Character Analysis: Reinhard Heydrich (Dies Irae/Shinza Bansho)

 Before we Start...


Shinza Works not included:
- Aditya
- Paradise Lost 
- Kajiri Kamui Kagura 


For anyone remotely knowledgeable on this verse, you'll know it's not even close to being completely translated, so I'll go over the ones not included here.

This will not include feats from Kajiri Kamui Kagura. That particular VN is infamous in regards to trying to translate (such to the point where even professional Japanese speakers struggle with it, and its widely regarded as one of the toughest VNs to translate period), and as of now it doesn't seem like it'll get translated any time soon either. What is translated so far is also extremely rough. To quote someone when I asked what makes it difficult to translate: 

"How many references that gets thrown at you, the fact that it uses archaic words that you can't give a an exact replication in english, the chants automatically lose their meaning in english which also makes their character development lose because the chants play into a role with that. Masada in general is incredibly hard to replicate in english. K3 is pretty easy to read since the language is pretty straight forward, but to translate it it's kinda hell."

So yeah unfortunately, I'll have to avoid mentioning K3. Which is sad since it supposedly has a lot of world building.

Paradise Lost is partially translated, as there's actually a decent translation walkthrough on YouTube, but the translator stopped before finishing the story completely. Sooooo yeah due to a huge chunk not being translated, will also be cut out here.


Aditya also won't be included. Its actually currently being translated (and is ongoing), but that's a slow process and it seemingly isn't even half way done. Nothing relevant in relation to this blog has happened as of yet either.

And to clarify, despite its cancellation, Dies Irae Pantheon will be used here. Although only the prologue was released before the company Light went bankrupt (a gacha game killing the company, who'd have thought/j), it's still considered canon, as two other Shinza stories make references to it.

All in all, Shinza is abooooout 50% translated as a whole. For the character being focused on here, fortunately all the relevant works for him are translated.

As an aside, this is gonna be very scan heavy. Given Shinza's reputation in VS, I'm trying to be as thorough and precise as possible here to hopefully convey the power of the verse.

Before delving into this, I'll give a slight NSFW warning. Dies Irae is a decently dark story, and while I fortunately don't really have to go over those aspects for this, a few scans posted here will be a biiiiiit nsfw. Nothing explicit though. Now, to get this started...


Background





Growing up, Reinhard Heydrich felt no joy or sense of accomplishment, as everything he did took little to no effort to do. This was always accompanied by the feeling that everything he said or did, it felt as if he'd already done so previously despite having no memory of doing so. He would eventually join the German army, easily rising to the upper most ranks to become the right hand man of Adolf Hitler during World War 2.



One fateful day, Reinhard was called in to interrogate a man going by the name Karl Kraft who had predicted an assassination attempt on Hitler. During the interrogation, Karl began questioning Reinhard if he truly was satisfied with the way he was living, and what was it that Reinhard truly craved. Reinard, not knowing the answer to this himself at the time, refused to answer. During this, he gave Karl two options: join the German army, or die for a crime he clearly didn't commit. After taking Reinhard up on this offer, they both precede to find the minister to inform him of Karl's decision.




In route to the minister, Reinhard and Karl witness a fight between Wilhelm Ehrenburg, Wolfgang Schreiber, Eleonore von Wittenburg, and Beatrice Kircheisen. After silently observing them for a few minutes, Karl began urging Reinhard to recognize a subconscious feeling the latter couldn't figure out that dwelled within himself. A feeling Reinhard would come to recognize as his desire to destroy all of creation. In his eyes, however, destruction and love are one and the same. He then instantly beats Wilhelm, Schreiber, Eleonore and Beatrice, and recruits the former two into the Nazi army (the latter two were already soldiers just fyi). Karl then told Reinhard why his life felt dull and those feelings of having experienced something he'd already done, the sense of foreknowledge, along with Reinhard's desire to stop holding back and finding an opponent for him to go all out against.

Eventually, Reinhard and Karl form the Longinus Dreizehn Orden (LDO for short), a small, private army of some of the most powerful humans. Years after this, Karl (now going by his true name, Mercurius) tells Reinhard of a plan to become a god, the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) plan, and end the Cycle of Eternal Reoccurrence that both he and Mercurius despise; this referring to how the multiverse keeps repeating. To begin, Reinhard convinced over 800 thousand people to kill themselves during the Battle of Berlin in order to fuel Mercurius' Transmutation of Gold, a spell meant to make Reinhard ascend to a godly status. It was only partially successful though. Reinhard's soul and a few of his LDO soldiers did leave the normal realm, but Reinhard's human body was left behind. Thus, this marks Reinhard's plan to get his body back, reshape the multiverse and end the cycle of Foreknowledge, and the start of the story, Dies Irae.





Terminology

Some terms that'll come up a lot when going over abilities:

Ewigkeit: Also know as Sorcery which control Ahnenerbe. A magical formula created by Mercurius, which is used to merge a person and an item on the spiritual level, giving them superhuman physical characteristics and spiritual armor which is determined by the amount of souls you absorb. 


There are 4 types of Ewigkeit users, all of which is essential to cover since it'll be important later.
  • Fusion Type: People that merged with their Ahnenerbe. This does, however, make the individual prone to instability and unable to think clearly, with Wilhelm Ehrenberg and Wolfgang Schreiber being the prime examples.



  • Materialization Type: Ahnenerbes that manifest as weapons of various kinds (swords, guns, lances, etc).


  • Expansion Type: Users that specialize in using magic to manipulate something. While they're poor in offense capabilities, they make for good defense and support.


  • Special Type: Definitely the oddest Type here, and that's because there's no clear explanation of what this qualifies as. Special Type users are classified as such because they either fall into multiple types, or just don't fit into any category.


Ewigkeit Degrees

Ewigkeit has a total of 4 stages that Ahnenerbe users go through the more power they gain, and unlock additional abilities.

  • Assiah: The first and weakest stage of Ewigkeit; also known as Activation. The Ahnenerbe user is able to manifest their Ahnenerbe, albeit its invisible and incredibly weak.


  • Yetzirah: The second stage of Ewigkeit; also known as Formation. In this stage, the user's Ahnenerbe becomes visible, and they gain an immense boost in power. The five senses are also enhanced to great degrees.


  • Bri'ah: (another translation being Beri'ah). The third stage of Ewigkeit; also known as Creation Figment. It's the act of the user manifesting their deepest desire, in which this warps the environment to their liking, or changing themself if their wish is something like "I want to become X". (This will be covered more thoroughly in the Hegemony and Transcendence section a bit below this).


  • Atziluth: The fourth, final and strongest stage of Ewigkeit; also known as Emanation. At this Degree, the users Bri'ah (deepest desire) not only affects a limited area, but also the entire multiverse. Those who reach this stage can said to be gods.


Hegemony and Transcendence


Bri'ah and Atziluth are divided into 2 types, those being Hegemony and Transcendence. Hegemony is when one warps space around themself to effect others. Such examples being how Wilhelm's Bri'ah warps a large amount of space into a false night and drains the stamina and power of those caught inside, and Eleonore transforming the environment around her into a inescapable, fiery hell that burns those inside alive (will go into these abilities more later).


Transcendence is the opposite of Hegemony. Instead of warping the environment around oneself to affect others, the user changes themself based on their desire. Such examples include: Beatrice (person in the image below) turns into living lighting and Kei Sakurai having the ability to turn into fire.


General Ewigkeit User Physiology and Resistances 

The following are abilities that not just Reinhard, but all Ewigkeit users have:

Soul absorption: all users absorb the souls of those they've killed to further grow in power.





Even souls that don't possess bodies aren't exempt from this.




Enhanced senses: as said earlier, once an Ewigkeit user achieves the Yetzirah stage, the 5 senses are in enhanced beyond normal human range. This extends to even a spiritual level.



Wilhelm says he, Beatrice and Riza can see in normal darkness no problem.







Ren could even sense Wilhelm's stakes despite not being able to visibility see it at this point in time.








Ren eventually develops his senses to the point where he's capable of consciously extending the radius of which he can sense the heartbeat and emotions of others from meters away.










Lisa and Elenore could perfectly see each other from hundreds of meters away, down to even the smallest details.





Poison and Disease Resistance: Ewigkeit users decompose all manner of alcohol, smoke, drugs, and poison from their bodies instantly.






Users of Ahnenerbe also can't be killed via lack of oxygen, though it can be painful for them.








Inhuman Stamina: Ewigkeit users are said to possess stamina that "defies physics."






Superhuman Regeneration and Incorporeal Forms: Consumed souls can be used to heal injuries nigh instantly.







Ewigkeit users can even regenerate their bodies while in incorporeal forms as long as their soul hasn't been destroyed.




^(For context, Shirou Yusa had his soul absorbed by Rusalka. However, Shirou was able to retain his consciousness while inside her, and eventually reformed his body. As such, he was able to kill her from the inside and take her abilities).


As Wilhelm says above, regenning from a spiritual form is an extremely rare occurrence and isn't likely to occur very often. Even then, it took Shirou over a day to completely reform his body, and in a VS scenario, this would obviously count as a loss under most metrics.



Superhuman Durability: Conventional weaponry is unable to even scratch Ewigkeit users. Wilhelm and Rusalka weren't even fazed by an air raid.






^ And anti-personal weaponry are again stated to be ineffective against Ewigkeit users.





Superhuman Speed: Kasumi, while being empowered by Mercurius, could run 3-5x faster than a cheetah.







An early series Ren runs 4 kilometers in 10 minutes.









And to repost this, Ewigkeit users can attack at speeds exceeding sound.








Weaknesses



If an Ahnenerbe is damaged or destroyed, this can result in the users death.








Soul Consumption Limit: Ewigkeit users can't continuously absorb souls without limit, as they all have a hard cap that, if breached, would result in death.









However, this doesn't mean an Ewigkeit user can't kill anymore people. They can kill without absorbing the soul if they want.





Soul Fuel Usage: Stated earlier, the more souls one consumes, the more powerful they become. However, the supply of souls can diminish for quite literally any attack and Ewigkeit user uses, such as normal punches





And of course, using a Bri'ah.






The quality of the souls can slow down this process though. As stated by Wilhelm, the compatibility of the absorbed souls and the user varies from user to user, with higher quality souls draining away significantly slower.











Equipment and Abilities 

Longinuslanze Testament, the Spear of Destiny




(Better view of it below)












Reinhard's Materialization Type Ahnenerbe. A god killing mythical lance created during the ancient era that Reinhard was eventually given during WWII, as he was the only person capable of wielding it without dying.

Important note: the following scan is used to justify that Reinhard can use all 3 Bri'ahs of his Battalion Commanders (Schreiber, Machina, amd Eleonore) simultaneously.



However, this doesn't seem to be the case. When Reinhard is fought at his full power in the Marie route, we see him using all 3 individually, all with a different color showcasing which one he's using:


Red when using Eleonore's Bri'ah.



Blue when using Schreiber's Bri'ah.

And purple when using Machina's Bri'ah.




I know this part will prolly be controversial on the VS side of the Shinza fanbase since from what I've seen, Reinhard using all 3 at once in his spear is often said why he stomps "xyz character". But meh. VS-wise this honestly isn't much of an issue since Reinhard can literally summon all his soldiers (which we'll get to later). Moving on to other abilities his lance has...

Conceptual erasure: Reinhard separated the concept of darkness from Methusela with his lance, who literally embodies said concept. This left Methusela as a normal human. 
(Notably, Methusela was shown to be intangible to even the soul interacting LDO). 
And as stated earlier, Reinhard can use Machina's Bri'ah, which is literally the ability to erase people and concepts.

Dimensional travel: While in Reinhard's body and wielding his lance (and still not being able to use Reinhard's full potential), Trifa was able to pierce Wilhelm's Bri'ah, which creates a pocket realm separate from normal reality (more on Wilhelm's ability will come a bit further down).


Distance negation: Trifa (while in Reinhard's body still) uses the lance to close the distance between him and Wolfgang Schreiber, who had his Bri'ah active at the time. Said Bri'ah makes it nigh impossible for anyone to approach Schreiber even while he's standing still, since he'll always be faster than his opponents no matter what regardless of circumstances (context on Schreiber's Bri'ah will be elaborated on in the "LDO" section, so I'd recommend coming back to this section after reading what Schreiber can do for additional context). Essentially, this means Reinhard's lance will pierce a target instantly after thrown.

Mind manipulation and soul manipulation: Just being in the presence of Reinhard's lance can destroy the minds of those who gaze at it, as well as destroy their souls. As the rightful wielder of the lance, anyone else who touches it will have their body and soul destroyed.



Homing: As stated earlier, can imbue his lance with Eleonore's Bri'ah to never miss a target once thrown. More on the specifics of this will be covered later.



Bri'ah



The castle known as Gladsheim, born of Reinhard's desire of "I want love all and everything." It's a hellish castle with its interior made out of the skeletons of the millions of souls Reinhard absorbed. Reinhard's legion is effectively immortal and will resurrect after death while inside his Bri'ah, though this resurrection takes time to occur without Mercurius' aid, who can instantly revive the fallen. Dying while inside the castle also means getting absorbed by Reinhard.







Skeleton Transformation:






Additional Abilities



Shockwave creation: A mere gaze from Reinhard was capable of physically harming Kei, sending her flying.


Spiritual Pressure: Reinhard's immense spiritual aura can crush anyone in his presence (another example here). Only those relative to him in power can resist this. (Yes yes, I know this is similar to Bleach).

Extraordinary Skill and Intelligence: Having consumed the souls of millions, Reinhard has the knowledge and experience of all those he's absorbed.


Limitless Soul Supply: Even by Ewigkeit user standards, Reinhard's soul capacity is abnormal. While most Ewigkeit users can only maintain their Bri'ah for a couple of hours at most, Reinhard could maintain his for nearly two months, and still had yet to show signs of deactivating it. Wilhelm later notes that Reinhard doesn't use up souls at all, meaning Reinhard can in theory keep his Bri'ah active indefinitely, and his power doesn't diminish whenever he attacks or takes damage.

Empathic Manipulation: Perhaps Reinhard's most notable trait. His charisma has been exceptionally noted multiple times throughout Dies Irae. The obvious example being how he convinced the people of Berlin to kill themselves in order to start the Dies Irae plan. He was also said by Wilhelm to be "charisma given form", and anyone who's met him will be changed beyond recognition. Even a laugh from Reinhard will make people forget any dread they were feeling.



Additional Resistances



Along with general Ewigkeit physiology resistances that were listed at the beginning, Reinhard also has:

Resistance to telepathy: Valeria Trifa was unable to read his mind. Was also stated here.


Resistance to magic, time manipulation and probability manipulation: Reinhard's body is engraved with anti-magic, anti-physical, anti-time, and anti-accident defenses. He was also unaffected by Ren stopping time.

When Methuselah was speeding up time to rapidly accelerate the aging of the LDO members to the point they were turning to dust, Reinhard was only minority inconvenienced by it. (Should be noted that Reinhard during the events of "Interview with Kaziklu Bey" is far weaker than he is during Dies Irae).



For a tldr, Reinhard's resistances are as follows: resistance to poison, telepathy, madness and fear manipulation, magic, time manipulation (time stops and age manipulation), and probability manipulation.


Atziluth and LDO members 


As mentioned in the terminology section, this stage is basically godhood. This is a Reinhard at his full potential. At this point, Reinhard's Bri'ah emanates to paint over the entire multiverse, and can't be stopped unless he's defeated. In his Atziluth state, Reinhard is able to summon all of the LDO members to aid him in fighting (1:46:56 - 1:57:22). They're also amped to much higher levels since Reinhard can grant them artificial godhood. Remember when I said even if Reinhard can't use multiple Bri'ahs at once, it wouldn't matter much? This is why. This section will require going over the LDO member's abilities, since they're an important part of Reinhard's moveset.



Number II of the LDO, Tubal Cain/Kai Sakurai



Yetzirah: (Slight spiel since Cain is kinda complicated)
Tubal Cain is the name given to various Sakurai family members that were chosen to wield the Wewelsburg Longinus (the shape of the weapon varies on the wielder), and would in turn become a walking corpse with (almost) no will of their own. This tradition spanned many decades, and as each Sakurai that became Tubal Cain occurred, Cain not only grew stronger every time, but also has the abilities of all previous predecessors, meaning it has multiple Yetzirahs and Bri'ahs, too.

    • Tubal Cain can absorb the abilities of those killed by its Ahnenerbe. Beatrice is one of the people who's ability Cain has access to for most of Dies Irae, but since Reinhard summons Beatrice separately from Cain, she'll have her own section further down. This will only cover the abilities of the current Sakurai that became Tubal Cain, that being Kai Sakurai, and the one before him, Rei Sakurai, and the very first Cain, Musashi Sakurai.


Musashi's Yetzirah: Wewelsburg transforms into a blade resembling a Japanese sword (unfortunately no clear image of what it looks like in the VN).







Rei's Yetzirah: Wewelsburg transforms into a cannon.







Here's a look of Rei and a better look at what Wewelsburg looks like in its cannon form.







Kei's Yetzirah: The Greatsword Cain is seen using throughout a majority of the story.





Musashi's Bri'ah: Cain poisons the air around itself, with anyone in its vicinity slowly turning into the undead.













Rei Sakurai's Bri'ah: Cain fires a poison arrow at a target that will drain them of their stamina.













Kai Sakurai's Bri'ah: instead of shooting poison projectiles or poisoning the air in a large vicinity, Cain emanates a poisonous aura around himself, and anyone who touches him will decay.








(Slight jump cut)







And here's an instance of an alive Kai using his Bri'ah to melt bullets and a sword just by making contact with them.














Weaknesses: Destroying Cain's Ahnenerbe can greatly injure, or even kill it.

Cain is also, for the most part, near mindless, hence why for the majority of Dies Irae it's controlled by Riza Brenner. More on Riza's abilities in a bit.


Number III of the LDO, Valeria Trifa









(Trifa spends the majority of Dies Irae possessing Reinhard's body as stated earlier, but feats done in Reinhard's body will just be counted for Reinhard. Trifa's own ability will be looked at here).


Mind reading: Trifa can see, read and hear the thoughts of individuals and objects.







Extra bit.




Number IV of the LDO, Wilhelm Ehrenburg



Yetzirah: With his Yetzirah, Wilhelm can fire stakes at his targets.





The speed at which he can fire these is stated to rival a M61 Vulcan.



Bri'ah: Wilhelm creates a pocket dimension of 500 meters that warps the surrounding space into a false night. Those caught inside have their life force drained, which serves to boost Wilhelm's speed and power.









Wilhelm can also manifest stakes anywhere at any given time inside this reality to effortlessly pierce those unfortunate enough to get trapped inside.




He knows everything that goes own inside his Bri'ah, from the slightest sound, air movement, and a change in weight.







Other notable abilities: along with having general Ewigkeit senses, Wilhelm also can sense someone through smell alone.





Weakness: Wilhelm is noted to have the same weaknesses as your everyday vampire (silver, crosses, sunlight, running water, sacramental bread, and fire) once his Bri'ah is active, as he truly transforms into one at this stage.





Former Number V of the LDO, Beatrice Kircheisen





Yetzirah: Beatrice's Ahnenerbe. A sword with lightning radiating from it.





Bri'ah: Beatrice turns into literal lightning to blitz a target.






Said lightning is even faster than natural lighting.








Weakness: Destroying her sword can greatly injure, and potentially kill Beatrice.



Current Number V of the LDO, Kei Sakurai






Yetzirah: Kei's Ahnenerbe. A sword with flames permeating from it.





Bri'ah: with her Creation Figment, Kei literally turns into fire itself.





Her attacks are also intangible in this state, and ignore conventional defenses





Because of the amorphous nature of fire, Kei can extend the range of her attacks to a much greater extent.







She's also intangible to conventional methods of attacking, as shown when she turned into fire to avoid getting hit by Schreiber's bike and pistol rounds.









Weakness: Destroying her sword can injure, and potentially kill Kei.


Number VI of the LDO, Isaak





Not much to say here. Isaak mainly just serves as the power source for Reinhard's castle/Bri'ah. He can, however, control the functions of the castle just like Reinhard.


Number VII of the LDO, Machina






Yetzirah: Machina's fists can bring an end to all phenomena with a history to it.

Knocks Cain out of his lightning form.









He's been shown to be able to damage the soul of someone while physically damaging the body.










Destroy shadows











His fists are described to render all defense meaningless, and all weapons, armor and magic fall before his punches.






Bri'ah: Machina's hands take on a darker, metallic form, and he can erase people and concepts from existence with a single punch. Even Methuselah, the conceptual embodiment of the night, isn't exempt from his Bri'ah.














Machina's Bri'ah has been stated to be capable of killing even Reinhard.








And one last statement of being able to erase concepts.







Weakness: Machina's ability can be negated entirely by time stops. Since he kills anything with "history", a time stop is effectively preventing him removing the history from someone/something, thus preventing him from erasing existence.













Machina is fused with his Ahnenerbe (a tank) in both his Yetzirah and Bri'ah stages, so he doesn't possess the usual weakness of Materialization Types, or a Fusion Type like Schreiber who's Ahnenerbe manifests as a motorcycle in his Yetzirah state, before fusing with it in his Bri'ah stage.


(Sidenote but I'm glad Interview with Kaziklu Bey made it clear what his Bri'ah does, because in Dies Irae alone, it was vague as hell lmao).




Number VIII of the LDO, Rusalka Schwagerin




Yetzirah: Rusalka's Ahnenerbe is the book of Elizabeth Bathory.






With it, Rusalka can create various torture weapons that act as extensions of her Ahnenerbe. Among these weapons are:

Chains that will chase down the target.




Spiked walls that close in to crush those caught between them.




And lastly, an iron maiden with spikes residing in its interior.








Since the torture weapons aren't the source of her Yetzirah, any damage done to them, while bouncing back to Rusalka, won't kill her and can easily be ignored unlike most Ewigkeit users .










Bri'ah: Rusalka creates and manipulates shadows that paralyze those that are touched by them.






These shadows, called Nachtzehrer, can also be used to devour anyone unfortunate enough to get caught by them.






Rusalka can transform her shadow into a massive monster to envelope others.









Those absorbed by the shadow will also have their soul absorbed too.











Other notable abilities: In addition to having her five senses enhanced due to being an Ewigkeit user, Rusalka can see colors emanating from people, telling her how strong they are.





These colors can change depending on someone's mood and physical condition, too.








Mind control: Rusalka has a spell that enchants anyone who's made contact with her to obey her.












Weaknesses: Being an Expansion Type Ewigkeit user, Rusalka isn't the best in close quarters combat unlike the majority of the cast, and prefers fighting from a distance to cast her spells.

Her Bri'ah is also useless in complete darkness, since the manipulation of shadows requires a light source for shadows to take form.





The destruction of Rusalka's Ahnenerbe (the book of Elizabeth Bathory) can result in her death.



Number IX of the LDO, Elenore von Wittenburg





Yetzirah: Eleonore summons a plethora of artillery to attack from range, all of which she telekinetically manipulates to fire at will. Among them are: schmeisers and panzerfausts







Cannons and machine guns





And landmines, assault rifles, hand grenades, anti-tank and anti-air guns.





Eleonore can also manipulate fire to erupt from the ground, or fire them like projectiles.









And lastly, the greatest manifestation of Eleonore's Yetzirah, a WWII railgun tank that never misses its shot when fired.





Obviously you're wondering how literal this statement is. To make it clear, shots fired from her Dora tank act as heat-seekers to track a target. And assuming a shot does hit a surface and explode before making contact with the target, the resulting explosion will expand in size to try and consume them.












Bri'ah: Eleonore warps both herself and the opponent to a fiery dimension; that being the inside of the barrel of the Dora tank.




This realm isn't escapable through conventional methods either, and would require either killing Eleonore so her Bri'ah is deactivated, or dimensional travel.




While inside this realm, a wall of fire will approach anyone trapped inside, eventually consuming and burning them alive.






Number X of the LDO, Rot Spinne



^(This man got so little screen time in Dies Irae that literally no one cares about him. Doesn't even have a single good render).


Yetzirah: Spinne deploys extremely durable and sharp webs. They've been shown to be capable of slicing through humans with no difficulty.








These webs can be used to trap victims, preventing escape.






Weaknesses: Destroying Spinne's webs can greatly injure him, and potentially kill him.

He also doesn't possess a Bri'ah, being the weakest of the LDO.



Number XI of the LDO, Riza Brenner





Yetzirah: Riza's Ahnenerbe has two forms; a mask and a shroud.




The mask (the one seen on Tubal Cain) lets her control the body of an undead whos face its placed on. This requires intensive concentration, and as such, leaves Riza open to being attacked.







The shroud lets her take control of more than one undead at once, albeit this takes time to activate and perform.

















Her control over the undead while in its shroud form is weaker in comparison to just controlling a one using her mask.



Weaknesses: Being an Expansion Type user, Riza also isn't proficient in close quarters combat, instead relying on the manipulation of corpses to fight with. 

She also doesn't possess a Bri'ah of her own.



Number XII of the LDO, Wolfgang Schreiber





Equipment: Schreiber main weapons for offense, (as he doesn't like touching people) are two pistols, a Mauser and a Luger.




His speed at which he can fire these are comparable to a machine. The guns seemingly have infinite ammo, too.













Yetzirah: Schreiber summons a Zundapp KS750, a motorcycle used by the German army during WW11.








Already being the fastest of Reinhard's unit, his Yetzirah boosts his speed to an even higher level.





His Zundapp allows Schreiber to move in such a way that "ignores the laws of inertia," as shown when he was able to instantly drive backwards at an incredibly speed despite the fact that he'd been in the middle of jumping towards Ren and had almost fallen for a simultaneous coordinated attack from both Kei and Ren.























^ As noted here, his Yetzirah allowed him to exceed Ren in speed even while being slowed down by Ren's time stop.



(Another example here)







Bri'ah: (This is definitely one of my favorite abilities from Dies Irae). Schreiber's Bri'ah (his desire to always be the fastest) makes him nigh untouchable. When activated, he'll remain faster than his opponent even while standing still. Ren was unable to close a distance of 50 meters between him and Schreiber even while slowing down time to a near perfect stand still.













When increasing his speed even more to try and close the distance, Ren still was unable to bypass Schreiber's Bri'ah.








Even after Wilhelm used his Bri'ah to drain Schreiber's power and speed to match Schreiber, Schreiber was still being amped by his Bri'ah to always be faster even against someone catching up to him.







(Slight jump cut to avoid way too many scans for this).









Schreiber's Bri'ah can even fight against time stops temporarily to still make him faster than his opponent.







And as a final note on Schreiber's Bri'ah, it's stated that even if someone moves at light speed, his Bri'ah will boost him to be faster even than.




If you're wondering what are my thoughts on what extent this can boost him speed-wise, I'd say any finite number is fine, even mftl+ speeds. Its reiterated time and again in Dies Irae that Schreiber will always be amped to be faster under any and all circumstances, such is to the point that distance won't change between and his opponent, his speed will adjust to counter even foes moving at light speed, and will fight against time stops to keep himself faster.

Something moving at infinite speed (basically covering any distance instantly in zero seconds) would prolly bypass his Bri'ah I think? Its not made clear, but for now I'd assume so since there's no real proof he can exceed that realm of speed, which is entirely above any finite value. (And before anyone asks about immeasurable speed, this isn't really an actual speed tier and makes no logical sense, so not really going to go into that).

Hope it's clear why this ability is among my favorite in DI.


Other notable abilities: Schreiber can double jump in the air, providing him incredibly maneuverability and agility.










Shockwave creation: Schreiber is shown numerous times to create shockwaves to attack and defend himself with, and has caused environmental damage just with his sheer movement speed.









In his Yetzirah state, he's fast enough that he creates whirlwinds strong enough to injure Kei and Ren.












Creates a shockwave just by screaming to repel spikes launched by Wilhelm.












Weaknesses: Schreiber's ability to always be faster than his opponent regardless of circumstances can be negated by a time stop (albeit he does bare some resistance to time stops, as he's shown resisting Ren outright stopping time in the Rea route) and attacks that ignore the concept of distance, as Reinhard's lance was capable of hitting him, completely ignoring how Schreiber is always faster to the point distance doesn't change between him and anyone who approaches him.

Destroying his motorcycle while its summoned could severely injure him, if not outright kill him given its his Ahnenerbe.




Aaaaaand that covers the Longinus Drizehn Order. Obligated to post this




Do chants need to be spoken to activate Yetzirahs and Bri'ahs?


So a fair bit of the scans posted for the Yetzirahs and Bri'ahs show the cast chanting to activate their Bri'ahs (and in Lisa's case for whatever reason, her Yetzirah). These chants hint at the nature of what they're doing and have varying timeframes ranging from a few seconds to around 10 seconds to fully chant. As for whether or not the chants absolutely need to be spoken, seemingly no.



Context here is Rusalka is about to be cornered by another Ewigkeit user with only seconds to spare, and although she initially begins the chant to form a duplicate of Lisa's Yetzirah, she abandons this notion and forms the Yetzirah instantly. The chants being spoken are, for the most part, done for dramatic flair, although if the user really wants, they can skip the incantation entirely. Now, in character, that's a different story. All of the LDO (minus Spinne) would definitely speak their respective chants to activate their Bri'ahs more times than not. I'll link those below.

- Reinhard's Bri'ah and Atziluth chants.

- Tubal Cain: Musashi, Rei, and Kai's chants.

- Wilhelm's Bri'ah chant.

- Beatrice's Bri'ah chant.

- Kei's Bri'ah chant.

- Machina's Bri'ah chant.

- Rusalka's Bri'ah chant.

- Eleonore's Bri'ah chant.

- Lisa's Yetzirah chant.

- Schreiber's Bri'ah chant.



Cosmology Tidbit

So this'll be a short info dump on the cosmology since its important for stats. As said at the very beginning of this, a huge chunk of Shinza's cosmology comes from K3, which has rough translations of stuff that I unfortunately won't add here as of now since the translations for those aren't super reliable, and lack much context. MTL (machine translator) also isn't very recommended to use for K3 since what would be translated very likely wouldn't be accurate (which no duh if knowledgeable Japanese speakers struggle translating it, then MTL wouldn't come close). Paradise Lost has some dimension shenanigans, although as of now there's no proof they stack on each other and the VN isn't translated to go in depth on them, so those will be exempt from this section.


So the highest dimension in Shinza is where the Throne is located, a machine created by an ancient civilization. Upon taking it, the individual essentially becomes the core of the universe, and commands all of its laws.


And then we have Heavens, which are the names given when a God takes control of the Throne and molds the universe to their craving, painting over the previous God's universe. In order, the first person to be the ruler of the universe (First Heaven) was Mithra, then Muzan (Second Heaven), and then Nerose (Third Heaven).

Eventually, once Mercurius became the ruler of the Throne, the once singular universe became a multiverse (known as the Fourth Heaven).



The creator of Shinza Bansho, Masada, also confirms that the cosmology is in fact an infinite multiverse. Source here. Just reverse search "parallel" to find it quickly.




"Mel" is referring to Mercurius just fyi.


Within Dies Irae itself, the term "multiverse" was also used when Mercurius made a cross appear across the cosmos.







K3 also has a multiverse statement from some translations I've seen, but as said prior I'll avoid leaning into that.

Universe/multiverse is used interchangeably throughout DI. Although, to my knowledge, the "universe" statements are mistranslations that are more accurately supposed to be "multiverse," which is why the "multiverse" statement above is the single time its seen in the current downloadable versions of DI. Although I don't think that matters much. Between the statement from Avesta confirming the cosmology became a multiverse when Mercurius took the Throne, and Masada himself saying it, its clear cutly meant to be a multiverse no matter how much one would wanna nitpick the "universe" parts. Depending on what gets translated down the line, I may update this section if anyone wants a more detailed version of the cosmology.

TLDR; The Throne is the highest dimension in the verse. The one claims it can bend the entire universe/multiverse and its laws.
Beneath it lies the Singularity. Warping/painting the Singularity with one's Bri'ah affects the universe.
Then we have the normal universe. 
As said before there are other bits of the cosmology not mentioned here, but as of now it's hard to tackle those, and even then, they likely don't affect stats since there's no solid evidence those dimensions are qualitatively superior to certain parts of the cosmology.


Overall





Accomplishments

  • Effortlessly accomplished and succeeded in anything he tried for most of his life.
  • Held just as much, if not more influence over the German army as Hitler and Himmler, who both eventually grew to fear his power.
  • Convinced 800 thousand people to kill themselves in order to start the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) plan.
  • Wilhelm and Schreiber, the two most ruthless and bloodthirsty members of the LDO feel compelled to obey him.
  • At the absolute peak of his power, fought evenly against Mercurius (the ruler of the Throne during the events of Dies Irae) and Ren in his strongest form, Res Novae.
  • One of the most powerful Hadou Gods of the Shinza Bansho franchise.
  • Loves everyone equally.

Strength/Durability 



Speed



Scaling

Avesta, the First Heaven





The Fourth Heaven


Taikyoku 90 feats



^(Note; don't use the Shinza wiki. Its full of misinformation, and just missing a ton of important info for most of the characters. The chart I pulled above is accurate though, and is the best image I could use here)



During his fight against Mercurius, Reinhard grew in power to match him, since he's Mercurius' Apoptosis (not super necessary to go too into detail about Apoptosis's, but for a tldr, they're beings who are born from a Hegemony God's desire to die, and will subconsciously try and kill said god). Its also stated that Reinhard can't use this power to harm anyone else but Mercurius, but I'll list the feats he performs anyways since VS-wise, it seems people tend to ignore this restraint. Prolly because he has destruction feats that would reasonably kill someone significantly weaker than himself. Whether or not you ignore the restraint is up to you.

As for Taikyoku, I didn't go into much depth about this since its primarily from K3, which as I said at the beginning I'm trying to avoid as it barely has any translation and in my honest opinion, shouldn't be used for vs debating as of now. To go over it, its the strength of a god's law, which is generally only a measure of how potent their ability to reality warp/paint the multiverse is. It also helps to resist being painted over by another god's law.

I bring this up because Taikyoku doesn't infinitely stack on each other. I've seen many use this argument to argue the verse to some crazy levels, but not only is there no proof of this, it also wouldn't make sense. Muzan injures Hajun (the most powerful character in the Shinza verse) despite having a lower value than him in the Pantheon prologue; the only part of Pantheon that was released before its cancellation. Mercurius also manages to beat Hajun in another timeline, retconning him from existence and preventing K3 from ever happening. Even with Hajun's "immeasurable" Taikyoku value, those with any degree of Taikyoku can still harm and even beat him. To my knowledge, K3 itself has people with lower Taikyoku fighting higher ones all the time. Can't verify that myself admittedly, though I've been told this by some I know who've read it. It's definitely a measurement of power, don't get me wrong, but it's not an infinite power gap between numbers, and has nothing at all to do with spatial dimensions.

Now, on to Reinhard's feats with his highest Taikyoku...

(Notice that Reinhard's Taikyoku value is still really high even outside of fighting Mercurius btw).



Weaknesses



  • Is a Nazi.
  • The Dies Irae anime.
  • If he is enjoying a battle, Reinhard will not use his power and abilities to their best potential, as he relishes a good fight and will prolong one he's having fun with.
  • Anti Undead abilities seems to be greatly effective against his skeleton army, including his Bri'ah/castle. In the Kei route, Ren gains a Bri'ah he doesn't get in other routes, that being "I don't want to live with the dead." With this, Reinhard's castle was gradually beginning to collapse, and Ren likely would've succeeded in beating Reinhard in this route had Mercurius not intervened (Reinhard isn't close to the peak of his power in the Kei route, but neither is Ren).
  • Destroying his Ahnenerbe should greatly injure him, if not kill him outright.
  • Mercurius' death will also result in Reinhard dying, since Reinhard is the Apoptosis of Mercurius, meaning his existence is intertwined with his.
  • (The following weakness only applies to Taikyoku 90 Reinhard) He slowly dies since the amount of power he has it too much for his body to handle.


Materials Used



- Avesta of Black and White (special thanks to the SpaceBattles and FanVerse communities for providing translation summaries of the story).
- Song to the Witch 
- Interview with Kaziklu Bey
- Dies Irae ~Amantes amentes~
- Dies Irae Pantheon 



Afterword




And that wraps this one up. I enjoyed the going through the verse, and it was one I'd been interested in checking out for a few years. Considering I like reading VNs, I figured Dies Irae would be neat to cover, and Reinhard being among my favorite from the verse, this was fun to do. And since it doesn't seem like no one can agree on how strong the verse is for the longest time, I at least hope this helps shed some light on the topic. Although, given only 50% of the verse is translated, I don't think anyone truly knows the exact limits. I'll 100% update this whenever more VNs get translated, in case anyone is interested in a more thorough dive of this.

And honestly, while I do agree with Shinza being powerful, I do think its overhyped as well. Even before I got into the verse, I'd been told the fans wank the verse immensely, and after having gone through the readable works at least, I can see why. For one, not every single character is some uni-multiversal buster. Such stats are only reserved to the ones who are generally among the top of the individual Shinza entries. I feel most people just know about the verse's VS hype and just automatically assume someone scales to the cosmology, which obviously isn't the best approach to take in any debate.

But yeah, I have Reinhard placed at multi+ here. For both his Atziluth and Taikyoku 90 stats. Atziluth is that high because his Bri'ah was painting over the entire multiverse, while Taikyoku 90 is that high because not only does he do that and grew in power, but he scales to Mercurius straight up. Before anyone asks why he isn't """outerversal""", this isn't made using vs wiki's (flawed) tiering system. And outerversal is dumb anyways. It has no real meaning beyond what vs wiki says, and the standards for that changes nearly every half a year.

Also good god both this and my last blog involve characters who are under researched in VS, and as a result I didn't have much to go off of and they both reach cosmic levels anyways ☠️. I have several other blogs in mind that I may or may not do depending on my mood, and those will be a breeze compared to this and the Cardcaptor blog thankfully. Gonna be a hot minute from though. At any rate, hope this was a interesting read for anyone checking this out.

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