Maria Dacascos

Maria Ruy Barbosa, better known by her assumed name Maria Dacascos, is a high ranking, second year student in Nam-il High's fight classes. She is the deuteragonist of Fight Class 3.

Appearance
Maria is a dark-skinned woman of above-average height and muscular physique. She has medium length silver-blonde hair which she often wears tied back. During her freshman year, she used to have a very different hairstyle, which consisted of cutting her hair very short in a crew cut.

Background
Maria was originally the child of Wallad Barbosa, a master of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Wallad split off from the other founders of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in order to create his own style that combined striking and grappling. Wallad taught this style only to his family, and they spearheaded the opposition to the cruel practice of Vale Tudo, a barbaric no-holds-barred combat sport.

However, Wallad made the mistake of inducting Jiu Dae-Gak as one of his students. In a mysterious incident, Dae-Gak murdered the entirety of Maria's family except her. Maria was seriously traumatized by the loss, and would even later attempt suicide unsuccessfully.

Maria would later compete in Vale Tudo herself in Brazil, and would later leave to Korea to track down Dae-Gak. She would join the fight classes of Namil High, turning down an offer to go to Berloga High and being forced to fight and defeat Shim Ha-Min as a result. After an incident as a 1st year where she would successfully defeat the entire 2nd year class at the time similtaneously, getting them expelled as a result, Maria would eventually rise to join Namil's Fight Class 3, rumored to be a front for Vale Tudo events in Korea. However, for reasons unknown, Maria would leave Class 3 for Class 1, being the only student in Namil High history to leave Class 3. It was rumoured that she left because she fled a fight and climbed out of the cage. While in Class 1, she fought and defeated the entire class, one by one, in the first round.

Plot
Maria encountered the student Jiu Ji-tae by a chance encounter as he was attacked by Kim Dong-Won. She restrained and then reprimanded Dong-Won for attacking another student. However, while punishing Dong-Won afterwards, she took note when he mentioned that Ji-Tae, a complete novice, successfully avoided his blows.

Maria would later approach Ji-Tae in disguise to test his reactions. Ji-Tae would avoid her strikes with his kinetic vision and then escaped an armbar with his double-jointedness. After discovering Ji-Tae's posters which displayed Dae-Gak, alongside his sister, Maria realized that he was the son of Dae-Gak and had inherited his flexibility and kinetic vision from his father. Upon discovering this, Maria immediately offered to train Ji-Tae.

Ji-Tae initially refused, only demanding that Maria replace his glasses destroyed in the struggle. Instead, she returned with contact lenses, informing him that they would be less cumbersome when he would join the fight classes. Maria had asked her coach, Go Il-Myung, about admitting Ji-Tae to the fight classes. Il-Myung had successfully persuaded the school that Ji-Tae should be admitted to the Fight Classes if he defeated Kim Dong-Won in an MMA bout that would serve as an admission test.

When bringing this information to Ji-Tae, Ji-Tae again stridently refused. Maria, however, eventually convinced him by telling him it would be the only way he had to find Dae-Gak and his sister.

However, when Maria met up with Ji-Tae and Ji-Eun she found he had been injured by Yang Ki-Hoon, who had been paid by Dong-Won to injure Ji-Tae's ankle. After Ji-Tae identified Ki-Hoon as his attacker, Maria confronted both Ki-Hoon and Dong-Won but did not attack them.

When Maria began training Ji-Tae, since he could no longer avoid attacks effectively with his injured ankle she focused on teaching him the flying armbar and the cross guard to maximise his chances.

After the test ended with Ji-tae's disqualification, Maria would interrogate Dong-Won by force. However, Ji-Tae demanded mercy, and threatened to cease working with her if she did not relent. Maria ultimately agreed to this terms and even went so far as to reveal part of her own connection to Dae-Gak. Maria also told Ji-Tae that the only way to meet Dae-Gak would involve qualifying for Fight Class 3, and warned him that her revenge would require the death of Dae-Gak. Maria herself would then request that the school support Ji-Tae in her place in exchange for her fighting in official tournaments on behalf of the school. This allowed Ji-Tae to be accepted as a member of the fight classes.

After this, Maria, now without her previous sponsored accommodation, moved in with Ji-Tae. Afterwards, Maria would compete in the Namil High Ranking Tournament. She warned Ji-Tae that he would not be victorious in any matches no matter who he faced. Maria herself would advance through the preliminaries automatically when all her opponents withdrew.

Maria was confronted by Shim Ha-Min, who was worried about her behaviour. When she brushed him off and asked about Ji-Tae he was aggravated, not able to understand why she was so interested in Ji-Tae. Her response - that she found Ji-Tae attractive - disturbed Ha-Min. Maria found time to keep teaching Ji-Tae, instructing him on further principles of Jiu-Jitsu. However, while teaching at Ji-Tae's house, they were interrupted by Ji-Tae's friend, Ji-Eun. Not wishing to cause a misunderstanding, Ji-Tae hid Maria in a closet while he dealt with Ji-Eun. However, the enclosed space triggered Maria's post-traumatic stress disorder, conjuring intrusive memories of her family's demise at the hands of Dae-Gak. She sprang at Ji-Tae and held him to the floor, but the memories faded before she attacked him.

Maria had intentionally been doing poorly in official tournaments on behalf of the school in order to avoid attention. However, she had won many victories in the ranking fights by forfeit. The first opponent not to forfeit against her in that tournament was Young-Woong. Young-Woong, who had a reputation as a bully hunter, tried to provoke Maria. Maria stuck to an outfighting strategy, going for body shots and circling out, but when Young-Woong threatened Ji-Tae, she attacked aggressively. Maria feinted a kick before covering his vision with her left hand and landed a vicious left hook. Despite cracking Young-Woong's jaw, Young-Woong would resume his attack, landing a punch on Maria's guard that sent her crashing into the referee. Maria would return with a flying knee, twelve-to-six elbow, left overhand combination, before locking in a diving kimura and breaking Young-Woong's arm for a victory.

Maria would then participate in an interview show hosted by Kang Yuri, the Broadcast department head. She would answer several amusing questions, before the interview became serious and Yuri asked her about her actions in the fight, alongside asking whether Maria had ever fled the cage, harkening back to several rumours, along with asking if she had ever killed anyone in a match. Maria defended her actions against Young-Woong, and replied no comment to the other questions.

Maria's final opponent in the tournament would be Ha-Min. Ha-Min came out of the gate with a frenzied attack trying to impose his will quickly. He hammered Maria's guard without giving her any opportunity to respond and almost successfully landed a clean blow, but it was intercepted by a teep from Maria and he was forced back. Maria took the initiative and went on the offensive, nearly finishing Ha-min after he failed on a takedown. Ha-min survived and attempted to rain down blows once more, but Maria countered him at every opportunity and finally knocked him out.

After the tournament, Maria returned to teaching Jiu Ji-Tae. She would recieve a special award for winning the tournament, a trophy in the shape of a thumbs-up. That night however, she left Ji-Tae's house and ran into Ji-Eun. Ji-Eun, thinking Maria was stealing from Ji-Tae, attacked her, and Maria knocked her out in self-defence. When Ji-Eun came to, Ji-Tae explained that Maria did not have a current living situation, so Ji-Eun reluctantly offered Maria a place to stay with her. Ji-Eun even ended up offering Maria some pyjamas.

Eventually, in order to make sure Jiu Ji-Tae would get more experience, Maria began taking him out to start fights with punks on the street. She engineered situations in which he would have to fight thugs.

Later, Maria encountered Jiu Ji-Tae colliding with Jang Chun-Soo and Oh In-Taek. She mistook it for a fight and was about to violently intervene but the quick thinking of Ji-Tae and Cha So-wol convinced her that they were actually friends. Later that day, Maria argued with Coach Il-Myung over the training room key, eventually having to physically steal and run off with it so she could train with Ji-Tae there.

That evening, Maria took out Jiu Ji-Tae to start yet another street fight. Though Jiu Ji-Tae easily overpowered the youths they found, one of them used their mobile phone to call an ally - the Fight Class 2 sambist, Choi Young-joon. Maria negotiated with Young-Joon, offering to apologise to him and his friends if he defeated Ji-Tae in single combat. Ji-Tae fought steadily with Young-Joon but was caught when Young-Joon tricked him into being distracted by the thought of Maria entering the fight. Young-Joon went on to stuff Ji-Tae's takedown and hit him with knees from the clinch. Ji-Tae responded by borrowing Maria's headband in order to imitate Bang Jung-Eum and taunt Young-Joon. Young-Joon started fighting wild and leaving his body open, allowing Ji-Tae to attack. By copying the abilities of various fighters he had seen, Ji-Tae battered Young-Joon's body and seriously hurt his ribs, but took a broken nose from an elbow strike and both fighters collapsed.

Maria however, had another episode where her post-traumatic stress disorder was triggered. The sight of Ji-Tae successfully imitating movements from fighters like Kim Hyang-Ji, Kwon Tae-young and herself made her realise that Ji-Tae had inherited Dae-Gak's "devil's gift": the ability to perfectly replicate techniques after only seeing them a single time. This sent Maria into a crisis as she had powerful flashbacks to Dae-Gak being trained by her father as well as her own unsuccessful suicide attempt. When Young-Joon rose to his feet and pressed the assault once more while Ji-Tae panicked, Maria lashed out at Ji-Tae, insulting him and demanding he fight to the bitter end. Young-Joon hit Ji-Tae a few more times but didn't have the stomach to continue beating him and forfeited instead, while mentioning the existence of "the Tunnel", where no-holds-barred matches were held. Young-Joon and his friends left while Maria and Ji-Tae tried to recover from the ordeal.

Maria would eventually take Ji-Tae, who had fallen unconscious, to the hospital to recover from his wounds.

Abilities
Maria is one of the best fighters out of all of the Namil High students portrayed thus far. She has defeated an entire room of Namil High students by herself, and has defeated every member of Class 1 personally with very little difficulty. Her fighting style, which her fellow students are not informed of, is Barborado Jiu-Jitsu, which combines the grappling and submissions of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with striking techniques drawn from Capoeira, Muay Thai, Karate, and Taekwondo.

Maria herself fights in an extremely aggressive manner. To make up for her relative reach disadvantage compared to her opponents Maria is adept at closing the distance and attacking, especially with knees and elbows. Her striking proficiency is so excellent that only two of her classmates are aware that her base is actually in Jiu-Jitsu.

In terms of pure physical prowess Maria's sheer strength is considered average for her class. She has a 1 rep maximum of 145kg for her deadlift, 110kg for her squats and 85kg for her bench press. Her explosivity and speed, however, are uniquely excellent.

Maria's only major weakness thus far seems to be that she is much worse on the backfoot. Shim Ha-min had more success than any previous opponent by rushing forward and bringing pressure to bear on her.

Personality
Maria has a very cold initial impression. Her single driving goal is the death of Jiu Dae-Gak. According to the broadcasting team she has undergone a personality change since she joined and has calmed down significantly. She was asked several questions during her interview with Kang Yuri that shed light on her preferences. She dislikes spicy food, does not consider herself good at playing games, and is not very good at singing.