Suzu Taniguchi

Suzu Taniguchi is a major character from the "Arifureta Shokugyō de Sekai Saikyō" series.

She is one of the students from Japan who got involved in the Summoning Incident, and ended up in Tortus along with her other classmates. She was once best friends with Eri Nakamura (which turned out to be a lie), and was part of Kouki Amanogawa's party during the training in Orcus Dungeon. She is also Ryutarou Sakagami's girlfriend. She is close friends with Kaori Shirasaki, Shizuku Yaegashi and later Tio Klarus

Appearance
Suzu is a very short girl with short hair styled into twin-tails that reaches her shoulders and and has light brown eyes.

Personality
"Everything you said is absolutely right. I really was a coward. But that doesn’t matter anymore. I’m done with trying to protect myself. Ever since I saw that dream in Haltina’s labyrinth, I realized I’d been running away from what really mattered."

- Suzu while fighting her doppelgänger in the Frost Caverns of Schnee Suzu is the mood-maker of her class as she is usually very cheery and likes to lighten the mood. She also acts perverted at times towards her friends, making dirty jokes or grabbing one of her friends' breasts on occasion. However, she is actually quite pure and becomes easily flustered when witnessing the adult situations surrounding Hajime. She often gets overwhelmed by Tio's perverted personality after meeting her.

She has a gag of giving people nicknames such as Hajime as Hajihaji, Kaori as Kaorin, Shizuku as Shizushizu, Shea as Sheashea, Ryutarou as Ryu-kun and Eri as Eririn. After Hajime killed Ehit, she is the one who nicknamed him as the "God Slaying Demon King".

Background
During her childhood, Suzu is constantly lonely due to her parents being too busy with work to spend time with her. After being told to smile by her caretaker, Suzu crafts her cheerful and upbeat persona in order to get closer with her parents, as well as a way to make friends, but is still depressed deep down.

After she and the rest of her class is betrayed by her former-best friend Eri, Suzu becomes more depressed when she learns that Eri never considered her to be a true friend, but she's also more focused and determined in order to find a way to talk with her once again. After Hiyama's death by Hajime, Her determination was strong enough to convince Hajime to give her, Kouki, Shizuku and Ryutarou another chance to conquer a labyrinth and helping him to destroy the god as well hopefully give Eri resolve.

Ever since Eri's betrayal, Suzu admitted to her doppelganger that she is a coward and Is always running away from her enemies more than her fears for Hajime's monstrous strength and murder intents after he killed Hiyama.

Despite appearing happy all the time, Suzu is actually quite perceptive. She is aware that Eri, like herself, is hiding her true persona from the rest of her classmates, and wants to be her friend because of their similar circumstances.

Suzu has an inferiority complex with her appearance. Although she is considered to be "cute" by most people, she feels that she is not as attractive as some of her female friends. Suzu has also on multiple occasions been described as stupid some examples of this are charging into the demon capital alone with no plan in mind to meet a former friend who wanted nothing to do with her and attempting to help said friend despite the later saying she never mattered to her despite her obvious insanity during a death battle. Her academic scores are also pretty bad.

Weapons & Equipment

 * Bracelets - A pair of bracelets that helped strengthen her barrier magic. They were destroyed after Hajime tried to enhance them with new abilities.

The following are the abilities enchanted in the fans by Hajime.
 * Twin Iron Fans - Two iron-ribbed fans created by Hajime. They are bound to Suzu’s mana and blood, so only she can use them. They are able to reduce the length of Suzu's chants, and can enhance any defensive spells channeled through them thanks to evolution magic. Her fans also absorb trace amount of her mana at all times and store it for future use, as well as reducing the mana consumption of spells cast with them. There are jewels attached to the handle of each fan that allows her to summon various monsters that she controls. Each fan has a specific ability that complements each other: The right fan is used to cast traditional barrier spells, while the left fan can add secondary effects to those barriers, allowing Suzu to use composite magic.
 * Blazing Hallowed Ground - A composite spell that combines fire magic and barrier magic. It creates a superheated zone inside the barrier.
 * Hallowed Ground - Dispersal - A composite spell that combines light and barrier magic. It causes the Hallowed Ground barrier to diffuse the energy of anything that it comes into contact with.
 * Hallowed Ground - Bind - A composite spell that combines gravity and barrier magic. It uses gravity magic to deploy a barrier that contained a localized gravitational field barrier that seals enemies.
 * Hallowed Ground - Reversal - A composite spell that combines restoration and barrier magic. It uses fragments of destroyed barriers to restore the previously destroyed barriers.
 * Aerodynamic-Enchanted Boots - They allow Suzu to walk mid-air.

Magical Abilities

 * Enhanced Mana - As one of Ehit's summoned heroes and a Barrier Master that specializes in Barrier magic, Suzu possess higher mana levels compared to most humans.
 * Magic Master - As a Barrier Master, Suzu has the highest aptitude for Barrier magic among Ehit's heroes. She can deploy high level barriers in rapid success with little difficulties. Through her intense training, Suzu has improved her skills greatly, earning praise from Yue although it should be noted the later can copy her skills effortlessly. After gaining Metamorphosis magic, she became able to control and strengthen monster from the Orcus Labyrinth albeit she needed the help of Hajime’s artifacts to pull this off so it can’t really be Calle her own strengths.

Skills

 * Barrier Magic Affinity
 * Mana Efficiency Up - A skill that makes the user efficient in using magic.
 * High-speed Invocation Up
 * Remote Manipulation - A skill to remotely control magic from afar.
 * Continuous Activation
 * Light Magic Affinity - It allows the user to use light magic at a capable rate.
 * Barrier Aptitude Link
 * Metamorphosis Magic - one of the "Ancient Magics" originating from the "Age of God", which allows a user to remake the form of a normal being and reform them into a different form. Normally it's used to remake a normal organism and turn it into a monster, or even manipulate the magic stone of a monster and remake them. But the true power of this magic is the ability to 'interfere with any organic material'. Meaning not only animals, but it's also possible to remake plants or intelligent beings, and reform their structure as needed. Even byproducts of organic material, like paper or food, can also be manipulated by this magic. The magic stone which gets created during the process is just a byproduct of the process.
 * 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.

Spells/Attacks
Barrier Magic
 * Hallowed Nimbus - It creates rings of light that can be used to defend. The rings can be shaped into various objects like a net. "Enfold the weak with your gentle light— Hallowed Nimbus!"
 * Sacred Shields - an advanced version of the basic light spell, "Holy Shield", that allows the caster to deploy multiple Holy Shields at once. "Undying holy light, be my shield forevermore— Sacred Shields!"
 * Storm Bulwark - It unleashes an offensive barrier of wind. It creates an invisible wind wall that sends enemies that hit it backwards with an explosive gust of wind. "O momentary squall, form an impassable, invisible wall! Rebuff all who approach— Storm Bulwark!"
 * Heaven Crusher - It creates a makeshift shield to defend or to push back and restrain enemies. The shield can also be moved according to the casters will. "Press down, O voluminous light, for as long as my resolve stays true— Heaven Crusher!”
 * Heaven Crusher - Barrier - A composite spell combination of Heaven's Crusher and Hallowed Ground . By combining "Heaven Crusher" with "Hallowed Ground", the shield becomes a formidable barrier.
 * Hallowed Ground - It creates an impenetrable barrier that can't be broken by normal means, but does have some limitations. It separates a particular area from other areas and not people from people, so enemies within the AOE would not be pushed away. It also consumes a lot of mana and can only be used for a minute. "Reject all malice and let this be a holy ground that denies thine enemies passage— Hallowed Ground!”
 * Hallowed Ground - Dispersal - A composite spell that combines light and barrier magic. Causes the Hallowed Ground barrier to diffuse the energy of anything that it comes into contact with.
 * Hallowed Ground - Bind - It creates barrier that seals enemies. It uses gravity magic to deploy a barrier that contained a localized gravitational field.
 * Blazing Hallowed Ground - A composite spell that combines fire magic and barrier magic. It creates a superheated zone inside the barrier.
 * Hallowed Ground - Burst - It causes the Hallowed Ground barrier to explode with intense power.
 * Hallowed Ground - Reversal - A composite spell that combines restoration and barrier magic. It uses fragments of destroyed barriers to restore the previously destroyed barriers.
 * Hallowed Ground- World - It overlaps multiple Hallowed Ground's into a sturdy defensive barrier that can even resist the Disintegration ability of an Apostle by constantly replenishing the barrier.
 * Hallowed Ground - Sakura - It releases a storm of shining fragments of radiance like a sakura storm. Any enemy which touches the petal ray will be cut while the petals can form into a barrier of Hallowed Ground. This spell combines offense and defense.
 * Blossom Burst - Suzu's trump card. A combination spell of "Hallowed Ground - Sakura" and "Hallowed Ground - Burst". After the initial defensive barrier is destroyed, it unleashes a storm of exploding sakura flowers to annihilate the enemy. This spell was powerful enough to significantly injure Eri, who had undergone the Apostle transformation which increased her physical abilities.

Stats
Suzu's stats as per "Web Novel - Chapter 122"

Note :-
 * The base stats given above aren't Suzu's current stats, as the last time the author provided stats for her in the Web Novel was before the Haltina's Labyrinth trial.

Quotes

 * (Suzu while fighting in the Frost Caverns of Schnee): "I won’t lose. Haaah... Haaah... I’ll never lose! No matter what happens, no matter what anyone tells me! I’m going to get through this and talk to Eri again!"

Etymology

 * The name Suzu means "bell" (鈴).
 * Suzu's surname Taniguchi means "valley" (谷) (tani) and "mouth, entrance" (口) (kuchi/guchi), which literally means "mouth of a valley" altogether.

Trivia

 * Prior to dating Ryutarou Sakagami, Suzu was only confessed to once by an old man from her neighborhood.
 * Suzu is the only one of her classmates who has name gags other people:
 * Hajime Nagumo as Hajihaji, God Slaying Demon King
 * Kaori Shirasaki as Kaorin
 * Shizuku Yaegashi as Shizushizu
 * Eri Nakamura as Eririn
 * Ryutarou Sakagami as Ryu-kun
 * Shea Haulia as Sheashea
 * Yuka Sonobe as Sononobe, Sonosono