dead, Shizuka helps the protagonists to fight against Kamilla's demon army. But not before Rance has his way with Shizuka after a long time, as a "reward" for helping her.

Mamanyonyo
She was summoned as a heroine.

Sengoku Rance



 * Shizuka is only available if player chose special character bonus at the start and have 1.03 patch installed.
 * Shizuka will only join if Maria is present.

It's not possible to improve her relation level nor to clear her character.

Due to her sister's trap, Shizuka is warped to JAPAN, in which she reunites with Rance. After telling the overall situation to Shizuka, Rance decides that she should stay and help, that is for Maria's sake as well. Given no choice but to agree, Shizuka decides to stay after emphasizing her reason to help is just for Maria.

While in JAPAN, Shizuka keeps training hard in order to get stronger. She believes that if she is stronger than Nagi, then both of them will always be alive at the end of a potential fight as she won't kill her no matter what, implying that she still feels guilty for the previous incident at Zeth during the events of Rance 6.

Rance Quest
She is persuaded into joining Rance's party during an encounter in the Malgreed Labyrinths. Deciding to make the best out of her situation, Shizuka takes advantage of Rance's curse to increase her skills by forcibly extracting and drinking a small amount of Rance's semen - this way she's able to afflict herself with the curse without having to have sex with Rance.
 * In this game she's one of only 3 sorcerers (2 if not including Magnum characters) in the game who have magic mastery with a 2-star rating, thus gaining access to highest tier of spells.

Rance IX
Since she and Maria were consistently pursued by Nagi but she didn't want to fight back, she joins the Helman Revolution to seek protection and confronts her half-sister Nagi again. Rance insists on treating her gently and developing a relationship with her as the story progresses, and she seems to dislike Rance less and less. In the end, after an encounter, Nagi starts succumbing to her wounds and Shizuka, not wanting her sister to die, de-ages them both into children, and they live happily together with Nagi repentant of her previous actions after losing the beast form, stating that she lost herself by relying on her father for everything.

In an alternate ending of Shizuka's route, Rance finds a way to turn both Shizuka and Nagi back to normal using the treasure "Banjo Rope" and the three live together in Rance Castle. However this ending is considered non-canon.

Rance X
She is first seen in M-Land with her sister. She later aids in the battle against the Kayblis Faction. She later aids Rance's children in fighting their father. She reveals that she was pregnant with Rance's child during the events of Rance IX and that she sacrificed the child to fuel the spell that merged her and Nagi's souls.

Trivia

 * She's one of the most consistently popular characters in the series. In the popularity polls she got: 3rd(Rance III) >>> 6th(Kichikuou Rance) >>> 2nd(Rance VI) >>> 2nd(Rance Quest) >>> 3rd(Rance IX) >>> 1st (Rance 03).
 * Despite the fact that she's usually considered a tsundere she leans so heavily to the tsun-tsun side that she more or less genuinely hates Rance to the core. Indeed may fans consider Shizuka to be just genuinely cold or even "hateful" towards Rance (until the events in Rance IX), which makes her personality really unique.
 * In Rance 02 she's one of the few enemies that is vulnerable to the "Verbal Abuse" option, since she's pissed at Rance's insults during combat and causes her to lose her focus.
 * Dark Lord Ithere fell in love with her in the battlefield, making her one of the few humans, along with only Rance and Mary Ann, that managed to make a Dark Lord fall for her.
 * A picture of what Shizuka would have looked like had she accepted to become Ithere's apostle was released in a blogpost by the CG drawer 魚介, where she was named "Apostle Emerald". However, that is non-official, since Ithere himself professed that he had a feeling for Shizuka different from those he had for the other apostles, that which is more appreciation and respect than a desire of possession, thus Shizuka would definitely have earned a higher position than the apostles.
 * She is the only member of the Four Witches of Kathtom confirmed to be one of Rance's fated girls so far.
 * She shares some similarities with Kanami Kentou in that both are fated to Rance but are completely unfond of his character, and also have a close friend that is in love with him yet not fated to him. They both actively express their dissaproval to their friend's feelings as well.