Julia

Julia is a young woman whose blonde hair falls to her shoulders, with bangs sweeping across her forehead and pale blue eyes beneath them. Within the series she reads as a splash of color against a dull world, her bright red umbrella and automobile standing out sharply from the muted places she moves through. That striking, faintly mysterious quality is part of what makes her so memorable a presence.

She carries the aura of a classic femme fatale, alluring and hard to read, drawing attention wherever she goes. Beneath the glamour there is quiet steel: faced with an impossible order, she chooses her own path rather than betray the man she loves. Details such as being addressed as Julia-sama in the original Japanese suggest she once held real rank and standing inside the Red Dragon Syndicate, a poise that lingers even after years spent in hiding.

Julia, Vicious, and Spike were once fellow members of the Red Dragon Syndicate, and she was involved with Vicious during the 2060s. In 2068 she took in a badly hurt Spike after he collapsed outside her home and nursed him back to health, beginning a perilous affair. Spike offered to abandon the syndicate and run away with her, even though desertion carried a death sentence, and wrote her a note to meet at a graveyard. Vicious, however, uncovered the romance and told Julia she must kill Spike there or both of them would die. Rather than obey, she tore up the note and disappeared, leaving Spike to walk into an ambush that left him presumed dead.

In 2069 she surfaced on Callisto and befriended Gren at the Rester House. Learning of the music box Vicious had given him, she urged him to look inside, exposing a solar transmitter that revealed Vicious's betrayal. She moved on again after roughly a month. By 2071 she was living in Tharsis when Shin warned her the syndicate meant to erase every link to Vicious. Fleeing her pursuers, she crossed paths with Faye Valentine, who shot out the chasing cars, and Julia later passed Faye a quiet message for Spike, saying she would be waiting at the place.

She kept her word and met Spike at the graveyard, gun in hand as before, but again she could not fire, and the two set off together. A supply run to Annie's store went wrong, since the syndicate had already gotten there and left Annie dying. Realizing Spike intended to go after Vicious, Julia vowed to stay with him to the end. Ambushed and forced into a running gunfight, they cut their way to a rooftop, yet a final shot struck her as they fled. Dying in Spike's arms, she murmured that it was all a dream, and he answered that yes, it was just a dream.