Ea

'''SPOILERS AHEAD! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!'''

Ea is one of the Seven Ghosts in the 07-Ghost series. He is the awaking Ghost and responsible for managing the Book of Hades.

There is a statue of Ea in one of the seven Seven Ghosts towers in the Barsburg Church. It is currently unknown what people pray to the statue for, but considering that Ea is able to determine a soul's fate in the afterlife, it could be for someone to be at peace after death.

Etymology
When translated to Japanese, the word 'ea' means 'air'. However, as all the other Ghost names are related to German words, it's believed that this one is too. There is no translation for 'ea' in German, but when the pronunciation of the word is taken into account, there are some German words that are pronounced the same way. It is believed to be either 'ära' which translates to the English word 'era', 'ehe' which means 'marriage', or 'eher' which translates to mean 'earlier'.

Ea is also the name of a Babylonian deity of crafts, mischief, water, seawater, lakewater, intelligence and creation.

Form
Ea's true appearance is in the form of a hooded skeleton, (like the grim reaper) wielding a large scythe. His appearance is the same as Verloren's since the Ghosts are made up of Verloren's fragments.

Ea's Ghost symbol is yellow and looks like a strange sort of sickle, stemming from an orb in the centre and continuing clockwise over to the next side. This larger sickle has the curved blade of another sickle on top of it, this time the blade curving in the opposite direction.

Human
As only blood descendants of the God House of Ea can be reincarnated as Ea, those acting as Ea tend to resemble each other. Reincarnations of Ea presumably tend to have features often associated with Barsburg royalty, such as fine hair of inconsistent colour, very pale skin, pointy chins and sharp noses.

People who have acted as Ea

 * Karu
 * Many unnamed previous vessels

Personality
Ea is reserved and may appear unemotional, but is a kind, loyal and selfless Ghost.

Abilities and attributes
The Seven Ghosts all possess the ability to erase or otherwise alter a person's memories. Like the other Ghosts, Ea can make his true forms temporarily leave his human, host body.

Also, it is possible that the Ghosts can recover faster from injuries than ordinary humans.

Since the host body is dead; their hearts do not beat and their bodies do not give off heat, it is probable that all of them have a much greater tolerance of extremely low temperatures than ordinary humans.

Specific abilities
Ea possesses the Book of Hades, and is the only Ghost who is able to use it after Verloren's fall.

If a person still has years of life left but his/her body is destroyed, Ea can move that person's soul from the first broken body (vessel) to a new one, and that person can then continue to live. For example, when Roseamanelle Ouka Barsburg's human body went into pieces in an experiment, he moved her soul into OR-0007, a replica of her made by the Barsburg scientists in the laboratory.

The creation of the Ghosts
The Seven Ghosts are amongst the earliest 'gods' created by the Chief of heaven and their existence dates back roughly 1000 years. At the time of their creation, humanity was already present.

The legend of the ghosts tells that Verloren (the God of Death) was in love with the Chief of Heaven's daughter, Eve, but after her skeleton was found and her soul devoured, the Chief of Heaven accused Verloren of killing her. As Eve's soul being devoured automatically forced it to be sent to earth and reincarnated, Verloren escaped the heavens and fled to earth to find her reincarnation.

Verloren began looking into the hearts of humans in order to find the soul that originally belonged to Eve. However as he looked, that person's heart was instantly tainted by his presence, and slowly slipped into despair. This meant those souls could not enter Heaven in this life because they were no longer pure, and they would be forced to reincarnate again once they died.

"The Chief of Heaven dispatched seven heavenly lights from the heavens, in order to punish the wicked Verloren. They are said to have sealed the detestable Verloren on this earth."

- A nun

When the Chief of Heaven noticed the consequences Verloren's actions had on those souls he looked into, he fashioned seven heavenly lights out of Verloren's fragments, each with one of Verloren's powers, and sent them to execute him.

Schedel's Crusade
The Ghosts' mission was to take Verloren's body to The Land of Seele- where it would be judged and destroyed, and after they had fulfilled this mission their souls would be able to return to heaven. The ghosts drove Verloren to Seele, but even with their combined strength, they weren't strong enough to destroy him. Faced with this, they instead used the powers of the two angel eyes (Mikhail and Raphael) to tear Verloren's soul from his body, in the hope that they never join again so he could never be at his full power.

They sealed his physical body in Pandora's Box on earth, and used the Eye of Mikhail to make sure it could not escape from its prison. They sealed his soul using the Eye of Raphael, putting his soul in a human- and forcing it to undergo a process of constant reincarnation whenever the human body died- regardless of how the person had lived their life- so it could never enter Heaven again.

The threat of Verloren had been eliminated, but since the Ghosts were unable to judge Verloren, they could not return to heaven; instead staying in the mortal world to serve as guardians.

Ea went on to become the progenitor of the Barsburg bloodline.

After sealing Verloren
"The Seven Ghosts, to continue to protect the seal on Verloren, always remained in this world. In order to coexist with the people of this world they took on human forms. Before long they became tied to humans and built families... The houses of God inherit the blood of the Seven Ghosts."

- Seilan

Now on earth, each Ghost assumed human form and went on to live human lives; they married humans, had human children and died as humans. The Seven Ghosts and their human families went on to form the Seven Houses of God, and the Ghosts' powers were passed on to their children, and further generations.

The current ghosts are the descendants of the original seven.

During the Raggs War and return of Verloren
Around 990 years after Verloren had been sealed, the Eye of Raphael malfunctioned- resulting in Verloren's soul awakening (the human who was currently holding Verloren's soul regained all of Verloren's memories) and continued with Verloren's crusade against the Chief of Heaven.

The descendants of the ghosts that first fought Verloren were again forced to re-group and fight.

Currently, very little is known about the Ghosts' roles in the Raggs War.

A member of the Raggs family (the God house of Vertrag) and person acting as the Ghost Vertrag, Fea Kreuz, was accused of stealing and escaping with Pandora's Box, and it was this theft that sparked the Raggs War. Pandora's Box had been moved into a human- meaning Verloren's body was at a risk of escaping- so four Ghosts protected and guided Vertrag through the Seven God Houses in order to receive the cursed tickets and travel to the Land of Seele to destroy Verloren's body.

This, coupled with the fact Verloren's soul had awakened, caused Ea and Landkarate to separate from the others and go undercover into the military.

"The military's actions are disturbing. We will investigate further."

- Ea and Landkarate's last words before disappearing.

However, the Ghosts were not successful in their mission, and it resulted in the death of one Ghost, Vertrag, whose reincarnation was killed by Ayanami and devoured by Verloren.

Modern history
In chronological order:
 * Raggs War
 * Battle at Hohburg Fortress
 * Verloren's Revival

Trivia

 * One of Ea's jobs is to assign each and every soul a number. He/she sorts souls according to where they are going (heaven or hell) after death. The Seven Ghosts' soul numbers won't change even when they reincarnate in a different body. (manga chapter 76)
 * Lance saw that the Ea's soul number is blue 77707. (manga chapter 76) Similar to Landkarte's soul number, Ea's may also have religious significance-note the prevalence of the number 7.
 * Considering Ea's job (before a human even dies, he/she is assigned a number according to his/her destination after life) and the Japanese pronunciation of "ea", it seems that the German word "ehe" (before) or "eher" (earlier) is the inspiration for the ghost name.
 * Ea appears to work in tandem with Landkarte because their Ghost abilities complement each other.