Darkness

Dustiness Ford Lalatina (ダスティネス・フォード・ララティーナ), usually known as Darkness (ダクネス), is one of the three main female protagonists of the KonoSuba series. She is a crusader with masochistic tendencies who joins Kazuma's party.

Appearance
A 5'6" tall young woman with graceful features and alabaster skin, Darkness is drop-edge gorgeous. She is well-endowed and also has light blue eyes and straight, long blonde hair, usually kept in a ponytail tied with a braid and red hair clips secured on both sides of her bangs.

She is usually seen using a yellow and black sleeveless dress with silver trimmings that hides her body (plump in the right places), black chainmail, and a silver armor composed of metal greaves, sabatons, tasset, shoulder plate on her left side, wing-like cloth perched upon her right shoulder and a cuirass with a red bow.

Personality
As a crusader, Darkness initially presents herself with an aura of pride and nobility, preaching about her duty to shield others from harm. She speaks in a very serious tone of voice and often comes off as very mature.

However despite these outward appearances, in reality, her true character is that of a complete masochistic pervert. While she does want to protect others, her masochistic urges are what ultimately drive her to commit many of her “heroic” acts throughout the series, resulting in many onlookers viewing her as a role model for her supposed selflessness. Her masochism extends to verbal abuse as well, a running gag being how she often responds to Kazuma’s sharp insults with her reeling back in pleasure. Throughout the story, she becomes progressively more open about her true intentions, to the point where she blatantly reveals her reason for becoming a crusader was in hopes of being sexually tortured by the Demon King, and that her ideal husband is an abusive alcoholic who would force her to sell her body for money.

But while she enjoys abuse, there are a few instances where Darkness can become genuinely uncomfortable. Despite her strength and stamina, Darkness’s swordplay is utterly incompetent and she often misses targets directly in front of her, causing her to be embarrassed. One of the only types of humiliation Darkness is not okay with is being made fun of by her real name: Lalatina. Ironically, despite her masochistic urges, Darkness is very uncomfortable with seeing Kazuma naked and screaming when he appeared suddenly in a towel.

Though her masochism is her most prominent trait, Darkness is a very kind and caring individual and can often be seen as the most courageous member of the party, never hesitating to put herself in harm’s way (though most of the time, she has ulterior motives). Being a devout Eris cultist, she has a strong distaste for demons and has pledged herself to protect those around her. Additionally, while she is more than willing to put herself in harm's way to satisfy her urges, she refuses to allow others to be harmed, as seen when she showed genuine anger at Beldia after he killed several adventurers.

Due in part to her consistently poor swordsmanship, Darkness will often show extreme, almost childlike excitement, when met with opponents she's able to hit.

History
Darkness comes from the highly respected Dustiness house of nobles, nicknamed the Shield of the Kingdom, and the family in charge. She grew up with other nobles and acted as an older sister to Iris, and later a mother figure to her cousin Sylphina. Both Sylphina's and Darkness' mothers died of disease; that side of her bloodline was known for magical power and resistance but also the weak immune system.

As Darkness got older, her father tried to arrange marriages for her. She kept rejecting them and frequently ran away to Axel. She went to the Eris Church every day to pray for adventuring companions, and later met Chris. They adventured together and briefly fought Hoost.

Darkness meets Kazuma after reading his notice looking for party members. Though he initially rebukes her, she eventually joins the party and becomes close friends with Kazuma, Aqua, and Megumin, and they go on many adventures together.

To help Kazuma get a stay of trial, she agrees to meet with Alderp's son Walter. Due to or perhaps despite Kazuma's interference, Walter turns down the proposal.

Darkness acts as the party's liaison with noble affairs, and it's through her that they meet Iris.

It is revealed that a significant portion of the damage that put Kazuma into debt (Beldia's and the Destroyer's attack) were paid off by the Dustiness family and putting them in serious debt. With her father falling ill, Darkness initially tries dangerous quests but eventually, after seeing how far her fellow adventurers were willing to go to help her, Darkness decides to marry Alderp to pay off the debts. Kazuma, with the help of Megumin, Yunyun, Aqua, and many other adventurers, rescues her and pays off her debts. Aqua removes Ignis' affliction, and Alderp goes missing due to the actions of Maxwell and Vanir. Ignis' takes over as the lord of Axel, but Darkness serves as acting Lady while her father recovers.

After seeing the Crimson Magic Clan's school, Darkness and her father begin to set up their education system in Axel. She also attempts to force Aqua and Kazuma to pay taxes. Sylphina comes to visit but falls ill. Darkness, along with Kazuma and Chris, goes to Zeeleschilt to get one of the ingredients for a cure.

Darkness receives a cursed armor set from Kazuma that, along with being very sturdy, also makes her much more aggressive and bold. She is an instrumental part of the assault on the Demon King's castle.

Abilities
Stats: Darkness has high Strength, being able to fight against several guards without being stopped, as well as easily breaking Beldia's armor when he was almost defeated. Sadly, due to her aforementioned horrible accuracy, she is unable to use said power properly, and as a result, it only mainly serves as a complement to her durability. Darkness also has high HP, Darkness has a large reservoir of energy and vitality needed to fight on the front lines for an extended period. Her stamina is so vast that even while Kazuma used Drain Touch, a technique that typically stuns or even incapacitates targets, on her for an extended period she was still strong enough to easily overpower him.

Equipment: After defeating Vanir, Darkness also started to use armor made with a bit of adamantite, the strongest metal existing in that world.

Crusader Skills: Even though Darkness is a Crusader, she never employs or even bothers to learn any offensive skills due to her masochism. However, despite this she does know at least a few Crusader skills such as:
 * Two-Handed Sword: This allows the user to carry a two-handed sword or other heavy weapons. Darkness can wield a sword, albeit her horrible accuracy makes it so that she can never land a hit on her target when fighting against enemies. However, when Vanir possessed her, her sword skill increased to the point where she was able to fend off skilled adventurers.
 * Physical Resistance: Resistance again physical damage. Darkness can withstand melee attacks, functioning as the traditional "meat shield" role for the most part. Where this is exacerbated, however, is in how durable she truly is, able to withstand attacks from high-level creatures such as the Hydra and a Zombie Dragon.
 * Magic Resistance: Prevent magic from taking effect. Because of this ability, Darkness was able to survive even Megumin's Explosion spell.
 * Decoy: Attracts the attention of monsters.

Trivia

 * Darkness' birthday is on April 6th.
 * It is even speculated by Kazuma that she may possess the toughest body in the kingdom.
 * Darkness likes to secretly try on Megumin's outfits.