Lerna, Divine Branching Dragon [OTY]

» Name: Lerna
» Titles: Yamato No Orochi
» Age: 560 (Actually 250 ish)
» Gender: Female Presenting

» Affiliation/Rank: None

» Physical Appearance Description: In her base form, Lerna takes the form of a small 3cm wide sphere. Perfectly round and slightly translucent though the inside of her sphere is milky and has what appears to be the fang of an animal embedded into the very center of her. The cloudy red which spreads from this trapped item forms small nebulous swirls around it spiraling outward to the very surface of her pill.

Lerna’s body of choice is a short, 5’3” human woman with a curvy, toned build. Her hair is incredibly long and silky reaching all the way down to her mid-back.

In this form, she generally decorates herself with winding tattoos along her body consisting of small black dots forming long lines which end in black serpent heads with their mouths open and fangs bared. In the very center of her navel just above her bellybutton she also generally keeps a small four pointed star marking.

Since the fusion with her Zanpaku'to Spirit, Lerna has also grown a tail, complete with sleek scaly skin.

» Physical Appearance Image:



» Personality:
Lerna is aggressive. Passionate among all other things even in situations where it might not be the best course of action. Despite being BORN of such a careful and insidious creature, Lerna is actually more of a bright and optimistic individual than anything else, often finding a bright side to many situations.

Because of this, she can be rather annoying and even pesky to those who don't enjoy the sunny attitude she brings to the table. Though this level of radiance is often overshadowed by just how highly she thinks of herself. Prissy and a bit of a princess, that optimism very often comes with it's fair share of unintentional insults and unmitigated pity towards natural beings who she sees as inferior to herself. Even amidst pain, torture, and threat of death: Lenra will find a way to take pride in herself.

» Likes: Pampering herself, Slaying Hollows, Showing off, Spicy Foods, Physical Contact.

» Dislikes: Boastful People (other than herself of course), Bland foods, Boring landscapes, Vegetables, Apologizing Sincerely, Facial Hair. Demons.




» History

There are many long memories within Lerna, memories of a history that far outpaces her own literal recollection of her life and existence after her creation. But so far as she remember, it started like this:

She was born in what felt like water. She knew nothing but the dark waves around her, a swath of emptiness that smothered and deafened. There was nothing around her until there was suddenly something. Small little bits of matter that slowly began to collect and press in on her. Like sand in the depths of the ocean collecting on a cohesive surface, sedimenting around her. And when the pressure proved to be too great, she felt strength coil and writhe within her body.

She broke free from those crushing depths, and when she emerged into the world she saw it through many eyes. Though her mind was …. simpler back then. Everything was a blur of sensations and stimuli, a sea of pain, aggression, emotion, and blood as those many heads did not have the size or complexity to construct memories. But that wasn’t the case forever.

Her first memory was of almost being extinguished. By nothing of particular importance, even her low, slithering form had simply been deemed vile by some passing human and they had almost snuffed her out in a sudden bout of violence. She was beaten and set aflame, and then her smoldering form was thrown into a crack in the earth to be disposed of. But they had mistaken her still form for a corpse, and in those dark smothering depths she found herself fighting to slither to the surface.

And when she emerged, she was a shell of her former self. Blinded, weakened, she could barely smell and she had to rely mostly on feel to get around. But in this suffering she learned the importance of adaptation. To hunt. To stalk. She learned to return to where she hunted. And it was in this way that she devoured Seven of the Eight Indra Maidens before she was attacked and driven off by a man who smelled of thunder and storms: Susanoo, a Shinigami that had arrived on earth and answered the call of the human nobles that sought the safety of their remaining daughter.

She learned to fake death, to shed not just her skin but her flesh so that she could avoid death. But ultimately, it was not to be. That damned man that smelled of a hurricane managed to best her. And in the muddled memories of drunkenness, she remembered his blade swinging down eight times, until her mind went blank for good.

These were the memories of the Terrible Orochi, left inert by a shinigami and taken back to soul society. Even though the heads were not growing back, it’s body refused to die just yet.


No matter what they tried they could not get it to die properly, it's body thrashing and attacking everything around it. Ultimately the decision was made to seal the beast in the Mugen until a proper means of killing it could be found.

It wasn't until later during the beginnings of the mod soul project that the Orochi would come into play. The production of completely artificial souls was an undertaking that included research into souls in general, and how new souls came into existence through the mingling of two existing souls, and in some instances beings seemed to simply pop up all on their own!

It was through this research that the Soul society experimented with some prototypes in order to properly shape a soul, artificial or otherwise, into the pill. It was Orochi who was chosen as one of the initial subjects for researching this process. Countless times, bits of the beast were shaved off and altered in an attempt to perfect not only the compression of a soul into a pill, but a mechanism through which that pill would be able to interact with the body they were placed into.

Eventually, these experiments bore fruit: Lerna. Through these experiments, they discovered that these shavings from Orochi's body had agency, similar to how when injured the beast would produce a new head and the rest of it's body, even these shavings would try to regrow into a full orochi, though these chunks of flesh did not have the energy or mass in order to accomplish this. Ultimately, it was Orochi's bones that were ultimately used and studied, producing an individual soul, though some of the researchers argued whether the product would be considered an offspring of the beast, or was in fact the beast itself. All the same, this research contributed to the knowledge which ultimately culminated into the creation of artificial souls.

At least that was what she had been made to Believe. When she had been defeated by Susanoo and brought back to the Gotei it was discovered that she was some type of hollow. Quickly discovering that she had been feigning death, and that she had FAR too many souls top safely cleanse without upsetting the balance: it was deemed safest that she be sealed into a sword and kept in the Royal palace.

It was not until the invasion of the Royal Palace by K-world during World War 3 that Lerna's fate would be changed. A member of the Tsunayashiro stole the Zanpakuto she had been forged into and stole her away with the intent of experimenting on the Orochi. A portion of her soul was shaved away and made into a mod soul, while her Memories were modified to have her Believe that she had been an experiment of the Gotei. But ultimately they would lose track of her. During an investigation from the Gotei into the family, Lerna was cast to the world of the living lest they be caught red handed with the Illegal Mod Soul made from the beast, and the Sword that was her original body was confiscated and returned to the Royal Palace.


And in the mad scrabble resulted in her arriving in the the human world: she waited, until she was come upon by a poor and starving human. Mistaking her for candy, the human attempted to chew her, and when they failed, swallowed her whole instead. It was in this way that she stole her first body: A living one. The human she had wound up in was old, dying in fact. Lerna felt nothing when she broke the human’s chain of fate herself, damning them to hollowfication and leaving with her new physical form. However, she could hardly be satisfied with her situation. Living in the decrepit body of an old woman was hardly something she was keen on maintaining. Especially as the situation in the world of the living progressed.

While she was still trapped in an older body, she found that her serpentine qualities kept the stolen body from aging further. She even found that by shedding her skin, she was able to slowly rid herself of the old, decaying flesh that resulted in her elderly appearance, and over time the body which had once been a shaky shamble was soon restored to it's prime condition as if she were a woman in her twenties.

However, the world wasn't simply holding still around her.

Once the third world war had settled somewhat she began to train herself, going out of her way to hunt hollows and learn more about her abilities. When the Fourth World War came to pass, this time she was more prepared. Rather than cowering as the world around her was obliterated. Once the Fourth World War began, she began to rove around the countries of India and China, actively hunting down anything that seemed to be endangering the local humans. However it was not as simple as she had thought. For all of the training that she had gone through, each and every fight was tough and brutal, and she found that it was NOT in her own strength that she managed to win, but the sheer ability she had to continue fighting despite injury that she managed to take out the demons that she ran into, and worst of all, they didn't seem to be particularly powerful ones at that.

Finally she ran into a decent opponent, and even her tenacity didn't keep her from being almost obliterated. Savak Arut, a demon on the level of a shinigami Lieutenant, managed to stop Lerna's rampage with relative ease, reducing her physical body to little more than a torso, she was humiliated and left for dead in a pile of rubble after the demon finished slaughtering the humans nearby.

While Lerna had no emotional attachment to the humans that were slain, she still felt a deep and unacceptable injury to her pride. While she didn't care about protecting humans, she had protected them out of ... a whim. And perhaps some small sentimental attachment to the humans which provided goods and services that she very much enjoyed. Having the beings that allowed her to maintain her relatively lax lifestyle turned into people paste was not something she tolerated. And even more, the cruel manner in which the humans were killed felt like an insult to her capabilities as a fighter. She would not allow some hellpuke to humiliate her like this.

It was well past the end of the Third World War that she managed to repair her body to the point of being able to move again. With all the humans dead and not being able to show herself to the shinigami she was forced to rely on herself in order to persevere, and her stubbornness kept her from simply finding a new body. For months she managed to get her body back into proper shape before she began to focus her training. Unable to perform the massive spiritual feats that the demons were capable of, she instead focused on her physical body, training her own speed, strength, and self-reinforcement to turn herself into the juggernaut she had once been as an Orochi.

Not feeling that she was ready, Lerna remained distant from the events of the Fourth World War, focusing only on defending herself from the demonic forces which came to her, and even avoiding conflicts that she felt she could not win, telling herself that she was saving her energy for killing the demon that had humiliated her so long ago. But that opportunity never presented itself. Even as she ran into the demon forces on several occasions, she failed to find the demon she was hunting, and as a result she actually wound up avoiding most of the major conflicts of the Fourth World War outside of some small skirmishes.

Soured by her inability to avenge her ego, Lerna began to develop a deep distaste for Demons in general, but began to open herself up to the spiritual world. Deciding that she wouldn't be able to just hide from her past forever, she decided to stop hiding and simply live her life. Ultimately she would likely have to interact with the shinigami. There was no reason to believe there wouldn't be a World War Five, and when it happened, they were the organization she felt would most likely lead her to her prey.

Since this time she has encountered a number of Shinigami who happened to adjust her perspective on them as a whole. So much so that of all things it was suggested that she BECOME a shinigami substitute. After some deliberation she was accepted into the Academy with the recommendations of Vice-Captain Magnolia and Captain Murasaki (Now the Captain Commander).

Since her induction into the Shino academy she has shown considerable progress in her abilities and ESPECIALLY with connecting with her Asauchi. Finding therein, not some simple Asauchi spirit waiting to be molded, but a fully formed beast she knew all too well: Herself.

In a sheer twist of Irony, she was deemed worthy of Wielding her original form.

Because of this, her connection with her Zanpaku'to has grown abnormally, even managing to draw out the name of her Zanpaku'to in a very short amount of time as her Zanpaku'to too came to recognize just whom it was that had been deemed worthy to wield it. However, exposure to the Spirit of her old form has had unsual effects on her own soul.

Since bonding with her Zanpaku'to, Lerna's own soul has undergone rampant changes. Exposure to her original form has cause an unexpected evolution. Those long-dead traces of the Undying Orochi within her has slowly begun to bubble to the surface, and ultimately culminated into her Zanpakut'o egging her info manifesting it into the real world.

But she couldn't ignore this forever. After her participation and defeat in one of the Africa Assaults, it became abundantly clear that Lerna's Shikai would not be sufficient. And after seeing firsthand what catering to one's zanpakuto spirit could result in, having witnessed Shura Kurata's erratic behavior during and after the battle, Lerna resolved herself to face her Zanpaku'to.

She did not succeed. Being fully and properly trounced under the strength of her own weapon, Lerna was worn down and finally beaten. But her Zanpaku'to wasn't content with simple victory. Rather than returning to her Asauchi, it set it's eyes on her. Unveiling that it had no interest in simply escaping into the physical world. But rather intended to fuse fully with Lerna, reclaiming the piece of itself that had been taken from it ages ago.

With her Zanpaku'to slowly fusing with her gigai and Pill, Lerna was rushed to Third Division. Once she was stabilized, the Captain explained the situation to her. That Soteiken was in the process of fully fusing to her Core. He could either halt the process and keep them separate, or facilitate a smooth fusion with her pill. While maintaining separation would help keep her closer to what she was, she would forever be haunted by her Zanpaku'to trying to take control if ever she were to weaken. Alternatively, she could fully Fuse with her Zanpaku'to spirit, ensuring that control would never be an issue, but there was no guarentee that Lerna would be the same, and run the risk that she might be more Soteiken than Lerna in the end.

Ultimately, Lerna decided to go through with the full recombination. Despite her fears and worries about what it was that her Zanpaku'to truly wanted, the last thing Soul Society needed was an unstable mess. She was confident that whatever she became, that her dedication to the Gotei would survive.



» Equipment:



» Skills:

Mod Root The basis for all Mod Soul abilities and how Mod Souls Function. Designed originally to be placed into human corpses as expendable shock troopers, these roots are designed to be injected into a physical medium, at which point the mod soul will inject it's soul into the surrounding material and then possess and modify it into a proper body. This function was originally intended to allow the mod soul to occupy and utilize a corpse which on it's own would have no actual means of locomotion, let alone combat ability.

However, as an unintended byproduct, this ability allows Mod Souls not only to occupy physical bodies of living creatures, but also occupy physical vessels which have no actual means of motion or other function, and there are numerous examples of Mod Souls being placed into inanimate objects even as simple as a stuffed toy (primarily just cotton fibers) and being able to modify them into a fully functioning body, though these examples do often suffer inferior physical performance to human bodies. However, this is mainly due to most Mod Souls only being limited to their pre-programmed execution of this function, and with growth, practice, and learning about how this ability functions: a mod soul will be able to make any vessel perform well beyond it's normal limitations.

Because of this injection of spiritual energy, a Mod soul’s vessel is considered a halfway point between living and dead as it is comprised of both Physical and Spiritual material. Because of this, organs and other normally vital areas are mostly superfluous, a Mod Soul’s only vital point is their Pill.

At Lerna's own level of expertise she is capable of freely manipulating the physical appearance and physiological makeup of her vessel in order to maintain function. Capable of shutting off nerve receptors to certain areas and repurpose or shift around her biomass.

Root Shell An ability derived from Mod Root. This ability is utilized by Mod Souls to toughen their skin beyond normal concepts of durability by dragging in physical or spiritual material in their environment to reinforce their skin by integrating this material into it. This hardens their skin with a combination of their own spirit energy and whatever materials they can get their hands on.



The Hollow Core of Lerna's Pill. Rather than having been born with a pre-programmed ability as a mod soul, Lerna was left with a core made from her original body. And now that she has had time to mature and has become exposed to her Original Body in the form of her Zanpaku'to, those abilities have come to fruition.

Orochi Shedding In addition to her skin, Lerna is able to shed portions of her body and even massive portions of the body she is inhabiting. This process rids her of any injuries and negative effects that were localized to the area, and even injuries that normally would inhibit healing can simply be discarded and then regrown over time using Mod Root.

Mass Generation: Divine Branching Dragon
The ability which once allowed her to grow more heads when her own were severed. By using her own spiritual energy, Lerna is capable of rapidly generating body mass in the form of limbs, appendages, and regrowing sections of her body. This can not only generate human mass such as a leg or arm, but can also generate the head or tail of a snake from her body. These growths can reach lengths of up to 4 meters. While this process can be rapid and aggressive, it does require energy. A cost which can be mitigated by using Divine Dragon Hunger to intake mass rather than having to use energy to generate it herself. In cases in which this isn't possible, the ability loses efficiency and can wear down on energy reserves over time.

Mass Devouring: Divine Dragon Hunger
Budding from her hollow origins, Lerna is not only capable of drawing in mass to harden and reinforce her body, but can also break down her surroundings into energy to replenish her own reserves, heal herself, and even grow stronger. And in hollow fashion, this includes eating other souls.




» Zanpaku'to: Sōteiken 草薙剣 (Grass-Cutting Sword)

» Zanpakutô Spirit Appearance: Sōteiken takes the form of an enormous 7-headed orochi of sleek black scales and piercing red eyes. It will, however, often separate into it's human forms (plural). Taking the form of the Seven Earthly Princesses Lerna had once consumed. These forms are very close to identical and have sleek long black hair, fair complexions, and tend to wear modified Kusari.

» Inner World: Lerna's inner world takes the appearance of a towering japanese estate interwoven with a vibrant forest. Seven massive barrels of overflowing liquor form a large pool of booze that floods the central courtyard of the estate, though it's apparent shallowness is entirely deceptive as the booze itself is seemingly bottomless once sunk into.

» Zanpakutô Appearance: Lerna's zanpaku'to spirit has been consumed into her Pill. While she still has an Asauchi, her Zanpaku'to spirit has fully fused to her being, and as such the blade no longer possesses any powers.

» Sealed Zanpakutô Power:





» Shikai Release Phrase: Let's have a Drink

» Shikai Release Action: With the fusion of Lerna with her Zanpaku'to spirit, she is no longer capable of using her Shikai normally. Instead, she is in a state of Constant Shikai, in which the effects of her Shikai can be activated at any time as though always in a released state.

» Shikai Appearance: There is no notable change in the weapon on release.

» Shikai Abilities:

Bounty of Eight Maidens

Causes Lerna to start secreting a fermented poison of several types. Only 1 type can be produced at any one time and swapping between these types eliminates any residue of previous flavors from the environment and effected targets. While these variations of venom are secreted throughout Lerna’s body they are produced in her bones. This ability can be active for 5 posts before going on a 2 post cooldown.

Kuikorosuhime (Devouring Princess) A flavor of fermented venom which corrodes through materials it comes into contact with. Materials without significant durability are simply corroded, causing 2nd degree burns over a single post and chewing through about 5 inches of material when corroding nonliving material. Durability superior to Zanjutsu skill will corrode at half the rate, with Master and superior durability simply receiving surface burns than being corroded through.

Yowaseruhime (Intoxicating Princess) A flavor of fermented venom which blurs the senses and inebriates living things that come into contact with it or breathe in the vapors (generally permeates the air within 2 meters of the fluid). This causes dizziness, loss of coordination, and a reduced capacity for decision-making, which tends to make targets more susceptible to suggestion (varies by ooc consent). This fluid tends to collect in the stomach lining and along the throat and mouth, as such individuals can force themselves to vomit and expel the venom to rid themselves of symptoms. Without Purging, a target can recover from inebriation 3 posts after the last post in which they were exposed to it, and are immune to being poisoned during recovery and for another 2 posts afterward. Targets with Focus or Willpower skills above Lerna's Zanjutsu skill will have only mildly inconveniencing symptoms and can recover in a single post and are immune for 4 posts after recovery.

Shōkyakuhime (Incinerating Princess) A flavor of fermented venom which is obscenely flammable. even a slight spark of reiryoku will cause the fluid to ignite explosively causing plumes of fire. Unlike other flavors which simply seep from the skin and soak Lerna, this is instead secreted and collected in the mouth. Igniting this venom within her own mouth causes a burst of flame similar to a flamethrower. This venom can also be spat or ejaculated from under her tongue. Any externalization of spirit energy would then ignite and causing a fiery explosion as the fluid combusts. Lerna herself is immune to being harmed by these flames directly.

Dancing Spirits

This ability allows Lerna to manipulate the Alcohol she generates in Shikai, allowing her to move and shape the alcohol as she wishes within a 15 meter radius around herself. The speed and force with which this alcohol moves around scales with her Zanjutsu (Capping at Elite).





An ability similar to an Arrancar's Resureccion. Rather than a normal Bankai, Lerna's weapon does not undergo any impressive transformations. But rather, the full swath of her spiritual energy is allowed to spill out into the world around her, creating a massive aura of reiryoku. However, in order to ensure that this energy does not negatively affect Soul Society or the World of the Living, a seal has been embeded in herbody, with the key to said seal placed in her Asauchi to restrain her full power, allowing it to be used in order to release. Scales identically to Bankai off of Zanjutsu.

» Shin'keitai Name: Yamato No Orochi

» Shin'keitai Release Action: In order to activate the release, Lerna snaps the Guard on her Asauchi.

» Shin'keitai Appearance:

Upon release, Lerna's Reiryoku wraps around her body and hardens into black armored plating over her limbs and her Tail, which splits into Eight, each of which can reach lengths of up to fifteen meters by extending or contracting.

» Shin'keitai Abilities:

Orochi Ōi (Great Serpent Shroud) 大蛇覆い

The dense spiritual energy which surrounds Lerna in the form of massive snakes. These heads can manifest within a 5 meter zone around Lerna, and can reach up to 50 meters expanding outward. Not only can this spectral shroud attack and manipulate the world around her, but can be considered extensions of her body when it comes to using abilities (Ex, they can produce venom from her shikai ability, can be used as limbs for the purpose of Hakuda techniques, ect.)

Orochi Takara: Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi 大蛇宝: 天叢雲剣 (Orochi's Treasure: Cloud-Gathering Heavenly Sword)

In addition to her Zanpaku'to Spirit, Lerna is capable of manifesting the blade which she had consumed ages ago. By congealing a high amount of her Spiritual energy into the shape of a blade, Lerna is capable of manifesting the Legendary sword either within her own grasp, or that of one of her Serpents. This weapon has incredible cutting power, its blade completely saturated with the venom that is produced by Lerna, and in fact produces it in tremendous quantities. Whenever the blade is swung, a cascade of venom follows the arc of the weapon, slashing and subjecting anything in it's path to the effects of whichever flavor is currently active. These explosive bursts of venom can be likened to ceros unleashed at the level of her Zanjutsu.

This weapon, when manifested in the hands of Lerna, is about 2 meters in length, and is a sleek black double-edged straight sword. IN the grasp of one of her serpents, this weapon is much larger to fit it's mouth, and generally is about 7 meters in length.





General Skills

• Durability: Advanced
  
• General Speed: Advanced
  
• Strength: Advanced
  
• Martial Skill: Adept
  

Shinigami Skills

• Hoho: Adept
  
• Kidō: Adept
  
• Zanjutsu: Master
  
• Hakuda: Adept
  

Will Skills

• Willpower/Determination: Advanced
  
• Mental Deduction: Advanced
  
• Focus: Adept
  

» Role Play Sample:

END OF THE HUMAN APPLICATION