Finding Hebi

Ability Used
Heiling Buchstabe: Heiling Buchstabe, the Holy Letter. In her quest for artistic dominance and creative symbolism, the Quincy prodigy sought to intertwine her masterful skill over reiryoku to influence her technique in the way she needs it to. Though a picture is often worth a thousand words, the artistic power in battle of the Heiling Buchstabe is well worth a million actions, and a million tears, yet it could only cost a life. It was as swift and beautiful as it was cold and deadly.

Upon using the technique a small letter, any letter, will appear displayed before her. Upon casting, the letter is the size of a dime, though its size its only relevant for a split second as it expands at blinding speeds to tower over 10 meters before caving into itself and being dispersed for good. Nothing else seems to happen thereafter. There’s no direct damage caused by the technique, and it seems as though it was a wasted movement on her part, though that’s hardly the case. After dispersing, the technique latches onto whichever foreign source of spiritual energy in the vicinity that is not Sofia. Of course, she has the freedom to pick which spiritual signal she wants to target in the case of multiple opponents that are completely different entities. As such, dodging or avoiding being branded with the letter is not possible in any way. The letter will always target the source of the power being directed to. Being branded doesn’t cause pain however, and the target shouldn’t notice it in the slightest. After all, the letter is scribed anywhere in their body that Sofia wishes, and with a size no larger than one inch. Still, noticing the letter does nothing and waiting for the letter to vanish is useless as well, as it remains on the target for the remainder of the thread.

Despite the seeming uselessness of the reiryoku spell, the Quincy prodigy used her artistic leaning to engineer a technique that was simply profound. The same letter however needs to be branded onto something else at the same time. And this time, the spiritual signal has to be not just different but related to Sofia. As such, she has no choice but to brand the letter onto herself as well, or onto a sentient creation of her doing so long as its tier is similar to hers. The size of the letter doesn’t change in that case either, and the location of the branding is also up to Sofia’s choosing. From that moment on, should any damage or injury be delivered to the general area where the letter was branded on Sofia’s spiritual signal, then the target would also suffer the same pain, injuries, and consequences as her in the location of their branding. The wounds are handled in a form of ratio. As such, if Sofia brands herself with her height of 5’7” and subsequently gets stabbed in the area, creating a wound channel of 5 inches, then a branded target with a height of over 10 feet, would have a wound channel of just over 10 inches. The damage has to be done to the general area of the branding however. As such, if Sofia has branded her shoulder but she gets slashed on her thigh, the effects would not carry along. The technique is also a one way only, so even if the target were to notice their own brand, stabbing the letter in its location would yield no benefit for them.

However, Sofia may also use to forego the masochistic approach. If so, every time both the target and Sofia speak, a single letter from their first word also gets branded somewhere on their body. Only Sofia can dictate which letter gets chosen. The letter chosen from each first word spoken by the target gets branded unto their body. Likewise the letter chosen from each first word spoken by Sofia gets branded onto her body instead. For another word to be branded it requires a pause in the conversation before it can be considered a new thought. Despite only being branded by her own letters, Sofia is able to rearrange the letters into words and imbue meaning into them. That is the true and most pivotal point of her artistic ensemble. For instance, branding the word, cut on someone would create a cut somewhere on their body with the location of her choosing. Should the word had been burn then it would create a burn instead, and so on. The same applies to her as she rearranges the letters branded on her body into words. For instance, the word haste would increase her speed exponentially, while the word guard increases her defenses exponentially. Of course, not all letters need to be chosen to make the desired word, but every letter chosen has to be available beforehand.

Of course, such a beautiful and masterful reflection of art is not without its drawbacks. For one is one of the most important ones. To be able to directly hurt a target right away, Sofia has to cause the same amount of harm onto the brand on her spiritual signal as the one desired on the opponent. This makes it extremely dangerous also to herself, and not something she’d want to try too often. But there’s more, when using her words to imbue meaning into them, each letter that’s used for an effect gets removed from the body with the exception of the original first word which is always available. Letters already used can be repeated only if and when the same letter is once more added and branded onto them besides the original letter. Though of course, multiple letters of the same kind can be branded onto them. And to top it all, the Heiling Buchstabe can only be used once per thread. As such, should a third party of completely different entity and spiritual signal enter the scene, they could not be branded if a different spiritual signal already has.

Letters Remaining on Sofia
E, O, H

Letters Remaining on Hebi
E, O