Ryuzawa Hogosha [4-4; Hazard Rank E]

» Name: Ryuzawa Hogosha
» Alias: N/A
» Age: 55
» Gender: Male

» Association: Gotei United, Second Division

» Appearance Written: Standing at six feet in height, Ryuzawa cuts a lean, wiry figure. Slim, even considering his height, there doesn’t appear to be much muscle on him. His hair is a nondescript black, quite in contrast to the striking blue of his eyes.

When outside the standard Gotei uniform, he garbs his Gigai in dark jeans or dress pants, button-down shirts with or without ties, and a double-breasted jacket.

» Appearance Image:




» Personality: Once a mannerly, soft-spoken sort, short on words to say about anything outside his fields of particular interest, Ryuzawa has become much more forthright and outspoken since a fateful and formative meeting with former Captain-Commander Ibiki Suika. Granted the blessing of her Resolve Force, an infusion of the power of her Zanpakuto to manifest the will of the wielder into reality, Ryuzawa has taken on a unswervingly resolute and confident streak of his own. It comes more naturally to him now than ever to set his mind to a goal and pursue it in spite of any deterrent, driven both by his growing faith in his own grasp of his abilities and the encouraging thought that such mighty peers could have faith in his potential.

To his friends, Ryuzawa can always be counted on for words of insight and encouragement. A principled peacemaker who hates to see good acquaintances at odds, he has a knack for helping to resolve disagreements from the position of a devil’s advocate, helping the aggrieved to see things from a different perspective. When he sees wrongdoing, he has few reservations about calling out.



» History: Like most who pass into the Soul Society, Ryuzawa has no memory of his human life. He awoke in a middling district of East Rukongai, where he worked for some years as an assistant to a local shop proprietor while he got his bearings and learned about his new surroundings. It was an uneventful time, but the lack of distractions allowed him to focus on the task of gathering information about this place. Even though fellows told him that he had surely known about the existence of the Soul Society as a human, adjusting to his new circumstances wasn't easy.

Right as he was getting used to them, those circumstances changed yet again, as he drew the attention of a passing patrol of Shinigami. They pulled him aside to speak to him, informing him of his unusually high levels of spiritual energy - the sure mark of a potential Shinigami - and offering him a place amongst them. Ryuzawa leaped at the chance to better himself and continue to learn more about how this strange place worked, and after saying his goodbyes to the handful of friends he had made, enrolled as a student of the Shinigami Academy.

From the outset, Ryuzawa was a mostly average student. While his swordsmanship and Hoho techniques could be described as adequate, he was next to hopeless when it came to Hakuda. He made up for this, however, with his intuitive grasp of Kido. Since his strengths and weaknesses had been exposed to him, he was quickly able to tailor the time he spent training outside of class to further hone his strengths; he would not need to fall back on his meager Hakuda, he reasoned, so long as he kept up a reasonable proficiency in Hoho and Zanjutsu, and used these as the foundation on which to freely build up his understanding of Kido.

By the end of his third year of study, it was clear to all of his peers that Ryuzawa was bound for the Kido Corps, and that is precisely the division he applied to join after his graduation. Much changed from its former self under the old Gotei organisation, the modern Kido Corps was as much a fighting force as an arbiter of spiritual law. Ryuzawa could be certain that he would learn a great wealth of things about his new life in the line of his duties.

Years, decades, passed without much incident. Between assignments, Ryuzawa threw himself into his studies, particularly to pursue his ambition to master the art of Kido. In a stroke of fortune to serve this end, he was selected by then-Captain-Commander Ibiki Suika to receive the blessing of her Resolve Force; she imparted to him a sliver of the power of her Zanpakuto’s Shikai to manifest his will, and coached him in applying this newfound power to his Kido. Endlessly grateful for these revelations and her show of confidence in him, he threw himself into training with renewed confidence and an even sharper focus, seeking out other powerful Kido practitioners to learn from - such as the venerable Lord Byakuya Kuchiki.

Frustrated by a feeling of recent stagnation in his growth, he makes ready to delve even deeper into his resolve to elevate his craft as a Kido user, to say nothing of his practice of Zanjutsu. His Asauchi remains silent and nameless, but on nights of dreamless sleep, he sometimes recalls the memory of a voice calling to him…



» Equipment:

• Denreishinki: Ryuzawa’s Denreishinki takes the form of a touch-screen phone, a form he chose for the ease with which it allows him to navigate through menus and information streams. The glasses that he commonly wears, particularly in his Gigai, are connected to the device; the lenses can act as a HUD, displaying pop-up notifications to draw Ryuzawa’s attention to new messages and alerts.
  
• Gokon Tekkō: Ryuzawa’s Gokon Tekkō is embedded in his right hand for convenience of use.
  
• Gigai: Ryuzawa outfits his Gigai as pictured above.

» Racial Abilities:

• Hoho: Ryuzawa has invested a lot of time into the sharpening of his hoho skills. As a Kido combatant first and foremost, he understands the importance of high mobility to his ability to keep his foes at range.
  
• Kido: As a volunteer to the Kido Corps, it is perhaps no surprise that Ryuzawa has excelled in his learning of the Demon Arts. He has demonstrated a keen tactical intuition for combining an arsenal of Hadō and Bakudo spells alike to best overcome the situation at hand, and is able to cast numerous low-level spells without their incantations.
  
• Zanjutsu: While he would by no means call himself a master swordsman, Ryuzawa maintains a proficient level of swordsmanship, in the knowledge that he cannot always rely on Kido. He keeps a firm grasp of the basics, but his fighting style when forced to draw his blade is firmly defensive.
  
• Hakuda: In trade for the great length of time Ryuzawa spends both studying Kido and keeping his Hoho and swordplay skills up to par, his Hakuda suffers. He understands the fundamentals, but his sorely lacking knowledge and experience will surely leave him outmatched in most hand-to-hand engagements.

» Zanpakutô Name: Miyamori (Court Guard)

» Zanpakutô Appearance: The sealed Miyamori is a katana of standard shape and length. Its hilt is wrapped in deep purple fabric, the saya made of lacquered wood of the same colour, and its triskelion-shaped tsuba and end cap are a smoky gunmetal grey.

» Sealed Zanpakutô Power:

• Reiatsu Conduit: While muffled by its wielder’s ignorance of its name, the core of Miyamori’s power is to serve as an amplifying conduit for all of Ryuzawa’s external manipulations of his spirit energy; first and foremost, his Kido. He can use the weapon as an aid in casting Kido, and this allows him to exert a finer level of control over the effects of some spells; for example, he can use the blade as the anchor point for a Hainawa line, or compress a Shakkaho blast along the blade's edge to intensify its destructive power at a smaller point of impact. However, this does not increase the efficiency of his spellcasting; that is, it cannot substitute for incantation for those spells that require it of him.

» Shikai Release Phrase: “Pass judgement”

» Shikai Appearance: In a burst of violet reiatsu, Miyamori disintegrates, sword and saya, to reconstitute in Ryuzawa’s hand in the form of a long pistol, largely black and grey in colour but with the livid purple light of his spirit energy radiating from the muzzle and the circular assembly in the receiver.

» Shikai Abilities:

• Reiryoku Arrows: At a pull of the trigger, Miyamori compresses a charge of Ryuzawa’s reiryoku to fire a dense bolt of energy roughly the size of an arrow. These crackling bolts will stick into solid surfaces on impact, and linger there for as long as Ryuzawa has the energy to sustain them. At will, Ryuzawa can cause these arrows to condense their forms and explode in a small but violent blast of reiatsu and kinetic force, comparable to a low-level Shakkaho. Alternatively, he can fire certain spells from the pistol itself, causing their power to be augmented by this reiryoku-amplifying property.
  
• Ikou (Authority): In its released state, Miyamori’s ability to serve as a conduit for the invocation of Ryuzawa’s Kido is greatly amplified. When Ryuzawa casts a Kido spell, he can choose to manifest it from the location of any of his extant reiryoku bolts instead of his own body, adding a uniquely unpredictable dimension to the tactical flexibility of his Kido. The process demands a significant measure of concentration on its own, however, and Ryuzawa can only use it in conjunction with Kido in whose use he’s proficient enough not to need their incantations, although speaking these incantations still of course allows him to invoke these spells in the fullness of their power.

» Bankai Name: Fuhen Miyamori (Eternal Court Guard)

» Bankai Appearance: A swirling sphere of violet reiatsu coalesces around Ryuzawa’s body, shielding him from view for an instant before dissipating. He stands clad in a modified shihakusho and a set of armour, pristine white with purple trim, which encases his arms in full-length gauntlets and wraps around his shoulders. Floating behind him, suspended by thick silver chains emerging from his pauldrons, are ten charm-like instruments, five on each side of his body. Each is 4 feet long, made of the same stark white and purple metal as Ryuzawa’s armour, and mostly rectangular in shape, with sharply bevelled edges and a hollow channel down the middle, opening at the bottom end. A semicircular loop at the top end connects the charms to the cords from which they hang. Ordinarily, these charms sit right behind Ryuzawa in a vaguely wing-like formation, but the chains can extend to many times their normal length at his will, and the metal charms wielded as both blade and shield against enemies who draw too close.

» Bankai Abilities:

• Reiryoku Blades: Miyamori’s reiryoku arrows now take the form of slender, sword-like darts, five feet in length, and launched from the tips of the charms. They move with increased velocity, strike with greater power, and explode even more violently when willed to.
  
• Junzen Ikou (Absolute Authority): Miyamori’s Ikou is fully realised in its Bankai state. Not only does it enable Ryuzawa to cast his Kido and other reiatsu-manipulating techniques using the blades as origin points, but he now has the power to duplicate instances of these techniques as he casts them, using the charms as focal instruments. A single invocation of Byakurai, under the influence of Junzen Ikou, can fire up to six bolts at once from the charms. With this simple yet vast magnification of his power, Ryuzawa can saturate battlefields and overwhelm foes with unprecedented barrages of Kido artillery.

General Skills

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

Shinigami Skills

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

Will Skills

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

» Roleplay Sample:
In the depths of an empty and silent cave, in the shadow of a space station, upon a rocky asteroid adrift on a strange orbit across an unfamiliar cosmos, a metallic voice wheezed in strained breaths.

The beady lights of buttons on the square console on his chest were too weak to pierce the dark, but that was well. He did not need light to see, because he did not intend to see without - he was looking within. Battered as his armour was, wracked by the horrid power of his master’s Force lightning what felt like mere minutes ago, his life support systems were close to dead themselves. Just breathing felt like it was demanding all his focus.

His memories were a scramble of noise, a commlink signal to the past that was a hair’s breadth from breaking up altogether. The last clear image was of the ceiling of a hangar bay. Luke was trying to drag him to freedom while the Death Star fell to pieces around them. His body was dead weight; shorted cybernetics and exhausted strength forbade him from so much as moving his legs on his own. He needed to stay present, to speak with Luke when his fleeting strength allowed, but his eyes betrayed him and drifted shut behind his rasping mask.

When he forced them open, he had woken up here.

For a mercy, wherever here was, the Force was still with him. As long as it remained with him, he could endure. He had to endure, so he could see Luke again. So he could tell him he was right about his father. Force willing, he might be Anakin Skywalker once more… but was the Force willing? Could the Force forgive all he had done in the name of the Dark Side? Could he? He thought not. Of course not. But Luke had. Luke looked past the mask and saw him. He had wanted a moment, just a short, blessed moment back in that hangar, to look back and see his son with his own eyes.

This twist of fate had denied him that. But he was not to be denied.

Slowly, with another wheezing, laborious breath, the man who had once been Vader lifted his consciousness out of the depth of fitful meditation and struggled to his leaden feet. He reached deeper into the Force to will himself to move, to sustain his broken body while his suit could not. He felt his lightsaber, somehow, still attached to his belt; he felt the crystal leering at him from inside. How it had remained with him when the hand that had been holding it was still gone, he did not know. Another in a growing list of questions about how, why, he was in this place, but another to be answered in its own good time. First things first: parts, bacta, a proper space to recuperate.

He came to the mouth of the cave, looked down at the rock that sloped away before him into a shallow basin, squinted against the shifting lights of spacecraft and stars overhead and a luminous cityscape in the far distance. A ship descending closer drew his eye and he slipped back into the shadows to watch it. In his condition, it would not do to draw attention to himself until he had an inkling what he was dealing with. If a threat found him regardless, it would have to be destroyed, but he had been in enough such precarious situations to know how to pick his battles.

The ship came to a hovering stop over the floor of the rocky basin, opened a hatch on its ventral side, and dumped a mass of metal into… there. He hadn’t noticed it at first, silver camouflaged against the grey rock, but there was a pile of scrap metal on the floor of the basin to which that ship had just added.

If he believed in luck, he might have praised it.

He waited for the ship to pull away, then emerged from the cave again and began a frustratingly slow descent down the rocky slope. Somewhere in that mess of scrap, he was sure to find materials he could use to bring his life support back up and cobble together a new hand. Once he wasn’t struggling to back away from death’s door, he could focus on gathering information. He had to keep moving forward.

Even as he formulated his plan, a quiet, searching, desperate voice projected itself through the Force and into the new cosmos overhead.

Luke.

END OF THE POST