Peitho E. Branford (ペートー・イー・ブランフォード, Pētō ī Buranfōdo) is a secondary ally featured in the comic Pink among Blood Red Roses.
Introduced as an antagonist and one of the participants in the "Red Valley Murder", Peitho is a woman born to riches who arrives at Greenville in order to settle her score with Rose Paisley after the latter's encounter with Peitho's friend, Nephele Vetti.
Peitho is a Talent user and wields "Geometry and Eros" in battle. Geometry and Eros allows Peitho to hurl objects at a certain target by making that object's shape with her hands.
Appearance
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Peitho is a young woman with a curvaceous and well-endowed physique, 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) tall (not including her ears). She has sharp black eyes, short, gold fur and hair that is kept as five pointy tufts, three in the front and two in the back of her head. She also wears dark red lipstick and purple eyeshadow. Peitho is seen by many characters as beautiful and eye-catching, mainly due to her large bosom and slender legs. Rose initially believes that Peitho got breast implants to enlarge her chest, but the latter affirms that her chest is all-natural.
Before awakening her Talent, Peitho's hair and eyes weren't as angular, and her pupils were rounder. Her ability's forced awakening caused this to change and also gave her two dark "X・" marks below her eyes.
Her outfits change throughout the series, but her main appearance consists of a short blue top that shows off substantial cleavage, a pair of Daisy Dukes and a dark choker with the same "X・" emblem as her eye marks. She also frequently carries a Vogue handbag and has a "X・" naval piercing.
Personality
Peitho is an intelligent woman whose choices in life led her down a path of pain, loss and regret.
For a long time, Peitho's goal in life was to be in control of her own fate, holding onto power no matter what means she had to take to do so. This desire led her to befriend a young Nephele Vetti and Dolos Valentine. The three of them bullied other children to "stay at the top of the food chain", although Peitho herself was rather passive in these activities and usually simply watched Nephele and Vetti harm the other kids tormented others. The only time that Peitho physically assaulted another student was when she was forced to slap Holly Chevron on the day of the Red Valley murder.
Peitho's youth was given to her on a silver platter, as she grew up as the sole daughter of Ogenus Branford, the wealthy CEO of Branford Vallis Co., a valuable medical equipment manufacturer. She was homeschooled for several years and lived a privileged life, meeting other wealthy peers due to her father's connections.
After meeting Nephele and Dolos, Peitho developed a toxic relationship with the former, making sure to listen and agree to everything she asked her to do. This culminated in the Red Valley murder and after Nephele, Peitho's only friend was gone, Peitho became alone once more and tried different ways to form relationships with others. In her teen years, this effort finally "paid off", as her physique matured and she developed attractive features, she was happy that people took interest in her, though this was at the cost of the control she desired to have.
Eventually, this interest led one of Peitho's teachers who'd been preying on her for a considerable amount of time to trap Peitho in class and rape her despite her pleas and rejection. During the act, Peitho managed to grab a ruler and stab the teacher and she proceeded to step on his head various times. The teacher was fatally injured but didn't die from his wounds and due to Peitho's existing facade, no one believed her account of the story.
Peitho's rape made her realize that she never lacked "control" or "power", already having those things due to her own wealth, but out of fear of being hurt, she kept turning a blind eye to the wrong acts she and her "friends" caused. She understood she was missing a form of Equal Love (Storge and Phillia in Greek). She wanted a person who she could share experiences and feelings with, loving her for who she was as a person rather than her status or body.
After this realization, Peitho attempts to commit suicide by using her own ability to fatally injure herself, but she is healed by Rose Paisley and befriends her.
Abilities
"Talent"
Peitho's "Talent" is Geometry and Eros. It grants her the ability to hurl objects towards a certain direction. The ability is triggered by Peitho making a shape with her hands and saying "Geometry", for example: Making a rectangular shape will cause a brick to come flying at you, a triangle would lead to a shard of glass and a circle could lead to a round rock. In order to launch the objects, she says "and Eros".
While the ability itself is rather simple and basic, that fact and Peitho's mastery over it also makes it incredibly dangerous, and she manages to overcome Rose in battle, nearly winning before willingly giving up her own attack.
One of the ability's inherent weaknesses is the fact Peitho can't simply hone the objects on a specific target, but simply launch them in a general direction she points to. However, Peitho overcomes this weakness by making objects ricochet off of each-other and bounce towards another direction.
Personal Skills
- Smarts: Peitho's looks aren't the only thing that's sharp about her. By taking extra classes and putting a lot of effort into her studies, Peitho is one of the smarter characters in the series, though she rarely shows this off anymore. An example of this is how she overcame the weakness of her own ability's simple direction-based launching.
- Martial Arts: Peitho is knowledgeable in some form of martial arts, being able to easily stand her ground in a hand-to-hand fight against Rose.