Pleiades Saints

From left to right, Nico, Mirai, Saki and Satomi

The Pleiades Saints is a team of Puellae Magi featured in Puella Magi Kazumi Magica: The Innocent Malice. Together, they fight witches in Asunaro city.

Their name stems from the Pleiades star cluster, whose stars represent the legendary seven sisters, the Pleiades of Greek mythology.

Members

The Saint's current roster is composed of:

Kazumi (かずみ)

A girl with amnesia who can't remember anything except her name. Her innocent, cheerful and friendly personalities are in proportion of her lost memories. She is a glutton for delicious foods and was found by Kaoru and Umika who take her in. Her wish is currently unknown because she never told it to the other two girls before becoming an amnesiac.
She is the team's sharpshooter, maintaining some distance from the opponent and firing powerful magic beams when the opportunity arises.

Kaoru (カオル)

An athletic soccer player living with Umika. A bright older sister figure who takes good care of things. She wished for a strong, healthy body that would let her play.
She fights by dealing powerful kicks and ball strikes, stunning, distracting and withering down the opponent.

Umika Misaki (御崎 海香)

A popular novelist who bought the trio's house with her earnings. Her reliable, mature aura changes completely when there's a deadline looming. She is close to Kaoru and thinks of Kazumi as a little sister. She wished for the chance to meet an editor who would publish her writing.
In battle, she uses her magical book to read the opponent's mind, in order to figure out it's weakness and to improve the team's chances of success.

Saki Asami (浅海 サキ)

A mature and intelligent girl, she effectively acts as the Pleiades' leader. Cool and collected, she is apt at commanding the other girls both in battle and outside, such as in search mission, seen by how she dispatches the girls to different areas while searching for the escaped witch in chapter 3. She also cares not only for their safety, but for their morale: seeing Kazumi's fragile mental state, she reassures her when needed.
In battle, she wields an electric rod, and can summon lightning at will from it. When transformed, her glasses become a single monocle.

Mirai Wakaba (若葉 みらい)

An impulsive girl with long, puffy hair. She is hotheaded and is not afraid to express her thoughts as loud as possible, and occasionally vents out her frustration on Kazumi by smacking her, especailly when she says or does something she shouldn't, such as doubting herself. She also thinks of herself highly, sometimes even calling herself "Mirai-sama". But deep down she is a caring girl.
Her individual abilities in battle are so far unknown.

Satomi Usagi (宇佐木 里美)

A polite girl who loves animals, and wants to become a vet when she grows up. She her wish to gain the ability to talk to animals, which she can use to gather intel: she demonstrated this ability in chapter 3, where she asked a stray cat if it had seen the witch who devoured Kaoru and Umika.
Her individual abilities in battle are so far unknown. When transformed, her suit gives her a feline appearance, complete with cat ears, paws, and even a long tail. She also wields a cat shaped staff.

Nico Kanna (神流 ニコ)

A tech expert and arguably the most intelligent in the group. She uses several pieces of high tech equipment, most notably a smartphone with an app that can read a witch's residual power wavelength and calibrate the girl's Soul Gems to track it with more accuracy. She is also able to quickly analyze situations, and notice subtle details the others don't. She is constantly seen with the same uninterested look on her face, which barely changes when when pierced with an arrow.
While transformed, she dons an aviator suit, complete with goggles, a harness and a parachute backpack. In accordance with her tech expertise, she is able to summon CD-like disks, which are likely throwable weapons with cutting properties.

History

Fili Del Toano - A quick joint attack

Episodio Incrocio, their joint bind spell.

Though Kazumi, Kaoru and Umika were present since the start, the Pleiades were only introduced in chapter 3. After a witch traps Kaoru and Umika inside and takes off, four mysterious girl come to Kazumi's help. They introduce themselves as the Pleiades Saints, a seven-girl witch-hunting team of which Kazumi and her abducted friends are also a part of. Together, they search for Kaoru and Umika across town. While they search, the mysterious girl from the previous witch battle, Yuuri, attacks Kazumi, having disguised herself as one of the Saints, Satomi, to lure her out. Overwhelmed, she is on the verge of defeat, but her four companions intervene. Kazumi is then held at gunpoint, causing them to hesitate, but she screams out to them to attack anyway. They do so, and fire a joint attack at the mysterious girl: Fili Del Toano. It causes a large explosion, of which she escapes, while Kazumi is only lightly wounded.

They reunite at Umika's house for a strategy meeting. While analyzing the situation, Saki, their presumed leader, makes a breakthrough, by discovering the symbol the witch left across town on the back of a book, leading her to conclude the witch has possessed a bookmobile. After filling up on Kazumi's delicious food, they head out to the last stop on the bookmobile schedule to intercept it. They successfully do so, and, leaving Kazumi on the outside to strike at command, rescue Kaoru and Umika just in time, and bind the witch with Episodio Incrocio. However, Nico's GPS/com unit breaks, leaving them unable to give Kazumi he needed signal. Umika, thinking quickly, commands them to use candy flutes given to them by Kazumi. The sound reaches her, and the witch is destroyed by Limiti Esterni.

While they reunite celebrate their victory, they are attacked by the mysterious Puella Magi from earlier, Yuuri. She kidnaps Kazumi, and orders them to go to the Asunaro Dome if they want Kazumi back. They head there, but due to a force barrier, they can do nothing but watch. While in there, Yuuri states her objective is too seek revenge of them. She interprets the Pleiades' failure to recognize her as having been "just that insignificant" to the girls, while removing her at, at which point a shocked Umika recognizes her.

Teamwork

Given that neither Saint appears to be overwhelmingly powerful, their strength comes from a number of joint tactics and attacks they have developed, to make their numeric advantage as effective as possible.

Their main strategy appear to be to take advantage of Kazumi's powerful magic beams. The six remaining girls engage the enemy, withering it down and immobilizing it by casting a joint sealing spell, Episodio Incrocio (English: Crossover Episode), making it a sitting duck for Kazumi to finish off.

That is not their only joint attacks. For situations that require a quick strike, Fili Del Toano is an option. It is a powerful attack that provokes a large explosion on the target, aimed by a laser beam fired from the girl's staffs.

Outside of battle, they coordinate their search patterns to improve their chances of finding a witch. Along with Nico's app, this can allow them to cover a wide area in just a few hours.

Trivia

• They seem to have all contracted with Juubey, who cleans their Soul Gems.
• Satomi's surname is meaningful, given her love for animals: Usagi means rabbit.
• Also, twin cat-like fangs can be seen when she fully opens her mouth. Together with her cat-like appearance when transformed, and her "Meow" shouts in battle, she may be seen as the (mandatory) cat girl in the Madoka universe.
• When transformed, Saki sports a monocle and a military-style outfit, beret and rod, giving her the appearance of a high ranking military officer, quite suitable to her position within the group.
• In contrast with her though appearance, Saki seems to enjoy reading love stories. In her backpack, titles such as "My First Love Was The Milky Way" and "Lemon Kiss Stories" can be seen.

Speculation

This section may contain major spoilers for the anime!

Please refrain from reading if you haven't watched Episode 9 yet.

• Given Nico's use of high tech and the ability to summon CD-like disks, it is peculated she made a wish surrounding technology, for example to become a great programmer.
• Yuuri, the mysterious girl who attacks them multiple times, holds a grudge against them, and a shared past, though the girls appear to have no recollection of it, other than Umika recognizing her face. This past is apparently a very troubled one.
• The Pleiades star cluster contains nine bright stars, seven of them named for the Seven Sisters of Greek mythology: Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maia, Taygeta, Celaeno, and Alcyone. The remaining two are named for their parents, Atlas and Pleione. Given that the current roster of the Saints is composed of seven elements, it is speculated that there are two missing members. Given that Nico states they are named after the seven sisters, it leaves those two members as the "parents", or the most important (or senior) members of the team.
  It is likely those two are Yuuri, who has past connections with the group and seems to be more powerful and experienced than them, and the mysterious girl in Yuuri's flashbacks, who seemed to be a friend of hers.
• Given the events of the anime, it was speculated how it was possible for Puellae to team up, instead of clashing for Grief Seeds. The speculation only increased when it was revealed it was a three, but a seven-girl team. Chapter 4 explained how: Juubey, the one they contracted with, can clean their Soul Gems. What was left unexplained was is was this done: in the anime, Kyubey did no such thing, and quite the opposite, he actively seeked to have the girls accumulate grief and turn into witches. One probable explanation is that since their wishes were pretty minor (from what's been seen so far), they're rather weak. Hence why they hunt in group; with Juubey cleaning them, competition is not a factor either. And thus, being weak, they wouldn't be powerful witches, and thus they wouldn't give a lot of energy. So, it is more efficient for Juubey to let them hunt grief seeds for him, than to try to convert them to witches.
  In purely mathematical terms, a team of weak Puellas capturing a more powerful witch than themselves, using team tactics to gain the upper hand, is very efficient, when it comes to energy output.

Gallery

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  Satomi demonstrating her ability. Good evenyan!

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  Kazumi's cooking has high demand within the Pleiades.

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  One of Kazumi's flashbacks features the Pleiades. Notice how the girl in the witch hat resembles Yuuri: she wears stripped stockings and her witch hat isn't curved.

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  Nico explaining how her tracking app works.

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  The Pleiades, sans Kazumi, playing candy flutes. For some reason, this is also an "attack", named Mezzanote Charmante.