| “ | So please… Please. So, I'm asking you. Don't leave me. Please don't abandon me. I'll be a Mask Maker forever! I'll keep being Illness forever! | ” |
–Illness to Life, 2002 (Side A): Bullet Garden | ||
Illness (イルネス, Irunesu) is one of the Four Agonies of the Mask Makers.
Since infancy, Illness was worshiped as a sacrificial god by a branch of SAMPLE and experienced constant abuse at their hands. She joins the Mask Makers after they annihilated her torturers, and in August 2002 hijacks the cruise liner Exit along with the rest of the Mask Makers.
After the events on board Exit and its sister ship Entrance, SAMPLE kidnaps Illness and makes her their forty-fourth Bride, fated to marry SAMPLE's next god-candidate.
"Illness" is a code name. Her real name is unknown.
Appearance[]
Illness' combat suit.
Illness' Mask Maker attire consists of a black combat suit like "the kind worn by special forces in movies" along with a mask and pair of goggles which obscure her face. Only her mouth is supposed to be exposed. She carries around two glocks while on the job.
Outside of her uniform, she is seen wearing a black choker ribbon and a Gothic-style black and yellow shoulderless dress, occasionally with a matching parasol in hand.
She has blonde hair and blue eyes underlined by dark shadows.
Personality[]
Illness is immature, particularly in contrast to the businessmen she appears alongside. She is tactless, speaking exactly what's on her mind even when it's inappropriate or rude. She does not get along well with her coworkers, who mock and belittle her and whom she antagonizes in return. Like her boss Luchino B. Campanella, Illness is easily nauseous at the sight of blood and smell of gunsmoke and often ends up vomiting on the job as a result. Unlike her boss, however, she makes no attempt to hide this fact, and shamelessly throws up in front of her allies when she needs to.
While she does not feel saddened by the deaths that surround her, she views herself as a sick person for being so willing to kill other people in exchange for her own life. Due to her upbringing in SAMPLE, which left her with the notion that her duty as a sacrificial god is to help others at her own expense, and her experience with a group of boys who let themselves die trying to save her, Illness has come to see her survival instincts as something abnormal rather than a part of human nature. This troubles her, but because she fears being cast out and returned to the life of torture that she knew, it is all she can do to resign to the conclusion that she is a bad person. To her, even being an evil or strange human being is preferable to not being human at all.
Illness comes across to strangers as an eccentric and childish, but generally friendly, teenager. She is talkative and outspoken about her thoughts and opinions, whether they are positive or negative, and has no reservations about approaching celebrities like Claudia Walken to share them. This is not because she does not worry about how others perceive her, but because she has accepted that everyone will consider her weird no matter what she does. She is described by Claudia as an "honest person".
Illness tends to experience emotion in intense but fleeting bouts. She reacts in the moment, without consideration for whether it is appropriate to do so—and often even before she understands what she is feeling or why.
She is impulsive, but she is also stubborn about following through with her decisions once she has made up her mind.
Chronology[]
(To be expanded upon)
At a South American restaurant, in August 2002, several men from a drug cartel confront the Businessmen (that is, the Mask Makers) as they dine amidst multiple corpses. The Businessmen order Illness and Death to descend from their hiding spot in the ceiling and pump the men with lead. Afterwards, Illness falls sick due to the smell of blood and gunpowder and asks permission to vomit, then does so. The Businessmen, disgusted, scold her for ruining their victory. Illness complains about the rodents in the ceiling as well as bad hygiene and wonders how the Businessmen can be so relaxed in the midst of slaughter before vomiting again (which results in more insults).
Death is later killed by the drug cartel's newly arrived sniper Angelo, who proceeds to kill two of the Mask Makers for drawing their weapons. Illness does not move. Instead, she starts a short conversation with him regarding her ally's death. Illness starts firing at Angelo, who dodges the bullets. and kills two more members for drawing their weapons. The Mask Makers realize that any further attempts to kill him will result in their own deaths, and refrain from firing further.
When Illness asks why Angelo did not shoot her, Angelo answers that he doesn't kill women and children. Illness thinks he is 'cool' and is conflicted as a result, and her teammates try to convince Illness that she has been insulted and that Angelo is sexist. Angelo dives out a window after the Mask Makers ignite smoke bombs. Immediately after he escapes, his colleague the Demolisher rams a truck through the restaurant.