Zuzani [WIP]

» Name: Zuzani
» Age: 427
» Gender: Male
» Race: Vasto Lorde
» Association: None

» Appearance Written: Zuzani cuts a lean, ghastly, silhouette against the horizon on the dunes of Hueco Mundo. The creature naturally stands at six and a half feet tall with a hunch, and just over seven feet if standing straight, allowing the creature to loom over most humanoids. His face, if you could call it that, is a chitinous plate, smooth and featureless, save for the fanged maw where massive incisors hang over to his jaw. While fearsome, Zuzani’s eyeless visage also betrays his blindness.

The rest of his body is covered in similar chitinous plates, where sharp spines protrude from the shoulder and elbows. They neatly cover his entire body, leaving only thin lines of dark flesh visible beneath. Long, gangling, arms end in taloned fingers, with similar talons at the end of his toes and one at the spur of each heel.

The only strip of clothing Zuzani wears is a raggedy cloak, claimed from the corpse of some long dead arrancar in the sand of Hueco Mundo. The fabric shields most of Zuzani's appearance from view, leaving him looking more like a grim reaper, than the monstrous hollow he is.

» Appearance Image:



» Personality:

The road to power in Hueco Mundo is one that leaves the soul scarred, and Zuzani is no exception. It crafted Zuzani into a creature of contradictions. Cautious but ruthless. Audacious yet intelligent. Ravenous with hunger, desperate to quell the roaring emptiness that clutches and claws at every Hollow’s soul.

Cautious: Zuzani’s blindness shaped his early years as a Hollow. The first thing a Hollow knows is hunger. The next, is that it is eat or be eaten. Debilitated as he was, Zuzani learned quick how to judge when a fight was beyond his scope. Discretion is the better part of valor, as they say, and when monsters battled on the sands of Hueco Mundo, the overzealous made easy meals. Zuzani learned that prey that seemed to easy to hunt was often a trap. Zuzani learned that it was better to flee and hunt again another day than it was to risk everything for a mere morsel. Why attack a pack of Adjuchas when they could be separated and picked off, one at a time? Zuzani takes his time to gauge his opponents, and his opportunities, with even measure before taking a course of action.

Ruthless: Zuzani’s blindness meant that when he fought, he could not spare his opponent any dignity. Life was a constant battle for survival as a low-level hollow, and when an opening presented itself, you were not just a fool if you passed it up… you were dead. This mindset shaped Zuzani, and it was something stuck with him through the present. He is not one to offer an opponent any respite or aid unless it can net himself some future advantage. Honorable combat was something left to pompous Shinigami and sentimental fools that had forgotten the brutal scramble for power that shaped all Hollows. Zuzani has no qualms in redirecting an opponent’s attack to the back of one of their allies. He is a creature that believes the ends justify any means, so long as they are effective.

Audacious: No Hollow grows strong without taking risks and Zuzani is no exception. Power only comes to those that seek it, especially in Hueco Mundo. Even blind, Zuzani could not hide and scrape forever. He needed to fight, and in the blasted hellscape of Hueco Mundo, sometimes fearlessness was all you needed. If you approached without fear, even Hollows would scatter in confusion, doubt and fear plaguing their minds. What did Zuzani know that they did not? Why was he so confident, if he appeared so weak? Audaciousness was a weapon unto itself, but one that needed to be deployed with care. Approaching the wrong Hollow in such a way could have been a death sentence.

Intelligent: One could only behave as an animal for so long in Hueco Mundo. Those governed by their base urges, their fears, wants, rage, or sadness, often found themselves food, or if they were courageous enough to brave the Human world, upon the wrong side of a Shinigami’s blade. Zuzani was quick to learn as a minor Hollow, that if he could not overpower his peers, he would have to outsmart them. Baiting them into traps with false promises of wounded Soul Reapers, turning them upon each other with surreptitiously spread lies, or goading them into battling each other so Zuzani himself could swoop in on two wounded opponents… Not only does he have the drive to take every tactical advantage he can to survive, he has the intelligence to makes his plans come to fruition.

Ravenous: Zuzani suffers the same hunger for souls as any other Hollow: the desperate drive to fill the void left where his heart once was. It was that hunger that drove him to survive, rather than waste away a blind, pathetic, thing. It fought and scraped for every scrap to satiate it, but it was not enough. He thought that when he would become a Menos Grande, it would lessen. Then, he hoped that it would lessen as an Adjuchas. Now a Vastro Lorde, he fears there is no release. All he can do is continue to consume. He would ascend to an Arrancar to try to end it if he did not find the idea repulsive. And in the end, did Arrancar not also keep their Hollow holes?



» History:

Zuzani has no memory of his life as a human. He does not remember the name he had, nor where he lived. All he knows is that he was alive and holds the vague, bitter, memory of what seeing with eyes is supposed to be like. His first memories are that of the sands of Hueco Mundo, shortly before Ichigo Kurosaki’s rampage through Hueco Mundo, and the terrible battle the shook the desert. Zuzani was a blind, pathetic thing hardly able to fight for himself. He had only the barest sense of ability to sense Reiatsu- the most basic level that all newborn Hollows had. In all likelihood, he should have died a second time, his soul absorbed by another… but he survived.

He survived by the skin of his teeth, and the manifestation of his ability to flee. He hated it- not his power, but how he was forced to use it. To jump from place to place, dashing through portals as stronger Hollows bore down on him as an easy meal. He survived only by merit of his regeneration, limbs and more lost in his attempts to escape his pursuers. Zuzani was reduced to scavenging the fringes of battlefields, stealing away the dead and dying to devour them in secrecy and safety. In his desperation, he even hunted in the Human World, amidst the growing spiritual awareness and the sheer danger it meant to his kind. It was dangerous, yes, but also opportunity. Many spiritually aware beings were unaware of how to properly use their new power, or how to defend themselves against the beings like Zuzani that stalked them.

All the while, he worked to hone his one ability to ‘see’. He burrowed and hid, scavenging kills only when his hunger became too insatiable to ignore. In his solitude, suppressing his meager reiatsu as best he could, he expanded his senses. At first, he made little progress. But soon, he could ‘see’ beyond the ends of his burrow.

When he emerged from his burrow, starving and weak, it was like seeing the world for the very first time. Not just the living things, but the particles of sand as they whipped in the air around his body. Driven by hunger, and enchanted by his newfound sense, Zuzani went on the hunt. That was the day he killed a Menos Grande. He could ‘see’ the Menos for the very first time, crawling at the fringes of the Menos Forest. It was weak for its class, merely a Gillian. Regardless, it should have been out of Zuzani’s league. But even weaker, Zuzani could see everything it did. He could see the reiryoku of the Gillian’s Cero before it fired. He could see the flailing of its limbs. For the first time, he did not use his portal ability to run away. It was simple enough to open a portal in front of the forming Cero, and the simple creature did not think to move before firing its attack.

Words struggle to convey the sheer, joyous, blissful, satisfaction that Zuzani felt when he sensed the Gillian’s own cero slamming into the base of its neck, sending it to the ground, writhing in agony. He feasted then, a meal the likes of which he had never enjoyed before, that spurned his apotheosis into a Menos. From here on, he would feast in earnest. Against the simple, animal-like Gillian, the ability to redirect a Cero with his portals was devastating. They had little other way to battle, and in a battle of Menos, the one that could not use Cero was easy prey for one that could fire freely. As a Menos, Zuzani did not lose a single battle.

It was not until Zuzani attained the rank of Adjuchas that he once more felt the sting of defeat. His pesquisa had improved leaps and bounds by this time, a perpetual radar field around him. He even began experimenting with his idea of an improved Cero: one that condensed reiryoku into a vicious cutting beam. Zuzani had never been more confident in his abilities, or his ability to use his portals seamlessly in combat. That all came crashing down when he was ambushed by an Adjuchas hunting pack; weaker Adjuchas that used pack tactics to prey on the strong. It was a cunning ambush. They had smothered their reiatsu to mask their approach as a single challenger, and their tactics were coordinated enough to keep Zuzani from entering a portal to escape until he had been viciously wounded.

Zuzani’s regeneration, honed as a minor hollow, was finally able to shine once again. It resuscitated him from the bring of death, reiatsu stitching together flesh and chitinous armor. Moments were all he needed, an arm and a leg regrowing in mere seconds. He returned to the hunting pack, ablaze with fury, only to find devastation.

This loss was also his first encounter with an Arrancar.

At this proximity, he could sense the power difference between himself and the other Hollow. He was certain the black haired being had only come to enjoy itself. After all, why else would it be rooting around the devastated remnants of the hunting pack, tormenting survivors, and basking in its own superiority? Zuzani recognized it as an Arrancar immediately. The sword on it hip, and the hollow energy surrounding it, was a clear giveaway. Of course, he’d only heard of them from other Adjuchas before. Hollows that tore aware their masks and gained the power of Soul Reapers. The idea of becoming more like a Shinigami was laughable to Zuzani- disgusting, even, but he could not deny the raw power emanating from this being. He could have fled- and probably should have. But this also presented an opportunity. The Arrancar’s pesquisa was obviously not as developed as his own, not having sensed his return. And distracted as the being was… Zuzani decided to test his Cero Fino on a prime target and push himself to his limits.

The battle was the fiercest of Zuzani’s life. It was normally a risk he would never take, but he was sure an opening, devastating, shot would be all the advantage he needed. Even with the sneak attack, the Adjuchas was unprepared for the sheer power and speed the Arrancar was capable of. Their battle shook the desert, and in the end, Zuzani was left bloodied and exhausted, missing three of his limbs and half of his torso, but his opponent was too exhausted to continue. Worst of all for him, the rumors of the Arrancar were true: they sacrificed their instantaneous regeneration for power. Cackling in his rasping, creaking, voice, Zuzani crawled forward on bloody, reforming stumps before he reached his meal and devoured him, spirit and all.

This was his apotheosis. Why surrender that which made them Hollow, just to be more like Shinigami, he wondered? Why put a ceiling on your power, and give up so much potential for a rapid boost? Could Arrancar even grow stronger from feasting on souls? It was not something Zuzani wanted to discover. No, he decided, bones and body twisting as new power flooded his veins, reiatsu skyrocketing as he ascended to the next stage of evolution.

Zuzani was brought to a new plateau when he devoured the nameless Arrancar, fueling his transformation into a Vastro Lorde. From there, a new world of possibility was open to him. Did he dare feast more on Arrancar? Adjuchas were a poor meal for a being such as him. Maybe it was time he turn his attention back to the human realm. All paths were open to him, and his Camino Divino was the key.



» Equipment: None.



» Racial Abilities:

Pesquisa Santa: A benefit of his blindness, Zuzani has honed his pesquisa to the point it far outclasses that of most hollows. If he stops to concentrate, he can expand his pesquisa to encompass an area of one hundred kilometers. His sensory control is fine to the point where he does not need to pause and concentrate to identify the owner, the strength, and location of reiatsu within a ten-kilometer radius around himself. Within five kilometers, Zuzani can accurately gauge the maximum amount of reiatsu any individual can produce and accurately sense the location and owners of reiatsu, regardless of interference from overwhelming amounts of being generated by any nearby person. Within one kilometer, he can identify the reiryoku of individual techniques being used. Inside one hundred meters, Zuzani can identify precise, hidden, movements and the most minute manipulation of reiatsu, reiryoku, and reishi. Within ten meters, Zuzani’s pesquisa is so precise he could inform someone the number of raindrops occupying that radius during a thunderstorm.

Cero Fino: From between where his eyes would be, Zuzani concentrates reiryoku into a fine point the size of a marble before firing energy from it in a long, thin, beam. Such a dense concentration of reiryoku is capable of tremendous penetrating and slicing power. The initial destruction is small in scale due to the size of the beam, but damage to humanoids and monstrous creatures can still be devastating if organs are struck or a limb is removed. Due to the unstable nature of the super-condensed beam, it leaves behind volatile reiryoku particles on the surface of anything it encounters. These particles detonate moments later with tremendous explosive force, like someone had stuffed a bala into a space the size of a pin head. The Cero Fino’s dense reiryoku concentration also allows it to pierce through other reiryoku-based attacks without compromising the beam’s integrity.

Vitalidad Imparable: Zuzani sees regeneration as one of the Hollow's greatest weapons, and it is a tool that saved his life on more than on occasion. Without it, he certainly would never have become a Vastro Lorde. The adiea that Arrancar would give it up is unthinkable to him. Zuzani has gone as far as to nurture the ability within himself. Combined with the fine sensory powers of his enhanced pesquisa, Zuzani can guide the regeneration of fine organs. By focusing his pesquisa inwards, Zuzani is able to force reiatsu through his body and speed the regeneration of not only limbs, but organs as well. As potent as this healing is, not even he could regenerate from the destruction of his brain or the purification of his mask.




» Hollow Power:

El Camino Divino – The Divine Path: By focusing his reiatsu, Zuzani is able construct temporary gateways between locations. This is similar to a Garganta in that there is no precipice world to travel through. The difference is the speed and precision which Zuzani is able to produce them. The portals take any shape Zuzani desires, lined in red reiryoku, and he can bring them into existence almost instantaneously, at will, with tremendous range. The backside of the portal appears as a swirling, infinitely thin, wall of crimson reiryoku. If the desired location is an area that Zuzani is familiar with, he can open a portal there from other dimensions (e.g. a portal to Las Noches from the Human World). If Zuzani can sense powerful reiatsu within the same dimension, he is able to summon a portal at its approximate location. If there is not a familiar target or a powerful reiatsu to use as a beacon, Zuzani is able to open a portal to any location within the range of his pesquisa. If Zuzani attempts to open a portal at a location where a physical object (not gas or energy) is already present, the portal does not open and the reiatsu is expended on nothing.

Zuzani is able to construct two flat portals at once (two entrances, two exits) directed at any angle. Each entrance is linked with only one exit. In addition, Zuzani can increase their size by expending reiatsu. The largest portal he can manage is one hundred meters in diameter, although creating a portal of that size is taxing. The portals allow travel through from both sides. Matter and energy can be passed through and withdrawn out of the portal. So long as a physical object is inside a portal, it cannot be closed or destroyed. If a physical object is blocking the two portals, Zuzani cannot open a new one until the object is removed from the inside of the portal. Zuzani is able to shrink the portals down to trap an object inside them in this way. If stuck inside a portal this way, a person is able to force it open wider by expending reiatsu and physical force more powerful than the reiatsu Zuzani is using to keep the portal constricted around them. If a person is stuck this way and Zuzani moves outside the ten kilometer range, the portal remains for one additional post before the person is forced out to one side, depending on which side of the portal has more matter in it. Energy and gas does not inhibit a portal’s placement. The presence of a portal allows Zuzani to extend the range of his portal placement, as energy is able to pass through these portals. This allows him to increase the range of his pesquisa and further portal placement.


Portals can be destroyed in two ways: striking them with a sufficiently powerful attack with a physical object in such a way that the object cannot pass through the portal (e.g. a reiatsu enhance sword slash on a portal in such a way that the blade does not enter) or a sufficiently powerful attack to the rear of the portal. A portal cannot be destroyed if there is an object inside. If a portal entrance is destroyed, its corresponding exit is destroyed as well.

Direct energy or gas attacks are ineffective at destroying portals. Portals can be made quickly and large enough to allow most energy attacks to pass through. If an energy attack of sufficient size, like a cero, strikes a portal from the front that is larger than the portal, energy from the cero that hits the portal will pass through. Other energy will continue around the outside of the portal. A slow moving gas attack, similar to Mayuri’s bankai could seep around the edges of the portal behind it. A more direct gas attack, like a powerful burst of wind, would have an effect similar to Cero.




(To Find Out about what these skills are for, please READ THIS THREAD before you try doing anything to it. After you have read it, do not fill your skills out until a staff member has graded your thread. The staff member checking your app will also give you Will Skills in which you can add to your app when approved. Click the spoiler below to see what tier gets what kind of skills.)

Spoiler:

General Skills

• Durability: Elite/Advanced/Adept/Trained/Beginner/Untrained
  
• General Speed: Elite/Advanced/Adept/Beginner/Untrained
  
• Strength: Elite/Advanced/Adept/Beginner/Untrained
  
• Weapon Skill: Elite/Advanced/Adept/Beginner/Untrained
  

Hollow Skills

• Acid Skill: Elite/Advanced/Adept/Beginner/Untrained
  
• Garganta : Elite/Advanced/Adept/Beginner/Untrained
  
• Cero/Bala: Elite/Advanced/Adept/Beginner/Untrained
  
• Regeneration: Elite/Advanced/Adept/Beginner/Untrained
  

Will Skills

• Willpower/Determination: Elite/Advanced/Adept/Beginner/Untrained
  
• Mental Deduction: Elite/Advanced/Adept/Beginner/Untrained
  
• Focus: Elite/Advanced/Adept/Beginner/Untrained
  

[Click the Spoiler for details on each skill section]

Spoiler:

» Roleplay Sample:

Zuzani kept his 'gaze' locked with the Shinigami in front of him. It wasn't something he needed to do to 'look' at someone, but it was something that he'd learned offered some sense of comfort to those he spoke with. 'Eye contact', they called it. They wanted him to look at them when he spoke. It was a simple indulgence for beings of limited vision. He stood in silence for a moment, no more than ten paces from the Shinigami, paying attention to the subtle ebb and flow of her reiatsu. It was impressive enough for a wayward warrior from Soul Society. Only their most daring, or suicidal, would 'take the fight to the Hollows'. Surely, the pitiful creature understood the difference between them. She had potential, surely, but could she even pierce his hierro?

Zuzani stood in silence a moment longer, letting the cool breeze that danced over the dunes of Las Noches catch under his cloak, swirling over his lithe form. He did not speak until it died down, his voice creaking like a heavy, rusted, hinge, "You have come far to achieve little, Shinigami. Do you think your life has no value? Or do you think that slaying a smattering of Hollows will tip the scales of this grand, eternal, conflict?"

It was out of character for Zuzani to make idle conversation like this, but he'd never had the chance to speak with a Shinigami before. He turned away from her then. It was not the same as taking his eyes off her- far from it. It was a common trap foes fell into, letting them think he needed to face them to see them. He wanted to know more about this Shinigami. He raised a hand, beckoning her to follow, "Come. I will show you Hueco Mundo, little Shinigami. And as delicious a specimen you seem, you've piqued my curiosity more than my-"

Ah. A thrust attack from the rear. How sadly predictable. A mere thought was all it took to open a slim portal at the tip of her blade, another opening in front of her charging form to redirect the blade up at her throat. Zuzani turned back then, unleashing a wave of spiritual pressure in an attempt to dominate the other into submission, "A foolish gesture from a foolish creature, but not unexpected. Come. I have much I wish to learn from you."

END OF THE POST