Mary (Alchemist)

"Good Old Mary" (旧き善きマリア) is a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal, introduced in Souyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index.

Etymology
(alternatively the Prophetess)(Maria Hebraea/Prophetissa in Latin) is an early alchemist, first written of in the works of the writer, written in the 4th century and the oldest extant books on alchemy, as well as other authors in.

Said to have lived between the first and third centuries A.D. at the latest in, none of her writings survive but she is credited with various quotations in hermetic writings and attributed with various alchemical precepts, inventions (including chemical apparatus such as the tribikos, the kerotakis, and the bain-marie) and operations.

Appearance
Mary is described as a young wife, and has long, blonde hair which reaches down to her ankles. She wears a wide-brimmed hat which hides her eyes, and a long, loose white dress (possibly a maternity brand, looking loose around the stomach) with a thick belt lazily wrapped around her waist with a variety of camping kitchen products attached to it.

Personality
Mary tends to refer to herself in the third-person as 'mama' (ママ様).

Background
According to her story, Mary was an alchemist who took on the name of the Virgin Mary to hide her identity, possessing alchemical skill that could produce miracles on the same level as the real one. Supposed living in the 3rd century at the latest, she invented various experimental tools which built the foundation of alchemy, such as the Bain-marie, the Kerotakis and the Tribikos, basic tools needed to create a universe.

The background of the individual who took on the identity of Good Old Mary as a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal is currently unknown, but given her chosen persona, salvation conditions and her own words, it could be assumed that she was originally someone who disliked how 'miracles' seemed to be restricted to a chosen privileged class or used to trample on the less fortunate.

Post-Handcuffs Arc
When Aradia was guiding Anna around their base, she was snacking on ham in the ship's kitchen. After the events surrounding the crash of the Overhunting, as well as the battle in the Vanishing Tunnel, Alice was brought back from Academy City by Anna. Greeting Alice upon her return, "Good Old Mary" and the others in the group were dismayed to find that Alice's newfound interest in Kamijou Touma had swayed her from using her magic to benefit their plans.

New Year's Eve Arc
As the cabal became split as to how to approach the issue of Kamijou Touma, Mary was on the side of the Rescuers. When Aradia attempted to kill Touma on December 31st, Mary acted with the Bologna Succubus to save his life, with Mary employing her resurrection technique twice to save Touma and the Bologna Succubus donating her blood to make up for the blood he lost.

When the Bologna Succubus was mortally injured against Aradia and her witches, and Touma called for her aid, Mary appeared and informed him of how the Bologna Succubus had given away and lost too much blood for her to revive the demon, as well as how a human could not give her blood in the same way. However, when Kumokawa Seria suggested a solution of using a substitute to stabilize her blood pressure, she recognized that it could work and on Touma's urging went with his friends to save the Bologna Succubus while Touma faced Aradia.

Accompanying Kumokawa and Index with the Succubus, Mary was called on to incapacitate a back alley doctor and his associates so they could use his resources, but the way in which she did so drew some exasperation and awkwardness from Kumokawa (who wondered if everyone called Mary or Maria was a troublemaker), as did some of her remarks and pouting following this. When they found what they needed, Mary remained with the Bologna Succubus to treat her while the others went to reunite with Touma.

New Year's Arc
On January 1st, Good Old Mary and Trismegistus accompanied Alice when she went to greet Kamijou Touma as he and others were making their New Year's Day shrine visits in District 12. The next day, she was present when Alice brought Touma's group to the cabal's newly established consulate, and cooked dinner for them afterwards.

On January 3rd, when Trismegistus attempted to kill Touma and cut Aradia down, Mary was alerted by Othinus and after healing Aradia, reached Touma in time to resurrect him when Trismegistus finally managed to behead him. With Touma meeting her salvation conditions, Mary fought Trismegistus, eventually summoning her Tribikos. The battle between the two Transcendents at full power ended when Alice arrived, intending to punish them, with only Touma's intervention preventing her from killing them.

Following Touma's escape from the consulate, with Alice left in a broken state and with the risk of her condition worsening to the point of being unable to perform, the Bridge Builders Cabal chose to immediately begin their ceremony to bring their intended savior Christian Rosenkreuz into the world, with Good Old Mary participating at points in the two-day long ritual, despite still being angry with Trismegistus. As the ceremony was concluding late on January 4th, she was holding a lily. When the ceremony was successfully completed but CRC was revealed to be different for the worse from his legend's claims, Mary was knocked down along with the other Transcendents.

Abilities
As a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal, Good Old Mary is said to be powerful enough to rival the regular magic side on her own under the right circumstances. She has been described as possessing alchemical skill and note compilation techniques that can produce seeming miracles on the same level as her namesake, and she has described herself as being able to create a small universe in a clear box, and make use of any and all recipes.

Outside of her alchemy, Mary is also a good cook. Like some other Transcendents, she uses common tone creation to translate and synthesize her speech into unfamiliar languages.

Just as she is an alchemist who can create a microcosm contained in a glass container and a kitchen master who cooks delicious meals with tools in her kitchen territory, Mary produces various phenomena in her vicinity through magic using the tools on her belt. While some uses have her brandishing or toying with her tools, some can be used while standing still and not touching her tools, and most don't require any spoken commands. The tools on her belt include a fancy Swiss multi-tool, a portable pot with a collapsible handle, a small burner usable as a stove, and a sandwich toaster, in addition to a knife with a seal mascot on it.

For offensive attacks, Mary can generate multiple loud explosions, capable of bending the metal double doors on the back of a shipping container and blowing one off, as well as incapacitating the individuals within without damaging the nearby equipment. Other attacks include generating a hunk of ice weighing over 30 tons to slam into a target, as well as opening up a fissure in the ground with lava erupting from it. For defense, she can produce an invisible wall to block attacks, and using steam (蒸気), she can render herself invisible.

Resurrection Recipe
Among Mary's repertoire is a Resurrection Recipe (復活の調合法), apparently linked to an alchemical formula lost in the 1st or 3rd century. It repairs a dead human body to a clean, uninjured state at the moment of cardiac arrest. Although it completely heals the body, it has a great cost, it cannot directly bring back the soul, the patient will still require CPR, and it does not return lost blood. It has been described as a purely medical phenomenon that may look like a miracle but only affects the physical body. It also apparently requires physical contact.

If a target has lost too much blood then they won't be able to be revived - their heart will not beat, the mind will not restart and they will not breathe on their own, leaving just an intact hunk of flesh which will slowly begin to rot. Depending on the amount of blood lost, a blood transplant or the injection of a suitable substitute to stabilize blood pressure, and keeping the target ready for resuscitation with any necessary measures, might allow for a target that would otherwise be impossible to be revived to be saved.

There is a limit to how many times the technique can be used to revive a person and if it is repeatedly used, a rejection reaction can occur, reducing its effectiveness. In the case of Kamijou Touma (so far revived three times), his Imagine Breaker needed to be severed each time to prevent it from interfering with the resurrection, increasing the blood loss. It is also possible for Mary to deliberately perform an imperfect resurrection, as she threatened to do to Trismegistus.

Transcendence
Like many other Transcendents in the Bridge Builders Cabal,   Mary can release a seal in order to draw on power transcending that of regular humans, with an incantation involving the declaration of "Risk 4" (リスク4) and "departing human territory" (人域離脱). In the case of Mary, this power is in the form of the gigantic tools used to create and contain a complete universe, and the nature of her seal is a singular seal (一なる封印).

During the battle at the consulate, Mary summoned the Jōryū-ki (Toribikosu). Aside from the Tribikos, she also has the Kanryū Sōchi (Kerotakisu) and Hoon nabe (Banmari).

Trivia

 * The name of Good Old Mary's singular seal might be derived from the, one of the alchemical precepts attributed to Mary/Maria; roughly, "one becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth."