Nanao Hibiya

Hibiya Nanao (ナナオ・ヒビヤ, Nanao Hibiya) is one of the main characters of Reign of the Seven Spellblades. Hailing from Tourikueisen in the distant country of Yamatsukuni, Nanao is a samurai who was offered a second chance at life by Theodore McFarlane. She attends Kimberly at his behest and finds a new purpose in life in crossing blades with Oliver Horn.

Background
Nanao is a samurai from a warrior family in Tourikueisen, Yamatsukuni located in the continent of Azia. She is a noble and cheerful person who holds honor in high regard and even more a good fight. After fighting in a war and almost dying, she is saved by a passing mage named Theodore McFarlane who takes her to Yelgland and enrolls her in Kimberly Magic Academy, seeing her great talent for swordsmanship.

After working together to rescue Katie Aalto when a troll goes berserk during the entrance ceremonies, Nanao becomes fast friends with Oliver, Katie, Michela McFarlane, Guy Greenwood, and Pete Reston. Their subsequent travails at Kimberly serve only to deepen their group's bonds of friendship. By Volume 2 of the light novel series, the group is officially named the Sword Roses, based on a Yamatsukuni custom introduced to them by Nanao: standing in a circle and laying their swords across each other in the center.

One of the ideals of the sword school Nanao was taught was to "enjoy not the sword of vengeance, but the sword of mutual love"—meaning to seek joy in a duel with an opponent one accepts and respects. She finds that when she spars with Oliver, hoping that they will one day duel to the death. However, while talking her out of her death wish, Chela suggests she try relating to Oliver in ways besides swordplay to find that joy again.

Appearance
Nanao is an Azian girl of average height with long black hair often bundled up in a ponytail. Her body possesses countless scars from her time on the battlefield from her homeland. When fighting a powerful foe, Nanao's hair shifts to a whitish-silver color due to the increase in magical power circulation, an effect known as Innocent Color.

Nanao's Kimberly uniform is similar to others, which consists of a gray collared shirt with black trim, silver buttons, and a necktie in her year's color. Over this, she wears a black robe with silver trim, and lining matching their necktie. It is coupled with large leather straps that wrap over her right shoulder and reach down at her sides which holsters a wand and a single-edged sword (which acts as her athame), respectively. In place of a standard Kimberly girl's skirt, Nanao remakes hers into a red hakama.

Personality
Nanao is a pleasant, honorable, and headstrong samurai girl who is enthralled by the strange Magical World she has been thrust into. Due to her lack of adequate magical training at the start of the series, her magic essentially ran on autopilot during combat, yet she consistently exceeded the assumptions of everyone around her. She enjoys challenging herself with magic and the sword. She is usually curious and eager to explore new things that pique her interest.

As a warrior, Nanao is poised and courageous, never hesitating to risk her life on the battlefield, even willing to save others, as shown when she leaped towards the Troll save Katie despite having no real plan to defeat the giant creature. Being a foreign girl unfamiliar with Yelglish customs, Oliver initially found Nanao to be too care-free and reckless to be left to her own devices, however, but after seeing her in action and learning about her origins, he grows to admire her as both a fellow mage and a companion.

Nanao is highly devoted to Oliver and the other members of the Sword Roses. She will stand by her friends through thick and thin, whether it's getting into a scuffle with other students to defend one friend's honor or trekking the hellish dungeon beneath Kimberly to save another from certain doom.

Abilities

 * Striking Strength: Can defeat trolls who can pulverize a warg with a single fist. Could keep with the Demonic Indus Bird  Garuda which is stronger than a troll but would eventually lose to it.
 * Stamina: Very High, she can fight for several hours without getting tired.


 * Intelligence: She's average when it comes to academics but is a genius in swordsmanship and in manipulating her magic particles within the body which allows her to nullify other magics by associating them and creating a disruption. Her talent is so high that she created the 7th Spellblade, a strike that can be neither dodged nor blocked, thereby guaranteeing death.


 * Range: Extended melee with a weapon while her 7th Spellblade (Can slice through everything she perceives as an obstacle be it the formless space, the passage of time, and even the concept of distance)


 * Durability: Can defeat trolls who can pulverize a warg with a single fist. Could keep with the Demonic Indus Bird - Garuda who is stronger than a troll but would eventually lose to it.


 * Speed: As the eyes of the trained Kiryuu warriors couldn't keep with her shadow and movement,  Infinite with the 7th Spellblade (Her 7th Spellblade can slice through everything she perceives as an obstacle be it the formless space, the passage of time, and even the concept of distance)


 * Magic capabilities: Nanao has particularly strong and clean magical circulation.

Sword Arts

 * Two-Handed Flow Cut: A parrying strike that allows Nanao to deflect magic attacks aimed her by synchronizing with the spell's element by cutting into and redirecting it. Its noted to be similar nature to some of the Koutz-style techniques.


 * Seventh Spellblade: A Spellblade is a technique unleashed from within the one-step, one-spell distance that will, without fail, defeat the opponent. There is no way to resist them. Nanao spontaneously invented the Seventh Spellblade while fighting Vera Miligan, when she needed to strike first against the curse of Miligan's basilisk eye. As the curse travels at the speed of light, the Seventh Spellblade is an attack that supersedes light itself - a blade that returns all obstacles to the ether, a blade that can slice through formless space, the passage of time, and everything else in between. The rules of nature forbid its creation but she didn't consider even that and thus her spell came into being. An attack that cuts everything the user perceives as an obstacle between her and the enemy, even the concept of distance.

Single Verse

 * Flamma: A basic combat that creates and launches a fireball. The potency of fire depends upon the amount of mana used in the spell.


 * Securus: A dulling spell. Typically used for mock duels.


 * Impetus: A basic combat conjures sharp gusts of wind. The potency of wind depends upon the amount of maana used in the spell.


 * Acutus: A Sharpening spell.

Special Trait

 * Innocent Color: Nanao's strong and clean magical circulation is the reason for her hair turning white from navy blue during the fight. When this effect occurs, it is known as "Innocent Color".

With the Sword Roses
Oliver and Nanao met on the day of the entrance ceremony when a troll escapes and goes on a rampage, prompting Oliver and Nanao to band together to stop it before anyone gets hurt. Following that, the two begin to form a strong friendship. During sword combat class, their training and experience come to the fore during their first sparring match, putting them both in a trance-like state as they cross swords. When instructor Luther Garland notices the two going all out, he orders them to stop. Nanao expresses her desire to duel again after the class, as her spar with him brought tears to her eyes. It is at this point that Nanao becomes convinced that Oliver is her fated sword partner and that they will one day duel to the death, a mindset that Oliver vehemently rejects, which greatly depresses her.
 * Oliver Horn:

When Oliver and the others notice Nanao's depressed mood, they encourage her to open up about her troubles. She begins by recalling her time in Yamatsu, just before she enrolled in Kimberly. During a fierce battle with the enemy, Nanao found herself just moments from being impaled by enemy spears, when a strange Western Sorcerer appeared to save her from her fate. Seeing Nanao's potential, the foreign gentleman offers to enroll her in Kimberly Magic Academy, to which she accepts. Since then, Nanao felt like she was in an extended dream, thinking she had really died on the battlefield, and that her new life in Kimberly was all some sort of illusion. With these thoughts in mind, Nanao becomes desperate to fulfill her dearest wish before this dream ends: "Enjoy the sword of mutual love", an ideology taught during Nanao's time in her sword academy. "In essence, a proper swordsman must not meet hatred with hatred and fight for revenge. To have a duel with an opponent one accepts and respects, with no animosity between you—on the path of the sword, this is called shiawase." (Vol. I Chapter 2: Sword Arts, pg 117) Shiawase (幸せ) meaning "happiness" or "good fortune", is the kind of duel to the death that Nanao truly desires. When she first crossed swords with Oliver, she felt that more than ever before. She had finally found her shiawase, her happiness.

After listening to Nanao's story and explanation for her desire to duel Oliver, Chela advises Nanao to change her manner of living. Telling her that she shouldn't seek death. If Nanao felt that there is no difference between her infatuation with the sword or the person wielding it, try looking at the person instead, stating that she and Oliver needn't use swords to see each other, rather they can instead exchange words or even touch to form a connection.

While Nanao seems to have taken Chela's advice to heart since then, even with her growing affection for Oliver, her desire to duel him still lingers.

Nanao appears to be very close to Katie, and the two have even become roommates. The girls have shown great affection for one another, as Nanao accompanied Oliver through the labyrinth to save Katie from Vera Miligan, who had planned to subject the girl to cruel experiments. Katie kissed both Nanao and Oliver on the cheek after Miligan's defeat as a "reward" for saving her. Her bond with Nanao and the others seemed to deepen even more after she found her resolve to make her dreams come true.
 * Katie Aalto:

By Volume IV, Nanao had grown to trust Katie as a close friend to the point of sharing her innermost turmoil. When Katie asks Nanao if she loves Oliver, she admits her affection for him but she is torn between both her growing feelings and her warrior's desire to duel Oliver to the death. Nanao warns Katie that if she ever finds herself "consumed by the spell", she should take up her athame and cast an attack spell right through her heart. Frightened by her friend's bleak request, a tearful Katie embraces Nanao, reminding her that they were only second-years and that they and their friends still had good times ahead of them, promising her that they would all laugh about Nanao's predicament in the future. Katie's words appear to have helped Nanao as she continues to explore her feelings for Oliver.


 * Michela McFarlane:


 * Pete Reston:


 * Guy Greenwood:

Other

 * Diana Ashbury: The star of the Blue Swallows broomsports team, Ashbury took a dislike to Nanao when she was accepted onto the Wild Geese team in 1533. She changed her tune after Nanao made her work for her win in their first match, and started coaching her in broomsports. Nanao also encouraged Ashbury to reconcile with her lost lover Clifton Morgan.

Quotes
""Enjoy not the sword of vengeance, but the sword of mutual love.""

- -- the core tenet of Hibiya Style as quoted by Nanao

Trivia

 * Volume 1 of the novels and chapter 2 of the manga both note that Nanao's birth name is properly Hibiya Nanao (family name followed by given name), but in the series she reverses it to Western name order (given name followed by family name) following the custom in Yelgland.