| Signum | |
|---|---|
| Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha character | |
| First appearance | A's Episode 1 |
| Voiced by | Kaori Shimizu (Japanese) Bailey Chadwick (English) |
| Profile | |
| Aliases | Signum Yagami (Earth Name) |
| Information | |
| Magic system | Belka |
| Weapon | Levantine |
| Partner | Agito (StrikerS Epilogue) |
| Master | Hayate Yagami |
Signum (シグナム Shigunamu), voiced by Kaori Shimizu (Japanese) and Bailey Chadwick (English)[1], is a character in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's. She appears in neither the previous series Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha nor the alternate universe story Triangle Heart, but appears in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. Signum is the leader of the Wolkenritter (German > "Cloud Knights"), a creation of the Book of Darkness. Signum's weapon is a chain-link sword called Laevatein, and as a magical creation, she has no familiar. She is named for the Opel Signum, much like characters of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha are named for cars, and her device appears to be named after the mythical sword Laevateinn. As per the other Wolkenritter, she has no last name (though in earth she is known as Hayate's mother Yagami Signum).
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Signum is generally seen as the cold one of the Wolkenritter, but Shamal has said that Signum's heart has warmed since they met their mistress Hayate Yagami and that she has started smiling sometimes. She is completely dedicated to Hayate, and as the leader of the Wolkenritter, fights for the others as well. Signum is the most serious of the Wolkenritter, having reservations about relaxing with Hayate, whom she unfailingly addresses as "Mistress Hayate" in contrast to Vita and Shamal. Signum forms a friendship and rivalry with Fate Testarossa, and while she claims that she is considerably more skilled than Fate, she is willing to acknowledge Fate's skill to some degree.
Signum enters the story when Vita has attempted to steal Nanoha Takamachi's Linker Core (a mage's source of magic) for the Book of Darkness. Since the arrival of Nanoha's cavalry, Fate Testarossa and Yūno Scrya, Vita is cornered and Signum must come to her rescue with Shamal. The Wolkenritter overpower the TSAB troupe with their use of high-powered magical cartridges, and Signum manages to snap Fate's staff, Bardiche, in half. The battle ends with Shamal finally managing to get Nanoha's Linker Core and Nanoha breaking Vita's barrier. Signum refuses to take a bath that night for fear of Hayate seeing the injuries sustained in her battle with Fate.
The Wolkenritter attack mages and monsters to steal their Linker Cores, their sources of magic, to fill the 666 pages of the Book of Darkness with this power before it saps any more of Hayate's and endangers her life by paralyzing her internal organs. They continue to obtain Linker Cores and fight off interference from the Time-Space Administration Bureau (TSAB), mainly Fate- with whom Signum faces off during every battle, and whose strength she respects- and Nanoha, while they try to keep Hayate from knowing that they are stealing magic for pages; she has told them that as long as she is mistress of the Book, she will not allow anyone to be harmed over it.
Signum, determined to save Hayate even if it means going against her wishes, convinces the other Wolkenritter to fill up the Book of Darkness anyway. What the Wolkenritter don't know about Hayate is that the Book, once completed, may stop sapping her Linker Core for pages, but that does not mean that it will stop hurting her or undo its damage. In fact, the master of the Book dies upon its completion. Signum continues to masquerade as a distant relative of Hayate's while covering up their deeds.
Just before the Book of Darkness is completed, Suzuka brings Hayate some friends in the hospital as the Wolkenritter are there... Nanoha and Fate. The warring groups recognize each other and their shared wish at once, and meet on the roof of the hospital. Nanoha and Fate try to tell the Wolkenritter about what will happen to Hayate, but their confrontation is cut short by both the interference of two masked men and the completion of the Book of Darkness with the Linker Cores of the Wolkenritter themselves. All that is left of Signum is her winter coat.
Alia and Lotte Liese, who turn out to be the masked "men", frame Nanoha and Fate for the death of Signum and the others. Hayate screams in horror for all of this to stop and is taken over by the will of the Book of Darkness, becoming the fearsome possessed woman inside of it just as the real duo escapes their prison. Meanwhile, Signum's spirit is trapped inside the Book of Darkness with the others. When Hayate rejects her own wish of vengeance, she reprograms the entire Book, but a virus still remains inside, the one that caused the evil aspect of the Book in the first place. Hayate awakens the spirits of Signum and her friends inside the book of Darkness, and she decides to join the fight against the automated defence program that Hayate describes as "the 'darkness' in the Book of Darkness." Signum turns Laevatein into a longbow to attack the rogue program and break through its barriers in conjunction with Fate. In the end, Reinforce releases all the Wolkenritter in physical forms at the cost of her own existence. Afterward, Signum tells Fate that they will fight again to settle their battle once and for all, and Fate notes that they will do so many times.
In an epilogue that takes place six years later, Signum has a 25 years old appearance(as she is ten years older than Fate and Nanoha), and still lives with the other Wolkenritter and Hayate, posing as the adoptive parent of Hayate.
Two official manga series expand on what happens to the characters between A's and the sequel, StrikerS.
In the epilogue issue of the A's manga series, stated as being five months after the conclusion of the A's anime, the Wolkenritter are shown as being officers of the Armed Corps, assigned to the Special Investigations Assistance Department.[2]
The ongoing StrikerS manga series occurs six years after the events of A's[3] and four years before the events of the StrikerS anime series[4]. In it, the Wolkenritter have been reassigned to different departments within the TSAB, and work together only on special occasions; Signum is now an officer with the Midchilda Army, Vita and Shamal have been posted to the Central Office, and Zafira acts as bodyguard for both Hayate and Shamal. They still live together with Hayate, and are planning on moving their residence from Earth to Midchilda.
In a supplemental manga chapter taking place after StrikerS, Signum fights against Nanoha in a mock battle, and the match ends in draw.
In Nanoha Force, Signum engaged a battle with a terrorist Cypha but later find herself lying on a pool of her own blood with a sword sticking through her gut. Since then she remained catatonic. Hayate tried to find Bright Noa hoping that he'll slap her back into senses but unfortunately, Bright Noa have been dead for centuries.
Ten years after the epilogue of A's, Signum became the sub-commander of the Lightning Squad of the TSAB, working under Fate, who worked under Hayate. Unlike Vita, however, she did not participate in training the trainees, under the pretense that she is an old fashioned knight and can only teach to them is to get close to their enemies and rip them apart. However, near the end half of the series, she accepted the request of Erio Mondial to spar with him.
During the attack of Saint's Cradle, Signum fought with Knight Zest Grangeitz, who united with Agito. She performed unison with Reinforce Zwei, but only managed to end the fight with a draw. The fight continues inside the headquarters of Capital City Defense Forces, and Signum came out victorious. In his dying breath, Zest asks her to take care of Agito and Lutecia Alpino. Agito, angry with Signum for killing Zest but grateful that she allowed him to die with honor, agrees to fight alongside Signum as her Unison Device, and together, the two destroy 50 gadgets that arrive as reinforcements.
Much like Raising Heart and Bardiche speak English, the Wolkenritter's devices speak German. Translations are in parentheses.
The creator of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is noted as a fan of Super Robot Wars, thus fans has noted that Signum might be based on or is a homage to the heroine of Super Robot Wars Advance, Lamia Loveless. There have been a lot of similarities found between both characters:
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