Agnese Sanctis

Agnese Sanctis (アニェーゼ＝サンクティス) is a Roman Catholic Church nun who leads a paramilitary force called Agnese Forces. A girl with a troubled past, her devotion to her religion makes her out to be a totally ruthless leader against enemies. She is first introduced in Toaru Majutus no Index as an antagonistic character, but later reforms and joins Necessarius, and is a representative of Roman Catholicism in England.

Appearance
Agnese has red hair tied with multiple braids, which from a distance bear an uncanny resemblance to dreadlocks. She also wears a scapular usually worn by Roman Catholic nuns, but detaches its lower portion, revealing her slender legs.

She wears platformed shoes called [[Wikipedia:Chopine|chopine] which have 30cm thick soles. She usually wears them over her usual form of footwear and during combat they can be removed to enable better movement.

Personality
At first glance, Agnese seems like a clumsy, quiet girl, even admitting her fear of slugs. However, she later displays a very different personality; becoming a domineering person who doesn't mind making sacrifices for the the sake of her goals when the need arises. She seems to be somewhat of a sadist, reveling in other's pain during combat as demonstrated on a Knight when she uses her Lotus Wand to strike its groin, causing him great pain, and still planning to go even further until she was stopped by Lucia and Angelene.

Like a number of other girls, she's apparently fallen in love with Touma; though it is debatable whether she was serious or not when she said she loved him due to her being grateful to him for creating a diversion (unknowingly) for her to rescue the other nuns captured by the Knights of England.

Background
Agnese lived in Milan, Italy during her childhood. Her parents were killed for reasons unknown during a very young age, and became a street urchin living on whatever scraps of food she could find. She was later taken in by the Roman Catholic Church along with a number of other girls, where she eventually meets with Lucia and Angelene and became close friends with them. This leads to to her forming her own fighting force and commanding over 250 battle-hardened nuns who were proficient in both magic and combat in general.

Orsola Aquinas Rescue Arc

 * Main article:Orsola Aquinas Rescue Arc

She is assigned by the Roman Catholic Church to work with Stiyl Magnus to resolve the case regarding the Amakusa Catholics and Orsola Aquinas. Unbeknown-st to Stiyl, Agnese's forces are there to terminate Orsola Aquinas if they have retrieved her from the Amakusa.

After deceiving the representatives of the Anglican Church (Stiyl and Index) and Touma into defeating the Amakusa, Agnese takes Orsola to the church that was constructed on Orsola's behalf. There, she physically abuses Orsola for being problematic.

Touma later defeats her single-handedly with the help of Stiyl, Index, and the Amakusa Catholics (who agreed to assist them).

La Regina del Mare Adriatico Arc

 * Main article:La Regina del Mare Adriatico Arc

Because of her shortcomings in her previous mission, she is tagged as a Sinner by the Roman Catholic Church. She, along with the entire Agnese Forces, is held captive with several others in the fleet of ice ships maintained by The Queen of the Adriatic Sea spell, which Bishop Biagio Busoni acting as overall commander.

She is given special privileges throughout her stay in the fleet like the ability to travel between ships freely. However, she is in fact actually a prepared sacrifice for the spell "Rosary of the Appointed Time", a spell designed to manipulate certain aspects of "The Queen of the Adriatic Sea," a spell the Roman Catholic Church planned to modify and use on Academy City to completely erase its influences on science.

With the help of her friends Lucia and Angelene, Touma and Orsola, along with Index and the Amakusa Catholics, razed the entire fleet and she is rescued before "Rosary of the Appointed Time" is put into effect.

After her rescue from the Roman Catholic Church, she is absorbed by Necessarius, and is now living together with Kaori, Orsola, Sherry, and others in a girl's dormitory owned by Necessarius.

Academy City Invasion Arc

 * Main article:Academy City Invasion Arc

Agnese and her comrades are in the Necessarius Women's Dormitory, in Lambeth, London. Here, she has formed a Roman Catholic Church branch in London as she did not want to convert to Anglicanism like Orsola Aquinas.

In the laundry room of the dormitory, she, Lucia, and Angelene, face a conundrum of what to do with the washing machine that Academy City sent as a gift for them. Here, she does not speak, and goes along with what Orsola Aquinas in washing the clothes that they are wearing at the very moment. After Sherry Cromwell points out to Kanzaki Kaori that the colors of the obi of her yukata might fade, the girls witness Kaori being mercilessly drenched by the washing machine after needlessly attacking it in her panic, discovering that she does not wear underwear under her yukata.

Lotus Wand
Agnese primary weapon is the Lotus Wand (蓮の杖 (ロータスワンド) ), a metallic religious staff with an angel statue on the head that allows her to channel the other elemental weapons through the principles of Idol Theory via making it represent the ether element. The staffa allows her to create invisble blunt force attacks on an opponent, or a cutting attack, depending on the damage done on the staff, such as hitting the staff for the former and sliding a blade on it for the latter.

Despite the delay of the command before the action could take place, Agnese is wont of the staff and knows how to wield it properly during combat, and adjusts and calculates the position of the target for better use of the staff. Unlike Orsola Aquinas, Agnese does not focus too much on casting, as such she does not tire out when using the staff.

Other magic
As the leader of the Agnese Forces, Agnese needs to have her commands distributed to all of its members. Agnese Sanctis has a notebook that if when written upon it, what was written would appear in similar notebooks, which Index compares to a telephone.

She may also likely know how to apply the Divine Protection of Ægidius.

Design evolution
Agnese Sanctis' overall design remains fairly static throughout the series. Agnese wears the basic Roman Catholic Church nun habit that Haimura design. Here, Haimura designed the zippers upon the sleeves and skirt, allowing for Agnese to wear her short skirt.

For her appearance in the 11th light novel volume, Haimura designed her to look like a bird with plucked wings.

Trivia

 * Agnese is a sleep walker and just like Index she will seek company while still sleep; as shown when she clung to Touma calling him "Papa" in her dreams..