Echidna

''This page is about the Witch of Greed. For the artificial spirit, see Eridna.''

Echidna (エキドナ) was the Witch of Greed. Mentioned throughout the series, particularly for her connection to Roswaal and Beatrice, she formally debuted in Arc 4 as a major supporting character and later secondary antagonist.

Throughout Arc 4, her soul served as the overseer of the trials to remove the barrier surrounding the Sanctuary. Learning of Return by Death, she attempted to get close with Subaru, but he cut her off after discovering her motives. At the end of the arc, she achieved complete rebirth by transferring her soul into Ryuzu Shima, named herself Omega, and wandered off into the world with the souls of the other five deceased Witches of Sin contained within a glintstone necklace.

Appearance
Echidna's barely-exposed skin was porcelain-like and pure white, so white that it seemed any semblance of color had been completely bleached from her existence. Her black eyes shone with intellect and were the only part of the woman that looked alive. Her long straight hair reached down to her back and was as white as her skin, and it also had a black butterfly hairpin (jade green in the anime). Anyone who saw her would be instantly captivated by her striking beauty, although the sight of her would also inject overwhelming fear into a person's soul. Although her spirit in the Castle of Dreams was in her late teens, Echidna's slender body appeared as though it was in its mid-twenties.

The only parts of her body that were visible were her head, neck, and hands, as the rest of her figure was wrapped in clothing most of the time. The contrast between her black clothing and the whiteness of her skin helped express her striking beauty. During her meeting with Subaru in the trial of his past, Echidna wore clothing fabricated from Subaru's memories. The outfit she donned was the female version of the school uniform worn at Subaru's high-school in Japan. The ensemble consisted of a white dress shirt, a navy-blue blazer with the school's crest sewn onto the left breast, a red ribbon tied around the shirt's collar, a grey pleated short mini-skirt, knee-high white socks, and white uwabaki slippers with brown soles. Instead of her usual hair ornament, Echidna wore a smaller red butterfly clip in her hair.

Despite her extraordinary beauty, Echidna induces overwhelming fear known as miasma in everyone "lucky" enough to meet her to the point people start vomiting in her presence. If exposed to her miasma for too long, the people in her presence would die. It is worth mentioning that, while he somehow did not receive that side effect, Subaru did note her presence felt as dangerous or more so than the Hakugei or the Sin Archbishop of Sloth.

In actuality, Echidna from four centuries ago and Echidna from the Castle of Dreams were stated to be two separate entities. Accordingly, their appearances slightly vary–while being mostly identical, Echidna from four centuries ago was noted to be in her mid to late twenties, rather than late teens. Her face was almost the exact same as Trials Echidna, save for a much calmer and wise air it gave off.

She was often seen smiling and acting very nonchalantly, until the topic shifted to something she was genuinely interested in. Due to her beautiful appearance, she often gave off a maidenly impression.

Personality
Echidna's curiosity toward the unknown and thirst for knowledge were the two things that defined her behavior. She referred to it as love and directed those feelings toward Subaru's Return by Death, which she was interested to the point that she longed to become his advisor to record the many possibilities created with Subaru's Authority.

At first glance, she was polite, soft-spoken, understanding, and even a bit childish. She was stated by the other Witches to be quite clumsy like the time when she accidentally set the forest on fire, nearly burning to death, as she was trying to warm herself. She was also somewhat forgetful in regards to daily tasks. The other Witches also mentioned that she once forgot to change from her nightgown, and accidentally went out in public without properly dressing.

Described as being black-hearted, she could not understand the feelings of others, and could be seen as a sociopath by normal standards. If it was to get a hold of more knowledge, she had no problems with employing sophistry, lying, and deceiving others. She was reasonably polite and even jovial to Subaru, whenever the two interacted. Even after the reveal that she was black hearted and after Subaru called her a monster, she kept acting like an affable individual. Though Echidna ultimately respected Subaru's decision to press on in his struggles without her help, she revoked his qualifications for entering her Castle of Dreams, as payback for not taking her hand. However, she interacted with extremely hostile will only toward three people in the world: Emilia, Satella, and one other unnamed individual. While Echidna does have some trouble with certain emotions, she isn't actually as emotionless as she made herself out to be to Subaru. It also is notable that she does maintain elements of the personality she showed Subaru even when she isn't around him.

As Echidna from four centuries ago and Echidna from the Castle of Dreams were stated to be two separate entities, the two also differ somewhat in personality. The original Echidna is much more considerate, empathetic and helpful than her counterpart from the Castle of Dreams.

History
In the years predating the Great Calamity, Echidna travelled alongside Satella, Flugel, Reid Astrea, Farsale Lugunica, and Alec Hoshin for unknown reasons, though according to Alec, it was a journey to save the world.

Over four centuries ago, Echidna acted as a tutor for young Roswaal after saving him from suffering inflicted on him by mana poisoning. In the following years, she created three artificial spirits (with Puck being the first created by Echidna and the last being Beatrice ), and started researching means of immortality by transferring her soul into a body which belonged to someone else. Throughout the years, she gathered humans and demi-humans alike, in order to create a perfect "sanctuary" which would be able to support the barrier. When Roswaal was 16 years old, he faced off against Hector and after being defeated and nearly killed, Echidna saved his life and engaged Melancholy. After Ryuzu Meyer, the Apostle of Greed, sacrificed herself in order to bypass the requirements and instantly activate the barrier, she successfully fended Hector off and saved the lives of everyone in the Sanctuary.

According to her, royals of every country came to visit Echidna to burrow her wisdom at some point in the past when she was alive. Echidna mentioned that she has a connection with Kararagi since she "helped found it". She also became acquainted with the Sage, the Sword Saint, and the Dragon at some point in time.

After the deaths of Typhon, Minerva, Daphne, Carmilla, and Sekhmet, Echidna, who was purportedly 19 at this time, later collected their souls since they had been important to her while they were still alive and went to the Sanctuary where Volcanica sealed her off in her tomb as a deterrent to Satella.

Abilities
Authority of Greed (強欲の権能 Gōyoku no Ken'nō): Echidna was able to use the Authority of Greed. Upon returning to the world as Omega, she likely no longer had access to her Authority of Greed.
 * Book of Wisdom (叡智の書): Book of Wisdom is a white book that allowed her to draw knowledge from the world's memory. The book didn't just know the present and past, it also knew what would happen in the future, and drew its needed information from there. The mind of an ordinary person attempting to read it would be fried by the sheer amount of knowledge flowing into the reader's mind. She dislikes using the Book of Wisdom since it sends the knowledge directly into her mind, skipping the learning process which she enjoys. It is implied that the Book of Wisdom is connected to her Authority of Greed in some way, most likely being made with the usage of Echidna's ability. She later crafted two imperfect replicas of her Book of Wisdom, giving them to her creation Beatrice and apprentice Roswaal A Mathers.

Magic (魔法 Mahō): Echidna was able to use all six elements and was extremely skilled in all of them with–at the time–unparalleled mastery. She was capable of using every spell that existed at the time, and even created her own spells to use. Even following her death, no one ever came close to her overall skill with manipulating magic, until Roswaal L Mathers became the first and only person who would rival and even surpass her in magical knowledge and proficiency. It should also be noted that there exist individual beings who're stronger in the usage of a specific magical element, such as Puck, who was noted as the most powerful Fire Magic user in the series, with the raw power of his spells even surpassing that of Roswaal's. The author has stated that Echidna has the 3rd highest mana capacity in the world, falling behind only Roswaal L Mathers and Emilia.
 * Goa (ゴーア): Echidna was able to manifest a blaze of fire to incinerate foes.
 * Jiwald (ジワルド): Jiwald allowed Echidna to fire heat rays from her fingers which would effortlessly pierce her enemies.
 * Healing Magic: Echidna summoned water mana to heal the wounds of herself and others, however it only affected physical ones.
 * Teleportation: Like Beatrice, Echidna was capable of teleportation magic, with no one else holding the capabilities to display such type of magic, not even her genius disciple Roswaal.
 * Al Shario (アル・シャリオ): Echidna was capable of casting a spell that literally brought stardust down to earth, massacring her opponents. The speed of the stardust was described to be almost impossible to evade. She once used this spell to massacre a swarm of around 100 Silver Dragons.
 * Soul Transference: Soul Transference was a lost forbidden magic art that allows a person to move their spirit from one body to another by overwriting the soul of the target body with their own. By doing this over and over to extend their life indefinitely, the user can in theory achieve what Beatrice termed as "subjective immortality". However it has one major restriction in that for it to work, the person whose soul is overwritten must be of blood-relation to the caster. The spell was originally created by Echidna to gain immortality, but she could not complete it before her demise. Instead, it was finished by Roswaal who had been using it to survive until the present era. After the Sanctuary's fall, it is revealed that Echidna has slowly been latching more and more of her soul onto Shima, untill she successfully hijacked her body, later renaming herself into Omega.

Item/Life Construction: During her lifetime, Echidna created a variety of items and beings due to her vast intellect and absolute mastery of magic.
 * Artificial Spirit Creation: Echidna has created three artificial spirits: Puck, Beatrice, and Echidna. It is unknown how she created them.
 * Clone Creation: Echidna was capable of creating Ryuzu Meyer copies by using the original Ryuzu Meyer as a basis for an experiment to research immortality. They were created by crafting an artificial Od through a special spell and creating the rest of the body through mana, adding that all Ryuzu copies created were given enough intelligence to follow orders from birth.
 * Meteor Creation: Echidna could create meteors, which are items that all people to use magic without utilizing a gate. However, the only meteor she was known to have forged in her lifetime was a staff.

Vast Intellect: As the embodiment of the thirst for knowledge, Echidna was obsessed with gaining knowledge and was in possession of The Book of Wisdom which could show her the world's memory. Echidna possessed one of the greatest intellects in the world, and had conducted numerous experiments with magic, creating powerful meteors. Numerous people from every nation used to come to her, seeking her knowledge when she was alive. She possessed vast knowledge about the older era, to the point she could boast there is nothing she didn't know.

Miasma: According to Echidna from the Castle of Dreams, she was known for emitting intense miasma that caused people to throw up in her vicinity. If exposed to it for too long, one would be at risk for falling into madness or suffering a mental breakdown, and even dying. Omega used this miasma to kill eighteen bandits in thirty seconds, as soon as she left the Sanctuary. She also noted that someone with the qualifications to become a Sage Candidate would be able to resist her miasma. While he did not receive that side effect, Subaru noted her presence felt as dangerous or more so than the Hakugei or the Sin Archbishop of Sloth.

Castle of Dreams (夢の城, Yume no Shiro): A special space outside the world, which Echidna from the Castle of Dreams has control of, is mentioned to be her dream. Echidna's and the other five Witches' souls manifest within this space after their deaths. The Castle of Dreams primarily takes the form of a seemingly limitless empty grassland with a little hill in the middle, although Echidna can change its appearance at will, being able to turn it into a dark empty void as if a curtain had fallen upon the world. She is capable of creating portals in and out of the Castle of Dreams. Due to it being outside of the world, Subaru suffered none of the penalties from Return By Death while within the Castle of Dreams though Echidna had stated that if he died in the Castle of Dreams, his soul would shatter, resulting in his real body's death as well.
 * Memory Manipulation: Echidna from the Castle of Dreams was capable of searching through the memories of others, shown in Arc 4 where she rummages through Subaru's memories to recreate a Japanese high school girl uniform. She was also capable of erasing memories, as seen in Arc 4 where she temporarily seals away Subaru's memories of their meeting in the Castle of Dreams to follow the rule about it being forbidden to talk about their "little tea party" until his trial went underway.

Unknown Ability: During a failed loop of Arc 4, Echidna was capable of modifying Petra's handkerchief that Subaru had given Echidna earlier, allowing Subaru to harden it in accordance to his will and use it as a weapon to cut away Satella's shadows trying to absorb him. A light shone from the handkerchief. The process which she does this by is unknown.

Trivia

 * Like the other Witches (with the exception of Satella), Echidna's namesake matches both an asteroid and a mythological being. 42355 Typhon I Echidna is the name of a large moon that orbits the scattered disc 42355 Typhon. The mythological Echidna was a half-woman and half-snake monster that is known for being the mother of many monsters from Greek mythology.
 * According to the author, Echidna's birthday is January 24.
 * Echidna used to live in different mansions she owned. One of those was situated on a floating island that she created.
 * In Re:Zero Prequel: Loving the Days Gone By, Toska ventured to Echidna's mansion which was located high on a mountain, peaking above the clouds. According to Puck and Beatrice, Echidna made it so high that it was impossible for a mere human to access it.
 * Echidna is the only person to have been born as a "witch".
 * The author stated that Echidna started being called the Witch of Greed after killing a "certain Witch".
 * According to the author, there was one book that Echidna held very dear to her heart, which has even changed her fate.
 * According to the author, Echidna's favorite color is silver.
 * The author has stated that Echidna is tone-deaf, much like Emilia.
 * The author has stated that Echidna's favorite witch is a spoiler.
 * According to the author, the witch that Echidna gets along the most with is Minerva.
 * According to the author, Echidna from the Castle of Dreams and Echidna from 400 years ago should be considered as two separate entities.
 * She's one of the very few people in her world who can somewhat use teleportation magic. Alongside herself, Beatrice, and unnamed Witch Cult members, no one else holds the capabilities to use this type of magic.
 * The author has stated that Echidna fears Emilia.
 * Tappei once stated that Echidna's tea is in fact something similar to her saliva, as it doesn't have any taste.
 * According to Sekhmet, Echidna brought chaos to several countries for unknown reasons and was even once close to ending the world due to one of her flops.
 * Sekhmet stated to be more terrified than anyone that Echidna may lose interest in the world, saying that nobody knows what she would do. She also mentioned how scared she was by saying that Echidna's nosiness could quite easily destroy the world.
 * According to the author, Echidna doesn't wear anything other than black clothing because, long ago, she was told it suits her.
 * According to the author, Echidna is capable of understanding the concept of love intellectually.
 * Echidna's Japanese voice actress, Maaya Sakamoto, only took one take to record the Witch of Greed's long-winded speech in episode 37 of the anime adaptation. Echidna's English voice actress, Anairis Quiñones, recorded the monologue in sections and took multiple takes. That being said, Quiñones also stated that it took less time to record than she thought it would.
 * According to the author, if Echidna were to meet Aldebaran, she would not be interested in him at all.
 * When she was alive, Echidna had issues with low blood pressure. However, instead of believing that the issue was with her body, Echidna believes that the issue is with her soul.
 * In 2014, the author stated that Echidna was among nine known characters introduced in the story up to that point who had the highest capacity for holding mana. However, he chose to not rank Echidna or any of the other listed characters in order. It is unknown if the list has changed since then.

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