Hebi Hebi no Mi, Model: Ouroboros

Hebi Hebi no Mi, Model: Ouroboros allows the user to transform themselves into the serpent Ouroboros, making them a **Ouroboros** **Human**.

Ouroboros is a serpent that has been depicted and symbolized for thousands of years, and it's most common iconography being representative of the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. It has heavy implication of being synonymous to the cycle of Samsara, however due to westernized influences it diverged mildly from the Hindu school of thought, having come to represent in the west the endless cycle of creation and destruction.

## Strengths and Weaknesses

The obvious ability of this fruit is that it allows the user to transform into a serpent. While the standard transformation would be that of a massive being, leviathan in size, allegedly the user can control how large, or small, they become. In fact, Ouroboros is said to maintain the ability to change the shape of the user to any degree, be it within the constraints of a 'serpent' and whatever the user's natural form is, most often being human.

Their scales are very durable, akin to armor, and by the properties of a 'snake,' the user will innately be able to conduct 'snake-like' activities, such as expanding their realm of perception via their tongue, as well as through infrared vision, and easily (more easily) sense vibrations within the air and ground. The strength of the user in their snake form depends on the size and shape they take, obviously with larger bodies having larger power potential, though smaller bodies maintain higher agility and speed, as well as the ability to remain harder to detect.

The user of the Ouroboros fruit finds themself able to kill themselves, and to birth themselves. Essentially, they create upon themselves a self-fulfilling and never-ending cycle of life and death, forever locked in this reality.

They are loved by life, and loved still by death, for they represent that which both find themselves within. Were they to embrace life for a prolonged period of time, they could encourage it to cycle towards death, and were they to embrace death for a prolonged period of time, they could encourage it to be reborn. Life finds itself attracted, in adoration of the user, though death often strays if neglected.

Unfortunately for some who may be hoping to use this as a get out of jail free card for reincarnation, the user can only maintain their own consistent form in reincarnation, others being unable to choose to reincarnate what they reincarnate as, which is not within the discretion of Ouroboros either.

It is up to fate to decide this, something generally outside the influence of Ouroboros itself.

While the user of the fruit is able to lock and alter their own cycle of change, and of life, it is unknown whether they can apply this to others. Thus far, the current user has dismissed any notion of such. This may be due to the fact that the user of the fruit themselves feel an innate disgust for the alteration of the flow of the rest of the world, as they represent a a cycle, not a redundancy.

The Hybrid Form of this fruit allows the user to sprout a snake from any part of their body, though only a single snake, and one that must be attached to them at all times. It can change size and shape, moving in accordance to the conscious thought of the user, who can choose to implant their thought processes (mind) into either the head of their current body, or that of the snake which is protruding from them.

This snake can produce all the functions one might expect of a snake, equipped with sharp fangs and venom, however the main purpose of it is to kill the user of the fruit. This snake can be made to attack the user's own body, killing them. After which, the user will be 'reborn' exactly as they would appear to be in their prime, and retaining their thoughts, memories, personalities, etc. When being reborn, the user is forced to first begin within either their original form, or that of the snake Ouroboros, though the size of this transformation can still be dictated. Their life energy will be restored as if nothing had changed at all, and they temporarily are released from the limitations of their own body, exemplifying beyond the peak of the power for a short time, which begins at it's height before rapidly waning in energy. This is sometimes explosive, however generally it is simply an after-effect of the process.

Now, the interesting part comes next.

If the user of this fruit, while manifesting the snake in "hybrid form" instructs the snake to bite another, living, organism, that organism will be locked in time for a short moment, as they are presented with 3 choices, which they will always be able to choose from, and without lapse in time regarding their rationalization of such choices, meaning that they quite literally have an eternity to think of their choice, or perhaps simply as much 'time' as the user of the fruit allows them.

These 3 choices are:

* Life
* Death
* Rebirth

Essentially, they are allowed to choose Life, which simply brings them back to reality and they shrug off the bite as if nothing occurred, Death, which brings them back to reality, and the bite causes death within the target, or Rebirth, which sees the target immediately die as if they chose Death, but after a few short moments, they will become enshrouded with a similar energy shown by the user of this fruit upon their own Rebirths. However, with the exception of the fruit's user, those who choose to be Reborn have no choice as to how they are reborn, or what they are reborn as.

How one is reborn, and what they are reborn as, are directly related to their truest feelings about themselves, their desires, ambitions, aspirations, philosophy, and finally, their deeds and how they afflict those outside of the domain that is their own vessel.

The accumulation of these factors falls under the concepts of Karma and Dharma, which directly influence what one is reborn as.

On rare occasion, these forces of "fate" may see they reborn to simply revive as themselves, renewed with vigor and without a single detriment to themselves, however this is nearly never the case, with most turning into different beings entirely, sometimes with consistent thought, however generally not with consistent perception nor form. And thus, the cycle continues.

Strangely, even if one returns, is reborn into, their same thoughts and body, there is a strange phenomena that has a chance of occurring that sees their legacy forgotten, even though they yet live. It's almost as if sometimes an exchange is necessary to continue living within oneself, that being that to be allowed to retain oneself one must give up who they projected to be. However, as it does not always occur, this logic may not hold up.

Lastly, the user of the Ouroboros fruit reigns over the domain of "cycle, perpetuity, and consistent change." As the representation of the infinite cycle of creation and destruction, life and death, and rebirth, the user becomes able to alter the cycles that present themselves as such within the world. (The former ability falls within this category, however it is the most prevalent and strongest of the cycles the Ouroboros can maintain)

Slowing down aging, speeding up death, persuading the water to fall in a perpetual reign, or perhaps a fire to never dim, all such cycles can be persuaded, prolonged, shortened, removed, by the presence and persuasion of the user. However, the more complex this cycle is, the harder it becomes for the user to maintain it's integrity, or the integrity of a change to it.

For example, while a constant breeze may be simple for the user, making a car never run out of gas would be exponentially harder, as the system is much more complex pertaining to it.

Though, while the user becomes able to sway and stimulate cycles themselves, they will feel a deep inclination to leave things as they are, perhaps due to the influence of the master of cycles wishing to peruse through them as they naturally would be.

While not explicitly a weakness, one of the requirements of this fruit can appear as tedious. That requirement being that every New Moon the user must eat themselves. This is a both painful and refreshing, though it is rather graphic to watch, and displays the user's necessity of maintaining themselves. (This is done by the snake of their 'hybrid' form)

Aside from this, the user suffers from standard devil fruit weaknesses.

## Trivia

tl;dr, Ouroboros represents infinity, and the cycle of/within infinity, with an emphasis on the passage between life, death, and rebirth.