Mai's Timelines

» Life as a Human [2011 – 2028]
Mai’s life as a human was as uneventful as one could hope for the place in time she lived as such. She grew up in one of the domed cities that had become the bulwarks of mankind against the spiritual forces that had brought terror down upon the world. That terror was removed however, kept at arm’s length by the presence of those protective forces. There were drills and alarms sure, there were events that necessitated evacuation and sheltering. Such events were so common however, such a background piece of information to life that it never felt that terrifying. Her and her friends would continue to talk and laugh, to exchange images and messages on phones, and generally never felt like the danger was truly ready to crash down on them all.

And when it did finally come crashing down, she didn’t live long enough to feel the terror.

» Rebirth [2028 – 2037]
Mai does not hold any true memories from her time as a human. She has flashes of emotions, vague moments of nostalgia, and occasionally she has fuzzy images that get fuzzier with each passing year. The most she remembers from the end of her life is a sound like thunder, a sense of panic, and a blinding light. Her memories coalesce into something more solid after she arrived in the Soul Society, despite those early years in the Rukongai being largely uneventful. As Mai is want to do she made friends easily and constantly, both endearing herself to those who had become something like her family and helping those she met as best she could. As time passed however Mai began to experience a familiar but distant sensation; hunger. As this hunger grew, so did this feeling of pressure around the young woman who brought so much energy to everything she did.

It did not take the Shinigami long to find her.

Once things were explained to Mai about why she was experiencing this hunger while others didn’t, she was presented a choice that wasn’t a choice at all. Of course she had to go to the Academy and learn how to control this rising power; that sounded too awesome to pass up! Mai’s face was lit up with enthusiasm, a new emotion for the Shinigami tasked with bringing her to the academy. They chatted the entire way there, and by the time they parted ways Mai had made a new friend. At least as far as she saw it. She was signed up for the Shinō Academy.

» Academy Years [2037 – 2045]
It turned out the Academy was very much what it said on the tin; a school. This proved a slight...complication for Mai. Make no mistake, Mai is a great fan of learning and once a subject has her attention she will consume everything she can about it with a zeal that verges on the frightening. However, once a subject has lost her interest then it is deeply challenging for Mai to keep her attention on it. She started out showing great promise to the Academy’s instructors, before settling into a decidedly mediocre performance on most of the tasks. Mai managed to largely avoid some of the typical problems encountered by those in the Academy; she did not rise to the challenges presented by those students of noble birth who went out of their way to shove their superiority in other’s faces. Mai either bludgeoned them with unceasing optimism and friendliness, or else confounded them with a deluge of strange questions and topic changes.

Though Mai was friendly and outgoing her lack of attention to subjects that did not hold her interest proved to be a problem, resulting in her being held in the Academy longer than was traditional. This also proved strange when Mai was finally graduated out of the Academy considering she was scouted out by the Kidō Corps. If it was true that Mai was talented enough to be scouted by the Kidō Corp, how did she manage to get held back as long as she did? Well, funny story that. In her first few years Mai showed that great promise, especially where Kidō was concerned; it was the one subject that never managed to lose Mai’s interest. However, because of this she devoured what knowledge the Academy had to offer and passed the required classes with enthusiasm if not high marks. However, as she had largely finished the curriculum associated with Kidō by that point she moved to the other subjects without much fanfare.

Perhaps another promising individual was also present, or maybe Mai simply fell through the cracks, but since she did not have much in the way of reason to display her Kidō knowledge in the other fields it was not readily apparent that not only was Mai talented at it, but that she had continued to grow as she studied Kidō when she should have been studying the other Shinigami arts. For her own part, Mai not only felt comfortable at the Academy but had little want to move along just yet. Here was a collection of knowledge on Kidō, readily available and with time aplenty to indulge in its study and refinement. It simply didn’t occur to Mai that she should have been pushing to advance on and out of the Academy until years later due to the comment from one of her classmates.

In short, said classmate in a bout of spite declared Mai a talentless hack who should have left in disgrace years ago at her failure to advance. Mai found this understandably insulting and frankly untrue. Once challenged to display some modicum of talent by this nobleblooded student, Mai obliged him; she led the challenger and a group of onlookers to one of the fields used for Kidō training. With her audience duly assembled proceeded to unleash a Hyapporankan.; she covered the field in the rods formed by the Kidō, as well as damaging a wall further behind to which she was enthusiastically apologetic about later to one of the teachers. With that ‘misunderstanding’ so corrected however, Mai left the crowd stunned as she made her way back out with a skip and smile. Later, when questioned about it, she would profusely apologize for damaging the wall. Once word got out, Mai was quickly snatched up by the Kidō Corps; she had no objections. She’d planned on applying to join them once she had graduated anyway!

The Great Calm [2045 - 2091]
The duties of the Kidō Corps, along with the privileges afforded its members, proved to agree with Mai’s sensibilities. She found the others of the organization friendly enough, as she has always made friends easily. In these years the Kidō Corps found itself more active than in times past, given the breadth and scope of enemies the Soul Society as a whole had to contend with. Yet in a way it was probably the calmest and most ‘routine’ of times as far as Mai would classify it. There was plenty going on, and the Kidō Corps was being drawn closer to the Gotei as a whole than it had previously operated, but Mai’s life was one of routine; study, patrol, and generally settle into the new life she found herself enjoying.

With admittance to the Kidō Corps came the access to much in the way of information on Kidō, something Mai continued to be endlessly fascinated by. She felt a calling of sorts, a fascination with the possibilities that kidō presented combined with a natural expression of her talent for the craft and focus on breaking apart how kidō functioned. There were many questions that needed answered where kidō was concerned at this time as well; with the variety of enemies the Soul Society was facing, new kidō to address the abilities of those foes were in demand. How various kidō interacted with said enemies was information much sought and highly valued; Mai put her abilities to use in trying to help answer these questions and more.

With the strengthening relations to the Gotei Thirteen being apparent, Mai decided to also begin reaching out and meeting those other Shinigami who more directly charged into the frontlines of the conflicts the Soul Society faced. Or maybe Mai was just being Mai, outgoing and interested in people only slightly less than she was in kidō. She expanded her circle of friends, bringing in those she worked with and got along with and holds many of those friendships into the modern day.

Of course during this time Mai also kept up with her training. Mostly. Partly. She trained her kidō. Mai continued to expand her knowledge of known kidō as well as beginning to work on modifications on those kidō to address other situations. She found a natural joy at working with kidō and figuring out how those spells not only worked but in how they could be altered. She began to piece together and create an alternate incantation method that would allow her to change up the speed at which her kidō would discharge and strike enemies. She also pursued an alteration to standard kidō that would allow them to dismissed if they were fired and missed their target. Alas, this second would prove a dead end to this day. Mai believes finding a way to recycle that wasted energy could prove infinitely useful, and to not be looking into this even if it is considered ‘impossible’ makes no sense. While this project is still in Mai’s head though, it would be safe to say it has been shuffled off of an active thought process.

» The Search [2091 - 2101]
There was another field Mai began to devote more time to late into this period; Mai began the search for her Zanpakutou spirit. While some of the Corp did not possess their Shikai, and some didn’t even carry a Zanpakutou at all, Mai felt a quiet call for it. Nowhere near as strong as the pull of her interest in kidō to be clear, but a tug in the right direction all the same. Her Zanpakutou spirit however did not deign to make even an appearance for many years. Perhaps it didn’t count on Mai’s stubbornness, perhaps it did. Either way, Mai was persistent in her search. In typical fashion however, Mai did not go after this in the typical manner. Most find their Zanpakutou spirits either through extensive training in the art of actually wielding their Zanpakutou, or barring that in the heat of combat when the danger forces the spirit’s lest it wish to meet its own destruction.

Mai instead took to this task by employing what she knew best; how to control energy. To be clear, there was certainly training with her blade as even with a markedly high proficiency with kidō the Zanpaktou was still an immensely useful tool against the enemies one faced on the battlefield. Even if Mai was not a physically powerful combatant it would have been stupid to not employ a sharp piece of steel against the monsters. Instead of relying on that though, Mai took her control over energy and began to sift through herself as she attempted to ‘corner’ the spirit of her Zanpakutou by isolating the energy of it during meditation.

Even once Mai had managed to create a connection using this method, the Spirit proved elusive and unwilling to interact. Mai was persistent however, insistent even that they should talk. Finally, Mai was successful; during one such meditation session where she’d been able to manifest her Inner World and draw the energy the spirit appeared. It was tall and regal, mysterious, and had a solemn air about it. It stood with a silence and reverence worn about it like a cloak. Mai sent all of that scattering to the winds as she all but tackled the spirit, joy and laughter ringing throughout the Inner World before the spirit was bombarded with a flurry words, equal parts grousing about how much trouble the Spirit had put Mai through and overjoyed exclamations about having finally succeeded. The Spirit did not get a chance to really get a word in edgewise either as those comments shifted to questions about the Spirits appearance, about why it had taken so long to respond, whether it had known she had been searching, were they able to speak, did they take this long to make Mai work harder, where they always listening…

Finally, the Spirit held up a hand and halted the unceasing advance of Mai’s questions.
“You are as high spirited as he expected, though we had not expected such exuberance,” the Spirit said, its voice deep, resonant, and seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere around them at once.
“Oh, I get that a lot. I had kinda expected you’d be more energetic as well, seeing as your a part of me and all. Are you not as a kind of balancing measure? Is that how it works with other Za-”
The spirit held up a hand once more, forestalling another tangent-threaded deluge from the young woman.
"These questions you can ponder later, on your own. You have sought us with dedication, and with relentless vigor. What question is it that has brought you to us?”
“You have to know the answer to that question! Isn’t it obvious?” Mai asked, laughter dancing in her voice at the absurdity of the spirit’s question. It could not have been more obvious after all.
“Yes, but we wish to hear you say it yourself.”
Mai gave a small shrug to that. “I want to know your name.”
“And why do you seek that power?”
This brought Mai up short, not for a lack of an answer but because of too many answers colliding at once. This did bring a real pause to Mai though, and she considered this deeply for many seconds.
“I want to do more. I am already doing a lot, don’t get me wrong. I am helping out in every way I can to help my friends and everyone else. I think I can do more, and I think you’re part of the way I do that. I think together we can help a lot of people, and go on to do great things. Will you help me?” Mai said, looking up to the spirit and giving a wide smile with the invitation. After a moment the spirit nodded.
“We are Zoubenkyō, and we will join you.”