Characters / Honkai Impact 3rd - Bianka Ataegina

Honkai Impact 3rd Tropes: A to F | G to L | M to R | S to Z
Character Page Index | St. Freya Academy (Kiana Kaslana | Raiden Mei | Bronya Zaychik | Fu Hua)
Human organizations (Schicksal [Bianka "Durandal" Ataegina] | Anti-Entropy [Cocolia Orphanage] | World Serpent | Fire MOTH)
Honkai Beasts and Herrschers | A Post-Honkai Odyssey | Other NPCs and Historical Characters | The "Captainverse" | Part 2

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Bianka "Durandal" Ataegina

Voiced by: Ziyi Qin ^note 秦紫翼 (Chinese, early chapters), Miaojiang ^note 喵☆酱 (Chinese, later chapters & Cooking with Valkyries S2), Mamiko Noto (Japanese)

Valkyrie Gloria

^{Bright Knight:Excelsis}

^{Dea Anchora}

^{Palatinus Equinox}

"For those that I love,
For those that they love,
For all those who can truly be called human-
-They made it so I might live as I do now,
and I am willing to give everything to keep them safe."

An S-rank Valkyrie and Rita's superior, and the leader of the Immortal Blades Valkyrie squad. Durandal is the current owner of Cecilia's Divine Key, Abyss Flower (aka "Black Orchid & White Lily"). She first appears in Chapter 9 to quell a fight between Rita and Fu Hua, but is largely uninvolved with the main protagonists until Chapter 15, where she takes Kiana captive to monitor the latter's powers.

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A-I

• The Ace: She is one of the three active S-Rank Valkyries in Schicksal besides Rita and Li Sushang, and is easily the most powerful one. In her debut comic taking place in 2015 (around a year before the start of the game's story), she singlehandedly solved all major Honkai outbreaks around the world in 30 days without resting. Otto muses that calling her a S-rank Valkyrie would no longer suffice given her power and jokingly suggests making a Durandal-rank, before retracting himself when Amber takes the suggestion seriously.
• Always Someone Better: Durandal is introduced into the story as the number one Valkyrie of the current generation, famed for her talent and heroics in the Honkai War. She's also praised for the fact that she's achieved all that without any special powers to speak of, just lots of training and sheer hard work, and even the decently talented but lazy Kiana idolizes her as someone she wants to measure up to or even surpass. The two of them finally clash in Chapter 15; while this comes after Kiana has gained herself a powerboost from partial control over her new Herrscher powers and being pushed to actually train to develop her skills instead of relying on her natural talent, there's still an insurmountable gap in strength between her and Durandal, to the point where Durandal is able to outperform and even lecture Kiana on her family's Gun Kata technique. However, by their second match Kiana has become much more battle-hardened from fighting other strong foes and having vastly extended her control over her Herrscher abilities, including having awakened another Herrscher's powers on top. Thus, their fight ends up being much more even this time around. While Durandal soon gains a powerboost of her own from awakening her Stigmata, Kiana now just treats it as a challenge to keep pushing her own limits, so it does at least seem that she's keeping up.
• Ancestral Weapon: Chapter 28's revelation of Durandal being the original Kiana Kaslana retroactively parallels her as the current wielder of the Abyss Flower Divine Key just as how her mother, Cecilia Schariac, was a previous wielder of the Abyss Flower. In a twist within the same chapter however, Durandal passed on the White Flower half of the weapon to Seele, so she's now left with its other half, Black Abyss.
• The Anticipator: In ch. 15, as she has Kiana under her watch in Vimur Base, she can easily see it whenever Kiana tries to run away, even with the latter's power to use dimensional teleportations.
• Assist Character: Similar to Rita's Argent Knight, Durandal's "Knight" battlesuit possesses two Phantoms, dubbed "King" and "Queen". King wields a massive sword and is correspondingly used for offense, while Queen wields a greatshield and protects Durandal from continuous attacks. Her bio mentions that her great coordination and spatial cognition allows her to control 2 Phantoms (particularly with different functions) at the same time.
• Ass-Kicking Pose: At the start of ch. 18, she and Rita break into awesome poses before they go to break through the Honkai Beasts on the bridge at Coral Island.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: In ch. 15, during their fight with each other, she can see Kiana's fighting style and point out Kiana's execution flaws in it, and she's able to replicate some of the Kaslana fighting techniques that Kiana uses as well. Kiana doesn't take it well, considering she does things her way because her father taught her that way.
• Awesome, but Impractical: In one of the logs obtained in Bright Knight's event stages, said battlesuit was created with tactical modules from Knight Moonbeam, Shadow Knight and Argent Knight. Sounds good on paper, but in practice they don't naturally work together and even interfere with the suit's basic functions. The Myrkheim Labs (the manufacturer) has to rely on the potential wearer to be the "medium" in consolidating all these functions, but it's proven hard to find a Valkyrie with enough potential to don this suit. It falls down on Durandal, their strongest and most skilled Valkyrie, to bring out the suit's greatest strengths.
• Barrier Maiden: Her and Rita's adventure in the Sea of Quanta ended with them saving the bubble universe from being lost by sealing it within Durandal's body and binding it to her own lifeforce, which in turn means that if she dies, that whole universe dies with her. With Otto supposedly having the only means to research for way to lessen that burden on her and ensure that world's (and all of her friends' therein) safety, this ended up giving him even more leverage over Durandal. Once they do figure out a way to link that world into the Imaginary Tree and even how to share it with others, Durandal becomes noticeably less blindly obedient and tight lipped concerning Otto as seen in Ch. 26 when the Hyperion crew arrives at Kolosten and Tesla is able to openly badmouth him right in front of Durandal without much protest. She later invites Kiana for a private talk and after the two have genuinely friendly rematch, Durandal explains her situation and admits to Kiana that she feels she now has way more freedom to make her own choices, but warns her especially to still be on guard around Otto.
• Big Sister Instinct: Post-Kolosten her and Kiana's relationship has strengthened to a point where Durandal has now begun to mentor Kiana and she even displays a bit of a protective streak towards the latter, likely in no small part due to learning the truth about their relation. At times she even gets emotional enough that her mask of stoicism falls off for a moment. While the main trio are trying to make their way out of Sea of Quanta after being trapped there by Kevin, all the rest of team can do with their limited communications is little other than wait and hope for the best. Seele is amazed that Durandal and Sushang are able to remain calm enough with the whole situation to meditate, but Sushang is somewhat confused by her notion. It is then pointed out that their whole reason for meditating is specifically because they are not calm at all and this is their method for trying to manage those emotions better. Once they emerge, Durandal, in a very uncharacteristic burst of emotion, instantly rushes to Kiana just to clasp her hands in hers while exclaiming how glad she is that Kiana made it back safely, which naturally confuses everyone until Durandal catches herself and returns to a more professional workmode.
• Bifurcated Weapon: Her Divine Key and signature weapon, Abyss Flower, actually consist of two different weapons that are known to take different forms depending on their wielder. Black Abyss can appear as a sword or a spear and has the power of withering, while White Flower retains a lance like shape and has the power of regeneration. At the end of Chapter 28 she splits the weapon and leaves its healing half with Seele while she brings the other half along for her and Kiana's final confrontation with Otto.
• Birthday Buddies: Bianka's real birthday is on the exact same date as Kiana's or more specifically, the original Kiana's.^note The current Kiana's actual moment of birth is unknown to everyone except Otto as she was created in a Schicksal lab an undetermined time after the 2nd Eruption, which took place in the year 2000.
• Birthday Hater: Downplayed. Every year Bianka makes almost no effort to commemorate her own birthday in anyway (unless Rita really pushes for it), but she doesn't actually hate the event itself. It's simply that she doesn't particularly care about celebrating it, because the actual date was something that was just assigned to her by chance on a doctor's visit, so she doesn't feel special attachment towards it as it's not even her real date of birth.
• Black-and-White Insanity:
  • She defies this in her talk with Kiana in ch. 15. When the latter points out that Durandal's a strong and good girl but is working under Otto, she says that there's no clear-cut right or wrong, only what needs to be done.
    Durandal: Without Schicksal, who would be protecting the billions from Honkai?
  • She also defies this in the "2nd Divine Key" comic. She was presented with a scenario of Director Su's past where he chose to stop Kevin from going with the Project Stigma because it'll doom the current humanity's future, for he claims that it is theirs to decide. She went to confront the "imaginary" version of Rita (who takes Kevin's place) and, to Su's surprise, she decided to go with Rita (and by proxy, Kevin)'s plan instead, pointing out that "the future of the current humanity is theirs to decide". He's so impressed that he chose to give her an upgrade to her battlesuit, and the data that he found while traversing the various alternate worlds to her, as a gift.
• Blade Spam: After using her Ultimate Skill, Valkyrie Gloria's Charged Attack changes into a series of quick stabs with her lance. Bright Knight Excelsis' basic attack also includes a shorter burts of rapid stabs in the middle of the combo.
• Blood Knight: Played for Laughs in the Cybernet Haven event. Durandal happens to be one of the few people who's been trained to fight in that world − thus when she has to infiltrate an illegal and violent VR game, her approach is basically "if violence doesn't solve all your problems, you're just not using enough of it." Other characters don't fail to point out her boorish behavior.
• Boom Stick: Midnight Eclipse and its PRI-ARM version is a combination of a lance and a cannon with a Weapon Active Skill that, when equipped on Palatinus Equinox, can be either used as a three-shot ranged attack or as a cannon blast finisher at the end of her special attack or shield ram. Its attack animation even ejects a shell at the end of the full combo.
• Born Winner: Can't be any more winning than being the product of the Kaslana and Schariac bloodlines courtesy of Siegfried and Cecilia, something Otto planned in advance well before Durandal's birth when he saw the potential in such a mixed parentage, but this ends up being subverted. She was expected to be this by Otto, however, he was disappointed when her Honkai resistance and other abilities were discovered to be only average at birth, which actually made her mother glad as this would mean she'd have a chance to grow up in a normal and happy environment, instead of getting dragged into a life of war and Schicksal's scheming by force. Years later, after losing her memory escaping from a Schicksal research facility with Siegfried and being assumed dead by her family, she was taken back in by none other than Otto, who nurtured her back to health while starting to groom her towards the path of becoming a Valkyrie. While it was noted that she had to put in considerably more effort compared to her current fellow S-rank Valkyries to get to the level where she's at now, it wasn't until she found her own motivation to seek that strength so she wouldn't have to see more of her caretakers die against the Honkai that any of her true potential began to surface. Thus, while it can be said that she was indeed born with the potential for greatness, it did not come to her on its own or without hard work. About the only thing she does inherit that does help her is the Kaslana stigmata, but by the time she unlocks it she's long since earned her title through other means.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: In a video recap "Equinox Crusade: The Journey of Durandal" showcasing Durandal's story upto Chapter 28 and voiced by her Chinese voice actress, the narrative uses the series' Tagline to reinforce Durandal's resolve to keep true to herself and keep moving forward no matter what fate throws at her or what identity she chooses to take. The tagline has previously been most commonly associated with Kiana and her father's use of the phrase as a sort of family creed and the thing that makes Durandal's use of it significant is the fact that this comes after Durandal learns that she's also a member of the family.
  Whichever name she goes by, Bianka or Durandal, Kaslana or Schariac, she's still the hot-blooded Valkyrie who fights for all that's beautiful in the world.
• Broken Pedestal: Considering everything she's just discovered about her past and how much harm Otto has done to her family, she initially appears actually quite lenient towards him as his spirit is passing on to the afterlife, even only vaguely referring to the fact that he essentially brainwashed her as a child. However, she's also likely staying her tongue in large part because she's decided to keep her family relations a secret for the time being, especially as her sister Kiana is standing right next to her. This is further alluded to at the tail end of the Kolosten epilogue, where she tells Rita in private that she doesn't feel like she even knows the late overseer anymore, to which Rita then asks if it's due to her "family reasons" and Durandal admits that yes, it is also because of that.
• Catch a Falling Star:
  • At the end of ch. 14, she uses her Divine Key to create a tall tree that ends up cushioning Kiana's fall following the latter's actions in the "Meteoric Salvation" animated short.
  • In Chapter 28 she makes her dramatic return to the battlefield by bursting out from the Stigmata Space in a pillar of light just in time to catch an almost dead Theresa mid-fall after she's just sacrificed her own life trying to negate the Power of Binding with her own Divine Key of Binding, Oath of Judah. Once they land, Durandal once again uses Abyss Flower's zeroth power to restore Theresa's life force, preventing her from dying in the end.
• Chess Motifs: Bright Knight: Excelsis has many of its sub-skills being named after chess terms. Then there's her 2 "Phantoms", dubbed King and Queen. In one of the unlockable logs in Bright Knight's event stages, Otto likens her getting the suit to a pawn becoming a queen through promotion. In gameplay, her attacks are only of subpar strength, but she becomes much more powerful upon accessing her Burst Mode - furthering the "promotion" theme.
• Child Soldier: She was already an A-rank Valkyrie at age 11. It was said that Otto groomed her to become a great Valkyrie, and her 2012 expedition in the Sea of Quanta granted her a tremendous boost in power, enough for the Pioneer inside the 2nd Divine Key to take an interest in her.
• Closest Thing We Got: When she's narrating the journey she and Rita had inside the bubble universe when she was only a 12-year-old, she admits to Kiana that she wasn't picked to be their savior because she was particularly skilled or stronger than anyone else as some kid fresh off of Valkyrie training, she was simply the best they had on hand at the time.
• Clones Are People, Too: Although most of the main Schicksal branch treats Kiana rather dehumanizingly either as a test subject with a numeral for a name at worst or fears her as a walking timebomb of a natural disaster at best, in contrast Bianka tries to approach the captured Kiana with respect and relative kindness from the moment they meet while still maintaining her authority as the one in charge. Even her first suggestion for making Kiana cooperate with them more easily is her essentially trying to build genuine trust between them with time and in small steps, although Otto shoots it down as insufficient. Bianka also seems specifically interested in Kiana's fighting skills and is willing to touch on their motives for why and for whose side they fight, despite the two not seeing eye to eye at an ideological level even up until they part ways when Kiana manages to escape. As the events bring them together once again at Kolosten, Bianka voices her wish to improve their relationship and later approaches Kiana with a chance to continue their last fight by offering a friendly rematch, whose conclusion they are this time able to walk away together with mutual undestanding and a wish to work alongside one another in the future. When Otto once again refers to Kiana by her cloning serial number in sarcastic context right in front of the girl, Durandal interjects him by firmly stating that the Herrscher of Flamescion has a name and it's Kiana Kaslana.
• Consummate Professional: Theresa mentions in ch. 3 that she's a hard-working, disciplined, no-nonsense person. This, however, also makes her gullible at times. Back when she was under Theresa, she tended to lecture her superior for taking little breaks, expecting Theresa to be as serious and workaholic as she is. This annoyed Theresa so much that she sees no problem in using Durandal to divert Anti-Entropy troops' attention away from Wendy.
  Theresa: You should feel lucky, lazybones! She'll PT^note physical training you to kingdom come if she were your instructor. ... If she knew you (Kiana) flunked your theory test, she'll force you to study 26 hours a day. She'll get you through hundreds of practice questions. You can forget about sleeping.
  Kiana: She sounds like an evil witch.
• Contralto of Strength: Durandal holds the title of "The Strongest Valkyrie" and her voice register is appropriately among the lowest in the cast (right next to Darkbolt Jonin Sakura's husky intonation), and she remains largely poised even in the heat of battle. In flashbacks it's shown that her voice actually used to be a bit higher pitched earlier in her career.
• Cool Big Sis: The relationship between her and Kiana begins to improve in leaps and bounds starting from their friendly rematch at Kolosten. After their business there is settled with them both ending up working as allies under the same organisation again, the two are now found regularly hanging together when at the Schicksal base. In ch. 31-Ex it is mentioned that Durandal has even started personally overseeing Kiana's training and diet - despite being the younger of the two (as far as everyone else knows, anyway) - by putting her through the same regimen that got Bianka to where she's at now, which Kiana acknowledges as quite intensive compared to what she's used to while still being appreciative for Durandal's help and expressing her own motivation to keep up.
• Corralling Vacuum: All of Durandal's battlesuits so far have at least one attack with an area of effect ability that gathers enemies in one spot. Curiously enough, nearly all of them seem to be connected to Durandal throwing her lance in some manner, with the sole exception of her Palatinus Equinox suit where her lance instead transforms into a giant mace during the attack.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: In ch. 15, when she's about to take the unconscious Kiana away, Mei comes to her and tries to fight her. Even though Mei manages to get a few hits in, Durandal is still way out of her league and trounces her. The S-rank Valkyrie notes that she likes the look of determination in Mei's eyes, but then she tells Mei that the latter needs to grow in power so that it can match her will.
• Dash Attack:
  • Valkyrie Gloria's Charged Attack is her running towards her foes lance-first, dealing multiple hits while consuming the units in her special gauge.
  • In Bright Knight's Super Mode, during her special dash move, she can perform a 2-part slash that can be continued to her combos.
  • Pressing the attack button during Dea Anchora's dash move will make her do a lunging punch attack that can be continued to the 2nd part of her combo. After putting on her golden armor, she can also do the same thing after sprinting. Her Ultimate Evasion can also be continued with her performing a martial arts combo that kicks the attacker far away.
• Deadly Lunge: Valkyrie Gloria's Ultimate Evasion's effect allows her to quickly retaliate with a dashing lance strike. She can repeat this multiple times.
• Dead Person Conversation: As the agonizing pain of her stigmata awakening begins to course through her body while flooding her thoughts with the mantra; "Kill Honkai" over and over, she suddenly hears the voice of her deceased mother speaking to her directly with a comforting presence and offering to lend her strength. With this, all the pain and madness filling her mind starts to wash away, reminding her that unlike her ancestors, she has inherited the additional ability to properly control all this power. She thinks it's like a "momentary yet eternal embrace given by her mother from across time" making the whole experience almost sound like the spiritual version of a Cooldown Hug.
• Defend Command: Bright Knight is the third suit after Yamabuki Armor and Dimension Breaker (Bronya) to have access to this command. When she puts up her shield, she can stop any attacks coming her way. Successfully defending an attack will give her a temporary buff, heal herself for a bit, and make the attacker take more damage; she can immediately perform a Counter-Attack after that. Her boss version in Memorial Arena begins with her fighting defensively; when you attack her, she'll perform a Counter-Attack that you have to avoid up to 4 times to make her more vulnerable and switch to being offensive for some seconds.
• Delirious Misidentification: Durandal is the target of misidentification by the near death and falling Theresa when she sees a brilliant beam of light pierce through the heavens to catch her as she's losing consciousness, her first thought being that she's ever seen such a sight belong to only one person in her life: Cecilia.
• Disc-One Nuke: Valkyrie Gloria is an easily farmable A-rank Valkyrie, but her versatility, her devastating Ultimate Skill, her ability to interrupt most enemies attacks (including bosses) and the fact she's a rare Quantum type make her a heavily used battlesuit among low- and mid-level captains. On the other hand, the fact she needs a lot of time to build up her SP gauge and her relatively slow attacks makes her less favored in higher competitive levels, compared to S-rank Valkyries.
• Doesn't Know Their Own Birthday: Since Bianka grew up as an orphan with no prior memories to speak of, she doesn't know what her real birthday is. Officially, it's January 1st 2000, but the date was only decided on a whim to fill some official paper work while the year was given when the orphanage took her in and made an estimate based on her apparent age, meaning she's got no idea about the real date or even the year. For this reason, her battlesuits' bios display her birthday as "Unknown" with the date in brackets. When she finally learns the full truth about her past including her identity, her birthday is changed from "Unknown" to December 7th in Palatinus Equinox's description.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Inverted; she very much prefers "Bianka" to "Durandal", although Rita ignores this.
• Due to the Dead: At the end of the Coral Island incident Durandal brings flowers to Ana Schariac and Owl's grave on the grounds that despite Ana becoming an Herrscher, she was still a Schicksal Valkyrie who tried to uphold her duty to the very end. Meanwhile, Raven notes that World Serpent regards Owl as a traitor for betraying their mission and siding with the Herrscher and if it were upto them, they wouldn't have honored one of their own with a burial.
• Dumb, but Diligent: At the beginning of the series Theresa and Himeko mention that Durandal alone would be strong enough to handle a Herrscher level threat on her own and acknowledge the amount of effort she's had to put in to get to that point, especially in comparison to the Brilliant, but Lazy Kiana. However at the end of the day, after Durandal ends up falling for their absurd and obviously fake in the moment excuse, they are left with the impression that all that focus on being the strongest did not translate too well to her also having the sharpest of minds, especially since the whole ruse was conjured up by Kiana of all people. Even her friends and closest co-workers Nagamitsu and Rita seem to silently agree that despite Bianka being otherwise brilliant in many ways, she can on occasion still be a bit simple minded and has a tendency to miss social cues or playful jokes targeted at herself.
• Early-Bird Cameo: She was mentioned first in Chapter 3 to be coming to assist our Valkyrie team. She's mostly in the background, dealing with Anti-Entropy's mechs to distract them from your team.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Bronya and several other characters casually call her "Doodoo" in Cybernet Haven. As a powerful "haxxor", she doesn't take it well but can't really do much about it.
• Expy: Quite clearly based on Lancer Altria in both design and personality − a cold but righteous knight with long blond hair, a white and blue armor and a huge lance as weapon. She's even an older looking version of another character in the cast, just like Lancer Altria is to her Saber variant.
  • In terms of gameplay, many of Durandal's movesets across her different battlesuits bear a great deal of resemblance to Dante's toolkit from the Devil May Cry series,^note Valkyrie Gloria and Bright Knight Excelsis both have a Blade Spam move similar to "Million Stab" and BKE's boss version has a vertical Sword Beam attack similar to Dante's "Drive". Dea Anchora is a brawler with a Gathering Steam mechanic that gets her wreathed in flames by holding down an attack button and includes a fire themed Ground Punch that looks like a combination of the weapon Balrog and The Inferno ability. Palatinus Equinox and BKE utilise a Defend Command that negates all damage and can be followed up by a Counter-Attack in similar vein to Royal Guard. Palatinus Equinox's combo in Guardian form does a spinning Precision-Guided Boomerang throw similar to Dante's Round Trip, but with her shield instead of her primary weapon. Valkyrie Gloria's Ultimate Evasion allows her to perform a quick dash strike with her lance, which she executes very similarly to the iconic Stinger Dash Attack used by Dante and to top it off, the move is very much spammable, just like in Devil May Cry. while from a purely narrative perspective, the significance and function of her Awakened Stigmata in her Palatinus Equinox battlesuit gets treated much like a Devil Trigger. Fitting, considering her biological father is more or less a walking Dante reference.
  • In keeping with the Devil May Cry imagery, while she lacks the signature fighting style and she's generally way less abrasive about others' strenght on a personal level, in the story she technically fills the role of Vergil as the long-lost older sibling who got violently separated from their family as a child, developed an obsession for power due to loss of a loved one and makes her appearance into the story as the Always Someone Better and more Stoic counterpart to their wackier younger sibling.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Her 5.5 battlesuit Palatinus Equinox specifically adds numerous white highlights to her hair to reflect the awakening of her Secret Legacy as a member of the Kaslana family, the original "big sister" Kiana.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Palatinus Equinox's Knight form special attack is a mounted lance charge that grabs enemies on its path and ends with an upward slash. With her weapon skill she can even do this against large sized boss enemies where she pins the target on her lance and pushes them back for a couple of seconds or until they hit a wall.
• Food as Bribe: Downplayed as there's no explicit "bribing" element, but in ch. 15 she has left Kiana with a basa fish meal, presumably to ease her mind and make her cooperate more easily. However, Kiana ends up not eating it.
• Foreshadowing: Dea Anchora battlesuit's PRI-ARM weapon and several skills are named in reference to an astrological sign Sagittarius, whose duration is between November 23rd and December 21st, but her official birthday is on January 1st which is under the Capricorn sign. Her true identity is the original Kiana Kaslana, meaning her real birthday would be on December 7th, which actually does fall under the Sagittarius sign.
• Forgot Their Own Birthday: Implied by her bridge interactions, as her first reaction on the date itself is wishing the Captain a Happy New Year, only to then remember that "Today is also supposed to be my birthday, I guess" as an afterthought. Justified as she's admitted that her indifference towards the day - atleast in terms of celebrating it - is due to the fact that as an orphan she's never known when or where she was born and January 1st was later just chosen for her to fill some paperwork. That is not to say others let her forget about her birthday so easily, as Rita and her various fans among Schicksal's ranks make sure to flood her with gifts and greetings.
• Full-Name Basis: She tends to refer to Mei with the latter's full name.
• Gathering Steam:
  • Valkyrie Gloria has a buff that she can stack up to 10 times whenever she uses up half of her gauge for her Charged Attack, which buffs her fire damage. For some seconds after using her Ultimate Skill, she can build her gauge and stack her buffs more easily.
  • Bright Knight has a special buff that strengthens her defense and attack power that she can stack up to 10 times whenever she gets hit, or successfully defends against the enemies' attacks.
• Genetic Memory: Chapter 28 reveals her Stigma is In the Blood and holds the memory of herself and her ancestors. This is how she's able to regain parts of her childhood memories despite Otto deleting them to make her think she was an orphan.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: In the Stigmata Space Bianka bears witness to the memory fragments of "Homu" and "Hora" getting into a childish argument over the former accusing the latter of calling her dumb and the latter in turn getting upset over the former genuinely not knowing about the book she wanted to make reference to. She later finds out the dolls represent the combined fragments of Bianka and Siegfried's memories of the original "big sister" Kiana and the clone "little sister" Kiana as children, in addition that Bianka herself is the "big sister" Kiana, meaning Bianka technically just saw her and her sister's past selves having a typical sibling argument.
• Green Thumb: One of the applications of her Abyss Flower is to grow tall trees quickly with its power to manipulate life force.
• Heal Thyself: Bright Knight: Excelsis recovers 10% of her health every time she uses Perfect Defense; this makes her a particularly good fit for health-dependent stigmatas such as Lier B, which grants a 46% physical damage boost when at full health.
• Heavy Sleeper: Despite keeping herself to a healthy sleeping schedule, in Rita's account Bianka is still quite an active sleeper prone to lots of rolling around and finding herself in strange positions or even kicking her sheets off several times in one night.
• Hereditary Hairstyle: A three-case example. As children, she and her sister used to wear their hair similarly in a twintail hairstyle with two minor differences: they wore their hairpins on opposite sides and Bianka used ribbons at the ends to bind her hair while her younger sister used braids. Then many years later, as grown ups, they both tend to put their hair in a ponytail before an important battle to show that they are about take the fight seriously. And lastly, through her adolescence her hairstyle has always included two-forked bangs which look near identical to her mother's.
• Heroism Motive Speech: Right before taking their last steps on their way to the final confrontation with Otto, Kiana notes that even despite her own feelings of hatred towards the man, she understands Bianka's relationship with Otto is way different and possibly more complex than she can imagine, but adds that this is all the more reason that she needs to know what kind of mindset Bianka has going into the fight and presents her with a question: "Which identity are you assuming in the fight against Otto?"
  Bianka: ...That's a good question. I can be a tit-for-tat avenger, a rebel against tyranny or a protector of humanity. ...But I'm not these right now. When I face him again, I'd still consider myself a Schicksal Valkyrie. I know Schicksal is far from perfect, and our work as Valkyries leaves much to be desired. But that's why in such a dilemma where everyone is forced to make decisions, I need to take back the right to define Schicksal and Valkyries from the willful, conceited Overseer. Schicksal is a militarized organization where the chain of command is respected, but this doesn't mean Schicksal members are simply gears in a war machine. What is right, what is wrong and how should Schicksal be defined... one man doesn't have the say to all of these. They're choises put into the hands of every member. They're a canvas painted by the colorful strokes of everyone's life. So, at this moment, I'm taking back the canvas from Otto's hands with you to make sure everyone can paint on it. By doing this, I'm also leaving my unique strokes on the canvas as a Valkyrie.
  Kiana: Is this the resolution of Durandal?
  Bianka: It's the resolution of Bianka Ataegina.
• Hot-Blooded: In her youth as an A-rank Valkyrie she used to be much more emotional and even arrogant at times, but following her ordeal in the bubble universe and the responsibility she now has to carry, she decided transform her image into a more dutiful and reliable persona - someone that others can look up to. While most of it is now masked under a face of stoicism, she privatively admits thats she's still somewhat prone to atleast wanting to take action quickly and muscle through things, rather than waiting and analyzing her options like when Rita is around.
• Horrible Judge of Character: She starts out believing that Otto is a great person and leader that has been protecting humanity from the threat of the Honkai, even as she acknowledges that he has done awful things. However, it's later implied that her personal trust in him isn't quite as airtight as it seems on the surface. In Chapter 25-EX, as Durandal is on the verge of finally achieving her life's work in linking her bubble universe to the Imaginary Tree, she privately remarks having mixed feelings about how everything that has happened around her has somehow played into Otto's hands, to the point where it almost seems like he's orchestrated nearly all aspects of her life, starting from the very moment where her own memories even begin. Later still, it comes back to back to bite her when she finds out Otto indeed did engineer her whole life, wiping her memories as a child, changing her appearance, and placing her with Ragna so she would believe she was an orphan and come to work for him... never realizing she was the original Kiana Kaslana who he kidnapped and experimented on.
• Identity Breakdown: Downplayed. While the reveal of her true identity comes as a momentary surprise and gives her some mixed feelings, the reason behind it isn't because she finds the information unbelievable, the name itself holds any special meaning to her nor that it suddenly contradicts with who Durandal has become as a person over the years. She's worried about the impact this revelation is going to have on her family who actually had to deal with the emotional baggage of her supposed death and Kiana who - just like Durandal - has trodded through her own path in life to give her name meaning, establishing herself as her own person. She deems the matter to be too sensitive to be brought up without proper preparation in their current situation, deciding to keep it a secret for the time being.
• I Am Who?: In chapter 28 she gains back a few of her missing childhood memories and finds out much to her own horror and shock she is the original Kiana Kaslana.
• Immune to Flinching: Bright Knight's Super Mode allows her to ignore flinching for its duration.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: In all her versions, her weapon skill starts with her spearing an enemy with her lance; what she does from there depends on the enemy's size. For the largest Honkai beasts and mechs, she does a spinning kick that further drives her lance into the target. For medium-sized Honkai beasts and mechs, she does a rising double kick and then a downward kick that pins the target to the ground. For zombies, humanoid bosses and the smallest Honkai beasts and mechs, she spins them around, then raises them overhead and slams them to the ground. For the 2nd and 3rd cases, she can also damage close enemies with the throw move. As Bright Knight, in her Super Mode, her "King" robot can either throw her enemies by impaling them with its sword, then lifting them up before slamming it down in front of her, or (against huge bosses) impaling them with its sword and following it up with "Queen"'s Shield Bash. Palatinus Equinox's Knight form has her pierce her target on horseback and raise them into the air before slaming them back on the ground. In the story proper, Bianka and Kiana finish off Otto with a combination attack where she pins Otto into a wall by throwing her lance through his chest, while Kiana uses her Herrscher powers to negate his invulnerability and obliterate him.
• Injured Vulnerability: One of Valkyrie Gloria's skills increases her damage against ignited enemies, even more so if she is equiped with her signature lance Eos Gloria.
• I Will Find You: After regaining her memories and discovering that her father is still alive under Kevin's imprisonment, and that he's still grieving her supposed death, Bianka swears that she and her sister together are going to find their father and bring him home no matter what. She fulfill that promise in chapter 34-4.

J-S

• Javelin Thrower:
  • As Valkyrie Gloria, the 2nd part of her Ultimate Skill has her jump up and then throw her lance (enveloped in fire) to the ground, causing a big explosion that leaves the ground covered in flames, during which her attacks become more powerful until the flames dissipate.
  • As Bright Knight, her Charged Attack is her throwing her lance towards the enemy; this can only be done after her 5th part of her basic combo. Upon successfully blocking an attack with her shield, she can also retaliate with throwing her lance to the target; this time, she throws it towards the ground, and the enemies around will be gathered towards the lance's impact point.
  • As Dea Anchora, one form of her Ultimate Skill has her throw her spectral lance to the ground as she jumps back, which gathers the enemies around her. In her Super Mode, this move is upgraded with her throwing extra lances to deal more damage.
• Jet Pack: Her Bright Knight battlesuit allows her to fly using thrusters at her hips. In gameplay, she has access to a special dash in her Super Mode by pressing the evasion button while moving, where she activates her thrusters to move around quickly. In Open World stages, she also uses it when she sprints, somewhat like Herrscher of Reason's bike mode, allowing her to traverse the map quickly. Her bio mentions that said thrusters apparently emit gamma particles, forming streaks of blue glow of Cherenkov radiation.
• Jousting Lance: Her equippable weapon type is large lances, which she can wield easily and swiftly as if they're normal spears. Her Divine Key, Abyss Flower, also mainly takes form of a lance.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: In the London Holiday comic, Durandal decides to adopt Stan as her pet cat, despite the latter having tried to attack her while he still had the collar that let him transform into a Honkai Beast. Despite Rita and Otto's objections, she gets to keep the cat under the condition that they bring him back to Schicksal for further study. This gets symbolic when she tries to befriend the cat-themed Kiana, although due to her captive status, she acts more like an uncooperative stray cat who tries to escape from Durandal.
• Lady of War: She has the air of beauty, grace, power, dignity and professionalism one would expect from Schicksal's top Valkyrie. Appropriately, she has many admirers who respect both her strength and grace.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: She has no memories of her childhood before arriving in the Schicksal orphanage other than still remembering her name, "Bianka Ataegina". This is because Otto wiped her memories and even replaced her memory of her name with a fake one.
• Lethal Chef: She's a dilligent worker, Schicksal's strongest Valkyrie and she enjoys good food and sweets as much as the next guy, but cooking really is not her strong suit. Seems like it runs in the family.
  • In Rita's birthday event, Rita found the kitchen a complete mess with a literal lava cake oozing around after being used by Durandal. The cake also tastes "as salty as the Dead Sea" and Rita thought Durandal mistook salt for sugar.
  • As a child, when making breakfast for her dad, she decided she would make a cup of instant noodles more healthy... by adding in an apple, a banana and a pineapple, as is. It tastes so horrible she's struggling to finish her own portion and apologises to her father, who is (un)fortunately too depressed and lost in thought to even notice the taste.
• Lightning Bruiser: Dea Anchora moves faster than her other battlesuits while still hitting hard, and her Super Mode makes her even faster and stronger.
• Locked into Strangeness: To save her life from an unknown dilemma that left her without memories as a child, her body was given a light version of soulium treatment by Otto, with its only side effect being her hair turning permanently blonde.
• Long-Lost Relative: After getting to relive some her blood-relatives' most treasured memories through her family Stigmata and even recovering fragments of her own lost memories, Durandal is told what her identity used to be before the amnesia: she is the original Kiana Kaslana, who was assumed to have long since died on a mission.
• Magic Compass: For their expedition into the Sea of Quanta in 2012, Bianka and Rita were given a compass-like device based on previous-Era technology called "Genius Device", which allows safer navigation between the various bubble universes within Imaginary Space and the user's home world. In year 2018 at Kolosten, Rita grants her old timeworn device to Durandal as a good luck charm when the latter decides to disobey her orders and leave her post to go confront Otto about the true consequences of his plan to reverse time by 500 years. Rita had actually rigged the device in secret, making it send Durandal to a different coordinate in the event that Otto would somehow try to imprison her somewhere specific inside the Imaginary Space. Things happen to go exactly like that with Durandal finding herself on an extended memory trip inside a Stigmata Space and once she hears that she did not infact arrive in the intended location due to the transfer getting disrupted, she quickly figures out that Rita probably had a hand in that.
• Meaningful Name: Bianka Ataegina can be translated as "White Reborn" and the word Ataegina holds double meaning as the name of an ancient European goddess who is associated with the moon. She's revealed to be the original (amnesiac) Kiana Kaslana, who has also been often associated with the color white and whose name also refers to a goddess of the moon.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter:
  • Durandal is the second playable character to have a QUA-type battlesuit, which incidentally is her debut suit, much like Seele. In particular, her weapon skill allows her to impale enemies and then toss them around; this can bypass many enemies (including bosses)' resistance to flinching (as long as they're not in an Iron Body state or being outright invulnerable), allowing her to intterupt their moves (particularly their trickier ones). She also has a mechanic where, during the enemies' certain attacks, her weapon skill button may flash briefly; quickly tapping it in time will make her perform the "impale and throw" move, but the difference from the regular version is that it's weaker, but does not cause cooldown.
  • Her Bright Knight: Excelsis battlesuit, in particular, does some things differently from other battlesuits. She has both shield retaliation and Ultimate Evasion, the former of which is able to stop many enemy attacks in their tracks. In her normal mode, her Charged Attack can only be performed after her normal combos, which also allows her to continue to the 4th and 5th segment of her combo which can be continued to the Charged Attack again. In her Burst Mode, she forgoes using her lance in favor of her mechanical puppets. Her Charged Attack in that mode - a strong 2-part slash attack - can only be performed after shield retaliation or Ultimate Evasion, or - somewhat akin to Swallowtail Phantasm - after she does her special dash towards an enemy, after which her Ultimate Evasion will enter cooldown time.
  • Dea Anchora's Ultimate Skill has 2 forms: one when done standalone or after first few strikes of her combo (where she punches enemies rapidly) and one when done in the "lance" part of her combo (where she throws a spectral lance to the ground that gathers enemies around). Said Ultimate Skill has no cooldown and costs only 15 SP, and in fact it's encouraged for her to spam it in quick succession in order to fill her special gauge. By using her Charged Attack after the gauge is full, she enters a Golden Super Mode where she dons a golden armor and then does a Ground Punch that creates a wide fire explosion, damaging enemies around her. The golden armor buff is permanent: her normal attacks are enhanced and she automatically sprints whenever she runs. While her gauge is slowly depleting, she gets Regenerating Mana and her Ultimate Skills are powered up; she also has an access to "Ultimate EX" where, after using her powered-up Ultimate Skills twice in succession, pressing Ultimate button again (the button will be Wreathed in Flames) will make her do a Finishing Move where she pulls out a Great Bow and shoots a powerful lance at her enemies, after which the gauge is fully depleted.
  • Palatinus Equinox is the first IMG-type DPS battlesuit and its key combat mechanic is the Stance System with the ability to switch between two modes, the Guardian form and the Knight form by focusing on either defense or movement and making use of the ability to refresh Ultimate Evasion cooldown by switching at the correct time. In Guardian form she gets a shield and a more orthodox moveset including a Defend Command and a powerfull charge attack, while Knight form has her summon her Stigma in the form of a horse for a more movement based mounted combat with a sprint meter for charging in with her lance. Her Ultimate also deals damage straight to the IMG-type enemies second life bar, the Nihilus Seed, meaning with proper builds it's actually possible to one-shot enemies (including bosses) by skipping the second phase entirely. Equipping her signature weapon also gives her a ranged attack in Guardian form in place of the lance-type weapons' default throw attack.
• Ms. Fanservice: She rivals Himeko and Rita as a blatantly fanservice-oriented character, with large breasts, noticeable Jiggle Physics, and a tendency toward midriff-baring outfits. The first Stigmata released featuring her, Durandal: Vacation (M), features her in a fancy bikini. Lord Paramount, the first alternate outfit released for Valkyrie Gloria, has a Lion-O-esque belly window, while in its other alternate outfit (Purrfect Holiday) and the clothes she wears in the "London Holiday" event (which seems to have become her default casual outfit), she wears her shirt pulled up and tied to one side. In another casual outfit that she most notably wears in the Cooking With Valkyries anime, she wears a short tube top that exposes her entire midriff. In her visual novel, her default outfit includes a vest over a sports bra, which her chibi version also wears in the "Target: Durandal" event. The alternate outfits she picked up for Dea Anchora in version 5.5 reduce this to a Navel Window, something she also sports in the Knight Form of her new Palatinus Equinox battlesuit.
• Multi-Melee Master: She currently uses a lance-type Divine Key, but in other media such as the comics and her visual novel, she has also wielded a Power Fist and dual guns. Dea Anchora’s fighting style actually showcases those multiple talents.
• My Master, Right or Wrong:
  • During Chapter 15, when questioned by Kiana (who used to look up to the legendary S-rank Valkyrie) on how she's able to keep serving Schicksal despite Otto's numerous atrocities, Durandal simply counter-questions her on who would protect the billions of humans from the Honkai if not Schicksal, acknowledging that there is no clear-cut right or wrong in this situation, only what needs to be done.
  • In the "2nd Divine Key" comic, in Su's bubble world, she expresses how Otto is a brave man determined to combat the Honkai who's commonly misunderstood due to his less-than-savory decisions or actions.
• Mysterious Past:
  • While her past is detailed in her own visual novel, it's her origins that are mysterious. She was a lost child who was found by, and then raised in, an orphanage; how she became a lost child is never shown. Valkyrie Gloria's bio mentions that many people within Schicksal only know about her legends, like how she becomes a Valkyrie at a young age, but not anything before that. The event in 4.4, "Stellar Mythos", shows how much she's Shrouded in Myth even among the members of Schicksal, as Alvitr and Susannah made up various wild theories about Durandal's origins.
  • The special web event before Version 4.4's release put the abridged version of the visual novel, called "Durandal's Pilgrimage", in the game, to explain the origins of Dea Anchora battlesuit. Dea Anchora's bio (in the Dorm) also eventually shows parts of her past that were only covered in the visual novel.
  • Chapter 28 finally reveals she is in fact the original Kiana Kaslana, the "big sister" and genetic basis of the current clone Kiana (K-423). After Siegfried ​took the other Kiana away, Otto memory wiped the original Kiana and placed her under Ragna Lothbrok's supervision as the orphan "Bianka Ataegina", to train her to become his ultimate enforcer in Schicksal.
• The Needs of the Many: Having gone through multiple hardships over the course of her life (including the death of a childhood mentor figure and seeing several of her comrades die at the start of her Valkyrie career), Bianka recognises that hard choices are an inevitability in a war for survival and that the world as a whole values results before anything else, explaining why she sees Otto as someone important to the war effort. This doesn't mean that she herself is willing to cross any line in the interest of "the greater good", as she goes against Otto's plan to erase 500 years worth of history along with all the people born in it despite Otto's claims that it would be beneficial to humanity as a whole by not only giving them more time against the final Herrscher, but also working against Kevin and his Project Stigma.
• Never Be Hurt Again: The biggest reason why Bianka made it her goal to seek strength very early on was due to a feeling of powerlessness stemming from having her comrades and loved ones die around her without being able to do anything about it. She figured that if she became the strongest, she'd be able to safeguard everyone by simply being there to fight alongside them and being the one to deal with the more perilous tasks in their stead. She's even admited to Rita that she cares so much about becoming stronger that it’s almost become an OCD like obsession to her.
• Noodle Incident: Theresa in chapter 3 says that Durandal shuts up whenever the former says the word "Rowland" to her. When Kiana asks how, she says it's "a secret".
• Not a Morning Person: You probably wouldn't believe this from a diligent and responsible top-rank Valkyrie who's now used to waking up early for her morning training, but younger Durandal used to not be an early riser or kind to her alarm clock, going by the wear and tear on said clock in her old childhood room.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Over the course of the story several similarities are drawn between Bianka and Kiana through both character dialogue and statements made in the narration itself.
  • Early on in Chapter 3 the Hyperion crew decides to use Durandal as a distraction by having Theresa broadcast her coordinates to the Anti-Entropy troops in the area, but she ends up dealing with them too swiftly and soon calls them to ask how AE was able to find her exact location. In the end it's Kiana who suggest telling her that AE just happened to be on vacation at the spot where Durandal landed. While it sounds absurd to the rest of them, Kiana believes this works on a logical level since they were fighting around a popular beach resort and the kicker is that Durandal actually believes it thinking it's a perfectly valid explanation, which further causes Kiana to muse that Durandal sounds like a reasonable person and they might actually get along pretty well. She then gets mildly offended when she realizes that Himeko and Theresa are implying that the plan worked only because its author and target are both idiots.
  • In Kolosten Arc's side content, Memory Bank Recollection "Status", Rita describes the current Herrscher of the Void (Kiana) as a person who "has a calm and passionate soul that is likely not at all inferior to Bianka" due to putting her life on the line with her act of saving Arc City "as she was just learning to walk". Schrödinger sounds impressed as she points out that this is truly high praise coming from Rita considering just how highly she regards Bianka and how personal they are.
  • When Rita and Bronya end up discussing their different motivations between fighting in the Honkai-war and why they'd be willing to work under certain types of morally dubious people in Chapter 26, they are able to find some common ground when Rita points out that both of them have to deal with following a charismatic and somewhat hot-headed close friend who is in many ways capable and well meaning, yet still causes them a lot of worry from time to time.
  • Upon Bianka and Kiana's second face-to-face meeting in the same chapter the narration even goes to retroactively state that despite being ideologically at odds with one another when they first met back in Chapter 15 as captor and captive, even back then the two had this mutual indescribable and strange feeling that the other person is the most similar individual to themselves in this world.
  • Their similarities are even brought up in Chapter 28's flashbacks. When young valkyrie-in-training Bianka first heard of a certain same-age Kaslana heir becoming a drifter after her father went missing and was asked by Kira how she felt about that, Bianka guessed (quite accurately) that the other girl is probably just like her in that she too wants to become the strongest to protect others and adds that tough kids like them aren't brought down so easily by hardships.
  • Near the end of the Kolosten arc it is finally revealed that these parallels are not without good reason. Bianka discovers that she and Kiana are sisters, in that Bianka is the original amnesiac "big sister" Kiana Kaslana who the current Kiana was cloned from and who was assumed to have died a decade ago while rescuing her sister. Bianka later even confesses to Rita that the revelation itself wasn't really what shocked her because the idea of her and Kiana being related was all that hard to believe or came without any hint, but because she got worried about the effects this secret would have on Kiana, Siegfried and Theresa if it was brought up thoughtlessly.
• Not So Stoic: Durandal usually appears on surface very aloof, collected or even emotionless to some people and true to form, she takes the reveal about her true identity with very little impact, initially stating in her own thoughts that she doesn't feel anything personal towards the name itself, only thinking about the effects that this secret is going to have on the other involved parties. However, when she gets to experience memories of herself in her mother's embrace with all the warmth, smells and other feelings that come with it she does start to become more audibly emotional. She's then shown a vision of her father alone and grieving for her supposed death, at which point her emotions begin to rise to the surface so much that she starts shouting at him to hear her. When she's talking to the Stigmata Space Guardian she even admits that she does now also have personal reasons to fight Otto (and Kevin) in addition to her usual 'to save the world' spiel.
• Omniglot: Bianka is noted to be able to speak at least four languages (English, German, Russian, and French) with fluency.
• One-Handed Zweihänder: She can easily wield a huge lance (usually a horseback weapon) with one hand, as shown in her moves.
• One Riot, One Ranger: Back in 2015 (1 year before the game starts), she was sent to multiple Honkai outbreaks around the world by herself and stopped them all one by one. In ch. 15, it's noted that she's the only Valkyrie that guards Schicksal's Vimur Base, but that's apparently more than enough.
• Opponent Instruction:
  • In her encounter with Mei in ch. 15, she tells Mei that while she can feel the determination in Mei's eyes, the navy-haired girl lacked the strength to match her will.
  • During Durandal and Kiana's sparring in the same chapter, Durandal points out some errors in Kiana's techniques and tries to advise her the right way, something which Kiana can't accept. Durandal says that while Kiana knows multiple ways of fighting, she only wills them together recklessly, and that she would have a long way before she can properly control the "hidden power" inside her.
• Painful Transformation: The process of unlocking the power within her stigma makes her initially feel like her flesh is turning into ice yet at the same time the blood in her veins is boils and it also repeatedly injects her mind with the phrase "Kill Honkai" until it just muddles into "KillKillKillKill...". It goes on for a while until the sudden appearance of a voice belonging to her mother snaps her out of it and drives the pain away.
• Passionate Sports Girl: She used to be one back when she was younger, where she liked playing soccer. Forgotten Diary event shows that she liked the sport even before the amnesia, when she was barely ten years old.
• Power Floats: During Bright Knight's Super Mode, she floats instead of walking.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: A downplayed example; while in her Palatinus Equinox battlesuit, a stripe as well as the ends of her hair turn white, likely a result of her fully activating the Kaslana stigmata.
• Rapidfire Fisticuffs: One part of Dea Anchora's combo move is her rapidly punching her enemies. One form of her Ultimate Skill is a stronger version of it that ends with spectral lances falling on top of her opponent, and in her Super Mode, said move gets further enhanced, with her ending it with multiple wheeling kicks.
• Reforged into a Minion: A crucial part of Bianka's hidden backstory involves her and her father once working against Otto to rescue K-423 from a Schicksal lab. She got gravely injured during the escape, was captured and had her past life as Kiana Kaslana wiped from her memories. From that point on she was then groomed into becoming Otto's top enforcer in Schicksal.
• Regenerating Mana: One of Dea Anchora's passive skills allows her to slowly regenerate SP when she's switched out.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming:
  • Her 3 battlesuits, Valkyrie Gloria, Bright Knight: Excelsis and Dea Anchora, are named after the Christian hymn "Gloria in Excelsis Deo".
  • Dea Anchora's skill names are taken from figures of Classical Mythology.
• The Reveal: The secret behind Durandal's mysterious backstory and lack of any memories of her life before the orphanage is finally revealed to her and the audience in Chapter 28. Her memories were erased by Otto in 2007 and her original identity used to be Kiana Kaslana. She chooses to keep this a secret from everyone for the time being on the reasoning that her closest living relatives have already come to terms with the fact that she's been missing for almost a decade now and assumed dead, so it would be insensitive to their feelings to just spring it up on them without proper preparation and decides to save the Internal Reveal until she and her sister have rescued their father and everyone is gathered together.
• Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: The climax of the Durandal visual novel has her using the power of the sword Durandal to seal the entirety of the bubble universe she's in and sustain it with her own body. This gave her an unstable power instead of her that she never used, but after encountering Su in his dimension, she gains the "Seed of Sumeru" that allowed her to stabilize her power and manifest it as a set of armor, Dea Anchora. In chapter 25-EX she eventually goes to the Imaginary Tree and meets Shigure Kira and the Sugars in their dimension, who help her link the bubble universe inside her body to the Imaginary Tree so that said universe can sustain itself again.
• Secret A.I. Moves: As a boss, Bright Knight Excelsis mostly uses the same moves as when you play her… except in her second phase, where after stabbing you with the "King"'s sword and slamming you to the ground, her "Queen" robot shoots a laser beam, something the player can absolutely not do.
• Self-Made Woman: According to Theresa, Durandal got the S ranking through sheer determination and hard work instead of raw talent and power. Her visual novel, notably, has her say that while humans normally have a "ceiling" which will stop their growth in capabilities no matter how much they train, she's abnormal in that she lacks said ceiling, allowing her to keep getting stronger and better the more effort she puts on. It's part of her mysterious origins.
  Theresa: To be on par with the other two Valkyries, Durandal was expected to put in 10 or 20 times the effort. But the truth was that she put in 100 times the effort.
• Shield Bash:
  • In Bright Knight's Super Mode, part of her combo has her striking her enemy with her shield-wielding robot.
  • In Palatinus Equinox's Guardian form the directional evasion functions as a shield bash and activates the Ultimate Evasion effect on hit.
• Ship Tease: With Rita. Notable examples include:
  • The 2021 Durandal birthday CG is soft and intimate, with certani lines ("Yet she did not know how to sound natural when expressing a feeling she could not name." and "Set off by the moonlight, she suddenly realized how captivating Rita's smile was.") implying Durandal has feelings for Rita, or at least is attracted to her.
  • In an early scene of the Durandal visual novel, when trying Rita's cooking for the first time, Bianka ends up thinking about the saying that the best way to a person's heart is through their stomach.
  • The final chapter of the visual novel has Bianka, Rita, and the surviving cast of it performing Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. Not only do Bianka and Rita play married couple Bassanio and Portia, Shakespeare remarks "Hahaha, it's really interesting to have real couples perform this kind of drama!" implying she considers Bianka and Rita a "real couple", and the chapter (and VN as a whole) ends off with this exchange:
    Bianka: Phew... I didn't expect that the last scene would be the most tiring part.
    Rita: Hm? Is that so? I thought... Bianka-sama would definitely enjoy it.
    Bianka: Whe- Where would I- What would make me happy in that scene?
    Rita: Hm? You don't know? "Sweet doctor, you will be my bed partner tonight!" "And when I'm away you can sleep with my wife."
    Bianka: *blushing* ......Hey!
  • The bottom Stigma piece of the Bianka (Theatre) Stigmata set, which depicts Bianka in various scenes from Shakespeare's plays, once again puts Bianka and Rita in the roles of Bassanio and Portia, and specifically depicts the scene in which Bassanio wins Portia's hand in marriage.
• Significant Anagram: Rearrange the letters in Bianka and what do you get? KianaB.^note Confirmed to have been semi-intentional on the devs part in 5.5 Hyperion Lounge stream, with them jokingly stating that the 'B' stands for "blonde".
• Significant Birth Date: Her official birthday is on New Year's Day, January 1st 2000, which also makes it overlap with the turn of the new millennium.
• Significant Double Casting: She has the same voice actor as the "Hora" memory fragment she finds in the Stigmata Space acting as a manifestation of an unknown Kaslana descendant, as well as the younger version of the original Kiana Kaslana shown in flashbacks, foreshadowing the reveal that they are all in fact the same person.
• Significant Name Shift: After the Internal Reveal and the discussion that follows, Bianka and Kiana begin to refer to one another as big sister and little sister respectively.^note In the Japanese dub Kiana uses "Onee-san" for Bianka while Bianka in turn drops the "-san" honorific for Kiana. In the Chinese dub they instead use jiějiě(姐姐) and meimei(妹妹).
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: In Durandal and Kiana's early dorm interactions, she is on the receiving end of Kiana's fangirling and boasting of one day becoming an S-rank Valkyrie on par with her. Kiana even tries to challenge Durandal into a duel when she thinks Durandal is belittling her, only for Durandal to turn Kiana down stating it'd be pointless since Kiana doesn't stand a chance against her as she's now. This of course only sets Kiana off even further and she swears to one day show Durandal just how strong she can become, causing a chuckle from Durandal, with her also adding that she is looking forward to seeing it happen.
• Smash Sisters: Come the finale of the Kolosten arc, the only fighters left standing are Bianka and Kiana, and thus Schicksal's strongest S-rank Valkyrie and the two-time Herrscher set out together to fight Otto one final time. The team-up between Durandal's awakaned Stigmata and Kiana's fully powered Void/Fire Herrscher combo is proven to be more than a match for Otto's transformation into a "False God Imaginary Being" as they are even able beat him out of said form before moving in to finish him off for good. At the time, only Bianka is aware that this team up also doubles as an actual Sibling Team.
• So Proud of You: One of her new bridge voicelines as Palatinus Equinox's has her speak quite fondly of Kiana and her strength of character. Considering she says this right after discovering that she and Kiana were related all along through them sharing the same father with Bianka also being the original Kiana, it's reasonable to assume there's something akin to big sisterly pride hidden behind these words on Bianka's part. (Unfortunately this voiceline is part of the set which isn't subtitled in the global version.)
  Bianka: Kiana is very brave, and very gentle. I'm happy she found her own path in life.
• Spirited Competitor: While Durandal beats Mei quite handily in their scuffle over Kiana and even breaks Mei's weapon, Durandal still complements Mei for the look in her eyes, but tells Mei that she needs more to beat her, as if challenging her to get stronger for the next time they meet. Durandal also seems to take a certain interest in Kiana's development as a warrior, both voicing criticism at her flaws and offering advice (albeit unsolicited on Kiana's part) while still commending her spirit and potential for growth, even though they still find each other's ideals incompatible in the end. When their paths cross once again at Kolosten five months later, Bianka is quite open about her eagerness to meet Kiana again as she's heard of the other girl's victory over the Herrscher of Dominance and expresses her will to improve her relationship with Kiana. Bianka even offers a rematch to settle their previous interupted fight, where this time not only does Bianka commend Kiana's growth, in addition both girls are able to acknowledge each other's views much better despite still not necessarily agreeing on everything.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Unlike most her weapons which are just highly advanced Schicksal's science projects that get stored in Hyperspace Arsenal when not in active use, Dea Anchora and Palatinus Equinox's weapons are actually connected to her Astral Harness and Stigmata respectfully. As DA she summons spectral spears for throwing and slashing as needed, while in the case of PE her equipped weapon appears to be somehow summoned from within her similarly to her mount, going by her bridge interactions.
• Stat Stick: Dea Anchora’s weapon is a PRI-arm lance called Sagitarius Astra, but she barely uses it in combat; her combos are a mix of bare-handed barrages, slashes with a pair of spectral lances and a giant bow that she stretches with her whole body for the last phase of her ultimate skill. Sagitarius only ever comes out when using its active skill.
• Strong and Skilled: As befitting of the strongest Valkyrie in Schicksal, Durandal is not only well read about the different Valkyrie fighting techniques, but seamlessly integrates them into her fighting style when the situation calls for it. Kiana notes during their fight in Chapter 15 that there is an unsurmountable gap between her skill and Durandal's, with the latter even lecturing Kiana on her unrefined techniques and her lack of depth and breadth necessary to bring out her full potential.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Is nearly the spitting image of her mother, Cecilia Schariac, just with blonde hair instead of white and wavier ends.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: As noted above, she’s not as cold as her serious attitude and status may suggest. This is illustrated best in the "Cooking with Valkyries" chapter where the smell of Rita’s chocolate lava cake tickles her nose but she politely declines… before accepting, arguing that the cake won’t taste as good if she waits tomorrow. All with the same unflinching expression. She's also surprisingly approachable, as seen in her bridge interactions.
• Superpowerful Genetics: Invoked. Otto's sole motive in "helping" her parents get together in the first place was so their child would inherit powers from both Kaslana and Schariac bloodlines. From her father's side of the family she inherits much of their famed combat prowess and high Honkai adaptability, while from her mother's side she receives their enhanced vitality and ability to manipulate Honkai energy, allowing her to use the Abyss Flower (including it's Zeroth Power) with next to none of the usual Cast From Life Force related drawbacks. She also eventually gains access to the tremendous power hidden within the Kaslana's Natural Stigmata and discovers the true purpose of the Schariac Holy Blood: the former grants her the power of Active Honkai Reaction used by the MANTIS soldiers from the Previous Era which is said to be able to match Herrschers at the cost of "losing their humanity", while the latter effectively neutralizes all negative effects of Honkai. Put together these allow her to stabilize the transformation without it eroding her body or sanity, which basically changes its status from a last-resort Superpowered Evil Side to a more standard Super Mode.
• Sword Plant:
  • Valkyrie Gloria's Ultimate Skill has her stab the ground with her lance to create a fiery explosion.
  • One of Palatinus Equinox's bridge interactions has her summon her weapon in hand and stab the floor with it.
• Sword Pointing:
  • In ch. 15, after she beats Mei in their duel, she points her lance at the latter as they exchange some more words.
  • In ch. 18, when Raven gets irritated at Rita's rejection of her handshake, Durandal quickly points her lance at the World Serpent assassin, telling her to not push her luck.
  • In ch. 27, after Otto "reveals" his plan to rewind time to bring Kallen back will erase everyone in the past 500 years outside Kolosten out of existence, Durandal defeats him in the ensuing fight, but doesn't strike the final blow instead demanding he tell her the whole truth as she points her lance at him. However, this gives him time to turn the tables by sending her into the Stigmata space.

T-Y

• Tastes Like Friendship: In Bianka and Kiana's later dorm interactions (after PE's release), Bianka comes to Kiana to discuss some important encrypted message from Nagamitsu, but gets momentarily side tracked when Kiana offers her some of Seele's homemade sweets. The situation causes Kiana to giggle, making Bianka think she's got food on her face, but Kiana then clarifies that she just thought it's kind of funny how drastically different their situation is now for them to be able to enjoy food together like this. Bianka concurs - somewhat cryptically - that a lot has indeed changed since then, before deciding to get back to business and relay the message to Kiana.
• That Woman Is Dead: Played with in regards to her pre-amnesia identity. On one hand she considers the past and current her to be two different individuals and doesn't want to reclaim her spot from Kiana, yet on another hand she seems to also wish to have a familial bond between her and Siegfried and Kiana considering she has consistently referred to those two as her father and sister even in her own thoughts. This is discussed on several occasions:
  • Discussed briefly in the Forgotten Diary event between Bianka and her pre-amnesiac past self, who still identifies herself as Kiana. Durandal states to her younger self that she's not Kiana anymore, but the young girl in turn states that she herself is still Bianka, or rather by deciding to go rescue her "little sister" that day caused her to eventually become Bianka and she stands by this decision without regrets. She points out that what name one chooses to call oneself is not relevant because names can be easily changed, but a name doesn't change the life choices they've made which are used to define who they are as a person. In the end, Bianka Ataegina resolves acknowledge herself as both Durandal and a Kaslana.
  • In Chapter 34, Kiana and Bianka have a discussion now that the truth is out. Though Kiana does suggest allowing the two of them use the same name, Bianka mildly amusedly turns it down because one, it would be needlessly confusing for everyone, and two, that as the two of them have already forged their own identities after everything each of them has been through, Kiana has more than earned the right to bear that name and that the name Bianka means more to Durandal than her birth name. Despite this, Kiana tells her that regardless of whether or not she sees herself as 'Kiana' or 'Bianka', she will always be her sister. Bianka seems taken aback and initially tries to deny their relationship because most of her memories are gone, but Kiana tells her that she can just make memories together in the future, which causes her to relent and the two refer to one another as 'big sister' and 'little sister' for the first time.
• They Call Him "Sword": "Durandal" is the name of the sword of Roland in the Song of Roland stories. She gained the moniker after the expedition in the Sea of Quanta in her visual novel. There, young Bianka met a mysterious magic Talking Weapon named Durandal; it used to be a powerful sword but it has lost 6 of its 7 Power Crystals, and Bianka retrieved them one by one during her adventures in the bubble world. Once the sword is "completed", Bianka used it to fight the main Honkai force in that world. But after she came out victorious, the final battle left the Cosmic Keystone in that world broken; Durandal suggested to Bianka that she merge with it and use the power of its gems to become the new "anchor" for the bubble world, absorbing the entirety of it into her body in the process. That was how Bianka became "Durandal"; her squad, "Immortal Blades", was also named after the sword's moniker.
• This Is Something She's Got to Do Herself: Defied when Durandal is about to go face Otto for the final time. While there's the fact that she's just discovered the truth about him being the cause of her amnesia and just how much harm he has done to her sister and their family, her first reasoning in going to fight him alone is that as the current crisis was caused by Schicksal's retired Overseer, it's something that also ought to be solved by Schicksal's own Valkyries. She doesn't get far before Kiana halts her and calls her out about going in alone without an explanation, pointing out that if anyone, it's Kiana who has personal scores to settle with Otto, which Durandal does acknowledge. Kiana immediately follows up by stating that if Durandal is aware of this, she should also know that Kiana expects Durandal to include her in that fight too. Durandal hesitates for a moment - not because she's suddenly worried about Kiana needing protection, mind you - but relents when she realizes that she simply needs to learn to trust a little more.
• Throwing Your Shield Always Works: In Palatinus Equinox's Guardian form as a part of the basic attack combo she tosses her floating shield forward as a spinning disc and then has it fly back at her side.
• Time to Unlock More True Potential: Durandal has many times been noted to already be the strongest human from the current generation on account of having rigorously trained her skills and body to their absolute peak, but after getting herself trapped in the Stigmata Space, Durandal meets its adjudicator who states that her only way of escape is to prove her worth by first awakening the power hidden within her Kaslana and Schariac heritage and using it to defeat him. She challenges the claim that the guardian can't be beat just by using her own power and goes to fight him anyway, but she's unable cause any significant damage. After the guardian starts belittling her predecessors who wasted their lives trying and failing to reach the ideal that their ancestor Kevin left them with, Bianka regains her resolve and shoots back that those lives also had meaning regardless of any family legacy and they all deserve more respect. The trope is then subverted as this leads to Bianka getting her second wind in round two where she manages to activate her Astral Harness, granting her the power to defeat the guardian after all.
• Turns Red: In Memorial Arena, Bright Knight's boss version has 2 phases; she enters the second phase after her health bar is depleted the first time, whereupon it fills back to full. She also pulls out her support robots, which enable trickier tactics and attacks; she begins with gaining an Armor Meter that highly reduces her damage taken until you break it with lightning attacks, and it punishes switching by making the shield regenerate a bit whenever you switch characters.
• Two Aliases, One Character: Turns out she's not just Bianka "Durandal" Ataegina, Schicksal's top Valkyrja, but also another rather major character in Honkai's story the original "big sister" Kiana Kaslana that the current Kiana was cloned from and was thought to have died years ago.
• Universally Beloved Leader: According to supplementary materials and Valkyrie Gloria's Battlesuit Details, Schicksal's top Valkyrie is quite popular among their ranks. Case in point, on one of her birthdays, the hallway outside of her room was packed full of presents from her admirers. She returned them all after clarifying that it wasn't actually her birthday (her real date of birth is unknown, so it's just listed as January 1st). And yet, she received even more presents the next year.
• Unknown Relative: Chapter 28 reveals unbeknownst to her and her family she is the original Kiana Kaslana, Siegfried Kaslana ​and Cecilia Schariac's ​original daughter and the "big sister" of her clone / the current Kiana, due to Otto wiping her memory and altering her appearance.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • In chapter 15, when she takes Kiana away from Arc City and flies towards Schicksal's Vimur Base in North Africa, Jackal of World Serpent sees it and reports it to her master. He would later invade said base with a large amount of robot troops.
  • In ch. 18, it's implied that Owl didn't know who the Herrscher of Ice was until Durandal told Alvitr to share her findings with the World Serpent's agents: it's Ana Schariac, who has saved Owl before and is implied to have some sort of relationship with him. It leads to him betraying his own teammates in order to save the Herrscher.
• Vague Age: Her birthday is listed as January 1, 2000, the same year as Bronya and 2-3 years later than Kiana and Mei... but that's only the date that people in her orphanage gave her because she was an orphan with no memories other than her name. Meanwhile, she looks older and more mature than Kiana and the other St. Freya Academy students. It's only in chapter 28 that her actual birth date is confirmed to be December 7th, 1998.
  • The final scene of her visual novel also implies that time moving faster in the bubble universe inside her body has accelerated her own aging, hence why she looks so much older than her age and especially why she looks noticeably older than Kiana even though they should otherwise physically be the same age.
• Vocal Evolution: Following her discovery of the truth about her past identity coupled with the introduction of her Palatinus Equinox suit, her normal "indoor" voice becomes slightly softer in tone while her combat quotes become even a bit more passionate sounding. The contrasts is more noticeable when you compare her new battlesuit's bridge interactions and battle voicelines with her older suits' (such as (Bright Knight Excelsis) line reads, which tend to veer more towards professional stoicism or Cold Ham type of delivery.
• Weapon Jr.: As a child she used to play around with a painted umbrella fashioned to look like a makeshift toy version of her mother's signature weapon: the Abyss Flower.
• We Need a Distraction: In ch. 3, she was unwittingly used by Theresa to divert the Anti-Entropy troops' attention from Wendy (when she was intended to take the 4th Herrscher as well), so that our group can look after her without problems. This comes to bite her back later when Durandal managed to force the AE troops to retreat and Theresa has to think of an explanation on how the AE troops could find her.
• We Would Have Told You, But...: Durandal receives Rita's old Genius Device as good luck charm before she goes to confront Otto at the end of Chapter 27, but isn't told that it's been tampered to mess with the transfer process in the event something tries drag her into the Imaginary Space. Rita later explains the reason why she kept Durandal in the dark about this was because she thought Durandal wouldn't have been able to keep the ploy a secret from someone like Otto if she knew.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?:
  • In the end of ch. 18, Mei starts hesitating when she struck Herrscher of Ice (Ana Schariac)'s face and saw "Kiana" in her, and when Owl tried to protect the Herrscher from her, claiming that he's ready to die for that. Durandal calls this out to her, asking her why she holds back; then the Valkyrie decides to go at Owl herself, lance pointed at him.
  • In a twist of irony, Durandal herself makes the same mistake in chapter 27 against Otto when she defeats him after he reveals just what kind of cost his plan is going to enact on the rest of the world. The Overseer even lampshades her hesitation by noting that if what Durandal wanted was to bring the conflict to a swift end, she should have struck the final blow already instead of demanding he explain himself and talk things out peacefully with Theresa. Durandal answers that that would be an appropriate response for Kiana or anyone else who he's hurt, but to her it's more important to know what he's truly thinking with this plan. Otto laughs it off by admitting he is indeed still keeping some secrets, but that he was also just playing for time and then traps Durandal in the Imaginary Space by using her Genius Device.
• World's Strongest Woman: Durandal has worked very hard to achieve her current level of skill and strength as a Valkyrie, making her the strongest "normal" human among the cast at the begining of the story. Through Part 1 the only ones to pose a challenge to her in an honest fight are fully awakened Herrschers or MANTIS Super Soldiers from the Previous Era like Kevin (though he presumably isn't even fighting at the peak of his power at the time). However, all of this is also before Durandal herself even unlocks her own Stigmata related abilities and at the end of Part 1 she is still arguably one of the top contenders for the title of World's Best Warrior.
• Worthy Opponent: When Durandal and Kiana finally meet for the first time, they... don't get off to a good start, to say the least. First there's the fact that the former has just kidnapped the latter and brought her back to Otto, but they soon run into ideological differences as they fight. Durandal sees Kiana as someone who has a good amount of spirit and a lot of potential, yet is too unfocused to apply it correctly or listen to advice and too hardheaded to see the bigger picture. On the other end of the table, while Kiana can't deny Durandal's superiority in battle and that she used to once look up to the S-Rank Valkyrie as someone she strived to become like, she now sees Durandal as just a Yes-Woman working for a very evil man and using "duty" as an excuse. By the time their paths cross again, both have had to go through a lot of changes and new experiences and are thus able to have their rematch on much friendlier and even terms. Durandal now congratulates Kiana for having bloomed into a fine warrior, while Kiana admits that she now better understands Bianka's reasoning for following Otto, after which Bianka confides her with the full story of her 'mission' and why she was once reliant on Otto's help. By the end of their sparring session, Durandal expresses she's glad their goals are now more aligned than they ever were, and she is genuinely looking forward to fighting alongside Kiana in the future. Kiana returns the sentiment and adds that she'd feel disappointed if they were forced to oppose one another again.
• You Are in Command Now: At the beginning of ch. 20, during her briefing session with Kiana and Bronya, Theresa mentions that Durandal "took over and deployed 3 S-rankers", implying that she was forced to become the temporary leader of Schicksal in the wake of Hua(?)'s rampage in Schicksal's HQ and her murder of Otto. This is confirmed by Bronya in the first act of Chapter 23.
• You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!: Towards the end of Kiana's captivity at Schicksal under Durandal's watch, Kiana comes to believe that Durandal is at the very least a good person at heart, but it's also beacause of that that she can't come to understand why someone so powerful would willingly work for someone as evil as Otto knowing about all the bad things he's done. Durandal answers by pointing out that in the bigger picture Schicksal under Otto's leadership is still one of, if not the biggest and most influencial armed force fighting against the Honkai threat and without them things would be much worse for billions of people on Earth, so from that perspective Durandal is still using her powers to fight for a good cause. She continues that to her, there's no clear-cut right or wrong in the world, only 'the mission' that everyone has to fulfill. Kiana is left silent by this, though she still doesn't seem to quite agree with Durandal's views, but she's not given a chance to argue the point any further as their location soon comes under attack by the World Serpent.
• You Remind Me of X: In ch. 28 while Durandal is trying to escape from Imaginary Space she meets a group of memory fragments taking the form of a family of anthropomorphsized HOMU dolls. When the two childish ones of the group, "Homu" and "Hora", get into a silly playground fight, Durandal amusedly muses that the latter reminds her of herself in her youth - book smart, but a little arrogant hot-head who's prone to getting into arguments with her peers due to it. The twist near the end of that plotline is that "Hora" really is her, or more specifically, a physical manifestation of her father's memory of her as a child.

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