[Spirit Class 7] Valerie Tsuchisuma

» Name: Valerie
» Alias: Kyōdai Tsuchisuma 郷大 妻土
» Age: 52
» Gender: Female

» Association: Scaffold - Chief Shield Officer, Previously: Hand over North America.

» Appearance Written:

Valerie is a warm woman with soft eyes and what most tend to describe as 'A kind face' framed by long spiky lavender hair and deep violet eyes. About 5'11" in height and with a healthy build. One of the more distinct features of Val's body is a series of scars along her back, a series of diagonal lines criss-crossing up the length of her spine and over her shoulders as though carved into. Despite this, Val doesn't shy away from wearing clothing that exposes her back.



» Personality:

Valerie is, if nothing else, a passionate woman. Enthusiastic in everything she does, she has a good nature about her that sets her out from other individuals, sometimes to a fault. No matter the situation, Val will always gravitate toward helping others, especially those in need of help. That aside, she does enjoy herself. Hardly someone to allow things like social status or the like to get in the way of a good time, Val has something of a gravity to her, and will seek to include as many people as possible in whatever activity she is partaking in. So far as she is concerned: the more the merrier.


» History:

Valerie, or Kyodai as she was born, grew up in rather poor circumstances. Not having ever known her parents, she was raised by her older brother until around the time she was thirteen, at which point her brother succumbed to sickness and passed as well, but not after having relocated the pair of them to Southern France, in hopes of being further from the spiritual problems that plagued much of the middle east. This involved changing their names and meant her brother would see her less and less as he took on multiple jobs in hopes of supporting her. But this ultimately led to his demise.

Her brother took on many hardships in order to help her live as comfortably as possible, always with a warm, caring smile and assurance that they would be fine. But they weren't. As a result of working himself to the bone, Valerie's brother eventually grew ill, and without the money to afford proper medical care, he soon died a few months after Valerie had turned thirteen. IT was then that Valerie became an orphan, and was scooped up into an orphanage. For the first several months, Valerie attempted to seclude herself. Mourning the loss of her brother and attempting to grieve by herself. But as luck would have it that wouldn't be the case.

Upon finding that a number of the older orphans took it upon themselves to bully some of the younger ones, Valerie immediately took it upon herself to look after thoser younger than her. While she didn't have the gall to be aggressive, she did her best to protect them, and always did so with the same smile she remembered from her brother. Ultimately this caused the attention of the bullies to simply shift to her, and some of the more particularly cruel orphans eventually took exception to her protective mannerisms. One small child in particular wound up breaking a hand-me-down that they still had left from their original family.

IN a fit of rage, the bully attempted to take a knife to the small child, and Valerie promptly protected them with her body. While she was severely hurt, eventually some of the older boys intervened and restrained the aggressor. Valerie had already begun to gather some admirers amongst the orphans, and this was the last straw. Valerie wasn't sure what had happened, but the Older boy that had taken the knife to her never ran into her again, and a small group of the older children had decided to take up Valerie's example and look after the younger orphans. It was also at this time that Valerie began to realize her own special abilities. While a fair number of children could sense spirits, Valerie's senses were especially sharp, which caught the attention of a visitor to the orphanage.

Lerus Alge. A sergeant for the Gendarmerie, specifically it's Spiritual Response Team. After being injured in a fight with a hollow and no longer being fit for active duty, Lerus had taken to adopting children, specifically those with signs of latent spiritual talent. During a visit to Valerie's orphanage, the man had noticed that she and another of the Orphans started to get a bit skittish and started getting the others inside. A few minutes later, a number of Hollow attacks were reported not far away.

After connecting the dots, Lerus asked the owner of the Orphanage to meet with Valerie and her friend, and after a bit of probing, Val finally confessed that she'd been able to sense the hollows approach. It wasn't long after that that Val was adopted at the age of Fifteen. And suddenly, she found herself experiencing a life she wasn't quite familiar with.

School. Friends. A warm home and a bed all to herself. It was more than she could have ever asked for. And even more than that, she began to learn a bit more about what made her so special. Lerus helped her to recognize her talent, and with help from her adoptive father, she began to learn more about the spiritual world. And once she turned Seventeen, her father began training her in the usage of her spiritual abilities.

At first it was a more general type of training. Awareness and focus, channeling her spiritual energy internally in order to invigorate herself and perform physical feats normally impossible for a normal person. However, it was combat training where Valerie began to see her abilities come out in full. And once she was Eighteen, she followed in her father's footsteps and joined the police force. However, while she was able to perform considerably well in the ways of her spiritual and combat abilities, she lacked the discipline that it took to be a police officer. Her stubbornness and inability to separate her feelings from her work caused issues. And although she made her way through the academy and was set to graduate and become an officer, she ultimately dropped out.

While her father supported her decision, she herself wasn't satisfied. While she hadn't been able to join the police, she still desire to help people. And thus she decided to dip into volunteer work. Serving as a volunteer bodyguard for ministries and humanitarian group. Soon enough she was going all over the world, keeping people safe as they sought to help the countless victims of conflicts that continued to simmer throughout the world. In addition to fufilling her desire to help others, Valerie also continued to develop her own abilities more and more as she would find herself facing protesters, gang members, and even helping fend off hollows from time to time. However, she would find herself forced to fight a bit more than usual once World War 4 kicked off. With a sudden new surge of conflict, the group she had been working with at the time in the US: Scaffold, found itself plunged into what was essentially a war zone once the start of the war occurred.

While Valerie was not a soldier, she found herself essentially living like one. As her and her group scrambled to help as many people as possible, they found themselves endangered by hollows and demons alike, and what skills and prowess she'd garnered before was all that kept her and her fellow humanitarians alive during the conflict. After losing a number of their group early in the war, Valerie took it upon herself to start training members of the Relief Group, insisting that if they were not able to protect themselves, they would be unable to protect and assist those, and would simply add to the number of bodies.

As such, under Valerie's direction, rather than a traveling relief group, she established the Scaffold City Argo in Sheffield Pennsylvania, in the remnants of the National Forest. Serving as a place of safety for refugees in the region. Refusing to serve as the leader of the city, Valerie instead took up post as General of the city militia. Helping train those interested in keeping the city safe, and earning a reputation for herself.

Toward the end of the Fourth World War, she earned herself the nickname "The Angel of Argo", when a number of demons attempted to take control of the city in order to recover after a skirmish with the Vandenreich. The demons attempted to gain entrance and fought with the denizens of Argo for six full days, and Valerie was almost constantly on the front lines, either along the city walls, or outside pushing back the pack of demons, bleeding from numerous injuries, and stinking of demon blood from how many of them she'd slain.

It wasn't long after this conflict that World War Four came to it's end. The threat of demons slowly dwindled, and at long last, peace could be felt. But while the City had endured, many other parts of the americas still were ravaged by the war itself. The Vandenreich eventually found Argo city, and Valerie stepped down from her position as general, and the Vandenreich took over the city's protection, becoming one of the Vandenreich's outposts in America's North East Region.

Scaffold of course had somewhat transformed, though it's roots had lie in humanitarian efforts, through the war it had somewhat transformed into a military group, spreading throughout America and helping establish and rebuild what was lost. IN a lot of ways, it was a bit more effective at what it had been in the past. Previously, it had simply felt like a bandaid, desperately trying to support those ravaged by war or conflict. But in it's new form, it felt more like a shield, preserving areas and even restoring them. No less, she found herself more suitable to the work.

And as luck would have it, the work never truly ended. After the attack on the Holy Roman Empire and the City of Lights, Scaffold had begun to organize teams that would be sent to both locations in order to offer aid. But not long into the operation, the Africa Incident took place. The Capital of Vastime sank into the Earth, and suddenly they found themselves faced with perhaps one of the largest human catastrophes in recent human history. Not only the loss of the capital, but the sudden emergence of enormous hollows that sought to savage the surrounding area.

Valerie found herself on the front lines once again, deploying Scaffold's Shield division to Africa. While the Gotei and Vandenreich got to work handling the surge of hollows emerging from the hole, Scaffold got to work establishing shelters and supply routes so that those that survived the incident would be able to recover and ultimately be evacuated from the immediate area. Though after the initial incident, Valerie turned her attention to the surrounding area, where hollows drawn in by the conflict had begun swarming the area looking for scraps or a fight. And thus, began the second phase of the Africa Relief operation. The establishment and reinforcement of new and existing Shelter Cities to house and protect those that had escaped the initial surge of hollows, but were now harried by the rise in hollow activity in Africa.


» Equipment:

Scaffold Member:
As a member of the Humanitarian Paramilitary Scaffold, Valerie has a bit more power and influence than the average person. Scaffold itself is fairly large, with members in the numbers of about 2-3 thousand and while Scaffold operates on an international level insofar as they deploy to various countries as necessity would have them do so, they do not have infrastructure or established influence internationally. They deploy to different areas, but their only real infrastructure and established influence exist in France where the organization originally was headquartered, and in North America, as they wound up establishing significant bases of operations during World War Four.

Authority as an Ex Hand of North America
Hands in Scaffold serve as regional Supervisors whenever Scaffold is deployed to a foreign region. While originally adverse to taking up Leadership positions, Valerie as the de facto head of the budding paramilitary portion f Scaffold during World War Four became the Hand by necessity as the operations of Scaffold in North america essentially became akin to a war effort. Once the war had ended, she stepped down as Hand, but she still is a respected member, and the current Hand of North America would generally consider her advice and direction given her familiarity with presiding over the area.

Authority as Chief Shield Officer:
Her new primary role in the organization, and in fact a role she herself created. Shield officers make up the spearhead for the more paramilitary side of Scaffold. While Relief Squads partake in more traditional humanitarian efforts of feeding, healing, and supporting those suffering from disasters. Shields take on, as the name implies, more defensive and protective operations.

Whenever Scaffold deploys to a new area, they generally will set up a Shield Camp, a base of operations for Scaffold, which also doubles as a shelter for those in the area. Individual Relief Squads will be deployed from Shield Camps and over time depending on the resources available, or if there is supportive infrastructure, those resources will instead go into reinforcing/securing a section of an existing Town or City to serve as a Shield BAse of Operations, the important part is that these areas function as sanctuaries and shelters for those in dangerous areas. And Shield officers are responsible for these sanctuary locations and can be likened to a Mayor.

As a Shield Officer, Valerie has authority over a fair number of people, usually a couple hundred if there is a large Scaffold operation active in the area. However, that authority only extends so far as her intended role covers. While she can direct personnel to establish a Shield location or follow orders in the interest of said locations, she could not say, order Scaffold operatives to attack a location. As much as Scaffold has changed, it is still first and foremost a humanitarian organization, they exist to aid and protect.



» Natural Abilities:

Tireless Fighter:
Nurtured by her participation in the conflict during World War Four in North America. The majority of the fights Valerie took part in were wars of attrition rather than all out conflicts. Holding out to protect Argo, Val gained a reputation for having both the will and the stamina to fight seemingly without fatigue or care for injury. Most notably in the Siege of Argo, fighting for six full days without rest.

Reiryoku Adept:
Valerie is well practiced in the manipulation of her reiryoku and is able to utilize this externally in the form of her powers as well as simply manipulating it in order to effect the world around her, giving her the ability to fight, defend, and even heal with her spirit energy. Though she isn't as skilled as others on her level when it comes to healing.

Martial Specialist: Grappler
Valerie is a skilled fighter thanks to her training from her father as well as her participation in World War Four. She has considrable skill with many weapon types, as due to funding issues and availability, Valerie really had to just learn to fight with whatever she was given. That said, she excels when it comes to close combat and getting her hands on a target. While this originally led her to a number of issues that came with risking close contact with powerful foes, having survived such hardships, it has only made her a stronger and more dangerous woman up close.

Scaffold Training:
With the start of the Fourth World War, the humanitarian group Scaffold had to shift it's tactics from simple relief to protecting and preserving both those they cared for and themselves. This training focused almost entirely on survival and protection. Without the money to use special weapons or equipment, Scaffold members had to train their body and their spirit to the limit in order to ensure that no matter where they were deployed, they would be able to keep themselves and the people they were helping safe.

Spiritual Longevity

As a result of her ability Kintsugi ability, Valerie's aging slowed significantly in her early thirties.


» Powers:

Saint's Wings:
A High speed movement ability developed by Scaffold. By extending one's reiryoku from their body, they form a pair of wings, usually at the ankles or wrists, though individuals at higher levels can produce larger ones from their back or other areas of their body. This technique allows sudden high-speed movements even when there is nothing to stand on or brace yourself with, and even allows a great amount of directional control compared to many other step techniques even at low levels. However, because it involves extending one's reiryoku outside of their body, it is a bit more reliant on energy levels than physical stamina compared to other high speed skills, meaning that endurance and training one's energy levels is very important for those utilizing the ability.

Scales off of Power Control.

Saint Hymns

A school of spellcraft utilized by Scaffold, heavily leaning toward protective spells as well as healing abilities. With inspiration from Quincy spellcraft, this school of casting relies more on external energies than internal. These spells utilize existing energy in the environment to manipulate the environment to produce protective barriers and supply energy to patients to help them recover. Some Hymns have offensive capabilities, but usually that isn't the primary function. While Valerie is not as talented with the healing portion of these Hymns, she is well versed in barrier Hymns.

Scales off of Power Control


Valerie's unique ability. Rather than regenerating, she can seal damage in her own body, or in items around her with her reiryoku, filling it in with a molten gold manifested from her Reiryoku. This not only mends the object and allows it to retain it's function, but reinforces it. The increase in offensive and defensive abilities is based off of her Physical Augmentation skill, as objects and individuals infused with Kintsugi are considered extensions of her body. This does not mean that she can control them, but rather simply that she can sense the world through them as though they were a part of her, additionally, when using her powers to bolster her own capabilities, this can also extend to those mended by Kintsugi.

This however, is not true healing. While this is excellent for mending muscle, bone, skin, or connective tissue. Tissues with more specific purpose such as her kidney or her stomach can be filled in to prevent bleeding, but will not adequately perform the function of the original tissue, and can effect the performance of that organ. As such, once combat has finished, those effected still need to be given proper healing.

Kintsugi - Nagare 金継ぎ - 流れ (Gold Repair - Flow)

An extension of Kintsugi extending the liquid gold from her body and manipulating it externally. Unlike the main function of her ability, this scales off of Power Control. This manipulation can extend up to 15 meters from Valerie's body and up to 50 litres (about 13 galons) of the fluid can be manipulated outside of her body at any given time.

Kintsugi - Oni 金継ぎ - 鬼 (Gold Repair - Ogre)

Thanks to her training and utilization of this power, Valerie's blood is permanently infused with her liquid gold, constantly providing reinforcement to her body and even causing Valerie to age more slowly. This is not a released state, but empowers Valerie at all times and is comparable to an Arrancar's Augmentar, scaling off of Physical Augmentation.




General Attributes

• Strength: C
  
• Speed: D
  
• Durability: C
  
• Soul: D
  

Will Skills
» Willpower: Advanced
» Deduction: Adept
» Focus: Adept

Human Skills
» Power Control: Adept
» Physical Augmentation: Advanced
» Spiritual Adaptation: Advanced
» Mediumship: Adept