[Sunder the Gold]

Originally Posted by mielipuoli

Suddenly I can't help picturing Yuuno developing a leather jacket and fedora as part of his archaeologist's barrier jacket.

I like his current jacket too much to see it go, but that would be funny.

Maybe just the fedora wouldn't be so out of place. Maybe if he gets a Device, Hayate and the others could sneak one into the program as a surprise gift.

Vita might be jealous, but on the other hand, her hat has bunnies, and is therefore clearly superior.

That he'd wear a Barrier Jacket CONSTANTLY makes a hell of a lot of sense - he's out there alone, in the field, and potentially (if not actually, cf. Jewel Seeds) surrounded by significant danger that can sneak up on him anytime. Being alone means he doesn't have a buddy outside of his Device to warn him; he's got to rely on his own preparation. And that includes going around in armor, otherwise you tempt fate just a little too much by giving a potential enemy you haven't seen yet an unprotected first shot.

Exactly.


I've also been thinking of other spells that Yuuno would have mastered. Which overlaps with speculation into the spells he taught others.


Flash Move - He's keeping up with (and running away from) Vita pretty darn well from what little we can see. And if Yunno taught Nanoha how to levitate and create a flight-enhancing addition to her barrier jacket, he probably taught her how to increase power to the Flier Fins for bursts of speed.

So, he just increases power to his cloak for his own bursts.


Ring Bind - This is the most basic binding spell I can find on the Wiki. It's noted for being the simplest and the weakest. It's also the one that Arf uses. It serves as the base for Loop Bind, Long Range Bind, and Lightning Bind, and possibly also Chain Bind.

In the Sound Stages, this is likely the elementary spell that Yuuno was teaching Nanoha. She was failing repeatedly, which meant that she was learning it at mostly normal pace.

Of course, in the end, she shocks him by intuitively skipping right past Rind Bind to achieve Restrict Lock, which seems to be the strongest of that type. And she does this in the midst of battle.

According to the Sound Stage and wiki, Restrict Lock is a "gathering spell" that works on a principle similar to Starlight Breaker. By gathering spent and ambient mana as well as using her own, Nanoha can create a strong bind.

In fact, Restrict Lock was probably Nanoha's first step towards discovering Starlight Breaker. Naturally, if she could use "gathering" to make a strong bind, she would look into using "gathering" to create a strong attack.

It is possible that Yuuno himself is not capable of using Restrict Lock in battle, but inconclusive. Yuuno's few known solo fights (Arf, Vita) happen mostly off-screen, and the rest of the time his job is better fulfilled with Chain Bind.

He probably knows Loop Bind, but it seems unlikely that he has ever needed to learn Long Range Bind.


Defenser and Protection - According to the wiki, Nanoha could have taught Caro the Defenser spell, but instead went with Protection. The wiki explains that the differences is Defenser being cheaper and quicker, but Protection being stronger.

I believe we can assume these two are the most basic barrier defenses of the Mid-Child (and Modern Belkan) system. Yuuno might know both of them, or else just Protection.

And I'm pretty sure we can agree he has the Wide Area Protection trick.

The wiki says that, in the novelization of the first season, Nanoha learns an additional property called Lightning Protection for use against Fate, similar to the Fire Protection refinement that Subaru uses in her rescue career. Again, it is possible that Yuuno already knows or is easily capable of learning these refinements. It depends on the environments and ruins he's had to explore.


Circle Protection - Circle Protection is probably an advanced form of Wide Area Protection. It uses a magic circle behind or below the caster to create a field designed to bolster the barrier's strength*. Presumably, the magic circle itself offers little or no protection on the side of the field where the barrier doesn't reach; if it were the strong point, it would be placed at the point of impact.

This spell might be slower to cast than a regular barrier, and/or largely stationary. Good for standing your ground against a single sustained assault. It's hard to know, as Yuuno is seen using this trick only once.

Yuuno teaches Circle Protection to Arf before A's, though she seems to need two circles to pull it off. The wiki suggests that this is because she's using it in mid-air rather than on the ground, but hemi-spherical barriers are used in the air all the time. My guess is that she hasn't fully mastered the spell, and she's probably just not as good with field magic as Yuuno.

The Sphere Protection upgrade extends the barrier completely around oneself. For some reason, no magical circle is seen. Perhaps the skill cannot be executed with the aid of circles. This would imply the skill is difficult to cast and maintain.

Yuuno manages to maintain FOUR of them, three of which were quite a distance from himself.

Others who lack Yuuno's skill with fields, such as the Lotte twins, Caro and Zaphira, use the Wheel Protection refinement to spin their basic Protection barriers for additional deflecting power. Yuuno probably also knows this trick.


Round Guarder - Circle Protection's cousin. Rather than a barrier reinforced with a field, it's a field that is given the property of a barrier. As opposed to spells like Temporal Force field or Defenster der Magi (Prison of Magic), it is not meant to keep things from leaving, but to keep things from getting in.

Being a field spell, it is completely stationary, but self-sustaining. At most, it needs to continue drawing power from the mage, but should require no further attention.

It's unknown how quickly Yuuno could create such a bunker when he's not adding an automated version of his Physical Heal spell.

Probably, the reason Yuuno didn't use this spell against the Book of Darkness' Thunder of Annihilation attack was that he couldn't multi-cast it like Sphere Protection, to cover both himself and three distant targets. Had they all been together, he would have used Round Guarder to cover them all with a single spell.


* In fact, it's Round Guarder's barrier property and strong resemblence to Circle Protection that results in my theory that Circle Protection relies on field-magic skills.

But I'm also basing this on how creating fields is one of Yuuno's strongest points compared to other mages. Even Chrono thinks they're a pain in the ass and that Yuuno's rather good at them.

And the only other person to use Circle Protection instead of Wheel Protection is someone that Yuuno taught personally.