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Vasilisa "Vasen'ka" Medvedeva
Vasilisa the Beautiful
First main heroine of the manga. Young pagan witch who was recruited to Red Army during the WWII. She is a bit carefree and likes to break rules, but nevertheless a competent officer and a great asset for her comrades as a magic user.
She seems to be bisexual, as despite having relationships with a fellow male soldier until he is KIA, she does not mind making out with Nadya later.
- Action Girl: She does not hesitate using her pistol and her magic skills in combat.
- Book Dumb: She doesn't come off as particularly brainy and, considering her upbringing and the setting, may actually be illiterate - yet she also has memorized vast amounts of knowledge about Russian folklore, Orthodox-Christian theology, and local traditions. She's also very quick-thinking when she wants to be: when Bertha puts the curse of Saint Pyatnitsa on her, dooming her to a certain death and robbing her of her strength and magic, she buys time by making a "last request" to die in fashionable clothes (realizing that Bertha, who has previously repeatedly mocked her lack of femininity and is both vain and sadistic enough to not find it too funny to refuse), causing her to start sewing her a dress. This lasts until 00:01, turning Thursday into Friday - Saint Pyatitsa's holy day on which women are forbidden from performing labor. Having broken the taboo, which she probably didn't even know about due to lacking Vasenka's respect of rustic tradition, her curse is gone and she's smitten by the Saint.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: She can do the things right when push comes to shove, but she likes breaking rules and hates military discipline.
- Decoy Protagonist: A complicated case. While she's right there in the title and is by far the heroine to "stand-out" more both visually and dramatically, from a narrative viewpoint she doesn't truly get all that much of a character arc. She falls in love with Nadya, true, but she starts out as already being the best version of herself and little is changed about her core personality by the end.
- Fiery Redhead: She is not aggressive but her hair is red and she is pretty impulsive and fits the type overall.
- Magic Knight: Modern example, as she does not hesitate using both her weapon and her spells in action.
- Semi-Divine: Claims to be a descendant of the pagan god Veles (Slavic god of cattle, poets and underworld).
- She Cleans Up Nicely: It's not that she does not look pretty, but just compare her look during her time with Baba Yaga and in present during her military service.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Despite her tomboyish character and fashion, she can pass as a girly girl just fine if needed and is knowldgeble in such things as sewing.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: As a descendant of the pagan god Veles, and true to her surname, she can transform to a bear.
Nadezda Solomonovna "Nadya" Norstein
Lietenant Norstein
Second main heroine and Vasen'kas friend. She is the lieutenant of NKVD (Soviet secret police) and a political officer put in charge of Vasilisa. A young Jewish girl, who finds supernatural things unscientific, despite encountering them on a daily basis.
- Action Girl: She has her badass moments.
- Brainy Brunette: Her hair is violet technically, but she fits the trope to a T.
- Character Development: Starts out as a stuck-up, narrow-minded officer automatically dismissive of the improper and the unscientific. Through Vasenka's influence and her adventures throughout Russian mythology, though, she learns to loosen up and come to admire and respect the wonders and mysteries of the world. This is most evident in the final chapter: when Vasenka gets killed, the rational, "scientific" thing to do is accept this - but instead, Nadya decides to do what a heroine of a Russian folktale would: she makes a bet with Death, uses clever wordplay to win, then journeys into the underworld to save Vasenka's soul.
- Friendly Sniper: Effectively uses the anti-tank sniper rifle in chapter 3.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Though never stated clearly, her behavior during the last (and a couple more) chapter strongly hints for it.
- My Country, Right or Wrong: Or in her case, "Communism, right or wrong". She's a genuine believer in communism and that it could create a better world. She's perfectly aware of the evils Stalin's regime is capable of - as a Jew, she's experienced some personally - but she's a true believer in the ideal and implies that she went on to become a high ranking Party member in part because she wanted to fix the system from within into what it could be.
- Political Officer
