Jo Ayara FC Reference - Strategic Body Disassembly

This is the second part of my reference sheet of my new FC, Maho Shoujo Jo Ayara. She is one of the new fan-characters that is going to appear in "Maho Shoujo Rika Magika," a Maho Shoujo Madoka Magika-based project of mine, and she is also one of the central characters too, though not as important as Rika Isoni is in it.

This is the reference on one of Jo's unique skills, her "Strategic Body Disassembly."


One special skill that Jo Ayara has involves the near-immunity from death that all Maho Shoujos have, due to their Soul Gem. All of the Maho Shoujos who made a contract with Kyubey can survive even wounds that would kill an ordinary person, and they cannot feel pain either, and they cannot die at all, but only as long as their Soul Gem is not destroyed, and remains within 100 meters of them. Like they can be stabbed, decapitated, shot, and much more, but as long as the Soul Gem remains intact, it won't kill them. Jo often times refers to this as the "Semi-Immortality" of a Maho Shoujo, as for they are now almost immortal, but not completely (they still can die, its just not as easy to kill them).

She first found out about this after suffering an attack from a Witch long ago. The attack was very powerful and literally ripped poor Jo in Two. However, despite being chopped in half, she still didn't die, much to her surprise. The reason being was that the Soul Gem keeping her alive was still intact. Later on, she asked Kyubey about this and he explained to Jo all about this. She found this to be very awesome, and later on she got creative and decided to use this in a more useful manner.

She used the blade-end of her staff to cut her whole self apart, and then installed these custom-made, thin, metal Brackets in between the spaces, then reattached them all. These Brackets come in pairs and are in between various spaces of her body, and the way they are made prevents the skin from reattaching when her Soul Gem heals her. That way, they stay physically separated, and are only held in place by a bonding that is somewhat loose. As you see in the Reference sheet, the brackets are sort of hooked into her flesh and are firmly kept in their too. They are not too noticeable on her, especially since they are thin, and her clothing covers most of them. Jo has brackets on all the useful areas for them. The location of her brackets holding her body together are in-between her neck, waist, shoulders, wrists, ankles, and the joints in between her hips and upper legs.

The advantage to these Brackets is that Jo can make herself split apart, and have her detached limbs move individually, and then she can just pull herself together whenever she desires. Normally a Maho Shoujo would have to cut themselves with their weapons every time they'd want to do this. Thanks to Jo's custom Brackets though, she can just make them easily pop off and on whenever. Her Soul Gem keeps her alive through this, and she can still move her detached body parts, as long as they remain within range of the Gem. It took her some practice to get used to this, but now she is extremely talented at this strategic bodily disassembly and reassembly. Perhaps she's a bit too used to it, as for she likes to fall apart too much, and that happens to her almost on a daily basis. She always keeps herself together when in public though, as to not scare others. But when she's among friends who know her, or by herself, she much rather prefers her limbs not being attached.

There are a number of advantages to Jo's special skill to fall to pieces at will. One advantage is quickly dodging through detachment. Like say a projectile is headed for her face. Then she can just remove her head, let the projectile pass by harmlessly, and then stick it back on. Another use is that it allows her to be in multiple places at a time, well at least some of her. She has a battle tactic for this called "Divide and Conquer" where she removes her limbs and let them fire her weapons at the enemy from another location, while the rest of her runs around somewhere else, serving as a distraction. She also uses it in battle by pulling off her head, charging it up with energy, then throwing it at her enemy like a cannonball, causing it to do severe damage to the foe. This is one of her special attacks, but she doesn't use it often, as for she has to run back and retrieve her head whenever she does. Also it is useful for her as for her individual pieces can fit into narrow or tight areas much more easily. When not in battle, she also uses this in other ways for fun, like tossing her head around like it is a softball, or detaching her lower half and having the two play around separately. All of this is how she abuses the fact that she can no longer be killed this way, thanks to her Soul Gem.

Also, a few other important points on this unique trick of Jo Ayara's.
-Like all Maho Shoujos, Jo can only keep control of her body, or in this case, her detached limbs, as long as they stay within 100 Meters of her Soul Gem. Should any of them fall out of this range, it will stop moving and fall into a Coma-like state, until it gets back in range. Also if she doesn't get them back in range within 48 hours, they will die off. She always has to keep this in mind when she disassembles herself.
-As seen in the reference sheet, the brackets on Jo's arms and Legs are labeled "L" and "R" for "Left" and "Right." This is so what when she's pulling herself together, she knows which arms and legs are which, and doesn't stick them on backwards.
-If one of her body parts were to be completely destroyed, or was out of range for too long, Jo's Soul Gem will restore her new ones, like it does with all Maho Shoujos. She also has a whole suitcase full of spare brackets to Re-install into herself, should this ever happen.
Unfortunately, this healing is rather slow. Like for instance, if her hand were to be obliterated, it would take her Soul Gem about 6 hours to heal her a new one, and even more of her body would take even more time. So she does all she can to keep her body parts from being harmed too much.
-In public, Jo uses her Maid Outfit from her powered-up form to hide her brackets. Her neck bracket is still visible though, but Jo ad-libs it by saying its just a neckband. The others are a bit more difficult for her to explain, and she uses her outfit to conceal them. Her loose socks and skirt hide the brackets on her waist and legs, and her gloves and sleeve cuffs hide the brackets on her arms. She also tries to avoid situations where she can easily be knocked apart, unless she's only around her friends, or when fighting Witches.
-Jo can still operate fairly well without her head on. Most of the time, she simply looks at herself in a Third-Person manner instead of a First-person manner, and also relies more on her other senses, such as hearing and touch, to do it. Most of the time, this works rather well, though not as good as when she has it attached.
-When Jo detaches her limbs, her legs move around by hopping on their feet, and her arms move by crawling on the ground with their fingers. Her head, and upper and lower torso though, cannot move much when some of their other limbs are missing, and are practically helpless on their own. So she has to have the rest of her body pick them up, or have someone else carry them for her, when she has them detached.
-Strangely, Jo can still eat things while her head is off, and it doesn't fall out of her neck-hole, but seems to magically go into her belly. She doesn't exactly understand how it does this, but she beleives it to be another power gained from her Contract with Kyubey.
-Despite being able to survive doing this to herself, it is still very possible to kill Jo. If that Soul Gem on her back were to be destroyed, it's curtains for her. Nothing else works though, but destruction of the Soul Gem will instantly kill her, just like it is with all other Maho Shoujos.
Because of this, she never lets anyone mess with her Soul Gem, unless absolutely necessary. She knows how important the Gem is, for she'll die if anything were to happen to it.

The original Maho Shoujos only merely used this Semi-Immortality ability to survive longer in battle and take more harm from a Witch. Jo, however, thought outside the box and managed to find another good use for this Semi-Immortality. This isn't exactly a unique ability for Jo. All of the Maho Shoujos could probably do what Jo is doing, but they simply either choose not to, or don't really think of using it in this manner. Jo is just unique in that she uses it in a much more unique manner than they do, making for a much more effective means of using her Soul Gem powers.


Click these links to see the other reference sheets for more on Jo Ayara.
-Jo Ayara Ref: Main reference sheet [link]
-Jo Ayara Ref: Weapons and other powers [link]