[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by K2Grey

Divine Protection of Heaven is a mystery that has been around since one of the first Shun chapters but hardly ever comes up, in fact it's only appears meaningfully in the its debut chapter, S6 and the recent 285. So I find it interesting that after so long it's finally gotten another mention.

Well, it's not like Shun would have been able to understand it by himself and until recently Shun hasn't been in the sorts of situations where it would make an obvious difference.

The other long-standing mystery from the early Shun chapters is exactly what is up with Sue. It's obvious that even unprecedented natural genius isn't enough to explain her strength, yet she doesn't have n%I = W.

I think some people are forgetting status values of people like Ronant and Mera, who also don't have the reincarnator benefits. There was also the chapter that compared Mera's growth to Sophia's and it was specifically pointed out that Sophia benefited from starting the training when young. Although it hasn't been properly explained, it's clear that within the System that the earlier you start training the better - it seems that during growth to adulthood that the System multiplies your existing status values rather than simply adding a fixed amount. Since Sophia could start real training from year 1 (something a normal baby wouldn't be able to do), she benefited especially strongly.

So, how does this explain Sue? Basically, she tried to keep up with Shun's training since she was a child, meaning that she pushed herself far harder and for far longer than a normal human would. Maybe she is particularly gifted on top of that but I'd say that the underlying reason is that she trained very hard since a child.

I saw speculation on on Reddit that Sue is to Sariel as Hyrinth is to Kuro, which is rather hard to believe given what we know of Sariel's personality. Although now that I think of it, if that was really the case, and Shun's skill was relevant, the name would be incredibly fitting. "Divine" and "Heaven" would obviously refer to Sariel, and it's actually pretty suspicious in hindsight how Shun has always had a bodyguard; first Sue, then Hyrinth.

There's absolutely no hint I can see that Sue has any "special" knowledge - I think we've seen enough to say that if such a thing was going to show up it would have done so already. I agree on the personality side too - although we don't know Sariel's current situation for certain, unless she's completely changed she wouldn't be like Sue at all.

It's also worth remembering that Shun's special skill was created by D.

I wonder, just how much Kuro there is in Hyrinth. When Hyrinth was talking to Shiro he seemed to basically be a Kuro avatar, but I can't imagine that when he was growing up or adventuring that his behavior and thoughts would have been so Kuro-ish. I think it might be like Ariel, where she normally behaves like Body-in-charge, but in certain circumstances, like in 252 she reverts to her original personality. So there might be a regular "Hyrinth" personality, but in some cases he behaves like Kuro.

That's pretty much what I've said before - Hyrinth speaks like Kuro (though not identically) and clearly has Kuro's current knowledge (or some of it).