- SilasCrowleyStarter Member
- Joined : 2024-05-13
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[Spirit Class 7] Patel Kuzunoha
Wed May 15, 2024 10:17 pm
THE SHINIGAMI APPLICATION
I. Basic Information
» Name: Patel Kuzunoha [adopted surname]
» Alias: Pat
» Age: 184
» Gender: Male
» Association: Gotei United - 3rd Division, Unseated
» Appearance Written:
Patel is a lanky 5’6” young-looking man, with jet black hair down to about his jawline. His build is just barely toned enough to be called athletic, and would look emaciated if he lost any more weight. Patel wears a sleeveless variation of the regular Shinigami uniform and usually doesn’t wear socks or the standard issue sandals, preferring a pair of leather-bound sandals with straps that go just above his ankles. He is rarely seen without a pair of plain black vambraces woven from the same cloth as his gi.
At risk of looking strange, Patel likes to wear a small amount of red eyeshadow, especially when his eyelids would otherwise be darkened with fatigue. He also paints all of his nails black regularly, rarely permitting a single chip in their coat. His hygiene and complexion are usually impeccable—even moreso when he is stressed; Patel likes to stand-out without being gaudy.
» Appearance Image:
![[Spirit Class 7] Patel Kuzunoha BOyRSb6](https://i.imgur.com/BOyRSb6.jpeg)
I. Personality
» Personality:
Patel thinks very poorly of himself. He has no upbringing, spent most of his life cleaning in a brothel, isn't well educated, he's short, and for reasons described in his history, Patel feels like he is a sorry excuse of a man—that he is already ruined. He remembers almost every sin he has ever committed and hates his own misdeeds.
Despite his low self-esteem, Patel is beyond self-pity and understands his life serves a purpose in the bigger picture, and that offing himself would only hurt his adoptive mother as well as anyone who might depend on him in the future. Patel believes in fate rather than determinism, and that there is a higher law of morality that governs the world, but he couldn't tell you where it comes from or who's really in charge. He has a simple, immature kind of faith.
Patel motivates himself by feeling obligated to his opportunities. If he has potential, it is his duty to realize it. He has a strong work ethic, but becomes obsessive in the details: he is meticulously clean, and deliberately possesses little, because he compulsively maintains all that he has.
Despite coming from poverty, Patel dislikes material wealth, believing that the love of money and power has ruined Soul Society. He thinks of the Central 46 and the 5 Noble Families as overgrown tumors that have stolen Rukongai's livelihood. As rare as attacks on Soul Society are, Patel questions whether the Shinigami are necessary in their present state, but Patel does not dare speak out against the status quo. Paradoxically—he lusts for status and position, albeit for him it is still for the fear of poverty rather than the love of money.
Patel is disciplined, and can even be determined, but he struggles with cowardice. He is inherently flighty, like a timid rabbit. It is very difficult for Patel to actually find the will to fight, and when he can compel himself to engage in combat, he is excessively desperate to end a fight as soon as possible. Patel's anxious mind greatly magnifies any challenge he is facing and he cannot rest while troubled.
» Likes:
* Black Coffee
* Vegetarian meals
* Baths
* Fish scale patterns
* Minimalist architecture
» Dislikes:
* Loud people
* Meat, especially beef & pork
* Rich people, mainly Central 46 and noble families
* Gold and gaudy things
* Unhygienic comrades
I. History
» Human History:
Patel was born in 1930 as Imran, a dalit in the rural farmlands of Tamil Nandu in southern India. Within India’s caste society, dalits are the lowest class of people, considered to be “untouchables.” Imran’s parents were sharecroppers who had inherited an unpayable debt stretching back several generations, but their bloodline was without surname, and around the age of ten Patel realized he might be able to escape his debt amidst the other dalits by running away from home and pretending to be an orphan worker on another farm. Although his parents searched for him as much as they could, Imran fled too far to be found and never looked back.
He walked into another farm at night, curled up to sleep in a dilapidated shed, and when the workers started at sunrise Patel joined them in their duties imitating his fellow dalits. There were some who asked him questions—who are you, where did you come from, what is your name—but Imran employed a strategy of just saying “I don’t know” to anything he was asked, and then continued to work on the farm and join in on communal meals. No one stopped him, and workers were always dying, so there were plenty of places to fill and Imran slipped right in.
Later on, as a sixteen year-old young man, Imran realized that although he had barely escaped the debt of his parents by becoming Nothing his future did not look very different from theirs. Working sunrise to sunset, his pay was his food and whatever else his betters provided, and there was always the fear that he might be sent to bake bricks instead of growing crops. He had seen three other dalits die; one broke his back and was left to wither, one starved because he could no longer work, another young man fell over in the sun and never got back up. Imran realized he might die like them any day now.
Imran snuck-out from the farm with stolen, unbaked dough to survive on and fled far to a steel mill owned by the Tata Iron and Steel company. He had heard rumors all his life about industrialization, mythical automobiles and how life was changing… the glow of hot metal pouring into molds seduced Imran as soon as he reached the factory. He camped outside the foreman’s office, harassed anyone who looked shaved, and was one day picked-out from a small mob after several attempts to be hired on the spot.
The other workers did not help Imran out as much as his fellows had in the farmlands. There were two men who showed him how to do his part in the chain of production- but from then on, rarely would another worker even look at him. It felt as though Imran had become an untouchable among untouchables, but as Imran continued to work, mindless labor without interaction became normal.
Although it was not much money, Imran received real pay for the first time in his life. He was joyful for several weeks, buying whatever food he wanted and pinching coins as he wildly imagined owning his own farm and growing tamarinds. However, when the then-homeless Imran then discovered the cost of housing and actually owning things other than necessities, he realized it would be decades before he could even purchase a small farm.
Imran humbled himself and accepted his lot, as the years went on. He lived frugally, but gratefully, until the day came when Tata Steel had suffered consecutive shortfalls; not all of the workers could be paid. Upheaval was among the workers, some of whom were paid and some of which were not, including Imran himself. The better liked and better connected men received a share of what pay there was to give. Then, for months on end, there was no pay at all. Workplace accidents were common, and some of the men died before they would ever receive their missed pay.
Only a third of the workers were able to leave, but Imran had to stay and toil, living on what he had saved up to purchase farmland with one day. He hated that he was dipping into his savings. The steel mill was on the same road that lead to a small mining town, so Imran skipped a few days of unpaid work to travel there and see if there was a place for him in the mines; a deadly, but steady job.
Imran found that the mines had also shut down, but while at a watering hole, he found a boastful man with several well-dressed girls near him laughing with a local merchant. He didn’t look Indian, so Imran did not like him at first because he appeared to be a wealthy foreigner profiting from the poverty that surrounded them. But after a long moment of eye contact, the man introduced himself to Imran as Abdul: a small-time commodities trader from Afghanistan.
He was remarkably friendly and immediately invited Imran to share in a meal with him. While breaking naan to dip in saag paneer, he asked Imran about his life and what brought him to the mines, and after a short exchange Abdul offered Imran an opportunity: a risky business venture, because commodities are inherently volatile. Imran had the wits to know he was probably being scammed. But, in the same moment he had that thought…
He also thought, “‘I’d like to be scammed. Then I will take revenge and take all this man has.” For a brief moment Imran focused all of his wickedness built-up over years of toil, and agreed to lend Abdul all of his savings for a ridiculous profit no one had any right to expect. Abdul was initially pleased, but found that Imran followed him everywhere he went, working odd jobs like shining shoes and sorting through trash.
Several months later, Abdul confronted Imran and thrust upon him a sum of money that was eight times greater than what Imran had given him. He was shocked and remorseful—as well as curious as to how this could be, but Abdul cheerfully insisted he was just a shrewd businessman. He also guarded his trade practices viciously, from merchandise to clientele. No one knew anything about Abdul’s business, and he traveled all over south India to seemingly invest in whatever products were popular exports there.
Even knowing it was probably too good to be true, Imran continued to reinvest all he had with Abdul, and eventually Imran himself became the face of Abdul’s business so he could deal with Indians who did not want to deal with an Afghan. Imran was not only returned eight-fold on his successive investments, but also earned a wage while assisting Abdul. It was a blissful dream—yet Imran always felt uneasy, never knowing how Abdul’s practice worked.
One day, Abdul disappeared and was gone for months. Initially terrified that the Afghan had finally cheated him for good and taken all Imran had given him, Imran scoured Tamil Nandu for any trace of the Afghan, only to stumble on him again at a farm not far from where Imran was born. It was a very quiet village far from the roads.
There, Imran confronted Abdul, only to be surprised with half of the amount Abdul promised him—still four times what he had invested. Abdul then divulged his secrets to Imran and showed him what he was doing in a thatching house on the farm: the workers were growing poppies from Afghanistan there, processing it into opium, and then Abdul would stash it packaged alongside normal exports like sugar, tea and other commodities to select buyers across the world. Although scorned and illegal, the opium trade was still very viable, and its profits had changed Imran’s life.
Troubled but satisfied, Imran did business with Abdul for three more years before severing all ties and leaving the opium trade for good. Imran now had a small fortune, and used it to buy the steel mill he had worked in during his late teens, becoming its new owner and manager after Tata Steel had closed it. Imran knew he had committed many sins by furthering the opium trade, and while he had done so to one day acquire the tamarind farm he dreamed of, he decided to make a better version of the steel mill he knew so that desperate young men seeking the same dream as him could find a real living.
Imran opened the steel mill and many of the old workers returned, followed by a steady trickle of new ones; in the beginning everything was good. Imran demanded a six day work week of fourteen-hour shifts, which was far better compared to everywhere else, and the workers were promised a percentage of the mill’s profits as their wage. For the first six months, it worked. The workers were paid a decent amount, albeit not as much as Imran had envisioned for them, and the old workers were grateful not only that the mill was back but that they had a better lot than before.
However, about once every six months, there would be a lull in orders and a general dry spell for the steel industry in the part of India where Imran’s mill was located. The only way to raise revenue up to survivable levels was to mass-produce cheaper forms of inferior steel and sell it at a low price to Japan, as the market was saturated with quality steel for discerning buyers at that time. But producing more steel, even of inferior quality, required much more labor. Imran had to extend working hours to seven days a week, sixteen hours a day.
Workers began to die on the job. A young man fell asleep while leaning against the ropes of a catwalk, and tumbled headfirst into a huge vat of molten steel. Several old workers died of exhaustion, grateful to be paid at all and unwilling to ask for rest. Young men perished in accidents that, if they had been fed or rested, they would have avoided.
The many deaths before and during Imran’s time at the factory had filled it to the brim with Demi-Hollows full of grief and regret. Even though people could not hear them crying out for the injustice of wages they were never delivered, a shrill unease was ever-present in all of the steel mill. But crying out was not enough for these tortured spirits, and one day, while Imran was proceeding down one of the rope catwalks, the Demi-Hollow of the same man who had fallen into the vat snatched one of Imran’s ankles, succeeding after many attempts to grab him.
Imran was flung from the catwalk, tumbling in mid-air into a vat of boiling liquid steel. He died almost instantly- but as a plus among the Demi-Hollows, he was scolded and chastised for having ruined dozens of lives, and Imran truly suffered knowing he had become exactly the kind of person he hated. He failed to justify himself before his dead workers, who beat him and screamed at him until the taint of the soon-abandoned steel mill was so bad that a unit of Shinigami were sent to cleanse the Demi-Hollows before they could fully Hollowfy, and Imran himself received the Konso ritual there as well.
» Shinigami History:
- NSFW Warning: Violence, Rape, Suicide, Sexual Themes:
In one moment, everything was consumed in a brilliant white sensation. All that Imran was, all he had done, his every memory—all of his previous life dispersed into an otherworldly and welcome blankness. The fear of going to hell that he felt in his final moments on Earth was gone.
Imran—now a nameless soul in a Rukongai slum—rose alert to behold a plain little plaza crowded with old wooden buildings and shanty structures attached to them. An old man was pulling a cart by himself, and the then-nameless Imran rushed over to embrace him. “I… can’t remember anything! I don’t know who I am! I know nothing!” He cried-out cheerfully, for he did not even know why this amnesia made him so happy. It was like waking up from a bad dream.
Although initially unresponsive, the old man half-heartedly smacked the new citizen away from him. “Great, good for you. Get away from me!” He shouted, before pulling up his cart with renewed vigor and hauling it far away from the then-nameless Imran.
Overjoyed but destitute, the then-nameless Imran found work in a small illegal brothel within the district of Rukongai he had spawned into. There, he bowed to the local madame and begged for work, because he was starving and had no money; he had no idea it was strange for someone to experience genuine hunger in Soul Society. Without questioning him, the madame took the then-nameless Imran as a lowly manservant.
Imran brought food and cheap sake to the brothel’s patrons, and cleaned up after their visits with the yujo working there. It was hard and filthy work. Once he stayed three weeks, though, the madame’s heart softened and she decided to learn about him—but he knew nothing of himself. Because of his appearance, she named him “Patel” and frequently confided in him.
The madame herself went by the name Sasori Kuzunoha. Before she had grown old, she was a famed oiran mostly known for a few well-placed tattoos and some licentious rumors about her services. She married a member of central 46 as a concubine, and though he passed, their son inherited his position and cemented their family name into higher status… for a time. He died mysteriously after twenty years and the meager Kuzunoha fortune had dwindled ever since the loss of Sasori’s husband and only child, such that the madame returned to her old profession. When she became too old to entice clients herself, she opened the brothel as its madame, employing four to six women at a time.
Sasori often grieved and complained to Patel as her personal captive audience. He would never dare disagree with her or protest her character flaws. His only answers were “yes ma’am”, or asking prompts for further instruction in his duties. Patel understood his role immediately: he was her mirror, sounding board and manservant, and he was content. Sasori saw to it that Patel was fed and had a place to sleep in the brothel.
Every month or so, a Shinigami would visit Sasori’s lowly brothel. The brothel itself was in a terrible part of Rukongai, and it offered nothing worth the trouble of going there—but that was precisely why this particular Shinigami went. He had the name of Takuan Shozo, but often disclaimed this as a courtesy name; he was either a descendant of a noble family, or of a clan that serves one of the noble families. Sasori gained little from her Rukongai regulars and depended on Takuan’s generosity to keep the brothel open.
Takuan was a fairly young man himself, and often partook in ceremonies such as fasting, mourning and repentance. Other Shinigami considered him an eccentric, or at worst a flagellant, for wearing sackcloth and smearing himself with ash before prostrating himself in public to apologize for things that were not his fault: bad weather, natural disasters, general suffering and malcontent—Takuan was a very ascetic man of odd tastes.
Takuan visited Sasori herself in spite of her age, who did her best to live up to the reputation of her youth. Even without seeing behind closed doors—it was clear she struggled and did not quite succeed, but Takuan was appreciative of her efforts and kind to all of Sasori’s staff. Patel acquired Takuan’s attention for how dutifully he cleaned up after the Shinigami, and Takuan found it unacceptable for another person to clean up after him. He began to help Patel clean chamber pots and wash bedding, which Patel of course protested, and neither man was willing to give up their perceived responsibility to assist the other.
Because Patel was a diligent, lowly person, Takuan liked him immediately—even envied him, for having only menial burdens such as stains and dirt to clean. But critically, Patel also knew the secret of Takuan’s affinity for Sasori Kuzunoha, which broke some of the usual barriers that separated Takuan from everyone else. If he could already confide his sins with the manservant, it was much easier then to find an honest friend in him.
Through Takuan, Patel learned a lot about soul society; prior to their friendship, he had no idea Rukongai was any different elsewhere, much less what the looming castle of Seireitei was for. Patel had mistaken it as the royal palace. For most of their conversations, Patel just listened; Takuan was a philosophical and well-educated man who was critical of the status quo, but morally conservative to the point of observing antiquated rituals and chastising all vices, even while frequenting Sasori’s brothel in secret. One day, while Takuan was troubled with his own hypocrisy, Patel uplifted him with a simple question: “as dirty as the world is, did you think you would get out of it clean?”
Takuan’s philosophy shifted from then on, realizing nobody could completely avoid sin. He began an entirely new direction in his moral studies… but something else tormented him all the while. Gradually, over the two years that Takuan and Patel were friends, the Shinigami had steadily lost weight and complexion. Sometimes he bore wounds on his body. He hadn’t been fasting or observing any kind of ritual that could have sucked the life out of him bad enough to explain his near-desiccation, either.
Sasori was greatly troubled during Takuan’s decline. There was no real romance between them—but Takuan was her source of personal affirmation that she could still be desirable, as well as the brothel’s financial bedrock. The debts of her late son and husband had passed to her. But the worst part was Takuan’s part in her services: he had begun to panic or collapse, unable to enjoy the act, much less perform. On one night, he bolted out of the brothel naked and began to dig with his bare hands in the same patch of dirt where the chamber pots were dumped.
Both Patel and Sasori tried with all their might to pull Takuan from the filth and dirt, but with a frenzied strength beyond his withered body, Takuan kept digging and howling. Tears poured from his eyes, which looked slightly shrunken now, and always wide-open with frenetic tension. He demanded to be left alone… Patel and Sasori reluctantly obliged. But soon after, Takuan was found dead by Patel a short ways from the brothel in one of the alleyways Patel took to fetch clean water.
It was horrible and completely undignified. Takuan’s body had many gashes on it, and his drawn Zanpakuto was beside him, bloodied. Some of the wounds looked self-inflicted, but others were not. Already grieved by the death of a good friend, Patel felt even worse that he could not readily determine whether this was murder or suicide. But worse still, when he saw that Zanpakuto…
All his grief and sadness gave way for Greed.
There it was, lying on the ground, ripe for taking: a genuine Zanpakuto used by a real, practicing Shinigami of the elite. If Patel could make it his own, then that sword was his ticket out of poverty and into the world Takuan had described to him, even if he had personally disdained it. But Patel’s heart wrenched after grabbing Takuan’s Zanpakuto and its scabbard. No one can leave this world clean, but stealing from a dead friend felt filthy…
Patel reported Takuan’s body, but said his Zanpakuto was missing. He was intensely questioned by several Shinigami—as was Sasori and the several yujo working for her—but no one had seen what happened to Takuan, the last anyone had seen of him was his breakdown at the dumping grounds behind the brothel. Patel felt tormented again for revealing that Takuan had been there at the brothel at all. His reputation was smeared, and the Shozo family suffered for the ordeal.
Following Takuan’s death, Sasori resorted to dire measures: she took in almost a dozen inexperienced prostitutes, reduced their price to a dirt-cheap rate, and offered watered-down sake and stale rice that would later be overcharged to any guest who accepted them. Sasori managed to strike a deal with the local gang who would act as her collection agents in return for a third of any bill they collected. However, members of the gang started showing up and demanding special treatment at the brothel…
The yujo that had been with Sasori since the beginning suffered and lost face. Any art or grace that had lingered in prostitution up until the death of Takuan died with him—the girls had only undignified work, and the best among them fled from Sasori’s brothel. But Patel remained, dutifully cleaning up after the local thugs who regularly trashed the place, both for Sasori’s sake and because he had nowhere else to go.
Although he had Takuan’s zanpakuto, nothing magical had happened since taking possession of it. He kept it hidden under a floorboard and only took it out in secret, sometimes drawing it to practice clumsy swings, though often he just rested it on his lap and meditated. Patel got over his guilt from stealing the Zanpakuto by resolving himself to a new goal: to find out how Takuan died starting with the sword itself, because it was really the only clue.
Though the local gang members were a nuisance, they were unexpectedly helpful in answering Patel’s questions about Takuan: they knew nothing about the Shinigami, preferring to avoid their kind altogether. No one drenched in blood or otherwise likely to have killed him had showed up in any of their dens or businesses either around that time. They gave Patel a short, non-exhaustive list of names of who the killer could’ve been, but none of them were even near Sasori’s brothel on the day Takuan died.
Several weeks after Takuan’s death and well into Sasori’s restructuring of the brothel, Patel himself began to experience strange episodes at night. When laying down to sleep, he would lie awake for several hours at a time, unable to rest. Then, a quiet voice would speak into his mind from under the floorboards: “Thief. Liar.” It started out with simple accusations. But then, it started to form full sentences… “Sasori took you in, yet while her house is being ruined, you do nothing to truly help her.” At that sentence, Patel rose completely alert and in a cold sweat, desperately searching his room to see if someone had been hiding there. Perhaps Takuan’s killer-?
He wasted an hour of sleep trying to find someone, something, but there was nothing. As if provoked by the mysterious voice that haunted Patel at night, more of the gang’s thugs began to frequent the brothel, and because the best yujo there had left they were hard on the remaining women. Sasori had exhausted her sake placating the thugs and with nothing to drink, they were cruel and mocked the brothel, which no longer drew in money now that people knew to avoid it. The words “you do nothing to truly help” repeated in Patel’s mind over and over throughout those days.
One night, a huge man from the local gang named Togusai told Sasori that because the brothel had dried-up, the house’s only purpose was to serve his gang now. He demanded the best yujo, and although Sasori obliged, all of her women were bruised and tired by then—and Togusai was displeased to have another broken doll in front of him. After failing to take her forcefully, the yujo dumped a chamber pot over his head and tried to burn him with a candle, prompting a short struggle in which Togusai prevailed. The brothel was full of wailing and cries, and Togusai would not leave the yujo’s room. There were several holes and dents in the walls and floor now.
Patel was sent in to clean up, and he immediately piqued Togusai’s interest. “What’s this? Where was Sasori keeping this pretty-boy?” He goaded, going on to mock Patel for his slight and weak-looking physique. Patel did his best to ignore the man and dutifully clean the room, and he blocked some of the holes Togusai had put through the walls by standing a bamboo screen up in front of them. Togusai followed Patel around the room as if inspecting his work, all while a battered yujo sobbed in the center of the room.
Before Patel had any cause to suspect it, Togusai pinned him down to the ground. He tore Patel’s meager tunic asunder and used his knees to pin Patel’s legs down, keeping him on all fours. “You’ll have to do.” Declared Togusai, at which point Patel grimly realized the thug’s true intentions, but nothing could have prepared Patel for the experience of actually being violated; he was raped and sodomized himself. Patel tried to think of the act as nothing, that a man couldn’t be defiled by another man, then that he was helping Sasori by sharing the burden suffered by the brothel’s yujo… but nothing he thought eased the pain or indignity. His manhood was defiled and insulted, his body was broken and bleeding, and even after Togusai was done and gone Patel could not walk straight for several days.
After he had healed, Patel tried to pretend the incident never happened, but the damage was done. In spite of everything—Togusai had, for reasons beyond Patel or Sasori, paid very well for the damage to the room and all the ‘service’ Sasori’s house had offered him. Patel was sure Togusai had shown false generosity to further insult him. However, some of the girls had other ideas: “just because you had a client doesn’t mean you’re one of us now”, “if you’re poor why don’t you ask your man for another tip” … They were fearful and angry over their dwindling livelihood, and saw Patel’s ‘service’ as a threat. Patel did not have the will to defend himself or insist he had been raped, and Sasori couldn’t bear the division in her own brothel.
Unwilling to suffer the decay of her house any longer, Sasori dismissed the yujo and quietly fled with Patel. However- they were stopped near the borders of their district by none other than Togusai himself, who questioned why they were leaving. “Do you think you’ll escape your relationship to the gang just by moving?” He asked, insisting Sasori owed them for the profits she failed to deliver. She initially protested that Togusai’s gang had ruined the brothel when business was already bad.
Patel, however, had other thoughts—he had taken Takuan’s Zanpakuto with him and drew the sword, albeit without grace. “I’m going to actually help now… I’ll kill him…!” He said to himself, over-and-over, panting with adrenaline but tense with panic. Togusai didn’t like the way Patel looked at him at that time. With one backhand, he swatted Patel into a wall, and Takuan’s Zanpakuto went clattering across the ground.
Togusai approached Patel’s downed body and reach out to grab him—only to be interrupted by Sasori, who gracefully slid one hand into Togusai’s own. Her other hand grasped Togusai’s elbow from below. Initially bemused by her, Togusai grinned and let out a short chuckle. “What, aren’t you a little old to take his pla-” He started, but he was cut off by the loud visceral crunch of both his wrist and elbow completely reversing the position of their bones. A soft pulse of wind accompanied by spiritual pressure resounded from where Sasori had grappled Togusai’s arm, which looked upside-down and backwards after she released it.
The brute backpedaled and groped at his mangled arm with his left one, breaking into a cold sweat: he could hardly feel the pain right now, in the heat of the moment, but he still recognized it. “Shit! Whatever you did, undo it! Fix it now!” Togusai demanded, at which Sasori rose her right foot and lowered it to draw a line across the sand between her and Togusai. “If you cross this line, you are nothing but a canvas for me to practice on, and it’s been so long… ” Sasori threatened, but with an elegant and honeyed voice.
Togusai gritted his jaw while trying to coordinate his mangled arm. Its hand balled into a fist. “Both of you will pay for this.” Togusai grimly threatened, before reluctantly turning to go back the way he had come. Sasori immediately turned to help a still-reeling Patel, only to notice the Zanpakuto beside him… Takuan’s Zanpakuto. Sasori’s concern for her servant quickly turned to anger, but an unconscious Patel could give her no answers.
Sasori remained by Patel’s side and brought him out of their district as soon as he could walk. They traveled longer than she originally intended in the interest of putting as much distance between themselves and Togusai as possible. Sasori rented out a room in a stable for them to stay the night, whereupon she confronted Patel for having stolen Takuan’s Zanpakuto: “Did you lie to me? Why did you steal it? What would you even do with that? Do you know what could happen to you if you’re found with it?!” She questioned. Patel felt grief and anxiety as he never had before, followed by guilt and remorse. But… the Zanpakuto was his way out—he still believed it could make him like the Shinigami.
Patel did not wholly lie, but could not tell Sasori the whole truth. “It is my only lead on what happened to Takuan. In our part of Rukongai, no one would seriously investigate the truth.” He answered, but Sasori hardly budged. She deemed it foolish for Patel to endure such an undertaking, both because the Zanpakuto was no lead at all and because she admitted Takuan had probably taken his own life. But seeing Patel’s attachment to the sword, Sasori’s heart softened, beginning to believe his half-lie.
For work, Sasori found a job in an inn just past the edge of Rukongai’s slums. She did not imagine she had much charm left in her old age, but the opposite was very much true—a wealthy merchant had hired her to serve in his inn. Patel, however, had no such luck and took up a meager position cleaning the stable he and Sasori had originally taken refuge. They earned enough to rent a small home together and tried to make the semblance of a new family.
With no heirs nor relatives, Sasori felt she had no choice but to adopt Patel as her own son. There was little if any prestige left to the Kuzunoha name—but it was his, and Patel was thrilled to have been so unexpectedly elevated in his tiny world, unworthy as he was. Even as months passed, there was no sight of Togusai or his fellows, but Patel’s troubles resumed: on most nights, a mocking voice would come from wherever he stored his Zanpakuto. “You’re defiled as a man”, “You troubled that old woman to rescue you…”
Patel began to suspect Takuan’s Zanpakuto was exerting some kind of influence on him. The more he touched it, the more he tried to practice with it, the more he heard that voice; if it had something to do with the sword, then it had to do with Takuan’s death. Patel decided, out of guilt, that he needed to make his half-truth whole and sincerely investigate the Zanpakuto’s part in Takuan’s demise.
Every night, Patel found himself sitting with the unsheathed sword on his lap. His fingers ran back and forth along the edge- splitting skin to draw blood which he smeared across the whole face of the blade, on both sides, as if in a trance. He didn’t notice what he had done to himself until the entire sword was painted! -and worse, it seemed like he had begun to slip into flashbacks: memories of snatching the sword from Takuan’s corpse, being overcome by Togusai, watching in a collapsed heap while Sasori herself stood between himself and Togusai…
Whenever Patel tried to meditate on the sword, his thoughts were distracted and his mind slipped into a half-dreaming state. He could see his true intentions very clearly: he was not truly the humble man that Takuan had praised. Patel had lived in cowardice and self-interest, only concerned with his own survival, and completely ignorant as to why that was wrong. He was nothing like Takuan who, though imperfect himself, strove relentlessly to be selfless and ascetic. How dare Patel take up Takuan’s Zanpakuto-?
Then, one day, the voice spoke loud and clearly to him. “Why preserve yourself so desperately? You’re rotten and defiled, you can’t even call yourself a man after what that man did to you.” It spoke, and for some reason, Patel’s ego couldn’t will itself against the intruding voice. He lost the ability to feel pleasure or joy, and instead felt a shrill and constant panic that kept his heart racing: “it’s over, I’m already nothing, a fate worse than death is imminent, I need to escape!”
Patel abruptly attempted suicide on several occasions. On the first, he attempted to drown himself in the local well by lashing stones to his ankles, but the ropes slipped off the rocks and someone drawing water rescued him. On his second attempt, Patel drew his own blood using Takuan’s Zanpakuto again, and began to write apologies to Takuan, Sasori, and the yujo of the brothel over and over in great detail that exaggerated Patel’s perceived misdeeds. He slipped down a steep spiral of self-disparagement, and would have died of exsanguination had Sasori not interrupted Patel and tended his bleeding. She wept bitterly that now her only adopted son was going to die too, like all the other men in her life.
More than Patel’s remorse for troubling Sasori again was his guilt for being such a worthless leech, in his own mind. He became obsessed with hating his own vices and slightest mistakes—just as Takuan had been. The awareness of personal sin had never been so clear to him, but that same awareness also cultivated in him an urge to punish himself, and then die. Patel’s last suicide attempt was to do away with his life by hanging.
As Patel kicked the stool away and felt the rope close his throat shut, the voice that mocked him every night returned. “You are right to suffer-” It began, “-but it is not right that your suffering should end.”
While the periphery of his vision darkened, Patel felt his body slacken towards one side, and heard a wooden creaking above. “Every wrong must be addressed. I will not permit you to escape a single sin of your own!” Patel heard even more clearly, even in a daze of strangled consciousness. “Learn from your suffering and repent for life.” It said, vaguely resembling the voice of a woman rather than disembodied words, and then there was the dull ‘thunk’ sound of splitting wood. Patel fell with his noose and the wooden beam he had tied it to in the stable…
When Patel came to, he found that the wooden beam that now rested painfully against his back had been cut through in two visible chops. He had difficulty explaining the damaged beam to the stable’s owner—though after seeing the bruise around Patel’s neck, he decided to go easy on his servant and let the incident go for fear of the boy doing anything worse to himself. Now seeing pity and remorse in the eyes of a stranger, Patel realized something: his own life had consequences on others, no matter how guilty or insignificant it was. To end himself would still cause unjust harm, all without justice, amounting only to another sin.
Patel considered throwing away the Zanpakuto for good. He wanted to turn himself in, and tell the truth to the Shinigami who had initially responded to Takuan’s death. He found an unseated Shinigami on patrol and approached them, drawing the sheathed blade to offer it up… “As long as you suffer, Patel, I will be your companion.” A woman’s voice clearly spoke into his mind, the moment his hands were on the sword. Patel froze with chills and felt a strange oneness with the weapon in his hands.
But by the time his nerves had settled, the patrolling Shinigami was approaching him. “Isn’t that a Zanpakuto? But, you’re no Shinigami!” Bellowed the patrolling Shinigami, a middle-aged man wearing sunglasses despite that the sky was overcast and raining. Unwilling to flee or lie, Patel confessed the whole truth of what had happened: that Takuan was his friend, the Zanpakuto was his only lead, and he had kept it in secret both to try and further his status as well as find out who killed Takuan.
Rather than confiscate it, the Shinigami warily evaluated Patel and asked him many questions about his personal life. He gave Patel a choice: either spar with him using the Zanpakuto, or be taken to prison. Patel narrowly agreed to the former—but didn’t put up much of a fight against the Shinigami, who rebuked him harshly: “Bend your knees, keep your feet planted to the ground!” “Scattering your weak stance is easier than throwing leaves to the wind!” “Hold that sword up with the respect it deserves!”
The Shinigami inflicted several minor injuries on Patel, albeit only to coax-out his best performance in their fight. Patel failed to inflict the slightest harm on the patrolling Shinigami, but they sheathed their sword regardless. “Your zanjutsu is crap, there’s no way you’re any kind of prodigy either, but… there’s something here. It took me a while to feel it out in your reiatsu.” The patrolling Shinigami began, showing a very stern and serious expression. “I want you to go to Shin’o academy.” He demanded, which Patel promptly refused.
Infuriated, the Shinigami took off his sunglasses and struggled to contain his rage. A throbbing vein swelled on his forehead. “If I died, and the closest person I knew found my sword, I’d want them to use it to cut down my enemy. That Zanpakuto will not achieve anything without you! If you feel unworthy, that’s your problem- hurry up and become worthy.” He shouted, before striking his thumb against the crossguard of his own Zanpakuto while staring Patel down. “I’m sponsoring you. You’re going to the academy. If you refuse, forget about prison- I’ll cut you down right here and now!” Demanded the hot-blooded patrolling Shinigami; Patel’s story had clearly evoked a powerful sentiment in him. Terrified, Patel capitulated and agreed to the Shinigami’s terms, then prostrated and begged forgiveness.
Sure enough, that same Shinigami advocated fiercely for Patel, entering him into the academy. But Patel struggled in all of his classes: he was up against the elite, and even the not-so-elite students still had knowledge that vastly exceeded his. Patel’s academy years were spent largely in grueling but diligent catch-up, such that just passing his classes took all his time and willpower. Moreover, Patel was smaller and weaker than much of the young men in his class, doing poorly in Hakuda and Zanjutsu against them in sparring matches.
Patel only did well in one subject: Kido. It wasn’t for sheer studiousness either, because Patel didn’t have any academic gifts for it, but rather it felt like his creativity and vision could really stretch-out and explore freely in the subject of magic. It seemed like whatever he wished to do, there was a spell for it, and one spell after another could be cast to any combination… it only required the work to know and practice them all. Patel dearly wished to master all spells of Kido, but only became proficient in just three spells by the end of his time at Shin’o academy.
For a long time, Patel was on the edge of flunking out- but while desperately preparing for exams and suffering the worst anxiety he’d felt since his infatuation with suicide years prior, Takuan’s Zanpakuto made itself known to Patel in a terrible dream: it is the Book of Yomi, a codex which turns all pain and suffering into knowledge. Patel attained Shikai release during exams with Yomi’s help, and it improved his marks enough to more than pass by graduation time. Patel was bright and hopeful around the time of graduation: he dearly wished to enter the 2nd division and continue to pursue Kido.
However, he found out months later that he was rejected. The 2nd division was full of promising Shinigami devoted to Kido, and a Kido-type Zanpakuto was not enough reason to enter the 2nd division… but the oddities of Patel’s Zanpakuto, namely the exact mechanism for how it modified what should otherwise be standard Kido uniform among all Shinigami, did attract the attention of the 3rd divison, which accepted him into an unseated position.
Patel has only been in the 3rd division for a short time, and still pursues the mystery of Takuan’s death as well as his own dream of transferring to the 2nd division. He has not formally met his captain yet and somewhat dreads being a 3rd division member, but has not expressed this dread to anyone either.
I. Natural Abilities
» Natural Abilities:
Proficient Laborer
Patel has a strong background in the lowest kinds of work, from cleaning to hauling and generally slaving-away at menial tasks. Manual labor like cleaning the barracks takes Patel only half the time that would be required of an ordinary Shinigami.
Poor Combatant
Patel is not good at traditional means of combat and will never feel comfortable pointing a sword at someone. He will generally perform worse in real combat than when sparring, especially involving swordplay and martial arts.
Cowardly Instinct
Alike to prey animals that flee before earthquakes and storms may arrive, Patel has a strong sense of danger. He is not a good judge of character, nor can he discern lies easily, but Patel just knows when he’s in a bad situation and feels a strong desire to flee when he is.
I. Racial Abilities
» Racial Abilities:
Zanpakuto Meditation
Patel has a strong bond with his Zanpakuto, especially for a low-class Shinigami. It can speak to him even while sealed and it is not at all difficult for Patel to enter Yomi’s inner world. There is a problem however in that Patel has difficulty leaving the inner world of his Zanpakuto, and that he cannot silence his Zanpakuto, the spirit of which is inherently critical of him. It can even influence his emotions, typically by causing him various stages of anxiety to compel its own idea of repentance. Generally speaking: Patel will have an easier time than most doing any kind of interaction or development with his Zanpakuto, but its spirit is at most a danger to him and at least a burden.
I. Zanpakutō
» Zanpakutō Name: Yomi
» Zanpakutō Spirit: Yomi takes the form of a 7” tall woman with decayed flesh, horrible desiccated features and mutated teeth growing-up from a fissure that has encroached from her nethers to her sternum. The rags of deteriorated funeral attire cling to her body, a broken shrine gate hovers behind her back, and hanging from the gate are countless paper talismans that are blackened with mold. The individual talismans, if read, contain nearly nonsensical prose that vaguely mocks the reader’s personal traits and experiences in some way that suggests insults about their true nature.
Yomi treats Patel as a sinner and considers the proper repentance for any sin to include suffering and pain. She was born from the masochistic-ascetic desires of her original wielder, Takuan Shozo, who desired a she-demon that could punish and indulge his sinful nature at the same time. Yomi is malevolent towards sin, but also attracted to it, lusting to torture and devour evildoers—she prefers to inflict excruciating and prolonged agony rather than quick death, embodying a sadistic but principled spirit that was capable of satisfying Takuan’s true desires. It is not that Yomi desires a world that is rid of evil, but a world where she can slake her bloodthirst upon one evildoer after another.
Although ultimately supportive of her wielder, Yomi acts as if she has greater authority than Patel and only considers him a vehicle for her own designs. Because he submitted to her, she shared her name with Patel and assisted him in his time of need, but now she haunts him in his daily life. Yomi does not care for her host’s desires or well-being so much as their progress, her idea of “repentance” and ultimately corrupting Patel to true guilt so that he may become an appropriate match to her tastes.
The blood of the innocent does not interest her, but she is not above tempting a pure-hearted wielder to evil, and actively attempts to corrupt Patel. She intends to groom her host until he is appropriate to be wed to her; Yomi desires a repentant but condemned sinner worthy of death so that she, an unliving corpse, may take and consummate with him in a cursed wedding that is perilous to her wielder: joining flesh with her carcass is more than a nightmare, and could kill her own wielder even in the real world.
Yomi is ultimately a cursed, evil-minded and parasitic Zanpakuto: she wants her wielder to reach the apex of his development, and then take him for herself, and one day devour him, after which Patel would be a second undying corpse entombed in Yomi’s pagoda.
![[Spirit Class 7] Patel Kuzunoha DzpehE7](https://i.imgur.com/dzpehE7.jpeg)
» Inner World: Yomi’s underworld appears as its literal namesake: the horrific underworld of ancient Japanese mythology, populated with undying corpses and rivers of blood contrasted only by dark mountains and skeletal wastelands. A vile pagoda rises from where the river of gore is widest, joined by bridges that link to a defiled shrine in the inner world’s jagged mountaintops. Huge lumps of meat, organs and eyes float in the sky, and occasionally gore-meteors streak across the sky to pound into Yomi’s ruinous landscape as if to deliver the newly dead with as little grace as possible. There are many ruinous structures scattered throughout Yomi’s world with wrong or defaced talismans, shrine ropes and other Shinto icons, seeming to mock these symbols and invert their power.
![[Spirit Class 7] Patel Kuzunoha 99DyUie](https://i.imgur.com/99DyUie.jpeg)
» Sealed Zanpakutō Appearance: Yomi appears as a short, rusty sword somewhere between the length of a Katana and a Wakizashi. It has an odd rectangular crossguard with engravings that would be considered elaborate, but they are so corroded they no longer resemble anything. The Zanpakuto is serviceable despite its appearance, but it has gradually rusted-over and seems to resent being a sword: it wishes to be seen as something else.
» Sealed Zanpakutō Power:
Weak Autonomy
Yomi has a limited ability to move independently of its wielder, but has only done so once to cut a wooden beam that Patel was attempting to hang himself from. It cannot use this ability to fight competently on its own nor can it do so for more than a few seconds. At times, it may vibrate and clatter in its sheathe to express disapproval.
I. Shikai
» Shikai Release Phrase: “Persecute, Yomi!”
» Shikai Release Action: Patel turns the blade towards himself and reaches down to try and ‘open’ the katana right at the edge of its blade, which opens to reveal flesh and gore that quickly warps into the form of a twisted book.
» Shikai Appearance: Upon release, Yomi takes its desired form as a book—a horrible grimoire bound in skin, with exposed flesh and a terrifying face on its front cover.
![[Spirit Class 7] Patel Kuzunoha Kr7yH5y](https://i.imgur.com/kr7yH5y.jpeg)
» Shikai Abilities:
Shi-no-Keiyaku (死の契約) - "Contract of Death"
Yomi operates by corrupting the wielder's Shinigami powers at the source—the Hakusui. It mutates the Soul Sleep as well as its associated structures to forcefully expel more reiatsu than should be possible. If we think of the Hakusui as a vent by which a Shinigami expels reiatsu, then the Death Pact of Yomi is opening cracks and fractures throughout that entire structure, and then using that damage to suck out more reiatsu than intended. Generally speaking, Zanpakuto have always been a conduit to achieve the purpose of extracting power from a Shinigami, but they usually do so without damaging their wielder's soul. Yomi, however, has simply taken her natural function to an unnatural extreme, and her powers do not function without damaging her user. Utilizing Yomi's powers shortens her wielder's lifespan, though how much exactly depends on how much Patel uses her. Generally speaking—the more Patel masters Yomi, the more damage will be done to his soul, and the damage done to his Hakusui is a long-lasting and permanent type of damage, alike to radiation poisoning for humans: there can be no cure besides death and reincarnation. While this would imply Patel becomes stronger as the damage to his Hakusui worsens, this is not completely true, because the power gained from damaging the Hakusui in forcible release of reiatsu is mostly temporary. It might last for days, it could last for years; acquiring power through rupture of the Soul Sleep is a volatile, unreliable, addictive and terminal means of generating reiatsu. Long-term injury to the Hakusui will also manifest weakness, fatigue and other health issues. If Patel never reaches greatness, he could be unaffected—but if his power grows through Yomi, his remaining lifespan will shorten drastically, likely less than a human's.
This ability does nothing on its own besides inflict long-term systemic damage on Patel, but it is necessary for using all of Yomi's other abilities.
In addition, this ability would likely render Yomi an illegal Zanpakuto for interfering with Shinigami powers in a way that is abominable—but due to the long-term nature of Yomi's mechanism for exerting power, it is very difficult to detect what it is doing to the wielder until the damage has already gone too far. A release on the level of Bankai would be necessary for Yomi's destruction of the wielder's Hakusui to become obvious.
Kegasareta Chishiki (汚された知識) - “Tainted Knowledge”
While Shikai is active, all Kido cast by Patel loses any elemental affinity it had: fire, electricity, ice—any and all Kido affinities are nullified, whether Hadō or Bakudo, and are instead replaced with Curse-type affinity. All Kido cast while Yomi is released is radically altered, replacing fireballs with orbs of shade and gore, water with tainted blood, and ice with visceral obsidian: every Kido cast is defiled with a cursed appearance, accompanied with blood and filth. This applies even to Kaido, and inhibits Patel’s usage of healing magic: healing Kido cast while Yomi is active will create temporary unlife, rather than restore life of any kind, and any restored flesh or blood will soon slough-off or rot away. Patel cannot use Kaido to heal the self-inflicted damage that Yomi causes him with its other abilities. In addition, Yomi’s corrupted Kaido cannot create a complete zombie, but it could at most temporarily reattach zombified limbs and or organs to an injured person which would quickly rot to uselessness. (Patel does not yet know Kaido, so the type of corrupted Kaido described here cannot yet appear anyway.)
Curse-type Damage: The affinity Yomi imbues in all Kido that Patel casts through it is a force of decay. There may be some physical damage caused by Patel's spells, but most of the damage comes from an inexplicable degradation of whatever his magic attacks. Flesh will rot, blood will curdle, bones will crumble and even stone will spoil and dissolve. This type of damage is similar to the same force Yomi uses to erode Patel's Hakusui. Even beyond physical damage, Yomi's cursed-affinity damage inflicts emotional suffering, anxiety and doubt, snuffing-out feelings that would otherwise brighten a soul when inflicting damage through Kido.
The amount of decay and emotional damage will always be equal to the overall damage the normal, uncorrupted version of the Kido that Patel is casting would have done.
Kutsū no Kanki (苦痛の歓喜) - “The Rapture of Pain”
Upon casting a Kido spell, Patel has the option of instantaneously making a blood sacrifice of his own life force in order to empower the spell he is casting. In so doing, a Major Injury will manifest on his body, and exactly 720ml of blood will be extracted from the injury which will then be sucked-into Yomi’s pages as kanji that supplement whatever spell he is casting like an additional incantation. The Rapture of Pain cannot be safely used more than 5 times without replenishing the lost blood, and upon casting a 6th Rapture without recovery, Patel will die. The Rapture of Pain allows one of the following bonuses per major injury self-inflicted; multiple bonuses cannot be chosen at once. This ability must also be used to return Yomi to its sealed state, as it will refuse to re-seal without a blood offering.
When using this ability, Patel can choose one of the following buffs for a single use of Kido:
* 1: Increases the power of the spell Patel is casting by 200%, only for the one spell that Patel has paid blood for.
* 2: Bypass any and all effects which would silence Patel or prevent him from casting Kido, only for the one spell that he is paying blood for.
* 3: Perform the Rapture of Pain while Yomi is sealed or unavailable to Patel; this option will auto-release Yomi and teleport it through astral gore to his hands. Bypasses effects which would seal his Zanpakuto, but only for the post this Rapture was used, requires a subsequent rapture for each post an ability would otherwise seal Yomi or prevent Patel from using Shikai.
* 4: Allows Patel to return Yomi to its sealed state, doesn't require Patel to cast a spell if he is just trying to reseal his Zanpakuto.
I. Bankai
Not achieved. Achieving Bankai will require additional conditions in the spoilers below.
- Spoiler:
- Patel will have to be ‘wedded’ to Yomi in her inner realm in order to gain Bankai, which will age and decay him rapidly. His Durability and Strength will be fixed at “Beginner" or less forever and, without special intervention, he will only have 1 year left to live. Patel would also be aged visually if he achieves Bankai, appearing to be around 80 years old.
I. Equipment
» Equipment: N/A
I. Skill Sheet
(To Find Out about what these skills are for, please READ THIS THREAD before you try doing anything to it)
General Skills
» Durability: Adept
» Speed: Beginner
» Strength: Beginner
» Martial Skill: Beginner
Will Skills
» Willpower: Beginner
» Deduction: Beginner
» Focus: Beginner
Shinigami Skills
» Hoho: Beginner
» Kidō: Beginner
» Zanjutsu: Adept
» Hakuda: Beginner
END OF CHARACTER APPLICATION
- SilasCrowleyStarter Member
- Joined : 2024-05-13
Posts : 20
Re: [Spirit Class 7] Patel Kuzunoha
Thu May 16, 2024 1:05 pm
I. Role Play Sample
» Roleplay Sample:
The sliding doors of the Senkaimon gracefully open to bear an astonishing sight to the trio: the streets of Karakura town, blanketed by night yet lit by the surreal glow of ubiquitous fluorescent light. "Well, I'm only a recent graduate myself, but I can tell you it's not as hard as you think—you just have to study as much as you can." Patel advises, answering one of the two students that were with him. All three of them emerge from the gate into the world of the living before the Senkaimon's doors shut and fade into a white-gold glow of dissipating particles.
One of the students with Patel, a young woman with brown hair tied-up in a wavy ponytail, looks side-to-side dispassionately. Below them, the streets are quiet and cluttered with parked cars of many different models and colors. "It looks... disorganized." She utters, prompting an astonished look from Patel. "-really? I mean, compared to Ruko- ... nevermind." He utters, before realizing the shinigami-in-training probably came from a different part of Soul Society.
But before the young woman could respond, the other student among them—a chubby boy with rosy cheeks and short brown hair—began to flail and slowly levitate downwards. "He-help! I'm falling! I'm too big to fly!" He screamed, prompting both his classmate and Patel to hover-down and prop him up by the arms. His female classmate sported an annoyed look, whereas Patel seemed amused. "That's okay, you'll get the hang of it... easier than swimming, really..." Assures the Shinigami, while guiding the two students down onto a local rooftop.
Normally Karakura town wouldn't have been the safest place for student tours—but a fourth division patrol had just passed through, and Shinigami volunteers had been permitted to take Shin'o academy students in pairs through a tour of the real world: a battleground they might all see in the future. Patel considered it an opportunity to counsel students going through the same rigors he had been suffering not long ago.
The trio made their way down into the streets, passing closed shops and empty parking lots, before stopping at one of the city's larger parks. A central fountain there connects to four waterfalls that feed an artificial river circling the park, for which there were four brick bridges to walk over for entry. "Most of the time, it'll be surprisingly quiet. But it's true what they tell you in the academy—it can go from good to bad in an instant out here." Patel explained, as both of the students were looking a little perplexed now.
The rosy-cheeked male student's brows knitted together, some question piqued by Patel's explanation. "What, you just keep your eyes peeled all the time? Don't Hollows emit a distinct spiritual pressure you could detect instead?" He asks matter-of-factly. Before answering, Patel slowly exhaled and inhaled while reflecting on some of his first patrols: they hadn't gone well. "... Yes, but not really. You'll find weak Hollows like that, but the dangerous ones will hide their presence deliberately." Patel spoke, prompting an uncomfortable look from the boy. "Then... right now, you mean, there could be a...?" He asks. Patel nodded, but then grinned. "But probably not!" He assures the corpulent student.
But then it's a little too quiet, and Patel notices why: the female student that was with them is missing. "-hey, where's your friend? Hey!" Patel calls-out, quickly rousing to full attention. The boy student looks side-to-side wildly, his otherwise squinted eyes opening wide despite that his fatty cheeks and drooping forehead tried to keep them nearly shut.
The two sprint together to the edge of a playground, where an unnaturally tall Hollow rests bent-over on its hands and knees. It almost has the posture of a giraffe, but that's where the resemblance ends: the Hollow has eerie black skin on which a shapeshifting network of maroon and red leylines constantly move back-and-forth, and the head on the end of its eerily long neck resembles that of a tribal effigy. It has only two empty eyes and a recessed circular mouth that looks like it's just a hole. Shaggy gray hair partly obscures its mask, and runs halfway down its neck.
Patel's blood chills just looking at the monster. Worse yet- at the edge of the playground, the female academy student is taking cover and giddily looking-up at the Hollow, clearly excited to see the real deal. Patel warily sneaks-up behind her and speaks in a quiet whisper... "Hey! Don't sneak off like that, we've got to go now..." He utters while she vapidly stares at the dangerous evil spirit ahead of her; the excitement in her eyes is unsettling.
The young woman is so invested in watching the Hollow that, upon Patel's touching of her shoulder, she startles in surprise. "Eeep!" She squeals-out, prompting a look of dread from Patel and a slow groan from the lumbering Hollow as it turns to face them. The fat boy student sweats profusely. A long silence passes between the four souls gathered in the park...
So much time passes in stillness that Patel wonders if the Hollow failed to notice them, or maybe even forgot. He tries to pull the female student by the arm, but she tugs free from his grasp. 'Damn, why is she so stubborn?' Patel thinks, while the lumbering Hollow slowly settles back down into its original position: motionless, on all fours, staring out into nothingness. Patel and the students look relieved, but they don't dare move.
Abruptly, the Hollow's right arm raises and then plunges-down into its own shadow. Its hand rises-up from the female student's own shadow, and pulls her through it like a gateway-! By the time Patel looks up from the spot where she vanished, the Hollow is languidly hefting her up kicking-and-screaming to its eerie mask. "No! No no no!" She screams, before the Hollow leans-in and touches the bottom hole of its mask against the girl's flank. She immediately goes limp, then spasms with tremors: a perfect circular hole is left dripping with blood, equal in size to the mouth hole on the Hollow's mask.
Patel's hands tremble while he draws Yomi from its sheathe. Ahead of him, the corpulent male student steps-up on the edge of a carousel, briefly sprinting to set it in motion spinning before using the centrifugal force to catapult himself up above the Hollow with his Asauchi drawn. "I was going to ask her to the lantern festival, you piece of shit!!" Cries-out the pudgy student, who puts his whole body-weight into a downwards aerial chop aimed at the Hollow's arm!
Unbelievably, the student cuts cleanly through the Hollow's severed arm, and lands on the ground with a loud 'thud'—the grass under his heels is completely crushed, and the dirt beneath him craters into two little divots under his sandals. The female student falls, still in the grasp of the Hollow's severed arm. The monster itself shows almost no reaction, except to gradually turn- ... and then with a speed far beyond any move it had yet made, it spins to lash the male student in the cheek with the trunk of its thick tail! He careens backwards like a soccer ball, leaving huge gouges in the grass and dirt wherever he skids against the ground.
All the while, a panicked Patel rotates his Zanpakuto in his grip to point its blade towards himself. "Persecute him, Yomi!" Putting his right thumbnail into the edge of the blade, he opens the katana as if it were a book: the metal slowly begins to liquefy, while its insides gush-out in a horrid plume of weightless gore. Filthy red shapes congeal within the sanguine spew, alike to the form of a fungus morphing into a fruiting stalk, but the layers of red shapes then collapse into the pages of a book bound in human skin. A monstrous face and many small red eyes jut-up through the front cover, protruding with malicious life.
Patel hurriedly flips to Yomi's thirty-first page, and then points his right arm at the injured Hollow. "Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south! Shakkaho!!" Patel shouts, but it is no red fireball that blasts from his hand: a black clump of solidified blood, dripping with tar and bulging with squirming eyeballs on its surface, blasts-forward to pelt the Hollow directly in its mask.
The Hollow recoils backwards slightly, its head thrown back—but then it steadily lowers its head toward its original position. However, it is unaware of the damage truly done: the flesh of the Hollow's neck nearest to its now-stained and discolored mask begins to rapidly rot, desiccating and crumbling like wet paper. A sickly 'snap' is heard before its head falls to the ground, and on impact, its mask breaks. Black particles begin to emanate from the Hollow's severed head and trembling body as it slowly dies.
Reeling from the blow he'd taken, the male student hobbles-up in a stupor and stumbles toward the female student, who Patel also rushes toward. He takes-off his gi and tears a strip from it to tie around the female student's whole midsection where the Hollow had bit off a chunk of her. In one hand, he produces a flip-phone, and hurriedly dials a number before tucking the device between his head and shoulder. "We've been attacked by a Hollow! One student is injured, enemy is neutralized. Please send medical assistance immediately to Kiganshi park..." Patel hurriedly requests, while tying a makeshift pressure bandage salvaged from his torn gi around the girl's wound.
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Re: [Spirit Class 7] Patel Kuzunoha
Thu May 16, 2024 8:11 pm
[adm]Yo,
Welcome to the site. Solid first character, history was very interesting and the level of detail and care in constructing it was nice to read. Before going into an in-depth grading though there's a few general things I'd like to raise.
Welcome to the site. Solid first character, history was very interesting and the level of detail and care in constructing it was nice to read. Before going into an in-depth grading though there's a few general things I'd like to raise.
- Initial Check:
- 1. First character rule.
-- Last year a rule was implemented that was done to reduce grading stress on staff and new members which restricts first characters to beginners with the exception of one adept per skill bracket. This was due to recognising the different approach we take towards power levels and representing that in the skill system deviates pretty heavily from a lot of traditional mechanics and that by restricting the first character it allowed people to get a better grasp on the skill system's baseline for the site.
2. Skill Levels
-- There's an abundance of skill level alterations here which we try to disincentivise. The reason for this is the exponential scale of our skills rather than a linear one. The skills have defined parameters but they are not quantified with hard statistics and all but three of them represent experience and knowledge that make them accumulate with training and growth. Due to this, the abilities that alter his skills conflict with that such as his zanpakuto treating the capacity to silent cast as being a trait more than something that a person has cultivated over experience, or his reduced capacity due to being a coward dropping his skills as opposed to just being stated to him performing worse.
3. Zanpakuto.
-- I cannot approve this zanpakuto in its current form all that aside due to the scope of its modifications and scaling being in the realm of a Master Kido user. You can find details on Masters here and you can find details on the Master kido here for reference.
If you have any concerns please reach out to me. While there are certainly some things that may need to be adjusted in the review process, it came to my attention that the information in regard to the first character rule isn't adequately presented and I will rectify that oversight.
- Final Check:
General Skills
Durability: Adept
Speed: Beginner
Strength: Beginner
Martial Skill: Beginner
Will Skills
Willpower: Beginner
Deduction: Beginner
Focus: Beginner
Racial Skills
Hakuda: Beginner
Hoho: Beginner
Kido: Beginner
Zanjutsu: Adept
Spirit Class: 7
Comments/Notes: Don't forget to claim org position. Also in regards to first character rule, I did look into it and returning members of a substantial amount of time fall under the rule by precedent of previous members so it will be 25 posts before we accept another application for review but this character fits within the framework for first character.Application Approved
- SilasCrowleyStarter Member
- Joined : 2024-05-13
Posts : 20
Re: [Spirit Class 7] Patel Kuzunoha
Thu May 16, 2024 11:51 pm
Hello,
I've revised per your feedback to remove all +/- effects modifying skills. The only skill changing object I did not remove was that if Patel were to achieve Bankai, his Durability & Strength skills could not go any higher than Beginner.
In addition, I have partially redone Yomi, with the following changes:
* No longer does a + skill buff, instead operates by a percentage buff (as suggested on Discord)
* Speed buff / incantation skip options removed
* Removed the ability to copy kido or cast beyond the kido range permitted by Patel's Kido skill
* "Rapture of Pain" now only allows Patel to take only one buff and one injury at a time, once per casting
* I explained Yomi's core mechanics under the "Contract of Death" in Shikai abilities, which also explains how the Zanpakuto is damaging Patel and for what reasons Yomi might be considered an illegal Zanpakuto in Soul Society (albeit, it will be hard to detect the mechanics it would be illegal for until the damage is already done to Patel)
* I also added a subsection under "Tainted Knowledge" that explains what exactly the curse-type affinity of Yomi is and what it does (all curse-type damage is still going to be equal to what the same spell would have done as normal kido, just without the elemental affinity)
Lastly, in regards to this being my first character—Patel is not my first character. Seven years ago, I (barely) played this Kuchiki: https://www.platinumhearts.net/t17919-kudlak-kuchiki-recluse-magister-of-soul-society-approved-3-1?highlight=kudlak
However, I understand my lack of activity on that character probably doesn't get me full credit. Still, I would like to request some leniency wherever Patel being my "first" character is a problem.
I've revised per your feedback to remove all +/- effects modifying skills. The only skill changing object I did not remove was that if Patel were to achieve Bankai, his Durability & Strength skills could not go any higher than Beginner.
In addition, I have partially redone Yomi, with the following changes:
* No longer does a + skill buff, instead operates by a percentage buff (as suggested on Discord)
* Speed buff / incantation skip options removed
* Removed the ability to copy kido or cast beyond the kido range permitted by Patel's Kido skill
* "Rapture of Pain" now only allows Patel to take only one buff and one injury at a time, once per casting
* I explained Yomi's core mechanics under the "Contract of Death" in Shikai abilities, which also explains how the Zanpakuto is damaging Patel and for what reasons Yomi might be considered an illegal Zanpakuto in Soul Society (albeit, it will be hard to detect the mechanics it would be illegal for until the damage is already done to Patel)
* I also added a subsection under "Tainted Knowledge" that explains what exactly the curse-type affinity of Yomi is and what it does (all curse-type damage is still going to be equal to what the same spell would have done as normal kido, just without the elemental affinity)
Lastly, in regards to this being my first character—Patel is not my first character. Seven years ago, I (barely) played this Kuchiki: https://www.platinumhearts.net/t17919-kudlak-kuchiki-recluse-magister-of-soul-society-approved-3-1?highlight=kudlak
However, I understand my lack of activity on that character probably doesn't get me full credit. Still, I would like to request some leniency wherever Patel being my "first" character is a problem.
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