Hefesto Strada

**Hefesto Stada***(ヘフェスト・ストラーダ; Hefesuto sutorāda)*, is a reincarnated angel of the seraph Israel's Brave Saint, ranked as the Jack of said peerage, and one of the main antagonists of Volume 17 in the Highschool DxD: Black continuity.

The descendent of the Church's device of violence Vasco Strada, Hefesto considered one of the best exorcists of his generation, and wielder of the sacred gear Volcanos Mortar.

## Appearance

Hefesto is a tall, muscular, tanned-skin 40-years'old man of short black hair, rough facial expressions, grey eyes always in a frown and a goatee. He tops all the members of Lavinia's peerage by a head and is roughly the same size as his leader Israel, Marcenas Lucifer and fellow brave saint Vladimir, already tall individuals. According to Julianna and Vladimir he's of spanish-italian heritage. He also has light blue and pink tatoo across the left side of his body from his Sacred gear.

Hefesto always wear's a white suit and coat, over a flower print red shirt. Being an angel candidate to become a seraph, he has a halo when in duty and three pairs of angelic wings, each of different colors, such as white, marble and glass.

## Personality

Despite his intimidating and stern exterior, Hefesto is actually quite calm, reserved and indifferent to the world around him. He's polite enough to recognize his place in heaven's hierarchy and overall status, and more often than not is seen quietly staring at somewhere else or reading a book when his attention is not needed. He also seems to be reserved and introvert angel, as even when under the tutelage of an angel such as Israel, he carries no weight or hate against devils, and only will express himself when contacted. As Zenjirou's states, while Hefesto's speech is translated in a very coarse voice similar to Israel, he adresses others, angel or not, with the suffix '-dono(殿)', which is archaic and extremely polite.

Despite his sacred Gear's abilities, he has shown a liking and soft spot for plants, having his own room in heaven dedicated to plants of all kinds, such as bonsai trees, roses, sun flowers, lotuses, and Sakuras, and exotic and even some extinct plants such as cry violets and pallasana spurge.

## Powers & Abilities

**Immense Exorcist Skills**: Hefesto is capable of taking on High-Class Devils and monsters alone even before he was reincarnated into an Angel, such skills making him a possible candidate of a Seraph in the Future, alongside his fellow angel Vladimir Merenda.

**Immense Strength -** Due to his intense training and overall figure, Hefesto is a stout-strength centered fighter with extreme power enough to cause lethal damage in a Balance Breaker-powered Vladimir and a P²xP²-powered Zenjirou, the latter claiming that if it wasn't for his armour, it'd have been a one-shot kill. Even when walking normally he can cause small quakes in a 5-meter radius, being able to shatter the ground in one single stomp.

**Immense reflexes and senses -** Training under the traumatic regimen of Israel, Hefesto learnt how to maintain extreme focus and attention into any detail in his surroundings, claiming he can hear a whisper in a booming crowd and that he has photographic memory to boot. He also seems to be able to recognize everyone even if he ever met them for a few seconds, and distinguish anyone by their smell, walk pattern or aura.

**Light-Based Weapons**: As an Angel, Hefesto is capable of creating light base weapons with ease, being able to form vines and roots of light capable of binding opponents.

**Flight**: Being an Angel, Hefesto can use his 6 wings to fly.

### Sacred Fist

An inherit ability taught by his father from his ancestor Vasco, **Sacred Fist,** is a technique that allows Hefesto to infuse holy power into his punches, thus allowing him to damage beings that are weak to holy energy even without the use of light weapons. Augmented with his tremendous physical strength and light-based weapons, Hefesto could cause an immense amount of damage to devils. Hefesto has also show to be able to fuse fire and lava from his Sacred Gear into his punches.

## Equipment

### Volcanos Mortar

**Volcanos Mortar***(不滅火山王の入れ墨ヴォルカヌス・モルタル,* Vorukanusu morutaru*)*, also known as **Tattoo of the Undying Volcanic King**, is the Sacred Gear of Hefesto which has the ability to control and create lava and magma, capable of burning away a town, taking the form of a light-blue tattoo on the user's left side, with images of pink flowers integrated into its design. Volcanos Mortar has the power to create magma and lava from the ground in large or small amounts, with enough pure heat and power to liquify metals and rock upon contact, as well as being able to form small volcanoes capable of burning away cities and towns. According to Hefesto, Volcanos Mortar has a conscious, with a loud and fiery personality.

It's Balance Breaker is **Purgatorio Ragnarok**(浄罪用火炎による焼却プルガトリオ・ラグナロク, *Purugatorio ragunaroku*), also known as **Incineration by Purification flames**, not much is known about it since Israel forbid Hefesto to use it, but According to him and Julianna, this Balance Breaker has the ability to level three of the Heavens and is a strong candidate for a Longinus.

## Trivia

* Images and appearance is based on the character Sakazuki/Akainu from **One Piece**.
* His name is spanish for Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire.
* Like the rest of Israel's Brave saints, Hefestos is based on a classical element from ancient greece, in his case his element is Fire.
* Hefesto was the first Brave Saint in Israel's peerage.
* Just like the other members of his peerage, he opposes one member of Lavinia Allocer's peerage and represents one of the Seven Virtues. In his case, he opposes Miyuu Ichinose (former Takeshi Chiba) and represents **Patience**.