Post by Chihaya on Aug 11, 2021 12:13:11 GMT -8
Shinigami
FC: Naruoka Shizuku (Smile Down the Runway)
Basic Info
~Balance Through Order~
Name: Tsurumiya Chihaya (鶴宮 ちはや)
Earth Alias: Isuzu Fields
Field Name: Sagi (鷺)
Chronological Age: 178 years old (b. 1843 d. 1854)
Biological Age: Mid to Late 20s
Division and Rank: Tenth Division Recruit
Physical Info
~Order Through Law~
Hair: Dark Aubergine Purple - Chin Length - Asymmetrical Bob
Electing for ease of maintenance and simplicity, Chihaya’s thick hair has been cut at her jaw line after a heated argument with her Zanpakuto Spirit. By way of compromise, she kept the right side of her hair a few inches longer than the left to give it "character". Unadorned by baubles, clips, or any other decor, her hair is often mistaken for black at first glance but is a deep aubergine purple in color that shows in bright light. In the very recent past her hair was much longer, falling just past the middle of her back, and often kept twisted up and secured with a simple, no nonsense claw clip.
Rumor: “Hey, did you hear? Tsurumiya cut her hair when she was told she would be transferring over here. I bet she’s heartbroken and did it as a sign of starting over.” - 10th Division Recruit.
Build: Slender - Average - Intense
At five feet, five inches tall, Chikaya doesn’t cut a physically imposing figure. Slender and elegant, she gives off the initial impression of a hothouse flower; inclined to wilt at the slightest chill or upheaval in her life. Clear, pale skin with nary a blemish to be seen, her physical frame is nothing to write home about in terms of proportion. Everything about her body is average to the untrained eye from height to bust and hip measurements to width of her shoulders-- exactly as she prefers.
A round face adds a sense of youthful naivety to her features to those new to her acquaintance, a sense quickly dispelled by both the way the Shinigami carries herself as well as the chill in her steady gaze. Framed by dark lashes, the sharp shape of her eyes as well as the intensity of the vibrant purple hue tend to cause something of a double-take. Her mouth is not one inclined towards smiling and the rest of her face seems equal parts frozen in an inscrutable mask and completely disinterested in the people or events going on around her.
Rumor: “Anyone who can make her smile will either be blessed with good luck for a thousand years…. Or cursed. We’re not sure which, no one’s managed it yet.” - 2nd Division Recruit
Uniform/Clothing: Standard - Simple - Monochromatic
There is nothing out of place on Chihaya’s uniform. No extra bauble, no colorful scarf, no accessory or addition that would hint at an identity outside of her classification. Each pleat in her hakama neatly pressed, the twine binding her zori freshly maintained and cleaned, and nary an unwanted fold, crease, or wrinkle in the black kimono or its kosode. She is the pinnacle of professionalism when she arrives for her assignment, lesson, or training.
Outside her role as a soldier, her closet is… remarkably bleak. A select few pieces in standard white, ivory, charcoal grey, ash gray, and black comprising mostly Western style business attire; slacks, pencil skirts, collared blouses and button up shirts alike. Although basic in appearance, closer examination of her small wardrobe reveals said garments are of remarkable quality that borders on luxury. Hidden further still is a small, plain box that stores two sets of earrings; a pair of pearl drops and a set of small silver hoops, and a matching tear shaped pearl on a thin silver chain.
Rumor: “I’ve heard Tsurumiya is completely color blind and that’s why she just sticks to the standard uniform or wears solid black, grey, and white. Doesn’t she know how to relax?” - 10th Division Member
Gigai: If one is to go undercover, might as well make it worth the expense and investment by going all the way-- or so Senyakoden advised with ulterior motives.
Long platinum blonde hair, cat-like yellow-green eyes with a coy gaze, and a trim, athletic form, Chihaya’s gigai couldn’t be more different than her usual appearance if she tried. Taking on the alias of a woman of mixed heritage currently studying abroad, she is fashion forward and always on the move in some regard or another as a consultant there on Earth. Donning attire anywhere from sultry cocktail dresses to neat business suits to aerobic clothing prepared in varying shared hideouts and work stations on the other side, she has an outfit in any color of the rainbow that flatters her appearance ready to go… and is ready to be anything the situation calls for.
She is still relatively close to her same height of five feet, five inches tall, however, and that unfortunate habit of staring a little too hard at whatever she’s monitoring has given her away before.
Rumor: “Hey… did you hear that Tsurumiya is like a whole different person when she’s undercover? I’d love to see that… she doesn’t seem like that good of an actress.” - 2nd Division Member
Extras: N/A for now
Spiritual Info
~Law Through Society~
Zanpakuto: Unusual for a sealed Zanpakuto, Senyakoden takes the form of a tessen: an iron hand fan. A plain and unassuming black color with no sign of lacquer or engravings when closed, each section of the sharp edged fan reveals a new design on the mirror-bright interior: the first section is a stylized ear, the second a grinning mouth, and the final an opened eye. On the opposite side of the fan are the same designs with a thick black line stricken through them.
Zanpakuto Spirit: Senyakoden (千夜古伝) - "Thousand Year Legend"
Vain, attention seeking, and highly demanding of her wielder, Senyakodan's desires are as ephemeral as the morning mist; there one moment only to be forgotten the next. Brute force is boorish, uncouth, and utterly unacceptable in her eyes. She approves readily of the uncovering of secrets, the darker and more devastating the better, and is willing to lend her power should Chihaya's task be centered on such a matter.
Senyakodan believes her current wielder to be an utmost bore of a woman who is wasting her prime years on work rather than utilizing what the gods granted her to attain an affluent and carefree life filled with luxury and intrigue. She believes that it is her duty and fate to ensure that Chihaya's life will be one worth living... that way when she inevitably meets her end, her tale will be number the thousand and first worth remembering.
Senyakodan considers herself an unequaled example of beauty.
Taller by far than her wielder at a resounding seven and a half feet tall, the most prominent of Senyakodan's features are the two sets of proportionally large white shading to black feathered wings that crown her back. Each feather, soft as they look to the inexperienced eye, are razor edged and as sharp as the shining silver talons that adorn her avian-like feet and the matching set of claws on unnaturally long fingered hands. A sharp, angular face is shielded by four small wings that can conceal her face or reveal it in part akin to a veil. Large, deep set eyes are a vibrant shade of yellow from lid to lid and her mouth, when she chooses to reveal it, is filled with small razor sharp fangs meant for tearing flesh from bone. What skin not covered in a fine layer of tiny white feathers is a misty gray.
A number of small jewels across the colors of the rainbow are scattered about her body. Were one to count them all, assuming Senyakodan would allow it, they number to exactly one thousand.
Inner World:
Chihaya's inner world manifests as as a seemingly unending trek up an unforgiving mountain. Surrounded by crags on all sides, the peak of the mountain she is traversing is lost to the thick layer of clouds above her... and the ground no longer in sight thanks to the clouds below. The higher she climbs, the more of what she leaves behind is lost to the cloud layer.
Thin air results in very little to no real progress being made until she has strengthened herself to Senyakoden's satisfaction and granted access to the next section of precarious trail she is made to follow. Trails that become nigh impossible if she dutifully follows them verses trying to forge her own path or otherwise take a shortcut not held in plain sight. A shrieking wind tears at the eyes, skin, and clothing of those within it and leaves her with very little in the way of senses to utilize against the spirit who dwells there.
Historical Info
~Society Through Death~
The Past: (Tell us about everything your character has been through. You don't necessarily need to include their life before death, but perhaps doing so could help us understand them better. What was their life like in Rukongai? How did their spiritual strength manifest? Why did they decide to join the academy? We want to know how they became the person they are today.)
Little is known about her life prior to death other than she was one of many thousands of souls lost as a result of the Ansei Great Quakes in December of 1854. Chihaya remembers the terrible tremors that split the earth, the scent of burning flesh and wood, and the smell of the river as the waters tore the city asunder. She also recalls things seeming to be much larger than they are at present and presumes she was also very young when she was killed. Between the fires that broke out and burned the cities and towns to the resulting tsunami that swept up the mouth of the Arakawa River and up the Boso Coast, it's difficult to know if her death was by fire or by water. As a result, both elements are treated with immense caution and respect even in her current life and role as a Shinigami.
Her first memory of the Rukongai is hunger. Ever present, all consuming, it was the first familiar thing she knew amid a sea of strangers and a strange yet familiar area. Some faces came and went, never to be seen again, others she watched bleed their last in the rancid gutters. Information was priceless and, as Chihaya quickly learned, could be the difference between a meager pittance that did nothing but turn the growling into her belly into a mumble to sleeping deeply and contentedly with a full stomach. And hunger is what she knew until plucked off the streets by a man shorter than her already meager size and with a cheery demeanor that was as unsettling as the unnaturally tall man who accompanied him. Given into a 'friend of a friend's' care, Chihaya was given her new name after learning she didn't have one-- or at least, one she remembered-- and began an informal education. Learning was a new experience for her and she began to thrive beneath the care of her new guardian as a result of new challenges and information about a world that had been so small to her before.
Though granted a name and a better life than most could have hoped for, there was still something missing. An emptiness within that she couldn't find a name for and haunted her deep into many long, sleepless nights. None too few were the nights she was found asleep sprawled defenseless outdoors in a garden and carried back in for her own safety. The restlessness ceased to be an issue close to her seventy-eighth year of life when helping her guardian clean out another acquaintance's storeroom, her hand settled upon an old folding fan seemingly lost to history and felt it respond beneath her hand. Amid the sudden gust of wind that tossed knicknacks and dust alike into the air came the sound of a woman's cruel and mocking laughter-- and then silence.
Chihaya, named only thusly at the time, found herself with a surname for the first time in memory as a result of her new discovery; Tsuryumiya. And as a result of the surname, was immediately adopted into the household and introduced to an entirely new set of lessons that had everything to do with one's "proper" mannerisms, ceremony, and deference required to be of the Tsurumiya name. Head still spinning from the new information, it wasn't more than another ten years before she received a visit from the acclaimed Shinigami Academy and enrolled within to serve Seireitei properly as the Tsurumiya did before her. One constant remained the same even enrolled out of obligation and pressure than her own willingness to do so; the desire to gain access to knowledge formerly outside of her reach.
During her one hundred and twenty-eighth year of life and while starting to drift off to sleep after Kido training, Chihaya and Senyakoden had their very first face to face encounter within the realm of Chihaya's soul. A rather unimpressive first meeting for both of them, as Chihaya mistook her for a Hollow and Senyakoden took great exception to being referred to as such as well as Chihaya's attempts at binding her. The fight that ensued afterward was less a war of words and more Chihaya dutifully taking the scolding she admittedly deserved and Senyakoden begrudgingly admitting that Chihaya has potential to be a memorable existence in an otherwise dull series of former wielders. A tentative partnership was formed between them as a result and the two began working with one another to find the depths of their compatibility as well as their own potential.
A depth of compatibility that turned out to be painfully shallow given their differing ideas of what potential looked like and what "living" was for.
Accepting the recruitment for the Second Division was almost natural for Chihaya, who wished to find an applicable use for her talents, and utterly frustrating for her spirit, who wanted something more interesting to stick their nose into. The excitement of the unknown and the reminder from her wielder that they were often sent to be first on the battle to gather information and make the first strike (or counterstrike) was enough to appease the spirit... for the moment. After several years of training, a chance trial run and unconventional use of her powers resulting in the termination of an Adjuchas grade Hollow gave her instructor pause. A consult with their superior, which then led to a second rise up the chain of command, and then the third rise in said chain of command turned into a group interview. An interview that, much to Chihaya's confusion, resulted in an instruction to transfer over to the Tenth Division for "an unforeseen time" and learn what she could for them.
And so, at one hundred and seventy-eight years old, Tsurumiya Chihaya now belongs to the Tenth Division as one of the newest recruits.
Snapshot: Your room is boring. Your wardrobe is boring. What is this complete lack of cosmetics? You don't even have a single pot of lip rouge! Has the Tsurumiya family truly fallen on such hard times they cannot even recall the simple demands made of them in exchange for my glorious presence?
Ah yes, the ear-piercing howl of the wind interrupted only by the equally shrill shriek of an entirely too interested in anyone and everyone's personal affairs spirit. As per the standard, aforementioned spirit has begun her laundry list of complaints regarding her latest charge's lack of identity, pride, and taste as a woman even as Chihaya steadily navigates the deadly trail winding ever upward toward the craggy peak of today's mountain. Today's meditation session is not going to go well and will result in her being quite literally thrown out of her own inner world.
Chihaya is not looking forward to the resulting headache that even the healers cannot seem to touch.
We have been over this before, Lady Senyakoden. She begins their usual back-and-forth as politely as ever. Times have changed and such... formalities are no longer suited to today's current needs of the Shinigami. We are in a time of-
She narrowly avoids a blast of wind that sheers some of the cliff face from its home and sends the jagged shards hurtling down to the clouds below. That was certainly quick, and here she thought they would get to the current state of affairs before the temper tantrum would be thrown. She must have done something to truly outrage her partner this time.
A time of war is when a woman's charms are most required! Honestly, what have these fools in leadership been teaching the new generations lately? Forgetting themselves and how hard working noblewomen managed to earn that information, pathetic!
Resigned, Chihaya dutifully clamps her mouth closed and continues the perilous climb upward while given as little attention as she dared to the rant from her spirit.