Malia Byrne [APPROVED, 3-5]

» Name: Malia Byrne
» Age: 360
» Gender: Female
» Race: Shinigami
» Association: Gotei United
» Rank: Seated Officer

» Appearance Image:




» Personality: Confidence. It's not something that Malia lacks anymore. She has quite a bit of faith in her ability to succeed at whatever she puts her mind to. In years up to her current position, Malia felt nothing but failure. She was often called useless by those around her and looked down upon by her own teammates. Sick of feeling that way, she made a few changes in her training and her ways of going about her work that helped her greatly. Malia is someone who is used to failure, so she doesn't freak out when it happens. She's able to keep a cool head and figure out what she did wrong to do better next time. Her mistrials have led her to being much more efficient, reliable, successful, and confident in everything that she does. She's worked her way up from a time she felt like she couldn't get any more pathetic and is proud of her accomplishments.

Malia's a thinker in most cases. She doesn't like running into battle without a plan and she doesn't like going in blind. She's the type to rehearse in the mirror for something important. She maps out a path before making a trip. She makes a list before going shopping or when packing up things she needs. She sits back and analyzes a situation as long as there is no need for quick action. She prefers these methods of doing things because she's caught herself being a bit too impulsive at times. When she's at her natural, not being given time to think, she'll speak or act to quickly and put herself into a situation that she might not want to be in. There are times that her impulsive behavior works out, but it more often leads to trouble than anything good.

Malia is an adaptive person. It's how she was able to change teams without anymore issues than she already had. Of course, it's possible that being forced to jump from team to team is why she is as good at adapting as she is. Things like the Gotei 13 turning into the Gotei United didn't bother her like it bothered other people. She was okay with switching Squads, Captains, and positions when she was asked to. Since she's a mostly friendly person, she can make friends just about wherever she goes. The only time she had problems with that was when she kept screwing up missions. Now that she has skill, experience, and confidence behind her belt, Malia feels like she is ready for just about anything. She's a 'take on the day' type of person.

There are not many people in the world that Malia admires. She doesn't have very many close friends, merely acquaintances she might talk to every now and then. She has no family and isn't very close to the others in her Division. In most cases, Malia doesn't have anyone. The closest thing to that is her old mentor and trainer, Midori Hayashi, but the two of them don't get to talk or see each other often. It was expected since there is what could be compared to an entire world between them now, but Malia sometimes misses her. There's one other person that she admires and that's her Captain. There is something to be said about a man who pushes against all odds and assholes who try to belittle you. She is very impressed with him.

There was a time where Malia didn't like races beyond human and Shinigami. Hollows still deserve to be destroyed. Arrancar deserve to be destroyed. Demons mostly deserve to be destroyed. Iramasha are okay? Vizards and Ziamichi are pretty cool. Sugiura are confusing? Quincy are sort of whatever. Hybrids are fascinating. In fact, it was meeting her Captain that Malia opened her mind more to the other races. Realizing he was a hybrid helped her feel a lot less malice toward those of other races. It's hard for her to accept full-blooded Demons as possibilities for good because of past experiences, but Henrex is a completely different story. She can't and doesn't want to hate him. He's the first Demon she's ever liked.

During times of war and fighting, it's just that. Fight, fight, fight. During those times of peace and quiet, Malia takes her time to relax. She enjoys trips to the World of the Living in order to see the more interesting sights. She has no problem taking time off of work to give herself a break from her everyday duties. Malia greatly enjoys the beach and being on the ocean. To the surprise of many, she's a pretty decent surfer. Other things she enjoys include juices and sodas, music, fashion, and different sports. She likes sweet things, sings along to music, has a girly side for clothes, and is an athletic woman who takes some time to run, jump, and play. She doesn't drink alcohol or smoke. She hates anything sour and cannot stand seafood.



» History: Malia was born in Europe, but raised in Japan. When she was four, her family moved to Japan for reasons Malia still doesn't know. She was too young to understand at the time and doesn't remember much of her childhood, so deducing the reasons for the move is difficult. She grew up a normal teenager, but had the ability to see spirits like many other kids were able to in her time. She kept it to herself, not wanting to alarm her family or have anyone try and get her to develop the ability. Malia wanted to live a normal life.

That normal life was cut short when a battle waged on above her town. Fifteen years old and she was running through buildings, trying desperately to find somewhere safe. She weaved through panicking people, fell a couple times, and found herself in a small shop at the moment a large hollow came barreling through the ceiling. Half of the building collapsed, a beams and other building pieces collapsing around her, pinning her to the ground. The hollow noticed her presence and was ready to kill her when it was suddenly killed.

Malia could barely see it happen. Her body was being pressed into the ground by heavy pieces of the building and it was becoming hard to breathe. One of the pieces struck her in the head, so blood was dripping down her forehead and into her left eye. She kept one eye open, watching as she was being saved by a stranger. She felt the pressure lifting off of her, her body being freed as he rescuer removed the debris. She was lifted carefully and cradled in the arms of a man with a face she'd never forget. She whispered, "Thank you" and passed out in his arms, waking up a few hours later bandaged up in a hospital.

A year later, Malia was caught in the middle of a robbery gone bad and was shot by some sort of magic. She died instantly and within a week had a konso performed on her soul and ended up in the Soul Society. For thirty years, she made a life in the Rukongai. Unlike some of the souls around her, she remembered her life before the Soul Society. She figured it was her ability to see spirits that allowed her to remember her old life. It was when she discovered her higher level of reiryoku that she decided to sign up for Shino Academy.

Her time at the Academy was average. She made few friends, studied, and did her best in class. Unfortunately, she never shined anywhere. In fact, she was always at the bottom half of the class. She never failed, but she wasn't ever impressive. When she graduated, she graduated a below-average student. Any time she read a book for a test, she was great, but when actual applications of things like swordsmanship, kido, or hand-to-hand combat came into play, she almost always hesitated or over thought the fight.

After graduation and she was assigned her first squad, she was placed in the Fourth Division to be mentored under Midori Hayashi, a woman she came to admire. Captain Hayashi was the one who noticed her aptitude for kaido and her inability to learn the more common ways. Captain Hayashi gave Malia a more hands-on approach in her training and taught her quite a few valuable lessons that Malia holds to this day. One of these lessons includes the training for her shikai. This was when things took a turn in her life.

Malia had become mostly comfortable in her place as Captain Hayashi's subordinate, but with the discovery of her shikai, there was somewhere else she needed to be. She fought it for a while, but about a year ago realized she needed to transfer to advance. Malia was soon transferred to the now Fifth Division's Stealth Force. Here is where she reunited with the man who rescued her so long ago. It was the same man whose face she couldn't forget, who pulled her from that collapsing building, who was now her Captain. His name was Henrex Astillon and, not surprisingly, he had absolutely no idea who she was, so she kept it to herself.



» Equipment:

Tamashī no kara (Soul Shell): She keeps a pack of five on her whenever she enters the world of the living.



» Racial Abilities:

Kido: Kido is not Malia's best skill, but Kaido is at the top. People treat the two like they're one in the same, but they're not. Her skill in kido is average at best. Since her control over her reiryoku is on the advanced level, her skill with kido is decent. It's not, however, where she concentrates her practices.

• Kaido: Malia concentrates much more on kaido. Having studied under Midori Hayashi for a short time, Malia took more from the woman's views than anything else. Because of her time with Captain Hayashi, Malia has chosen to focus her efforts on healing the body at rapid rates over destroying another. Her instinct and focus is on survival instead of on how much damage she can inflict.
  
• The Phoenix: Known to a few, like Midori Hayashi who has a similar technique that Malia based this one off of, the Phoenix is a powerful healing kido that pushes Malia's reiryoku to regenerate her body within moments. Reiryoku is concentrated behind a point in her forehead, collected in a seal shown only as a diamond. Once the seal is broken, the reiryoku surges through her body, healing it so rapidly that it's like she was granted a second life. The seal can be broken two ways: a small, but precise, safe, and accurate cutting of the reiryoku that creates the seal or a massive force of strong reiryoku that breaks it. The first way is how Malia will always unseal it. The second requires the reiryoku to actually hit her forehead and apply enough damage to break the energy holding it. This can only be used once per thread and takes at least a month to regain the reiryoku necessary for it to be used again. If the second way of breakage happens, the cooldown is increased to six months.

Hoho: Speed is Malia's number one skill. It's where she focuses most of her time and training. Her methods are about out maneuvering her opponent and overwhelming them with her strength and forces of her reiryoku. She isn't one of those who concentrates on the finer aspects of Hoho, like speed clones. Instead, her goal is to master shunpo and then move onto other known techniques, possibly creating her own.

Hand-to-Hand: Also coming with training under Midori Hayashi, Malia has learned that she actually enjoys hand-to-hand combat more than other styles of fighting. She's been called a natural at it, and her strength adds to the damage she can inflict on an opponent. Now, damaging someone isn't ever Malia's main goal, but if she's going to get into a fight, then she's determined to be the one that comes out on top.

• Senshi no tebukuro: (戦士の手袋 [Gloves Of The Warrior]): This ability was passed down to Malia from Midori Hayashi herself. However, Malia's version is a bit more forceful and precise than Midori's because she's focused on perfecting it. Malia wraps her fists, arms, and shoulders with Reiryoku to make them more durable. Most of her reiryoku is concentrated at the end of her fist. Upon impacting anything, she releases the reiryoku that is concentrated there. It shoots outward in order to create a force effect shaped like a beam, but invisible to the eye. When struck, one will feel like air shot through their body with the force of a bullet through a powerless human. The amount of damage the force causes varies heavily based on who she is using it on and whether she wants to slow them down or turn them to ash. Normally, she wants to slow them down.

Weapon Knowledge and Skill: Malia has a rather vast knowledge of weapons. She can identify most weapons easily, even those from ages long past. However, her skill seems to pertain mostly to blades. She can take a sword in hand and use it as effectively as the next average fighter, but she really excels in thrown weaponry and kunai. With decent accuracy in the skill, Malia is confident in her ability to take on any opponent with a blade in her hand. She enjoys a blade becoming a ranged weapon if you're skilled enough.

Ninjutsu: Since Malia is in the Stealth Force, this is what she'll be learning. What would a ninja be without their training? In this case, Malia would be woman. The ninja have been around for hundreds of years, and these core concepts and skills have been the essentials for one to become a true shinobi. But, that is not the entirety of what the shinobi follow. While samurai have their seven virtues of bushido, ninja follow the code of niniku. Many people believe the ninja to be faceless, merciless assassins, but they truly are the opposite. While they are, in technicality, assassins for hire -- they prefer to avoid direct killing when it comes to missions and jobs, unless they are directly required to. The concepts below are ones Malia has only recently started training in. She can be considered beginner to adept in the skills below.

• Bōjutsu – Stick and staff techniques
  
• Chōhō – Espionage
  
• Hensōjutsu – Disguise and impersonation
  
• Intonjutsu – Escaping and concealment
  
• Kayakujutsu – Pyrotechnics
  
• Kenjutsu – Sword techniques
  
• Kusarigamajutsu – Kusarigama (chain-sickle) techniques
  
• Naginatajutsu – Naginata (polearm) techniques
  
• Seishinteki kyōyō – Spiritual refinement
  
• Shinobi-iri – Stealth and infiltration
  
• Shurikenjutsu – Throwing weapons techniques
  
• Sōjutsu – Spear techniques
  
• Sui-ren – Water training
  
• Taijutsu – Unarmed combat
  

» Zanpakutô Name: Furui Tsuki

» Zanpakutô Spirit Appearance:


» Inner World: Imagine the aesthetic of Ichigo's inner world. It's a vast place, seemingly unending and you arrive in the same place each time and the colors are all in hues of blue. However, instead of the buildings in Ichigo's world, Malia's is made up of spheres of different sizes with different hues of green. Some of them are as large as a truck while others as small as a marble. The sphere's fly in random directions and are used as target practice for her shikai, but also her own body. Furui teaches Malia how to control her body in perfectly accurate ways. When you're taught to land on the tips of your toes, using a marble as your floor, while dodging multiple areal attacks from different directions, you get really good at maneuvering your body.

» Zanpakutô Appearance:


» Sealed Zanpakutô Power: Malia is able to immediately summon up to two kunai in her hands for the sake of sudden combat. They have no special properties or abilities and act as normal kunai. When she no longer needs them or they've been broken, they vanish in a puff of black reiryoku, no different than her shikai.



» Shikai Release Phrase: Hit The Mark

» Shikai Appearance:


» Shikai Abilities: Malia's shikai allows her to summon daggers, create marks, and throw those daggers to hit the marks she creates. First off, she can create up to 10 daggers in one thread that match the one shown above. These daggers create marks on whatever they hit or cut. These marks look like the diamond on her forehead, but are colored black. These marks represent targets that, once they're created, any time Malia throws a dagger in any direction, the dagger will turn to aim toward the target and fly to it.

When a dagger is thrown in a direction away from the target, including beyond it, the dagger will fly no less than 20ft away and then turn back to fly toward the closest target. This cycle will continue until the dagger hits something. Though it's aim is to hit the target, it doesn't have to hit that actual target to be stopped. Once it hits ground, a building, or another object, the dagger vanishes and can be recreated by Malia in her next post. If a dagger hits an actual target, it pops and reiryoku enters the wound it caused.

The reiryoku that enters the person's wound acts as a poison. The poison stacks with multiple cuts. The poison has one effect: Every two rounds of posting, a skill on the opponents skill sheet is lowered by one level. The effects go in this order: speed, strength, and durability. The poison moves on to a different skill once the previous one hits beginner. Those at beginner are not affected and the poison moves to the next. The poison lasts the entire thread. If the poison is stacked, it affects two skills at once. It is possible for the poison to be removed through many ways, such as kaido or the destruction of the reiryoku used to cause the effect of the poison. In other words, those that are more powerful (someone with a tier higher than her own) can overpower the poison. However, this must be a conscious effort. There is no automatic immunity.

The daggers flight speed always match Malia's speed, so if she is slowed, so are they. If she is paralyzed, so are they. This does not include grappling type moves, like being pinned or bound, or slows that are caused by other objects, like difficult terrain. The speed decrease only occurs if Malia's body is hampered, such as through injury, poison, other other means that are based on a more biological or physical level.



» Bankai Appearance:

Spoiler:

» Bankai Abilities:



» Shikokai Appearance: [What does your Shinigami look like when released in their Shikokai?]

» Shikokai Abilities: [What abilities does your Shinigami attain in Shikokai?]



Skill Sheet

General Skills

• Durability: Beginner
  
• General Speed: Adept
  
• Strength: Adept
  
• Weapon Skill: Adept
  

Racial Skills

• Hoho: Adept
  
• Kidō: Adept
  
• Zanjutsu: Beginner
  
• Hakuda: Adept
  

Will Skills

• Willpower: Advanced
  
• Mental Deduction: Beginner
  
• Pain Endurance: Beginner
  
• Focus: Adept