Amai, Ringo (A-ma-ee, Ring-go)
Aliases/ Nicknames:
Rin-chan, Ringo, Amai-chan, Mai-chan
Physical Description:
Ringo is an average girl who looks 18, but is actually 21 years old and stands at around 5’5” when she’s not wearing any high heels. She has long, blonde hair which she always ties neatly with a red ribbon so that she wouldn’t be distracted when she’s working. Her body is just about average, although she’s a bit shy about her bust size since she sees it as small compared to the other girls around her. Ringo’s skin is a healthy peach color and is smooth like a baby’s. This is because Ringo always takes care of herself and never lets herself do things she knows she cannot do. Although she abides by the Soul Society’s standards of wearing a uniform, she prefers casual clothes whenever she’s at her lab or working on something. What’s interesting with her though is that, most of the time, Ringo loves to wear dresses with big ribbons behind them and especially likes red kimonos. Some of her friends from before describe her as a “bookworm beauty”, but Ringo only sees it as a joke and does not bother with it.
Zanpakutou: Senritsu Oto (Sen-rit-su O-to)
Senritsu Oto appears in its normal zanpakutou form as a 20-inch kodachi unless Ringo calls her out and releases her by uttering the word, “Showtime”. This is where Senritsu Oto (translates into “Melodic Sound”) turns into its first form and becomes a flute that can manipulate sound and allow her to do so “see” and “feel” the “rhythm” of everything around her. The sound she creates when she plays the flute can me manipulated in a number of ways either for attack, defense, healing, or support. One drawback here is that Ringo needs to be in a stationary position in order for sound waves to be properly manipulated and any attempt to play it while moving would result to weaker sound-based attacks. Ringo transforms in this form as well, changing her current attire into a short, apple-red kimono.
In it’s second form which Ringo achieved after training with several trainers including her captain, vice-captain, and onii-chan, Senritsu Oto evolves and becomes a double-sided scythe called Surudoi Oto (translates into “Sharp Sound”) that still retains its main function as a flute giving Ringo a more expansive method of attacking by allowing Ringo to effectively manipulate sound waves even while moving. What’s more, the scythe blades also act like amplifiers that increase the power of the sound waves that are created. It’s most prominent feature, however, is that it can be adjusted and manipulated like a puzzle through sound waves. This may sound simple, but manipulating it can only be done if certain notes are sung at specific tunes by a voice Senritsu Oto acknowledges, causing the mechanisms inside the zanpakutou to shift and transform the weapon. So far, Ringo has been able to turn Surudoi Oto into four types: the standard twin-scythe form, a chain and sickle form, a boomerang form, and double-kodachi form.
Flute: (Attack Pieces)
Affrettando - a sound-based attack that swiftly shoots forward and can cut through most solid objects effortlessly.
Con Forza - a sound-based attack that is doubly powerful, but half slower, than Affrettando.
Fugue - a sound-based attack that sends a powerful shockwave around Ringo, capable of knocking back the heaviest of objects like large boulders and even small buildings.
Furioso - a sound-based attack that immediately crushes and area of several hundred meters around Ringo with great force surpassing Fugue.
Impulso - creates a low frequency sound wave designed to force solid object to resonate at a molecular level and cause them to collapse without damaging anything else besides the targeted structure.
Rhapsody - a sound-based attack that splits into three individual sound waves
Saltando - literally translates into “jumping”, it allows Ringo to bounce notes off other active attack melody.
Sostenuto - a sound-based attack where Ringo plays and sustains a note in order to form a highly destructive beam of compressed sound waves.
Trattenga - lets loose a wave of sound that disrupts the biorhythm of designated targets and incapacitates them for a set period of time lasting from five minutes to an hour, depending on the intensity of the melody that was played.
Flute: (Defense/Support Pieces)
Amplifichi - a passive ability gained after going into Surudoi Oto. Increases the power of sound waves generated through the scythe blades that act as sound amplifiers.
Cura - a healing tune that supercharges the immune system of all allies that can hear it, making them immune to any illness or ailment as long as the tune is played.
Riacquisto - a healing tune that can heal non-serious and non-mortal wounds of all allies that can hear it.
Ritorno - any solid projectile that comes into contact with the outer layer of any defensive melody is bounced off the sphere.
Schermo - a tune that forms a shield of sound to stop an attack.
Sfera - a tune that gathers sound waves to create in an unbelievably sturdy spherical barrier of high pressure sound, capable of holding 10 to 15 people at any given time. This is capable of defending against a number or projectiles and even large solid objects, but restricts Ringo to defense until she stops playing the melody of Sfera.
Unison - a tune that plays with respect to an ally’s biorhythm, super boosting physical limits and putting them in a trance-like state called Echo Trance. In this stage, an ally can perform up to the body’s limit without suffering from too much physical strain afterward.
Special Pieces (Concerto):
“Sakura: Night of the Kunoichi” - a piece that tells the story of a young kunoichi on a mission to infiltrate a castle for her lord to steal an item of immeasurable value through music. The tune plays out the story from the time the young kunoichi infiltrates the castle, to her being found out by a castle guard, to her being chased around the castle, and finally to her escaping with the item to bring back to her lord. Allies who hear this song will be filled with energy and would be able to move at lighting-fast speeds effortlessly just like the kunoichi in the story.
“Flute Concerto No.1 in G: 1st Movement, Allegro Maestoso (Majestic Allegro)” - a fast and cheerful piece that tells the story of children playing on the first day of spring and the wonderful discoveries they make as they explore the world around them. Allies who hear this song will be healed of all their wounds and regain their stamina twice as fast as a normal person.
“Demon’s Dance” - a slightly dissonant and ominous piece that tells the story of a mischievous devil, lurking about in the shadows, playfully dancing while waiting to cause a little bit of pain and sorrow to unsuspecting mortals. Enemies who hear this would have their biorhythms disrupted by the negative melody and would make them feel weak, nauseous, or a number of other things which would make them unable to fight properly.
Special Accessories:
Ringo always likes to wear red ribbons or anything red since it reminds her of her favorite fruit, apples. Besides that, Ringo always carries with her an apple-shaped silver pendant with the picture of her brother and best friend in it. She treasures this above all of her possessions and considers this as irreplaceable.
Skills:
Ringo is a very talented mechanic and is considered as a prodigy even among her peers. To compliment this, she is very dexterous and uses her nimbleness at her lab when she‘s building something or fixing something, but it is only until she fights does her flexibility show their full potential. She can disassemble a simple mechanical device, like a watch or a gun, in under three seconds at most while even skilled mechanics take twice that many seconds. Besides her dexterity, Ringo also has a sensitive ear and can hear the “voice” of the machines and can determine if a machine has problems extremely accurately based on the sound they make. This skill isn’t only limited to machines as she can also “hear” if there is something wrong with a person based on the sound their body makes called biorhythm. With that, she can adjust her songs or fighting style based on the biorhythm of the people around her, making her extremely adept at any situation.
Abilities:
Ringo has basic knowledge of kido, mandatory for all graduates of the shinigami academy, and can perform shunpo ever since she trained for it.
Personality:
Ringo used to be a shy, soft-spoken girl who prefers to follow rather than lead. Because of this, she doesn’t have that many friends, but those friends she has she cherishes them like family. However, after meeting new people who taught her so much, she’s now trying her best to change. She highly admires confident and outgoing people who tend to make friends wherever they go like her brother, Xeion Kuchiki. She’s very attached to her brother since he was one of the first persons to take care of her ever since she came to the Soul Society, but her feeling of attachment had already grown beyond that of gratitude and now sees him just like a real brother. Another person she admires is her squad vice-captain, Victoria. Not only does she looks up to her because she presents herself as a strong and confident woman, she’s also like a mother-figure to Ringo and seeks her guidance and support whenever she can.
Seemingly normal, Ringo has a psychological condition known as androphobia, or an extreme fear of men. She already had a small fear of men as far back as when she was still alive since she was raised around girls. She was more used to dealing with women than men except those men she knew and trusted, but this fear hadn't been fully developed until she had a very traumatic experience with men before her death. To deal with this, Ringo, instead of dealing with men directly, prefers to indulge herself with a male-related activity, mechanics, which she loves. She’s a natural-born mechanic and loves all things that clatter and clank, ironic for a girl. Since she can’t handle being near most men, she copes up with this by tinkering with mechanical objects that are commonly associated with men like cars, bikes, and guns. This why Ringo always tinkers around with something whenever she’s talking with men she doesn’t know yet since it helps her cope with her fear.
Biography/History:
As the second daughter of a successful business man and a successful businesswoman, Ringo used to live in a high-end Tokyo apartment complex with her parents and two sisters. She went to an exclusive all-girls private school with her sisters, but was always bullied there because she always kept to herself and always surrounded herself with books than friends unlike her sisters who were very popular. Although she’s seen as a reclusive person, commonly referred to as a hikikomori, by most people, those few people that understood her know Ringo as a smart and cheerful girl with a lot of cute habits as well as a reliable friend and confidant you can always count on.
Ringo loves mechanics and always tinkers with things ranging from simple watches to car engines. Her father even bought her a used car just so she could tinker with it, eventually turning what used to be an old hunk of metal into a wonder of a machine which she, along with her sisters, had used on a number of occasions to get to places when their parents were unavailable. She had already won numerous prefecture-wide and nation-wide mechanics contests with her wonderful inventions, some even making it to the market for general use. Besides tinkering, Ringo also loves music with her favorite instrument being the flute, but that doesn‘t mean she doesn‘t know how to sing. In truth, Ringo has a wonderful voice, but she’s just too shy to actually sing out loud except if one of her friends asked her to, but only at a karaoke bar. Ringo lived a happy life until everything changed one day things took a turn for the worst and the life Ringo once knew would be a distant memory.
While on her way back from school after she stayed behind to help the teacher out, she accidentally bumped into a drug dealer who was just about to sell some expensive and highly illegal drugs to the son of a well-known politician. Not wanting to leave any witnesses, the dealer and the politician’s son decided to silence Ringo and gave chase. Ringo ran as fast as she could, but her weak stamina soon got the better of her and she was captured and taken to a secluded area near Tokyo bay where she was drugged and sexually abused numerous times by both men. The scared Ringo, unable to do anything, had no choice but to allow them to violate her body again and again before she was shot in the stomach by the politician‘s son using the dealer‘s gun after they had their fun. Just as they were about to leave her for dead, Ringo, in a fit of rage, used her last ounce of strength to exact vengeance, taking a metal pipe and bashing both men over the head until they were dead. After the ordeal, Ringo mustered up her remaining stamina to write a short goodbye note to her family on the ground, written in her own blood before she succumbed to her injuries and passed away.
As a spirit, Ringo wandered around Tokyo, unable to move on because of her worry about leaving her family and friends behind without showing them her latest and last invention, a digital gift card made from used mobile phone parts, but the problem was that she hid this invention from everyone because she wanted to surprise them. For months she lingered around the house and her school, watching over her loved ones, trying her best to tell them where it was even though they didn’t notice her until finally, a shinigami came and helped her out. By borrowing a gigai, the shinigami showed Ringo’s family and friends where she hid her invention. When they finally found it, everyone in Ringo’s family cried, including Ringo herself, happy that she was able to make them smile one last time before she moved on. Fulfilling her duty, she allowed the shinigami to use soul burial on her.
In the Seireitei, Ringo quickly found work as a small bookstore keeper, tending to the books inside and keeping watch of the shop. There, she had the privilege of having access to books where she learned a lot about the history of Soul Society and especially took interest in becoming a shinigami. She trained herself tirelessly for this and several months later, she got accepted in the shinigami academy where she excelled in the field of mechanical engineering. Graduating at the top of her class, she went on to her dream squad, squad 12, the arcane sciences and technology squad.
