Mistral

Mistral (ミストラル Misutoraru) was a female Cyborg Ninja and a member of Desperado Enforcement LLC. She was one of the Winds of Destruction alongside Sundowner and Monsoon, and named after the dry northern winds that blow from the Alps to the Mediterranean. Mistral used weapons called "L'Etranger" in whip and rod configurations. Outside of combat operations, she wore a violet coat with paudrons, which she removed in a suggestive manner when about to fight an enemy. Her serial number is 977-AZQEE.

Early life
Born to French and Algerian parents in the country of Algeria, she was orphaned at a very early age during the Algerian Civil War in the 1990s, and she ended participating in battles as a child soldier throughout the war. She would eventually find her parents' murderers, and in her words, "butcher" them. Afterwards, she decided that killing people was her calling, and served in the French Foreign Legion. She participated in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite killing being her calling, she found the action itself to be "dull," comparing it to dominoes. She even grew envious of her prey because they had causes to fight for. Eventually, she met a man who changed all that and allowed her to fight for an ideal.

Desperado Incursions
During the events of 2018, Mistral was assigned command of the Desperado forces that were aiding a military coup against the parliamentary government of Abkhazia. Around the time the Maverick agent Raiden located the plant, Mistral and Desperado client Andrey Dolzaev had a conversation near the top of the plant. He attempted to threaten her with a gun, but backed off. As he left, she turned around, spotted Raiden from afar, and blew a kiss at him. This alarmed Raiden and he crouched into a defensive stance that caused Doktor some concern regarding his spiked heart rate. As Raiden redirected his attention back to Mistral, he noticed that she had disappeared. Raiden remarked that he was okay and that he simply "dodged a bullet."

She later encountered Raiden at Desperado's base of operations, a refinery plant located near the coastline. After dropping her coat off, she revealed all she knew about him, including his former nickname from the Liberian Civil War, "Jack the Ripper." She remarked about their similar pasts, although she quickly learned that the similarities ended there and that they were quite different as people. At first, she had her Dwarf Gekko fight Raiden, but eventually the two fought on the rooftops.

Later on, their fight fell down to the main level of the plant. Raiden jumped over one of her thrusts and L'Etranger pierced a liquid nitrogen tank instead. Landing on her weapon, Raiden performed a flip and cut open the tank, freezing her with the liquid nitrogen. Raiden then finished off the immobilized Mistral in mid-air. Despite her defeat, she nonetheless felt some content in her death because she realized what it felt like to die for a cause, and expressed her wish towards someone (implied to be Steven Armstrong) to continue to fight due to her belief that he wouldn't fall. Her last words, however, were imparted in French as she expressed her love with all her heart. Afterwards, her Pole-Arm weapon was later copied after a careful analysis of her battle data.

After death
Although she herself died, her overall form was later given a body double that was controlled by an AI. Such a body double was later dispatched to guard the World Marshal Inc. HQ building's server room at Denver, Colorado, alongside a Monsoon body double. The double's appearance was similar enough that Raiden initially mistook it for the real deal and expressed shock that she apparently survived his duel.

Personality and ablities
Mistral, like Raiden, experienced civil war at a very young age and has been made into a cold killer as a result. Before she came to Desperado she felt she did not have a purpose other than to kill anything in her path. She even said that even she envied her prey.

Based on her last words, it is heavily implied that Mistral had loved Steven Armstrong or at least held him in high regard due to his non-conformist ideals as well as his philosophy regarding a person's free will to make their own decisions in life. This is evidenced by the fact that during one of Kevin and Raiden's codec conversation, Raiden speculated that her last words were directed towards someone who held strong ideals, as well as seemingly someone that he hasn't met yet at the time of Mistral's demise (Raiden had already met Jetstream Sam and Sundowner, with the only exception being Monsoon). Both Raiden and Kevin speculate that this individual is possibly a financial backer of Desperado as opposed to an actual member of the organization, further implicating Armstrong to be the identity of said individual.

She was very similar to Sniper Wolf as she was "rescued" by someone she admires on the battlefield without a purpose and they were both grateful to their killers for freeing them. Mistral had the ability to take the arms of Dwarf Gekko and attach them to her body, also using them as weapons.

She can attach up to 14 arms of Dwarf Gekkos to her body, 7 arms on each of the two sides of her body. She can also use the remaining cores as volleys to bombard her foes with, throwing them at a fast enough velocity to generate flames.

Most of her body was consisted of cybernetic parts, although her upper chest area was suspected, due to its natural movement, to either be originally human, or an advanced chasis by Doktor, which he deduced the former was more likely. Similar to Raiden, she possessed optical implants in her eyes. Shortly after her arms were inserted into her body, her eye glowed crimson.

Behind the scenes
Mistral's multiple arms give her a slight resemblance to Screaming Mantis, though her original concepts show more similarity to Laughing Octopus. In concept artist Yong-Hee Cho's official blog on Platinum Games' website, he explained that he was tasked to create Mistral by director Kenji Saito, as he wanted "tendril like objects to come out of this girl [Mistral]." It eventually resulted in the concept of her fusing with Dwarf Gekko. Cho also implied that, similar to other female boss characters in the Metal Gear series such as Sniper Wolf, Fortune, The Boss, and the Beauty and the Beast Unit, he was going to make her a femme fatale with a tragic backstory. He also wanted to make her sick and perverse looking initially. He also wanted to place a helmet on her, although this ended up cut.

Her weapon is a double-sided polearm called L'Etranger, a reference to the novel L’Étranger by Albert Camus. The novel's protagonist is a French-Algerian man named Meursault.

Full details of Mistral's battle were leaked in UK Official PlayStation Magazine 's coverage of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

At one point in the TGS trailer, Mistral's right eye glowed red, hinting that, similar to Raiden, she possessed optical implants.

Mistral's boss theme is called "A Stranger I Remain". Its lyrics talk about a constant stranger who can only consider the battlefield her home.

She shares the same serial number as Samuel Rodrigues.