Eri Nakamura

Eri Nakamura was one of the two secondary antagonists from the "Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest" series.

She was originally one of the summoned heroes but later betrayed her classmates for the demons. Using her original dark magic "Soul Bind" to manipulate countless numbers of dead puppet soldiers. After she obtained the power of an apostle, she became more powerful than before and was able to manipulate Kouki Amanogawa using soul bind even without killing him. She self-destructed herself as her 'last loyalty' after learning that Kouki was no longer being manipulated by her. Before she died, she had a face to face conversation with her former best friend Suzu Taniguchi, telling her it would have been better if she had met Suzu first instead of Kouki during her childhood.

Before the war, she had became a sleeper agent of her associations with Garland in attempt to destroy the Heiligh Kingdom in her rebellion against her classmates. During the war, She and Daisuke Hiyama betrayed the "Hero Party" and were branded as traitors. When Hajime Nagumo arrived and foiled her plans, she betrayed Hiyama for being too weak and left him to die at the hands of Hajime in order for her to get away from Nagumo. After both Hiyama's death and the demon invasion was prevented by Nagumo, she escaped with Freid Bagwa without any opinions and officially defected to Garland.

Appearance
Eri has short black hair that is kept in a tiny bob. She has brown eyes and is wearing glasses. After she discarded and broke her glasses, she showed a sinister expression.

Upon obtaining the power of an apostle, she grew wings.

Personality
In the beginning, Eri is portrayed as a calm and quiet girl that loves books. Later on, however, it is shown that she is very cunning and willing to take advantage of classmates for her own personal gain. She has a very deep obsession for Kouki to the point that she is willing to kill him in order to use 'soul bind' on him and make him her puppet and "boyfriend" forever.

While in her persona as the "Shy Girl", Eri is portrayed to be kind and compassionate to others, especially to her classmates of whom she considered to be her "friends", but due to her looks and tame personality is shown to be a tad bit shy, when interacting with them. However underneath this persona, Eri, in truth, despised pretending to being friends with her classmates and dislikes the fact that she needed to maintain this persona for long periods of time in order to stay in Kouki and stay in his good graces and truthfully wanted to slaughter them all in order to horde Kouki's attention all to herself. And upon being transported to Tortus, Eri was greatly delighted that her newfound powers now allowed her the chance of killing them all herself. However upon fully mastering her powers as a Necromancer, Eri’s opinion on her former classmates had slightly improved from seeing them as "Trash to be thrown out", to "useful pawns (undead slaves)" to be used for her future plans. However even after her betrayal and eventual failure to kill them (except for Kondou, a classmate that she killed) due to Hajime's interference, Eri was none the less glad that she no longer had to "play house" with them any longer and was completely unrepentant in her choice of betraying them. Due to her obsession, Eri has has shown to have little remorse or hesitation in doing whatever she can in order to achieve her objective of "having" him, as seen where she didn't regret killing King Eliheid and the nobles in order to help her new allies in their invasion and fulfill her goal of obtaining Kouki until her plan was foiled by the raged costumed Hajime.

From her past experiences of suffering in pain, anguish and agony from losing her birth father in a car accident, then facing the irrational hatred from her birth mother and then being physically and sexually abused by her step-father and being beaten to near death by her mother in rage for "ruining" her marriage "again", resulting in Eri having a miserable childhood that inevitably had a adverse effect on her psychological/emotional development. Resulting in Eri's overall psychological mindset becoming severely warped due to her own tumultuous upbringing and lack of stable role models. Causing her to become exceptionally evil, manipulative, cruel, sadistic, selfish, traitorous and emotionally insecure when dealing with others that eventually lead to the development of her very warped sense of "love" and her obsessive tendencies. Showcasing clear delusions when justifying her actions.

This is seen where she came to conclude that the only way for her to truly be with someone is if she was the only person in that person's life that mattered. This was most likely what was brought out from her mother's own selfish ideal of "love" and her own past tragedies that rendered her insecure and selfish when wanting to also be "loved" by some else. As seen where she would viciously try to kill each and everyone one of Kouki's friends in order to insure that his "love" would only remain with her no matter what and would even go as far as using her Necromancy to forcibly bind her to him to insure that he would always be "hers".

A clear example of Eri's emotional instability is seen when she began losing her control over Kouki due to Shizuku successfully getting through to him. Eri was shown to have immediately began suffering a nervous breakdown due to her "losing" him and falling into a crazed panic.

Due to her intelligence, Eri is highly manipulative and traitorous, even more than Daisuke Hiyama when going after what she wants and accomplishing her goals. She manipulated her classmates to become friends with her including the emotionally intelligent Shizuku just so she could kill them in order to claim Kouki for herself. She also blackmailed Hiyama into helping her after noticing his sloppy attempt to kill Hajime and his gradual losing of footing in his attempts to deny involvement in order to twist it to her own advantage by threatening him that she would tell everyone else of his part in the "accident" unless he helps her. Later despite being collaborators together for their own mutual gain, Eri reveals that she never really saw Hiyama as a comrade or even collaborator but instead only considered Hiyama as a pawn to her that would eventually outlive his usefulness and later discarded him by leaving him to die at the hands of Hajime without a second thought after witnessing Hiyama being pathetically weak and made no effort or attempts to go rescue her now-useless pawn from his death. Eri herself has little remorse for these actions and was fine being a traitor.

Due to her immense cruelty and sense of superiority, Eri is also shown to be highly abusive and remorseless torturer when she enslaves her undead minions and torturing the souls of the dead to force them to do her bidding like she did to Nia, Meld and Kondou. Eri is very sadistic when she enjoyed seeing her classmates suffers in despair, weep, wail, anguish and agony.

Due to Kaori and Shizuku being Kouki's childhood friends (despite them eventually becoming Hajime's lovers), Eri was shown to be very envious who held a murderous jealousy towards them as she viewed them as her mortal enemies and wanted to kill them as she referred to them as "trashes" along with the rest of their classmates due to them being in her way of making Kouki her boyfriend. When learning that Kaori was actually revived by Hajime, Eri's hatred towards her grew even worse. She never cared for Suzu when she didn’t even consider the latter as her best friend but rather a nuisance. Despite her fears for Hajime, she hates him for him continuing to ruin all of her plans.

Like Hiyama, Eri despite showing herself to be outwardly confident, is a coward when things are out of her advantage/favor. As seen where she showcased genuine fear and was terrified of her now mutated and murderous classmate, Hajime Nagumo after he tortured and murdered Cattleya. When Hajime arrived and ruined all of Eri's plans after the temporarily murder of Kaori, she begs him to spare her life so that she could revive Kaori as his undead slave in order to save herself as she betrayed Hiyama which only increased his anger further to the point that rage consumed Hajime. She feared the worst when Hajime obliterated all of her undead slaves and killed Hiyama. After Hiyama's death, Eri was thrown into greater fear when Hajime was willing to kill her for her failed attempts to turn Kaori into Hiyama's undead sex slave but got away with the help of Freid Bagwa. Despite acquiring power as a hybrid Apostle, Eri's cowardice remained unchanged when she wanted to run away with Kouki instead of fighting Hajime due to her immense fear for him.

After her transformation into a Apostle/Human Hybrid by Ehit, Eri was shown to have become completely fanatically loyal to the crazed false god, even more so upon him presenting Eri with Kouki as her "prize" for her continued faithful service to him and helping him complete his goals of obtaining a suitable physical vessel to contain his immense power.

Although unknown if this was the result of genuine loyalty or simply her mind being affected by Ehit's magic. Eri was noted to have become completely devoted to him and his goals and coupled with her original psychological instabilities, only made her all the more unhinged and murderous. While ignoring Suzu and Ryutarou when she focused on Kouki, she further descended to evil when she discarded her last shred of humanity inside of her heart. Eri was shown to prefer suicide over betraying Ehit, as seen during her final moments after being defeated by Suzu, where Eri instead committed suicide by detonating herself in a last ditch effort to kill her rather than go back with her to their classmates despite the latter's assurance that they would forgive her for her actions.

However despite her shamelessness and lack of guilt or regret in her actions on the surface, it was shown that Eri did at least on some level of her mind, did indeed possess some regret on how she lived her life and possessed a minuscule amount of guilt towards her actions. And during her final moments, she acknowledged that if she had meet and befriended Suzu first before becoming infatuated by Kouki upon meeting him, maybe she could have become a much better person than she was and things might have turned out much more differently for her.

Biography
When Eri was was 6 years old, her father died after saving her from an in incoming car. This lead to her being abused both physically and mentally for years by her mother, due to her blaming Eri for his death. In spite of her mother's harsh treatment, Eri never reported her to the authorities; believing that she would eventually stop it and love her once more. However, when Eri was 11 years old, her mother started dating another man, much to her shock, and had moved in with them. He was abusive and would constantly make sexual advances towards Eri at any opportunity he could. Eri did everything she could to avoid his attention, including cutting her hair short and acting more masculine. Despite her efforts, however, he still expressed his attraction towards Eri, and would eventually molest her one day while her mother was away at work. Eri managed to scream loud enough that the neighbors heard it and called the police once they saw what was happening to her. After he was arrested, rather than apologizing to Eri for bringing that man into their lives, Eri's mother instead accused her of seducing him. Realizing that the hardships she endured over the years had been for nothing, Eri decided the only thing for her would be to end her life. She snuck out of her home the next morning and headed to a nearby bridge that was above a river. As she was about to jump off the railing, she was suddenly approached the most popular boy in her school: Kouki Amanogawa. He had been out jogging that morning, and upon seeing Eri in such a dangerous position, he immediately helped her off the railing before asking what had happened to her. At first, the despondent Eri didn't say anything, but after Kouki repeatedly requested that she explain to him what had happened, Eri gave him a brief summary without getting too specific. After hearing her vague account, Kouki mistakenly came to the conclusion that Eri wanted to kill herself because she was scolded by her parents. This prompted him to tell Eri that he would protect her. Hearing someone offer kind words to her for the first time in years convinced Eri not to kill herself, and she returned home.

When Eri went to school after her recent ordeal, she was approached by all the girls in her class, who after having avoided her for so long, suddenly wished to talk with her. She soon learned that this had been a result of Kouki's influence, and as a result, she developed a deep attraction towards him for the kindness he showed her. Several days later, Eri's mother was investigated by child welfare due to Eri's attempted suicide. However, Eri did not reveal her mother's abuse to them, and pretended to be a loving daughter. This was done in order to prevent her from going to a different school than Kouki if she had been separated from her mother. Eri's sudden change in attitude utterly shocked her mother, which soon led to Eri constantly manipulating her for years. Eventually, Eri moved out and lived on her own, while still receiving financial support from her mother. Once she had settled in, Eri then sought to start a relationship with Kouki. Unfortunately, she soon realized that Kouki's first act of kindness towards her had not been a romantic gesture, but rather a general sense of chivalry, and that he had treated all the girls he encountered the same way. This utterly infuriated Eri, and had since done everything she could to get closer to Kouki and get him to notice her more, all while becoming bitterly jealous of the girls that were always near him (particularly his childhood friends Shizuku Yaegashi and Kaori Shirasaki).

One day during her second year of high school, Eri and her entire class were magically summoned to the alternate world of Tortus, by its god Ehit, in order to help humanity's war against the demons. She and her classmates trained in the Great Orcus Labyrinth by fighting the monsters that dwelled inside it until they were strong enough to fight the demons. When Eri's classmate Hajime Nagumo was believed to have been killed in the labyrinth, Eri was among the students that resumed her regular training, despite having witnessed such a horrifying ordeal.

Relationships

 * Kouki Amanogawa - Eri sees him as her savior and will do anything for him to be hers. After Aiko exposed the truth of Ehit as an evil god, Eri confirmed to Kouki that was the reason why she betrayed him and her classmates. She tries to escape by dragging Kouki along until she was surrounded by Hajime's harem. After her transformation, Eri's lust for Kouki had increased when she was granted power by Ehit and to have Kouki for herself as"her reward. Upon successfully "obtaining" him, Eri was shown to have become immensely clingy and delusional with Kouki and has shown to have little to no remorse in psychologically manipulating his fragile psyche in order to "keep" him.
 * Suzu Taniguchi - Even it's a lie, at some point she considers her a true friend. Though she mostly only sees her as a tool to get close to Kouki. Her betrayal has impacted Suzu when she revealed she never considered the latter as her best friend from the start due to her attempt to kill Suzu and the rest of their classmates for being in her way to make Kouki hers. Though she admitted if she had met Suzu before she met Kouki, then things might have been different. After her defeat by Suzu, Eri committed suicide in a last ditch attempt to kill her rather than find a resolve to rejoin their classmates despite Suzu's assurance that she and the rest of their classmates would forgive her.
 * Kaori Shirasaki - Kaori is one of Eri's mortal enemies (along with Shizuku). Eri hates her due to Kaori acting like she takes being Kouki's friend for granted and that it feels like a burden. After Hiyama temporarily killed Kaori, Eri was about to use "Blind Soul" to make Kaori Hiyama's undead sex slave. But failed due to Hajime's arrival. While the raged consumed Hajime marched toward Eri, she cowardly begged him to spare her life to revive Kaori as his slave which only angered him further. After being revived by Hajime, Kaori held no grudge against Eri for her actions. When learning Kaori was revived by Hajime, Eri's resentment for Kaori continually grew worse.
 * Shizuku Yaegashi - Eri hates Shizuku due to her acting like she takes being Kouki's friend for granted and that it feels like a burden. She was about to kill her with her undead slave who was Shizuku's personal maid, Nia but failed due to Hajime's arrival.
 * Hajime Nagumo - It is unknown how she feels for him before his mutation, but Eri was willing to kill Hajime with her other classmates due to him and the other classmates are being in her way for her desires to make Kouki her boyfriend. In "believing" of Kaori's determination that he was alive, Eri joined to search for Hajime but secretly planned to reanimate him as Kaori's slave if he's "dead". But after learning that he was still alive and gained inhuman strength and ruined her plans, she views him as a monster who shows no hesitation In killing even his own classmates, which made her scared of him and both his demonic strength and murdering intent after killing Cattleya. Prior to forming an alliance with Daisuke before she deserted him, Eri initially considered to work alongside Hajime before he fell into the abyss. When he arrived and got immensely consumed with rage from Kaori's temporarily death, Eri begged Hajime to spare her life so that she could revive Kaori as his slave which Hajime only worsened his fury for her. Hajime didn’t need Eri because she was of no use to him, because he had already obtained the spirit magic he needed to save Kaori as he was willing to kill her for her treachery. When she sent her slaves to attack him, Hajime easily destroyed and killed all of them. When Eri tried to kill Hajime with daggers, Hajime easily overpowered her. Before he killed her, Hajime tormented her to make her suffer a slow death which was worse than the time Eri suffered at the hands of mother and stepfather. Hajime was willing to kill her for her betrayal regardless of her motivations or reasons that made her a traitor. She managed to put some distance between her and Hajime when the latter killed her former collaborator, Daisuke Hiyama (whom she'd betrayed) in cold blood. After Daisuke's and the undead army's destruction and Eri's defeat, Hajime was willing to kill her for her betrayal and her failed attempted to turn Kaori Shirasaki into an undead sex slave for Daisuke, but she managed to escape with Freid Bagwa to Garland. Following her defection, Eri believed using Remia and Myu as hostages against Hajime would be effective but her plan was compromised and was ruined by Hajime yet again. After Eri captured Yue to present her body to Ehit, she finally angered Hajime for the last time as he decided to kill Eri for taking Yue from him, knowing that she has no resolve left within her at all. Before the final battle she wanted to runaway with Kouki instead of fighting Hajime showing immense fear for him, Unfortunately, Eri died by committing suicide after being defeated by Suzu, in order to avoid capture and being killed by Hajime or Shizuku. After her death, Hajime completely wrote off Eri as a self-deluded traitor just like Daisuke Hiyama.
 * Daisuke Hiyama - One of her classmates and fellow traitor that she blackmailed for his betrayal after letting Hajime fall to his apparent death. Only for him to return as an indestructible monster, she manipulated and used Hiyama into doing her dirty work to get what they both want (Eri wants Kouki and Hiyama wants Kaori). However, like the rest of her classmates who are pawns to her, Eri viewed Hiyama as a mere pawn to her schemes when she never considered Hiyama as a collaborator or comrade. After Hajime arrived and foiled all of her plans, Eri betrayed Hiyama upon witnessing how weak and worthless he is when he outlived his usefulness to her and went as far as to go back on their deal for her own survival from Hajime's wrath. When Eri was about to be killed by Hajime, Hiyama unintentionally saved her by firing at Hajime with a fireball (though it was weak and did nothing against Hajime). Despite this however, Eri still refused to help the weak and useless Hiyama when she used his distraction to make some distance between herself and Nagumo. After Hiyama was beaten and was abandoned to die by Hajime in coldblood, Eri had no intention of going back to help her pawn and she simply chose to abandon him to his death due to him no longer having any form of strategic uses or values in Eri's future plans of killing her classmates to obtain Kouki for herself. Eri, like everyone else, also considered Hiyama to be worthless.

Weapons & Equipment

 * Long Staff - As a necromancer, Eri's main weapon is a long staff.


 * Daggers - Eri wield daggers as she attempted to kill Hajime only for the latter disarmed her.
 * Twin Great Swords:  - From her mutation as hybrid Apostle, Eri wield two broadswords.

Physical Abilities

 * Immense Physical Abilities - after becoming an apostleification, Eri was granted with all the physical abilities of an apostle.
 * Genius Intellect - Eri has shown incredible, genius intelligence for her age, being superior to most of her classmates including her teacher Aiko. Her intelligence is shown when she invented an original Necromancy magic spell through personal research as well as choosing to betray her classmates and Heligh Kingdom to support the Demons as their spy for self-preservation as she already realized it is almost impossible to opposed the Demons who were supported by Ehit and his armies of five hundred Apostles. She was also the only person who realized the fireball that caused Hajime to fall into the abyss was intentionally aimed at him and quickly figured out it was fired by Daisuke Hiyama, even correctly guessing his reason for it. But rather than sell him out right away, she chose to blackmail him to help her with her future plans. But when her plan to turn Kaori into Hiyama's sex slave failed due to Hajime's arrival, Eri has betrayed Hiyama in her attempt to make Kaori into Hajime's slave for her safety. Her intelligence holds inferiority to Hajime's own intelligence as her plans were always too predictable and being foiled by him such as her attempt to kill her classmates, making Kaori as Hiyama's sex slave and later trying to use Remia, Aiko-sensei and Myu as hostages.
 * Master Tactician - Eri is shown to be an extremely crafty and excellent manipulator having managed to conceal her true personality and obsession with Kouki to her classmates, and acts as gentle and quiet girl allowing her to fool all of those around her including the extremely sharp Shizuku.
 * Master Swordswoman - By using her necromancy powers, Eri was able to possess the knowledge of Meld Loggins, the best swordsman in the Heiligh Kingdom thus obtaining his knowledge in swordsmanship, thus becoming proficient in using a single sword in battle.

Magical Abilities

 * Immense Mana - Being one of Ehit's summoned heroes, Eri has more mana when compared to other people of Tortus. By continuously training in secret, she was able to increase her mana capacity. After undergoing the Apostle transformation process, Eri gains the immense mana of one of God's Apostles, allowing her to perform her spells on larger scales and at higher levels than before.
 * Magic Master - Eri is one with the highest magic aptitudes among her classmates, particularly in Dark attribute Magic due her Job Class as a Necromancer. Her already high aptitude was increased by her secret training after which she was able to control up to 500 reanimated corpses as puppets by tormenting the souls of the dead to do her bidding. Her skill in necromancy magic allowed her to develop a spell that was a degraded version of Age of Gods magic. After obtaining her Apostle powers, her magical abilities improved dramatically.

Skills

 * Dark Magic Affinity - It allows the user to use dark magic at a capable rate.
 * Decreased Magic Consumption - It decrease in magic consumption for using dark magic.
 * Increased Efficiency - Effects raised when using dark magic.
 * Increased Duration - Duration in using dark magic raised.
 * Necromancy - it was the highest form of dark magic, it an ability capable of reanimating the dead. Though in Eri's case, her mastery is so great that she invented an inferior form of "Age of God's" spirit magic that allowed her to directly control the souls of the dead and reanimate them allowing her to perfectly control an entire army of undead with their memories, personalities and skills intact.
 * Language Comprehension - a base skill granted to all those who got summoned. It gives the user the ability to understand any language and be proficient in it.
 * Disintegration - after becoming an apostle she was granted a magic ability that can melt everything.
 * Mana Manipulation - after becoming an apostle she gained the ability to directly manipulate her mana and use her spells without the need of a magic circle or an incantation.

Spells/Attacks

 * Flame Tide - An intermediate-level fire spell that summons a wave of fire that the caster can freely control. "Swallow them whole, O crimson mother— Flame Tide!"
 * Phantom Pain - A dark magic spell that distorts the target’s sense of touch and causes them to suffer extreme agony.
 * Oblivion - A beginner-lever dark magic spell that covers the target’s vision with a black haze.
 * Insanity Howl - A dark magic spell which causes auditory hallucinations and interferes with the target’s sense of hearing.
 * Decimate - A dark magic spell which disperses the mana of the spells the target is casting.
 * Gloom Field - A dark magic spell that obscures the target's sight and hearing by unleashing A black sandstorm and a cacophony of scraping noises.
 * Scatterdust - The strongest mana-disruption spell, which not only the obstructs the mana of the target's spell, but even disrupts the internal flow of their mana.
 * Crazed Moon - One of the strongest dark magic spells. It creates a black moon and separates the target’s consciousness from their body for a few seconds.
 * Spirit Binding - Eri's original Necromancy spell which allows her to tear out a soul fragment containing memories, thoughts and personality of a dead person from their spirit and bind it to their corpse to reanimate it. This magic is only usable for a short time after a person has died. Due to it being a crude form of spirit magic, Eri can only rip out fragments of her victims' souls instead of controlling it entirely, leaving her victims in a mental state of Hollowness. After being enhanced with Apostle powers, she can even do Spirit Binding on living being. However, she can only guide the targets consciousness into believing a what the caster says. Spirit Bind loses its effect on living beings if they are able to see past the illusion planted by the caster. "Does it hurt? Are you sad? Let me hear a pretty scream. Try to resist, curse me in your pain. You'll still be my little puppet. A pathetic little toy! Blessings to all deaths! Ridicule to every sorry soul!— Spirit Binding!"

Quotes

 * (To her classmates): "Fufu, I’m so glad we all came to this world. Getting rid of all of you would have been difficult back in Japan. Which is why, of course, I can’t let you guys win this war and go back home. Because Kouki-kun’s going to spend the rest of his days here, with me. Forever."
 * (To Suzu Taniguchi): "You really are a moron."
 * (To Suzu Taniguchi): "I hate how you always laugh everything off. Even when people bad-mouth you behind your back, you just blow it off with a smile. Oh, and I hate how perverted you act sometimes. Plus, I hate how you spout cringe lines about wanting to be friends when I’m trying to kill you. There’s a whole bunch of other stuff too, but the thing that pisses me off the most is how childish you act all the time."
 * (To Suzu Taniguchi): "Goodbye, Suzu. The time I spent with you was the only time in my life I ever felt even a little happy."

Etymology

 * The name "Eri" means "favor, benefit" (恵) and "village" (里).
 * The kanji that is used for her name in the manga "絵" (e) means "drawing, picture, painting, sketch".
 * Eri's surname "Nakamura" means "middle" (中) and "town, village" (村).

Trivia

 * Eri was the school librarian.
 * Eri was the only character who appeared on the main series Light Novel cover page that never became a part of Hajime's harem.
 * Eri's glasses are not for prescription. She merely wears them as part of her façade.
 * Eri refers to herself using the personal pronoun "boku" (ボク), which establishes a sense of masculinity.
 * Eri's English voice actress Megan Shipman also voiced Ophis from , who was the inspiration for Tio Klarus.