The islands in Ocean Country have been celebrating the arrival of the next Umikage, Saizo. The long bridge leading to SHIPPUUGAKURE NO SATO has been closed for outsiders because they wish to celebrate this moment with Ocean Country natives only.
As usual, the Storm Country has been hosting the Asgard Games to welcome their Kanetsukage, Cornelia. It's a double special occasion because Cornelia is also the first female Kanetsukage. She has been picked for her courage, loyalty and outstanding power by the BOUFUUGAKURE NO SATO elders.
Not only that, but the Cherry Blossom Country has become relieved as well. It seems that everyone is slowly picking up after the war now. KUSAMURAGAKURE NO SATO proudly presented their new Sakurakage, Altair.
TSUKIGAKURE NO SATO is still thriving on the merchants coming in and out. They have not experienced anything special lately. Their wealth has remained the same as they were not forced to invest into shinobi unlike the others.
On the cold isles of the Blizzard Country, HYOUGAGAKURE NO SATO has still refused to create a free traveling policy. Some habits never change. To protect their traditions, they have even warned outsiders to not interfere with their matters.
Now that everyone is picking up again, who will come out on top?
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Kai has always been rather well to due, at least when it came to natural talent. He's not only got a large form likely from spending his childhood eating home grown produce that he farmed himself; but he was also born with a gifted mind. Housed within what looks more like a brick wall than a man is a very active mind. Always seeking answers. However, he's anything but perfect, far from it in fact. A better list of descriptive would be damaged, absent-minded and lost. He was always social awkward a bit, but this made only worse by the loss of Emily. And though he can be charming when it's called for. It's usually just an act, as he's become rather good at faking emotion over the years. He is motivated, and loyal. Traits his village is made all the better for. He is forgiving, and patient with both friend and stranger. But though that be the case he is also defiant, eccentric and perceptive. These qualities combined with obsession, passion and confidence make him to be sometimes viewed as a bit of a radical.
Alignment: Nuetral
Dirty Secret: Kai’s darkest secret is also his single greatest regret and the origin of his strongest fears. When he was young and still naïve about the world he watched it tear down someone he held close. They said it was cruel fate, called her a martyr and a sacrifice. But he called her Emily and try as they might to justify her death, it would never make sense to him why it was her instead of him.
Superstitions: Kaishi holds no faith in the mysticism of the unknown, believing that all things can be understood, their power merely a function of their own specific truths. This is not to say that he discounts the presence of gods or magic, rather that he does not fear them simply because he does not understand them. On some level, however, he does believe in a kind of afterlife, likely more a product of his desire to earn forgiveness for his inaction than any source of logic or reason.
Quirks:
• An academic at heart there is little that Kaishi loves more than a mystery that needs to be solved. He immerses himself in his work, often to the exclusion of all else, going so far, at times, as to forget conversations that are still happening, the passage of time, even his own need for food and sleep. If the riddle is challenging or interesting enough he sees nothing else until it is solved.
• Calling back to his admiration of his academic teachers Kai often verbalizes his internal thought process as he works through particularly challenging tasks, this impulse is so ingrained as habit he rarely even realizes that he is doing it, which can give the illusion that he is still carrying on a conversation even if he has slipped back into his work.
• As absent-minded as he often seems Kai has an inexplicable gift for memory, at times calling back the most inconsequential parts of conversations long past. Often meaningless snippets or thoughts this gift for recollection does mean that he does not forget a promise, though when he finally gets around to fulfilling them is anyone’s guess.
Accomplishments: Lover, Poet, Friend.
Likes:
Kai's interest as rather simple. In a sense at least. He enjoys Puzzles, mysteries and questions. He enjoys a quiet room filled only with his own quiet contemplation. And likewise, he's rather fond of a good debate. Something he's always immersed himself in were books, literature of all kinds. Both fiction and non fiction. A trait he and Emily shared, passionately. He is a man of reason, and logic, always seeking the answer behind the question. Something he's grown to love, is the sound of rain. The pitter patter it makes falling on his roof top, or even the rim of his straw hat. Finally, he's grown fond of poetry, and music likely due as default to his obsession with literature.
Dislikes:
Now, getting on his bad side is rather difficult. As he's just as soon ignore a minor annoyance than confront it. However, among things that may set him off are ignorant people. Those who speak without understanding, or worse, fake it. He's still country boy at heart, and the bustle of the large city makes him weary. Kai says he finds it full of useless people, idle banter, and needless distractions lit by neon. He's learned never to trust a politician, or ethics. The latter being a bit of a darker trait. Where most find morals important, he finds them binding, and would rather remain open minded, and live moment to moment. But above all else, he hates feeling powerless, fears it even. Fears confronting that one situation in which he finds himself truly helpless, and without an answer.
Motivation: His most poignant hope is that he might find some way to clear his conscience and forgive himself, in that face of that all else is faded and worn thin. The years have cured him of his desire for vengeance, why she died and who killed her matter little after so many years have past. All he cares about know is honing his talents and his understanding to the point where he is strong enough to change the world that let something like her death happen.
Fears: He fears death, fears being caged and helpless, being forced to watch without being able to act. Deep down he fears that he might never be able to forgive himself for not at least trying, that no matter what he does in penance he will still blame himself for what happened back then. More than anything he fears that even with everything he’s learned it won’t be enough and he will be helpless again, and that is why he keeps searching for knowledge and power.
Place clan name here
Bloodline Name:
Bloodline Ability:
Location:
Clan History:
History:
ACT I "FAMILY HONORS":
I suppose the best place to start if you want to know about Kaishi Senshi is with his family. Kai never came from much, a modest family just outside of town. His parents worked tirelessly just to scrap together a living on the day to day so he never had much wealth or influence. I suppose that was in part where he got some of the drive that so defines him today. Working in fields, helping his father put food on the table.
Like many country folk, they were rice farmers. Though they grew other produce for themselves, the rice was their prized crop. And would be sold, every year, to the local markets in the city. It was nothing special. They were by no means the largest, or most profitable farm around. But it got them by. It kept the house warm, and their stomachs full. It taught Kai the importance of work. And of performing well. Because rice is not an easy crop, mind you, it must be cared for. Especially when it equals your lively hood. Sometimes, he would have to work all day, into the evening and watch the sun set as the damp fields soaked his hands, and his clothes. The cool air would set in with the fading daylight and the chilling sensation did terrible things to a young imaginative mind. In his books, Kai had read of "Tengu," demons that lived in the nearby forest and sometimes he could swear he saw flickers of movement. To fast to be bird, or beast.
On one such occasion, curiosity got the best of him. The rustle he'd noticed was not too far away, just beyond the edge of the trees. And before he knew it, Kai found his body on auto pilot. Wandering closer to the forest little by little, step by step. As he crept into the cover of the trees, a strong musk hit his nose. It was unfamiliar, though he was still young at the time, but it instinctively filled him with fear. Turns out, he's stumbled upon a mother boar, and her piglets. She snorted as he yelled, startled as much by him as he was by her. He quickly dashed away, running through the field, as the mother pig chased closely behind. She gave him a pretty nasty gash when the muddy fields began to slow him, not her down; though luck would be on the boys side. His father, having stepped out to check on the boy had noticed him missing, and went back in to grab his bow, and arrows. Upon return, it took the old man but a single shot, and the mother boar fell, taking more of the field under her fallen weight as she did so. His mother would strict the wound on his leg, and his father gave him a scolding about the importance of the fields he'd ruined for the year. But also taught him to be thankful for the kill, which would feed them through the winter.
Still, a modest beginning turned into a modest few years and it wasn’t until he started immersing himself in literature that anyone would have noticed anything out of the ordinary from the youth. Even then his knack for solving problems and remembering facts and details, oddities from the things that he had read did not seem wholly remarkable. He was bright, gifted some might have gone so far to say, but without opportunities such talents were unlikely to amount to much in the grand scheme of things. Academics were a game for the rich, beyond the basics they held no practical place in his world. Still, literature provided a glimpse of the world beyond his backwater town and a means of passing the time so his parents indulged him as best they could.
ACT II "CHILDHOOD":
It was probably around the time that he was first entered into the local elementary school that Kai began to distinguish himself from the other kids his own age despite his modest origins. What had been simple indulgence before slowly transformed into something more. There was a sense of hope in his talent, in the idea that he might be able to do more than what had been set out for him. His parents rallied behind him, devoting everything they could to helping him pursue his education even if their efforts could only hope to take him so far. Without money or influence the chances of attending one of the best ninja academies as a boy from a backwater family, was beyond impossible. Short of a pure miracle it wouldn’t matter, but that didn’t stop them from trying, and it didn’t stop Kai from devouring every detail, every fact and figure that he could find.
His drive carried him forward, but at the same time it set him apart from his peers. He did not mingle with the other children his own age. I suppose in a way that made what happened next a little easier to bear for someone so young. Without those childhood connections there was nothing to break when Kai’s own personal miracle showed up in the form of a unique scholarship for merit to one of the most renowned Ninja Academies that money could buy, located in Shippuugakure. You see even though that little town was small, it wasn’t isolated from the rest of the world, and when Kaishi started raising a bit of money on his own tutoring his more well to do neighbors. Word started getting around of the local genius, and that got the attention of some of some influential people.
Where the scholarship came from never really mattered though, what did matter was that it came and with it a change that no one ever really expected, even if they had spent so long hoping for it. It wasn’t that anyone was going to hold him back, none of them had the heart, besides, if he could succeed despite all the odds it meant that maybe it wasn’t so impossible after all and that was, well, it changed what it meant to live in that tired little town. At the very least it gave them all something to talk about, something to be proud of. So Kai left behind the familiar and the comfortable and found himself thrust headlong into the middle of a culture he did not understand. He never really missed them, at least not that I could tell, he used to say that there wasn’t that much to miss. Sure he had family, and special places that he had had to leave behind, but that was it, all there was to the home that he had known and most of it he could find again, given the time. What proved harder to adjust to was the idea that he could be an outsider because of his status or his upbringing. Country boys were less common in the economic elite of the major cities and that meant that they were a clear minority in the better academies.
ACT III "SOMEONE SPECIAL":
I know, I know, you aren’t interested in the story of the new misunderstood kid struggling to fit in among a group of peers he’s got no business being a part of. You’re interested in when he changed, when everything changed. And I’m getting there, but you have to understand that something like that, something that big, is never self contained. Still, Emily, the root of it. I suspect it would be accurate to say that he met her as a result of the isolation he felt from the other students. She, at least, was like him, another outsider, risen from nothing. She was brilliant in every sense of the word, maybe even more so than he was. She was his intellectual match, but more than that she was the first person he’d ever met who dared to challenge the world, to dare to try and change it. He didn’t join her at first, but you could see the way she captivated him with her ideas, the way he was drawn not just to her, but to what she stood for, what she fought for.
I don’t pretend to believe in things like true love, or any of that romance. I don’t hold to talk of fate, or the idea of destiny, but there was something between those two, a connection that you just couldn’t deny. They were perfect for each other to the point where I wouldn’t even argue that they might truly have been meant for each other. That everything that had happened to them up until the moment that they met had been part of some master plan. He changed for her, and she for him, before they had simply existed, but together they transcended that as cheesy as it sounds. They crushed every problem, every mystery and challenge set before them, because they worked so well together. She was the one who gave him the idea that there was power in knowledge, in those old texts that he was always pouring over.
But you didn’t bring me here to wax nostalgia either, so I’ll skip ahead a bit farther. I don’t think they every really made anything official, but by the time they were finishing up their Chunnin exams, it was pretty obvious to everyone who knew them that there was something there. Which is what made it so odd that he wasn’t there at the rally she’d helped to organize in the heart of the city. Something about pursuing a special training opportunity. He’d mentioned that day that he’d planned on joining her when he was finished, but by then the rally had already turned violent. Apparently there was more discontent in the city than either of them had ever expected. Emily probably never meant for things to get as chaotic as they ultimately did, but by opening the floodgates and giving the people a glimpse of change she set off a chain reaction that no one could have stopped. And when the city responded they responded with force. By the time the he got there they were already picking through the debris. I don’t even think that he got a chance to see her, they’d already taken the body away.
It crushed him. He’d been quiet before he met her, but after he lost her he retreated back inside of himself like never before. I don’t think he could process it that quickly, which is probably why he didn’t really react to what had happened until after he’d made a name for himself taking on some of the more dangerous, and important missions allowed to him. Some, a Chuunin had no business partaking in. And then all he could manage was to leave, without saying a word, probably as much to forget as because couldn’t see himself doing anything else. 1 years later, he was 22 years old. He returned with gusto, and quickly rose to the rank of Jounin. When the haze of it lifted he threw himself back into the research he’d started with her, pouring over those old texts, searching for the power that Emily had always believed was there.
ACT IV "HERE AND NOW":
(SECTION SUBJECT TO MAJOR UPDATES DUE TO SITE ACTIVITY!)And now you know how it started, how he got here and what made him the person he was when he arrived. Which I guess means we’ve gotten to the point in the story where you want me to tell you what put him, what was the final piece of the puzzle. Sure he was broken when he came back to Shippuugakure, but that was then. We’ve all got things we’d rather forget, secrets from our past lives that are best just left where they are to gather dust and fade away to nothing. Kaishi had more reason to forget than most.
With his recent acceptance into the rank of Jounin, he's been given mission that suit his prowess a bit more. They are of course dangerous, but hell, what does it matter to a man who believes he's already lost everything? Although often plagued by the ghosts of his past, Kai is a worthy soldier. be it guarding a VIP, or assassinating some potential threat, or even recon of some enemy base of operations, he performs each mission without question to the best of his abilities. Because of this, he's become someone the village can rely on. Someone they trust and even depend on.
On a mission, Kai demonstrates both tactical genius, and flawless, powerful execution. His large build is by no means slow, and his movements surprisingly fluid for one such of his size. Little force is wasted with each strike, and those who must face him on the battle field, surely know fear before death. Because when a 6 foot tall man stands before you, with cold, resolute eyes before quickly ending your life. Your last thought is surely how you have met not man. But monster.
However, no one becomes a cold hearted killer without reason or penance. The loss of Emily still remains vivid in his mind. It's not that fighting in particular helps him forget, it simply keeps him busy. It's his profession, it's what he simply does. Defend the village. And inthe heat of battle, with you life on the line. It's all you can do to calculate the enemies movements, and your opportunity to strike.
That said, she plagues him. Like a phantom calling him name she is ever at his back. In his dreams. Though, they may be more accurately described as nightmares. On one hand, he's with her again. On the other, he loses her again each and every night. But even when he wakes, sometimes he can hear her laughing. See her there before him, in a stunning yellow dress hand outstretched asking him for a dance. In my personal opinion, in times like this it's best just to leave the guy be. Because some how, maybe it happened to him in the thick of battle one day I honestly don't have a clue. But somehow, he's trained his body to go on auto pilot. I suppose that way he can day dream, and just be with her. But that phantom won't stop him from rolling heads, should you pose a threat to his life at the time.
ACT V "THE PATH I WALK":
Which brings us rather nicely to this moment, this conversation. You brought me here to find out what kind of a threat this Kaishi Senshi poses to the shinobi world, to your reputation, to the steady flow of commerce and trade between wealthy clans and nations. Looking back over his life I can’t say with certainty that he won’t do something radical, after everything he’s seen, everything that has happened it wouldn’t take much to push him over the edge now. But at the same time I think I can say with certainty that power has never been his focus, it has always been a means to some other end. I suspect he wants a power that will prevent him from feeling helpless like he has felt in the past. In light of that I say leave him run away again should he like, leave him wander from place to place masking ninjutsu as miracle and selling cheap trinkets, medicines, and poisons to whoever wants to buy them. Unless he comes to your village he is no threat to you. Shippuugakure keeps him busy as they know they must. He is a valuable asset on missions. But a dangerous man to leave wander the inner workings of his own, damaged mind...
RP Sample:
Capturing The Mind of Ulquiorra:
"What is a heart? What does it do really, and what does it mean?" Asked the 4th Espada to himself aloud.
He'd stood alone in his room for some time now. Waiting for the time to come when Lord Aizen would return. Painted across his face was a patient stare glancing aimlessly out a single window, not at the chaos that reigned within the sands far below but at something more. There was something in the glass and although vague iit stood out to him. A face, if you could call it that. A reflection of himself barely visible but it was there. Reflected upon the surface of the window mocking him, emotionless and pail. He could see the hole in his neck and the unmoving eyes, just as hollow, staring back at him. Piercing himself to the core. He'd always questioned others, but now it seemed as if he was questioning himself. In his own silence there was a raging storm of thoughts, ideas, theories buzzing within his brilliant mind.
"What do others see in these eyes besides shades of emerald around an ebony core? What is it they call fear, and why do I bring it about so easily?" He asked himself, silently within the confines of his own mind.
It wasn't that he wished to feel these things, only to understand them. Some would be unnerved by such lack of humanity in that gaze, that soulless stare. Something he'd grown accustomed to in his years. Never feeling the fear, the sorrow, the multitude of feelings that others felt when his eyes fell on them. Ulquiorra was complicated. It wasn't that he tried to be this way, but rather it was the burden of his aspect of death. Some might say that he alone epitomized his race more than anyone else. Hollow. Void. Empty.
Emptiness was what defined him, that state of lacking meaning or sincerity. Both allowing him to perform the task at hand without a second thought. To kill, and eventually make his way to the seat of power he currently held by sheer, heartless untamed killing. And yet, it plagued him. He could feel it, the void pulling at him, rising higher and higher in his throat every day. As if due this curse, he lacked something.
"Perhaps that is what lies within a heart…"
With a quick turn he broke away from himself, from that face staring back. Was it some means to try and defy himself? To deny the emptiness and rush off to find meaning in life? The simple answer is no. Such feelings of contempt needed to come to that conclusion, that defiance where beyond him. He was a servant of Lord Aizen. A vessel, void for a reason. For him, that was enough. His coat flared a bit as he walked briskly out of his quarters, leaving behind nothing. Save for an empty room, and a blank sheet of glass. Fitting I suppose.
Pit-pat-pit-pat-pit-pat
The sound of Ulqiorra's steps echoed through the simplistic hallway design of Hueco Mundo. He was alone, here in this palace with his own thoughts and his shadow for company. He was fine with that, it allowed him more time to think, and plan for what was to come next. Lord Aizen had use of him, and Cifer performed well, that was all that mattered. If he wished death, protection, cunning or grandeur, his Lord would get it. It wasn't that he was overly confident, he simply did not fear death, and he knew how to kill. A deadly combination to say the least of the matter. After some time of walking, lost in simple thoughts of past missions and of his meeting with Aizen himself Ulquiorra had come to find himself in Aizen's throne room, and as he gazed up with that blank stare of his his gaze fell on nothing. Just an empty white room with an empty throne. Yet again, quite fitting.
Hands crossed with fingers intertwined and eyes closed his chin came to rest on the backs of his hands. The 4th Espada sat in tranquility at the foot of a long set of pristine white steps. Steps that Aizen would eventually use upon his return. The silence threatened to swallow him, that is if you can swallow that which is already void. It surrounded him, pounding at his ears like a rhythm. A rhythm that carried him away, far from Aizen's palace and back to times of old. If the Espada, or most specifically he, could dream, he did now.
He was surrounded by vast sands. Not emptiness, but a whole lot of the same over and over again. This was before his mask broke, before he'd become one of the Espada and was but a simple arrancar. Though simple might not be the word, for at that time he questioned his existence, born in shadows from what had been nothingness with a white body it puzzled him as those he'd awoke to where all black. He'd left them behind now, and wandered the sand with not a thought in his head. Just the simple counting of steps.
"1…2…3…4…" echoed in his mind like a melancholic narration.
Eventually he was stopped as beast and bird and humanoid alike rose from the sands. The count still clear in his head as his eyes darted to each of the three victims, calculating their demise already. Fools. They rushed him all at once, making what came next all the easier. As they closed in he raised a hand and pointed towards the foolish hungry creatures.
"Cero…"
His words were cold, and lifeless as a massive blast erupted from his fingertips engulfing the other arrancar and obliterating the part s of their body it had touched. The humanoid was completely vaporized whilst a single wing fell to one side and the entire back end of the beast collapsed against the sands. Now he could continue onward, desperate to get somewhere it seemed, but with nowhere in particular in mind as the counting began again.
"1,324,037… 1,324,038… 1,324,039"
This pattern of killing and counting continued for far longer than the Espada could recall truly, it was far too long ago and had been far too tedious a task to truly recall with absolute perfection. But one thing stood out more than the rest. There among the vast grains and the hordes of wild creatures threatening to take his life, or he theirs, he found a tree. A fruitless, bare thing, solid white from base to branch. For the first time in his life, his eyes widened and the first glimpse of possible expression spreading across his lack of a face. It was so beautiful. The counting in his head stopped and a new goal, a new thought formed. He must reach this thing like him. He wanted to know all about it, yearned for it even. Here, surrounded by nothing but sand how could such a thing exist at all? And as he reach out for it, touching the first of its sharp ivory branches he felt…nothing. This thing whatever it might be was just like him. Void, dull and lifeless. It swallowed him, and as the two beings merged he truly understood what nihility was.
"Happiness…" He spoke aloud as it echoed quietly for a moment through the grand throne room.
He glanced upward, following the form of a man standing mere inches before him. His eyes falling ultimately upon the face of his Lord Aizen. There was no change in his expression, no feeling of relief accompanying the arrival of this man, only the expectation of orders and much needed direction. He rose to his feet slowly as Aizen quietly walked past the Hollow, allowing him a moment to collect his thoughts.
"Sorry I'm late." Spoke Aizen halfheartedly. "I had business to attend, and so do you."
Contemplation had ended. There was no lingering desire to go back to the past again, no feeling to be told of at all really. Only obedience.
"Tell me and it shall be done." His words came quickly like darts.
"The girl is currently traveling through the Dangai, go retrieve her would you?" Aizen spoke, more instruction than question.
His answer came quickly, and again rather short. "As you wish."
A wave of his arm was all it took to tear open a whole in space and time. Ripping open the Garganta, a space of black nothingness hollows used to travel between worlds. To be quite honest, if he could enjoy anything, he'd enjoy passing through this realm. But his thought's were not on that, but on his target. On breaking her will and making her obey his every word.
"Orihime, I'm coming for you."
Source: Mokuntaku
Face Claim: Character: Katakura Kojuurou / Series: Sengoku Basara
Last edited by Ventriloquist on Wed Apr 16, 2014 5:21 pm; edited 3 times in total