Alphard Alshua
Alphard Alshua is a female anime and manga character who features in Canaan.
Contents |
Biography
Alphard Al Sheya (アルファルド・アル・シュヤ, Arufarudo Aru Shuya) was the name taken by a nameless girl whose parents were killed and the orphaned girl was placed under the training of a military officer by the name of Siam. Siam had the task of finding young girls in order to train them to become the ultimate assassin and after he found her he named her 'Canaan'. The reason for the name was because he believed she would be a sign of becoming the Promised Land. In Siam,, 'Canaan' saw a father figure and she looked up to him where she trained hard to meet his expectations. From an early age, she was able to perform high level missions and used guns where she pulled the trigger to eliminate targets without any remorse. One day, he told her that there were such things as superhumans that were the despair of normal soldiers such as himself. 'Canaan' inquired on where she fit in that category to which Siam told her she was the peak of human ability. Upon reaching this point, Siam told her that he had nothing left to teach her and as a reward she had a serpent tattoo engraved onto her left arm. She then returned to the world but the only thing she knew was how to hate and kill. At some point, she met with Liang Qui and the two began to work on missions together.
Following Siam's death, Alphard was responsible for leading a new terrorist organization known as Snake with Liang Qui as her lieutenant and Cummings as another one of her underlings. Snake later was involved in a giant program with the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in studying the Ua Virus. This was the Flower Garden Project where an isolated town in the desert was infected with the virus. Afterwards, the CIA masqueraded as the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) where they rounded up the population to treat them with a vaccine. In reality, the whole purpose of the project was to test a vaccine against the virus on live subjects and see whether the survivors could develop abilities. Alphard remained behind the scenes in the project with her lieutenant Liang Qui being more directly involved in the program.
Long after Siam's death, she received a letter seemingly from Siam addressing her as 'Alphard' asking for them to meet with the new Canaan. When Alphard arrived, she was captured by operatives from the United States Military. In reality, this event had been orchestrated by Alphard's lieutenant Liang Qui who was desperate for her 'sisters' love and created a situation where she would rescue Alshua to get her gratitude.
The final conflict with Canaan came when she was onboard a train with Maria and Yunyun. At that moment, Canaan's synthesia ability began to overwhelm her causing her to believe enemies had entered on the train. As she confronted them, Alphard arrived and sat before Maria intending to initiate her final plan to push Canaan over the edge by killing the photographer. Maria asked Alphard a last request namely to take her picture which did whereupon Alshua attacked where she stabbed Osawa. The wound was not fatal and Yunyun managed to take Maria to the rear compartment of the train though the pair were not aware of the fact that Alphard had placed a bomb in that section in order to ensure Maria's death. With the pair trapped in the back, Alphard proceeded to confront Canaan who was still struggling with the use of her synthesia ability and feeling anger over the death of Siam. However, she faced an epiphany where she came to terms with Siam's death and united her senses with her synthesia allowing her to finally beat Alphard in their close quarter fight when the bomb went off. Alphard was confident that Maria was killed but Canaan said that her friend was still alive with her fighting Alshua on the top of the train. It was there that finally Canaan realized that Alphard was struggling with the guilt of her actions in killing Siam that drove her entire being. In the fight, Alphard slipped and was on the ledge of the train with Canaan attempting to save her but Alshua drew her gun on her foe. Rather than be saved, she pointed the gun at her own arm that Canaan refused to let go and shot it until it broke off effectively amputating it. As a result, she fell of the train that was moving over a bridge seemingly killing her. Though believed dead, she seemingly was shown to still be alive at the airport where she sported one arm now after the loss of the other and disappeared.
Overview
Personality and attributes
In appearance, she was an attractive adult female with olive skin, cruel grey eyes and shoulder length dark black hair. Alphard normally wore her hair as a pony tail with it being tied up but on rare occasions she left it down and loose during times when she was in a social gathering. Her left arm had a strange snake tattoo on it that was given to her by Siam. During her final battle with Canaan, she amputated this arm and became known as the 'one armed woman'. Alphard typically wore a black tube top with a dark purple trench coat and black pants. Though originally called Canaan, she abandoned this name and chose Alphard Alshua for herself.
Alphard typically had a cold and emotionless expression on her face or sometimes had a smirk. Normally, she displayed a calm and collected approach during an attack. In any fight, she was shown to demonstrate no remorse for her actions that even applied to killing her mentor Siam without any mercy or attacking Liang. She claimed that hate made a person a poor soldier and that emotions themselves were an obstacle to the point that she saw love as being pointless. During her defeats of Canaan, she claimed that the reason she defeated her foe was because she was no longer manipulated by feelings. Despite this being the case, she was curious about the feelings behind certain motivations such as the love Cummings felt for Liang Qui. In those moments, Alphard decided to entertain the notion and observe the outcome of such displays of emotions. However, she did not show any interest in love and held a general disregard to any allies she had with her.
Though she killed Siam, a part of Alphard felt herself haunted by the ghost of her former mentor. In fact, she was driven by complete fear over the actions she had committed in killing him. This went to the point that she saw some remnant of him everywhere she looked or turned. In fact, her mind constantly replayed the events surrounding his death. As such, to others it appeared that Alphard was silent but was actually trying to focus her mind on anything else than the ghost of Siam. As such, she engaged in actions that sought to stop herself from constantly seeing him in her mind. This was part of her reason for her fixation with Canaan as she believed defeating her would help extinguish the ghost of Siam that haunted her and be free of this memory.
With regards to the Ua Virus, she said she was disgusted by the Borner development experiments and wanted nothing to do with it. However, she was not opposed to someone else claiming the data.
In Hebi, her top lieutenant was Liang Qi who always sought the attention of Alphard.
Powers and abilities
According to Siam, Alphard was the ultimate soldier and assassin as he taught her everything he knew. He regarded her as being at the peak of human ability though not a superhuman. As such, she was skilled in hand-to-hand combat and able to defeat skilled combatants such as Canaan. This was even the case when Canaan used her synesthesia ability with Alphard claiming that she could no longer be manipulated by feelings unlike Canaan. She was able to perform acrobatic manoeuvres allowing her to dodge and avoid attacks in close quarters. When on the offensive, she was shown to engage in vicious attack patterns to keep her enemy off-balance and leave them little room for errors. Through brutal strikes, she was able to end any fights quickly.
Typically, she was armed with FN Five-seveN USG 5.7 mm pistol as a sidearm and had knife for close quarter combat.
Alphard was the leader of the terrorist organization called Snake (蛇, Hebi).
Notes
- Alphard Alshua was created by Kinoko Nasu and Takashi Takeuchi where she featured in the setting of the Canaan universe.
In other media
Television
- In Canaan, Alphard Alshua appeared in the anime television series where she was voiced by Japanese actress Miyuki Sawashiro and by English actress Shelley Calene-Black in the dubbed series.
Appearances
- Canaan:
External Links
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