(Pronounced KEER-ee-ay EYE-sehn-hime )
Nickname(s)/Alias(es): Kay (She prefers this nickname to her given name)
Race: Shinigami
Rank: N/A
Age: 19
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 130 lbs
Orientation: Homosexual
Physical Description: Kyrie is of mixed German and Japanese descent. She has tousled blonde hair cut just above her shoulders. Her eyes are light brown and her skin is pale and clear. She has a lean, athletic build and a long, well-defined neck and torso. She’s a bit flat-chested, but she still has a slim hourglass shape to her; her hips and thighs are decidedly feminine. Her hands are fine-boned, but strong and capable.
Kyrie wears the normal shuhakusho of most shinigami, but she does not wear the top, rather she prefers to secure it at her waist and wear a formfitting, white tank top that allows for a wider range of motion.
Personality: Kyrie is generally quite calm. Very little appears to ruffle her. She is charming and charismatic, and has an easy way of befriending people. She’s quick-witted but she doesn’t let a sharp tongue make her enemies. She often keeps her opinions and true impressions to herself.
Kyrie is outwardly very pleasant—always amiable, sociable, and willing to listen—but she’s very hard on herself. She always strives for perfection with very little thought for her mental or physical safety. She doesn’t like to let people down or break her promises, and she regards it as a personal failure is she does so. Loyalty, to Kyrie, is paramount. The imposition of order drives her, but she also feels to protect, to overreach, to be better if it means she can keep others from harm. These two mentalities often conflict and make for a messy moral dilemma.
But, if she angsts at all – and boy, does Kyrie angst—it’s in the privacy of her own head.
Likes: Green tea ice cream, pumpkin, strawberry mochi, classical music, taiko
Dislikes: Cucumber, wasabi, licorice, modern art
Zanpakutou: Shintaisei (lit. “New Order”)
Zanpakutou Spirit: Shintaisei takes the form of a lioness with a pale, silvery pelt. This wild, untamed form is a reflection of the passionate, primal side that Kyrie strives to hide beneath a calm veneer. She constantly pushes at Kyrie’s control, testing it, shaping it, challenging, and refining it.
Inner World: Kyrie’s inner world is illuminated by a pale, silvery-blue light. It is has no solid ground, but it is filled with millions of thin, silver threads suspended in midair. They move of their own according, twisting around each other, dividing and coalescing, and snaking in every possible direction. Shintaisei can alter the threads as she chooses, making it quite simple for her to navigate the world, but Kyrie must learn to do so before she can come to understand her zanpaku-to any further.
Sealed Form: Shintaisei is a slender katana whose blade has been polished to a mirror shine. The guard and metal accents are pale silver and the cloth that wraps the handle is black. The sheath is black and lacquered smooth with thin silver-thread inlay that constantly curls and shifts of its own accord.
(Not obtained yet) Shikai Name/Release Phrase: “Shi” (“Order”)
Shikai Description: Shintaisei maintains its original form once released. In fact, the shikai release is rather subdued. Beyond Kyrie’s increased levels of reiatsu, her eyes glow silvery-white and her reiatsu of the same color hangs in the air around her, but there is no discernible transformation. Shintaisei’s power is visible only to Kyrie. It shifts her entire perspective of the world, imposing order and revealing patterns to her that help her fight. Most importantly, Shintaisei maps out sets of steps that help Kyrie combat her opponents. These steps shift according to her wishes. For example, it might reveal to her the pattern of movements required to disarm her opponent, or perhaps the safest way to avoid an elemental attack.
This technique does have its limitations. Although Shintaisei can attempt to guide Kyrie through any number of attacks or counters, she is limited by her physical abilities. Often, Shintasei’s steps will require an enormous amount of reiatsu or pure physical energy. The stronger the opponent she must face, the more taxing it is to follow Shintaisei’s steps, simply because the counters and strikes required to match a powerful opponent are, themselves, complicated.
Shikai Powers: Kyrie’s shikai is meant to augment her preexisting martial arts prowess. She practiced a form of martial arts based upon efficiency and the use of simple, fluid movements to turn an opponent’s strength against him. Her increased reiatsu levels increase her strength, speed, and endurance, but Kyrie’s shikai can really only show her the steps. Kyrie must work and train constantly to be able to master each movement.
Kyrie’s shikai technique applies to hand-to-hand combat (several moves of which are listed in the Skills and Abilities section) and swordplay.
(Not obtained yet) Bankai Name: Seven Perfect Steps (WIP)
Bankai Description: (WIP)
Bankai Powers: (WIP)
Special Accessories: N/A
Skills/Abilities: Kyrie was quite the tennis star in her previous life, but she doesn’t find much use for such skills here. The sport did, however, make her quick-thinking and fast on her feet. In addition, she practiced an old and obscure discipline of martial art called the Ketan. She loved it for its simplicity, grace, and power, and it is from this martial art that her shikai likely stems. She still practices her forms because she finds a certain sense of calm when in each exercise. The Ketan’s style is simple, fluid, and elegant in its simplicity. Each attack, block, foot placement, and counter has its own name, that, however obscurely, refer to its purpose:
- Thunder Upward – two-fisted (or open-handed) strike to the solar plexus, often thrown while surging upward from a low stance
Fifteen Wolves – repeated knife-hand strike to the throat
Heron Falling – evasive movement used to move under an opponent’s strike
Break Lion – a one-handed method for breaking an opponent’s grip (for smaller, weaker practitioners, there is a two-handed variant)
Hands Like Knives – open-handed stance that allows the user to transition into knife or spear-hand moves
Catching Rain – a series of rapid blocks meant to stop multiple attacks from several angles
Climbing Iron – grappling move meant to restrain an opponent’s arms and legs
Fast Inward – a quick step to bring the user in close proximity with their adversary
Turning Breath – evasive movement to move just barely out of the line of an opponent’s attack
Striking Forward – straightforward strike to the solar plexus
Thrown Lightning – a quick series of spear-hand thrusts meant to numb or disable an arm or leg; can be lethal if applied to the throat
Threshing Wheat – a simple sweep of the leg, coupled with pressure applied to the opposing shoulder that throw the opponent off balance
Maiden Dancing – fluid, spinning legwork that may accompany Hands Like Knives but may incorporate a series of kicks
Thousand Hands – a series of rapid hand techniques in which the left and right hand work independently to attack or counter the movements of two or more opponents
Catch Sparrows – a counter meant to catch the wrist or ankle of an opponent
Drifting Snow – open-handed block
Sparrow Strikes the Hawk – a snapping gesture of the hand, generally directed at an opponent in a low stance that pinches at the nerves situated in the web of muscle between the shoulder and neck
Turning Millstone – open-handed push against an opponent’s shoulder to throw them off balance
Kidou:
Bakudou:
- 1. Restrain (Sai)
4. Crawling Rope (Hainawa)
8. Repulse (Seki)
9. Strike (Geki)
9. Disintegrating Circle (Hourin)
Hadou:
- 1. Thrust (Shou)
4. White Lightning (Byakurai)
Biography/History: Kyrie was the daughter of a wealthy German businessman whose work eventually brought him to Japan where he married Kyrie’s mother. They had two daughters of whom Kyrie was the eldest. Her sister, Adelaide (Addy), was born six years after her and had trouble pronouncing her name. It was from Addy that Kyrie received the nickname Kay. Although it had existed solely because it was easier for little Addy to say, it stuck. Kyrie prefers it to her given name, a name she finds far too formal and probably better suited for a daintier sort of girl.
Throughout high school and into her freshman year of college, Kyrie was the star of the girl’s tennis team, playing the number one singles position. In addition to her athletic ability, she was a bright student. Her parents placed a great deal of pressure on her to excel academically and she always worked to please her parents as well as herself. She never took failure very well and would often study at the expense of sleep to maintain her grades. Although her parents were strict, they loved their daughter and were very proud of her. Though one might have expected her parents to be ashamed of their daughter’s sexuality, they accepted it fairly easily and moved on. Kyrie was very popular at school and had a knack for charming girls, but she never let any flings—and there were a few—get in the way of her school work and sports.
This tenacity did eventually pay off. She was accepted into Yale both on academic and athletic merit. Unfortunately, Yale’s locale isn’t the most hospitable. During her first week of classes, Kyrie took a wrong turn and entered one of the more dangerous sections of New Haven where she was mugged and shot for her wallet and the contents of her backpack.
While Kyrie’s parents grieved for their daughter’s death, it was Addy who never quite got over her sister’s murder. Her grief clung to Kyrie’s soul, anchoring her to Earth far longer than she should have remained. Kyrie was torn between her love and sense of duty towards her sister and an increasing urgency she felt to leave Earth behind. This urgency ultimately became an insatiable hunger that indicated that she was beginning her transformation into a hollow.
A squad of Soul Reapers arrived to address the situation. Due to Addy’s fragile state and Kyrie’s own reluctance to leave her, Unohana personally oversaw the mission in order to ease Kyrie’s passing. Although her time as a near-hollow soul is shadowed and hazy, Kyrie distinctly remembers the calming sense of Unohana’s reaping and purifying her soul.
When she was next aware of her surroundings, Kyrie found herself in the Rukongai. It did not take long for practitioners of her martial art, the Ketan to find her, and she lived and studied at their school for several years. The practice of the martial art became more of a necessity to Kyrie as she was never quite the same after her near hollowfication. The order and fluidity of the forms steadied and focused her, and it made it much easier for her quell the darker whisperings of the piece of her soul that may yet be tainted with hollow hunger.
The circumstances of Kyrie’s death demonstrated to her the profound necessity for Soul Reapers, and she soon aspired to become one herself. She had been attending college as a pre-medical student, so the notion of battle and swordplay did not initially appeal to her, but she also recognized the need for it.
Coupled with the martial art she practiced, she worked to cultivate her reiatsu. Ultimately, she was recognized by the Shinigami Academy as a possible candidate and was accepted into the school.
At school, she attacked her studies with the same tenacity as in life. This mentality quickly bore her through the ranks of students, and it also garnered some attention. And, as in life, Kyrie had a certain reputation among the girls of the shinigami academy as somewhat of a charmer.
Although she was gracious about the attention, she was still committed to her studies. During her four-year tenure, she excelled in hand-to-hand combat and was a quick study at swordplay. Her use of kidou and the control of her reiatsu was generally precise and elegant, but her shortcomings lay in the control of her emotions. Though it was easy to project a sense of calm, Kyrie often struggled with disembodied feelings of anger and other similarly ugly emotions that distracted her to the point of affecting her reiatsu. This resulted in her choosing to study ever more non-lethal methods of subduing opponents. If she could disarm or disable an enemy without doing serious harm, she would. This gained both praise and censure from her instructors.
When she graduated, Kyrie vacillated between Squads 4 and 7 before eventually choosing Squad 7, attracted by its emphasis in hand-to-hand combat wher she still practices her particular brand of martial arts. really has no idea what she plans to do next.
Powers: Beyond basic kidou, Kyrie has not yet learned Shikai. Or pretty much anything else at this point.
**Picture courtesy of Tyshea; whose Picture This collaboration is awesome.
