[Spirit Class 8-] Furukawa Asuka [ARC]

○ Name: Furukawa Asuka (古川明日香)______________ ○ Alias: -- ○ Age: Appears late teens ○ Gender: Female ○ Race: Shinigami ○ Affiliation: Head of the Furukawa Family The Koizumi Domain ○ Marital Status: Single ○ Nationality: Seireitei ○ Sexual Orientation: Straight ○ Ideal Mate: Befitting ○ Special Skill: Crossword Wizard ○ Height: 5’6” ○ Build: Lithe ○ Hair Colour: Raven Black ○ Eye Colour: Smoky Scarlet

○ Serene: Asuka is a reserved and unassuming girl, she isn't shy in any sense of the word but she doesn't like to be the centre of attention. She talks softly, with a quiet voice and a polite vocabulary that suits her position as the head of a minor noble house fascinated with books. At times, it could be said that there is an etherealness to her. As if she is not quite in the present moment but instead in a world of her own where everything about her feels subtly skewed.

○ Inquisitive: When fixated upon a topic or subject, Asuka is often guilty of prying a little deeper than others might find comfortable before she can quite realise it. It can make her awkwardly intense when that fire has been stoked and can be both useful or frustrating when it comes to her work in managing the archives. She does not mean to be intrusive, but her curiosity often gets the better of her and this can make her something of a gossip.

○ Determined: It would be quite understandable to expect a woman in Asuka's position to lament the hardships that she has endured, and she is far from immune to bouts of melancholy, but there is a quiet spark of resistance that lingers at her broken core. Her family has sheltered her for countless years, and done what they could to keep her safe, but those barriers have fallen and she has been cast into the limelight anyway. She did not expect to find herself here, yet it would be a disservice to her predecessors if she were to give in to those ill thoughts and cower away from her duties.


The prospect of inheritance and responsibility was a far-flung concern for many secondborn children, especially daughters. This was as true in the Furukawa household as it was in any other household. When the head and his wife welcomed Asuka into their lives it was quite well believed that the family would go on to eventually produce a male heir and her position in the family would be to tie them to other houses. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, many parts of that assertion would be proven incorrect.

Asuka was only a few weeks old when the troubles became apparent, the birth had been taxing upon her mother and even more upon the child themselves. She was a slight little thing, to the point that the attending physician worried she might be malnourished, but more than that was her refusal to sleep or rest. As if her body was in constant pain, she wriggled and writhed and cried through the night until reaching the point of exhaustion. It might have been enough to drive the kindest souls to the shores of insanity, and yet her parents persisted somehow.

It was only after several months of constant back-and-forth and a couple of close calls that the baby began to settle down. As if her body had finally accepted the pain of continued existence, she was able to act as a normal child might. But the damage had been done in other ways, those that a child would never understand. No further children came from her parents' union, leaving her sister as the prospective heir to the family estate, and Asuka was rarely left unattended.

They were right to be cautious, though. As her elder sister, Asami, picked up a fondness for martial pursuits so too did she want to follow in those footsteps like any malleable little sibling might. Unable to dissuade Asami from this, their parents allowed the girls to take a few lessons together. Asuka was equally as determined as her sister, but simply could not keep pace. It took only a few swings to exhaust her, or a stiff breeze to knock her down. It was beyond a common weakness, the excessiveness of her ability to reach those limitations far below that which it seemed she was capable of by any other metric, and from that point onward she was subject to sudden bouts of fatigue and exhaustion.

Her childhood changed quite a lot after that, she was forbidden from venturing beyond the bounds of their estate and unable to train in any physical activities. This inadequacy frustrated Asuka to no end, as she wanted little more than to follow in her sister's footsteps and yet ended up spending her days studying with books and mental exercises instead. Had these lessons not come easy to her then perhaps she would have faltered altogether but, to her surprise, she had a knack for it. When it came to literature, numbers, history, or religion, there were few topics that she could not wrap her head around if given the time and she had all the time in the world.

Limited by her condition, Asuka focused on her studies whilst Asami headed off to lead the life she had once wanted for herself. Her sister first joined the Onmitsukido before eventually moving to the Second Division of the Gotei 13, whilst Asuka spent her days pouring over dusty tomes and finding new avenues by which to digest information. She ended up focusing on medical pursuits, both through learned means and that of Kaido, but her ability to practice such things was limited to herself and her family as she had little reason to venture further afield nor would she be permitted.

It was shortly after the Demon Incursion that her father was taken ill. A wasting sickness had taken hold of him, and neither Asuka's learned medicines nor that of any other physician could alleviate the symptoms. Still, Asuka had been so determined to heal him that she worked herself into a stupor several times, and it was only her mother's intervention that eventually calmed her down. The Furukawa elder did not want any of his family to continue to suffer at his expense and took his own life whilst he was still able to. Asami retired from her position as a Shinigami to assume control of the family and put the house in order. This sudden change drove the sisters close again, after decades of separation had let them drift apart, and restored those childhood bonds.

Living vicariously through her sister, Asuka often listened to her struggles in juggling her position within the Gotei and other responsibilities. From trivial matters to those of the heart, she watched from her ivory tower as it consumed Asami and tried to offer her a shoulder to lean on but the other woman would not have it. Her pride was something that would not break, and ultimately Asuka could only respect that. She continued to do what she could to support her sister, keeping their home as orderly as it could be, and - though it was quite a terrible thing - enjoyed the opportunity to spend more time with her than she had done since their father had passed away.

There was another trial on the horizon, though, another terrible twist. Under the order of Ichigo Kurosaki, an army of Hollows and Arrancar were able to infiltrate Soul Society and launch an all-out attack upon the Seireitei. The Koizumi domain itself came under attack by a horde of particularly virulent Hollows, and the Furukawa family were left struggling to defend their home. When the leader of this throng presented themselves, Asami threw herself into the fight alongside several of the Koizumi's other formidable warriors. But she, and they, were not enough. It was only the eventual intervention of Shishiyuki Koizumi herself that fended the monster off, and by that point, it was too late for her sister.

Now the sole remaining member of the Furukawa line, Asuka has no one left to hide behind and her sister's memory to honour.


○ Fragile Soul: Ever since she was a child, Asuka has struggled with a challenging condition that inhibits her abilities and health. Whenever she exerts herself it puts a much greater strain on her body than it might a normal soul, and doing so several times in swift succession quickly amplifies this to the point where she can no longer function. This does not mean that she is incapable of doing anything, but any task that would be considered spiritually strenuous causes her to become exhausted at a much faster rate. Whilst Asuka has spent her whole life training to endure this ailment, it remains a serious affliction that requires constant monitoring.

○ Peerless Lorekeeper: Having spent most of her life within the confines of the Furukawa archives, acting as its custodian even before her untimely ascension to the head of her household, Asuka is more knowledgeable than most on matters pertaining to Soul Society's history and that of the Noble Houses. Though the Furukawa's position as a branch of the Koizumi family vastly weighs the detail of this knowledge towards those houses in their proximity, the breadth of knowledge that she has access to and her ability to recollect it makes her one of the foremost antiquarians of this age. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of that which is stored within her collection and, in many cases, where to find any information that could be stored elsewhere.

○ Self-taught Healer: Asuka has studied the healing arts in many forms during her isolation, including the study of the Turn Way. She is not quite a master in Kaido, having rarely practised the ability on anyone outside of her immediate family, but she is able to combine this ability with her keen intellect and knowledge of both biology and anatomy to be considered capable in the field. If nothing else, she would be a boon to a stronger spiritual healer by way of being able to provide an accurate diagnostic report of a patient with little more than a glance at them.


General Skills

• Durability: E
  
• Speed: D
  
• Strength: E
  
• Soul: B
  

Shinigami Skills

• Hoho: Untrained
  
• Kido: Adept
  
• Hakuda: Untrained
  
• Zanjutsu: Untrained
  

Will Skills

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