Doll Master

"Because of being an incurable coward, I was at the bottom standing of the neighboring world, so there wasn’t a single Quasi-Spirit that could be called a close friend. When the other Quasi-Spirits looked at me, their icy gaze treated me like leftover bento scraps. My Unsigned Angel created a friend. A friend that was loyal to me, it said that it would fight in my behalf. But sadly, the doll was very weak alone. Moreover, the other Quasi-Spirits couldn’t tolerate the existence of the doll. Unforgivable, or so they had said. But there was no other way; I needed to increase the number of dolls. I was forced to rely on their quantity to fight. I increased the number of dolls, blindly increasing their numbers using their corpses. Afterwards, the Quasi-Spirits that knew my ugly past became my friends. I was so happy. Each day was lovely and glistening, controlling this world and being surrounded by so many friends. As much as possible, I want nothing to do with the other regions. I only want to spend my life in this miniature garden forever. However, foreign elements occasionally came to this region. They were barbaric Quasi-Spirits who liked to fight and couldn’t live without fighting. Although it was very easy to crush them, there was something to worry about. If it was just a single Quasi-Spirit, she could crush her as easily as an ant. So, I decided to let them kill each other. The reward was a Sephira crystal worth 100 people. Despite having said that, I didn’t intend to hand that over. The winner was always a doll. Those ugly girls usually self-destructed before getting the chance to assemble their strengths together. Thus I was finally able to pass through each day with my mind at peace. But then that woman appeared. That person was too devilish. However, that major event was far from reassuring. She brought along that Empty who was the real Spirit. But now, I have 1500 dolls in hand. So come, Tokisaki Kurumi. It is I, Doll Master, who controls this region."

- Doll Master's speech.

Doll Master is a major antagonist in the Date A Live spin-off Fragment: Date A Bullet who was introduced as the main antagonist of the Volume 1. While she is a major antagonist, she is the one responsible for setting the story in motion, making her an even more important antagonist to the spin-off.

She was a Quasi-Spirit who was once a normal human girl before she was turned into a monster by Mio Takamiya and killed by Deus.Ex.Machina Industries or the Anti Spirit Team in the real world. With her death, she was sent to the Neighboring World as a Quasi-Spirit. After suffering in the hands of other more brutal Quasi-Spirits, she became a notorious serial killer who transformed girls into dolls to be her friends before taking over the 10th Region Mulkuth to herself, where she estabilished a tyrannical kingdom with her as the central monarchical figure, Dominion.

Appearance
Unlike other characters, Doll Master never had an illustration or a detailed text about her design, leave her appearance in mystery but at the end of her arc, it was said she looked like a French Doll, implying she turned herself into a doll to get rid of her human ugliness.

According to the author, she looked like a tall marionette with the appearance of a young girl.

Personality
Doll Master is both calculating and cold in personality. Once she has set her mind to an action, she'll stop at nothing to achieve her aims, even if it includes killing her own subordinates and children. For example, her obsession over Kurumi has lead her to use much of her resources and was willing to even help her enemies in a killing game to get what she wanted. She appears that she lacks empathy towards other human beings, and only experiences guilt when her dolls are destroyed. While she states she feel bad when her dolls are killed, she was not above using them as scapegoats and shields for her own well-being.

She usually talks in an almost emotionless, slow and calm fashion, though she is also prone to fits of deranged laughter. She is also extremely sadistic and cruel at times, even with her own allies. During her killing game, she was also showed to be deceptive, to the point that it is believable, going as far as faking tears and confirming she was really sad for losing her friends, when in fact, she couldn't care less about them as she could easily kidnap more Quasi-Spirits and turned them into living dolls after exposing to brutal experiments while they were conscious. Despite her cute looks and emotionless she seems, she truly has an extremely twisted personality. She is also very manipulative and is willing to kill and sacrifice anything or anyone for her own amusement or to keep her rule forever over the 10th Region. She is just as, if not even more, playfully cruel than her Kurumi Tokisaki, who was utterly disgusted of her brutality and cruelty when she discovered Doll Master was using the enemies she killed to torture the minds of other Quasi-Spirits whom were close friends or loved ones.

Doll Master was known for being an intelligent and calm at most times, but is also unstable, and known for her rapid mood swings. She is often seen with a friendly smile, though she is known to tear people down with her words by breaking their sanity using dolls who used to be their friends when they were alive.

She has a tendency to hold grudges and that even a division between dimensions won't make her forget the humiliation she suffered. As a result of this, she breaks her own rules she created and is above to use dirty tricks to cheat her enemies and get her revenge by making them experience the humiliation she was forced to feel. Not to mention, Doll Master was a complete selfish brat who had a sadistic dedication to brutal, bloody misdeeds. Additionally, he delights on forcing people to fight each other, no matter their relationship and personal bonds: she especially loves fights between lovers and family members such as siblings or parents. She always promises to show mercy (or a higher reward )to the winner, but ends up killing them anyway using her dolls who used to be the winners in this bloody game. Apart from that, she is abusive to her own team and hates failure and defiance as seen with False Proxy's defeat, where she called her as a "trash" and "worthless" doll.

Doll Master, however, despite all her cruelty, was a pure coward who was afraid of fighting directly her enemies, resulting in her decision to kept herself locked inside of her sacred tower while she used her dolls to do her dirty work. When defeated by Kurumi, it was confirmed she was also a nihilistic girl who had little ambitions once she her dreams were shattered, stating she had no meaning in life now that her reign came to an end.

Background
Doll Master used to be a normal human years ago. While living in the human world, she suffered a tragic chilldhood filled with suffering and pain. As an orphan, she lived alone and was constantly suffering bullying from other children who considered her as an odd and pathetic girl who could not befriend with other children.

Seeing humans as cruel living beings, she began to love dolls more than anything, locking herself away from society and refusing to have physical and social contact with other people; making the production of dolls her goal in life. However, one day, the Spirit of Origin Mio Takamiya, a Spirit who caused the First Spacequake around 30-20 years ago, considered her to be a worth host of her Sephira Crystal, but the experiment failed and Mio accidentally transformed her into a monster, resulting in her death by the hands of Isaac Ray Peram Westcott or the Anti Spirit Team. With her, she is sent to the Neighboring World, where all other humans turned into Spirits or monsters were sent after their death in the real world.

Quasi-Spirit World
After being teleported to the Quasi-Spirit world, the innocent Doll Master gained an Angel in the form of a Doll, as the Angel represents the very form of a Sephira Crystal (in this world, the Sephira Crystal is basically the soul of a Spirit). However, it turns out her angel is weak and barely can fight other Quasi-Spirits' angels. With that said, the innocent Doll Master suffered in the hands of those Quasi-Spirits, who were all once innocent girls who were teleported to the Neighboring World after their deaths in the real world.

Abused, humilliated and used as a plaything by other female Quasi-Spirits, the sad Doll Master was left alone in this wild world full of violence. However, one day Quasi Spirits said her angel was pathetic for having the form of a doll, and this was the moment Doll Master turned to the dark side... for she noticed her angel was weak... if he was weak so why not add more dolls? And this is what she did. Using her cute appearance, she seduced other Quasi-Spirits and attracted them to dark places where she would drug them, dissect them alive and turn them into her beuatiful dolls. In a matter of time, she became a notorious serial killer. Using her young looks, she passed the image of a naive and innocent girl to gain the trust of other more naive Quasi-Spirits to kill them and turn them into her "friends" in a process where she ripped of their skin, removed their organs and bones and turned them into a beautiful pieces of arts. At times, her victims were young Quasi-Spirits (children) for they were easier to approach and befriend. Pretending to be their friends, Doll Master gave them dolls to gain their trust and later brutally backstab them to turn them into puppets.

However, that was not enough for her, then she created the dolls but they were not alive. Knowing that every single Quasi-Spirit had a Sephira Crystal inside of their bodies, she began to stole their crystal and merged her dolls with them, bringing back their existence inside of empty and creepy dolls.

Ruling the 10th Region
With more than 100 powerful dolls under her command, Doll Master proceeded to invade the 10th Region with her army to create her own beautiful garden, a world where she could live in peace away from everyone. This resulted in a bloody civil war with the previous dominion, who was later overthrow by Doll Master and wiped out of existence. The war resulted in the death of thousands but the strongest Quasi-Spirits who were killed were used by Doll Master and dissected to become her soldiers, her minions. Unlike other dolls, they were brainwashed into thinking she was their mother so they could protect her even after their death. This resulted in her soldiers being mindless puppets.

As the Dominion of Malkuth, Doll Master began to rule her kingdom with an iron fist, crushing her opposers, transforming ugly Quasi-Spirits into more beautiful dolls, torturing older spirits to death for being ruthless and "evil" and finally estabilishing a dictatorship in the 10th Region. All freedom of expression was removed, anyone who dared to stand against Doll Master was immediately executed and cut in pieces by her dolls, people were not allowed to escape from her kingdom, traitors would be punished with brutal tortures and later having their bodies cut in pieces to be used as future pieces for her next dolls and many other tyrannical brutality known.

During her reign, she casually sent her soldiers to random Quasi-Spirits, kidnapping them and later killing them to become her personal friends in her tower against their will. Everytime they refused, she would put them under psychological torture. At one point, she captured two hostiles Quasi-Spirits and made them fight each other in an arena with promise of giving the winner a Sephira Crystal of a True Spirit to give them total power and allow them to escape from the Neighboring World to live in the real world a normal and happy life. As expected, the two Quasi-Spirits fought each other to death but in the end, there was no Sephira Crystal, Doll Master sent her dolls to impale the winner and used their bodies as scraps.

Seeing how effecient she could make "ugly Quasi-Spirits" useful, she created a killing game in her own kingdom,a game where dozens of Quasi-Spirits would fight each other to death and the winner would gain the so-promissed Sephira Crystal. After looking informations about the Quasi-Spirits, she discovered that what makes a Quasi-Spirit is their essential for need for survival by having a dream or aspirations for future to keep them alive. A Quasi-Spirit that isn't attached to a strong desire will eventually completely fade away regardless of their condition of their Sephira fragment. Knowing that, Doll Master began to try to gather as many Quasi-Spirits as possible to her killing game using their worst fear: death. Giving them a Sephira Crystal to escape that world would give them an ambition and a goal to continue existing and fighting. With such reward in front of them, the Quasi-Spirits would commit any kind of brutal and heinous crime to win her Sephira Crystal, including corrupting them into killing their most loved ones and friends, transforming them into ruthless people. And like always the winner is deceived and is impaled by her dolls before being used as one of her personal friends.

One day, the friend (Hiriyu Yue) of the secondary heroine, Empty, became a participant in this brutal game to win the Sephira Crystal Doll Master promised to gain the power to escape from that harsh world alongside Empty. However, one day Yue was ravaged and killed by another desperate Quasi-Spirit trying to survive the killing game;. Doll Master discovered Yuewas trying to help Empty. Using that information, Doll Master stole her Sephira Crystal and transformed her corpse into a dead rotten puppet so she could use her in the future to break Empty; by forcing her to fight her best friend.

After that, Doll Master banished Empty from her kingdom, but not before erasing her memories. Using her dolls, she left Empty to die on the unknown regions.

Current Events
In the present, Doll Master continues her bloody killing game until one day, a true Spirit, Kurumi Tokisaki, entered in the neighboring world alongside Empty, who had now lost her memories. Seeing a true Spirit joining her killing game to gather informations about Mio Takamiya, Doll Master helped Kurumi's enemies to defeat her so she could steal her Sephira Crystal. But in the end, Kurumi won the first round, resulting in Doll Master burning alive the faithful dolls present in her room in an act of rage. However, she did not give up just yet. Seeing how powerful Kurumi was, Doll Master created a doll using the limbs of different corpses of her previous victims, a doll called as False Proxy and introduced her in the second round to fight Kurumi and possessed her Proxy's body to slaughter all the other participants so she could focus only in Kurumi.

After a brutal battle, Proxy is defeated but before she could fade away, Doll Master mocked her calling her "worthless" and "trash". With her defeat, Doll Master prepared to launch a full attack at Kurumi instead of waiting a stronger opponent to appear. When Kurumi and Empty were preparing to strike Doll Master, the latter summoned the soul of one Kurumi's previous victims, Ibusuki Panie, and forced her to face her once again. After a long battle, Kurumi is defeated but before Panie could finish her off, Doll Master impaled Panie in her chest, saying she was no longer useful. With Kurumi defeated, Doll Master prepared to cut her off her limbs to use her parts as future prototype of doll and steal her Sephira Crystal to achieve absolute power over Zafkiel's angels, but before she could do so, Empty protected Kurumi, killing the dolls. However, Doll Master made one last use of Panie and transformed her very Sephira Crystal into new dolls, splitting her soul in different parts to summon more creepy dolls.

As the dolls chased the two young girls, Kurumi finally awakes and creates an spacequake that destroy the last dolls. Swearing revenge, Doll Master is informed Kurumi Tokisaki is planning a full-attack at her tower to discover her location. She then plans to expand her army by sending her dolls to every corner of her region, kidnapping the strongest Quasi-Spirits and killing the weakest who can barely defend themselves. In one day, she prepared more than 1,500 dolls to fight Kurumi in a final battle. During the battle, Doll Master saw Empty on the battle and summoned the soul of her late friend, Yue, to psychologically torture her to insanity so she can betray Kurumi Tokisaki. However, the plan failed after Yue broke out of Doll Master's controll.

With her defeat near, Doll Master's location is found by Kurumi Tokisaki in her sacred temple. When she begins to destroy the building, Doll Master proceeds to use her dolls as shields to give her time to escape cowardly. With most of her dolls destroyed and her temple destroyed, Doll Master is now found defeated by the heroes. When facing Kurumi, she states there is no meaning in life now she is no longer the Dominion of the 10th Region. After Empty says Doll Master can still be a good person, she immediately reply saying she was a sinner and still wanted to add Empty to her collection of creepy dolls.

She is then killed by Empty with a big smile in her face for finally being sent to the world "darkness" and peace she wished for so long, putting an end to her reign of terror once and for all. As such, the 10th Region is free from her grasp, allowing Kurumi Tokisaki to move to another region, where she would face her greatest enemy yet, White Queen.

Power and Abilities
Unlike the other Quasi-Spirits, the name of the Unsigned Angel was never given, leaving its name a mystery but her its abilities were notorious and feared among other Quasi-Spirits.
 * Unsigned Angel: Her angel had the form of a Doll, a doll which was immortal but was not a powerful weapon despite its high speed. However, the Angel could steal the Sephira Crystal of dead Quasi-Spirits and merge her dolls with them, allowing them to reincarnate inside of Doll Master's creations, resulting in their suffering while being forced to fight and protect Doll Master.
 * Puppet Mastery: Doll Master was a master of puppetry and created a number of ingenious puppets; while being a simple Quasi-Spirit, she created 100 puppets using the corpses of her victims, and had other puppets 1,500 in her personal collection. Her status as a master puppeteer offered hera tremendous advantage against other Quasi-Spirits, especially if the puppets were in larger numbers and using weapons. Doll Master could manipulate puppets at an incredible speed using only her mind and words. As puppets are usually installed with long-range weapons, Doll Master was an expert at fighting at long distances, never exposing herself on the battlefield.

Trivia

 * Doll Master was literally a doll, meaning at some point she removed her own organs and human limbs to make herself a bisque doll to achieve perfection, stating her total sick obsession with dolls.
 * She was a bisque doll, or porcelain doll. A bisque doll is a doll made partially or wholly out of bisque or biscuit porcelain. Bisque dolls are characterized by their realistic, skin-like matte finish. They had their peak of popularity between 1860 and 1900 with French and German dolls. Bisque dolls are collectible, and antique dolls can be worth thousands of dollars. Antique German and French bisque dolls from the 19th century were often made as children's playthings, but contemporary bisque dolls are predominantly made directly for the collectors market.
 * Another possible inspiration for Doll Master was Dollmaker from the DC Comics universe, a villain with the same crimes of transforming children and girls into dolls.
 * Doll Master was based on the American serial killer, Ed Gein, also known as "The Mad Butcher". Gein is widely regarded among the most infamous psycho killer in American history, his only two confirmed victims were Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan. Aside from the murders, Gein was known for human trophy collecting and robbed bones and flesh from many local graveyards in his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin were most of his crimes were committed.
 * Doll Master was the first Quasi-Spirit to be considered a villain in the franchise.
 * One of the many reasons why other Quasi-Spirits from other regions hated Doll Master, was that she never showed her appearance, always participating using a doll as a proxy even during discussions between Dominions.