(Prounounced DAN-i-ca Saint Claire)
Nickname(s)/Alias(es): Danny
Race: Shinigami
Rank: Thirteenth Division Captain
Age: Appears to be in her early 20s, perhaps 21 or 22, but is nearly 90 years old by human standards
Height: 5’4”
Weight: 119 lbs
Physical Description: Danny has a solid, compact frame. At first glance, she appears soft and feminine with modest curves, but a closer look reveals lean muscle and slight definition. Her hair is a messy tangle of brown curls that she generally wears bound up in a ponytail. She has pale gray eyes set in a strong, handsome face. Her skin is naturally fair, but considerable time spent outdoors has given her a slight, healthy tan and a dusting of freckles across her nose and the tops of her shoulders.
Danny doesn’t opt for the usual shikahusho. Rather, she wears a long-sleeved, formfitting, white top, tailored to bare the tops of her shoulders. Her pants resemble a modified version of the normal Soul Reaper uniform but incorporate several large pockets, much like cargo pants or military fatigues, in which she carries all sorts of useful things. The pants are tucked into sturdy black combat boots. She also sports a black bandolier, packed with first-aid equipment. Her zanpakuto, which takes the form of a tantō dagger, is clipped to the back of a simple black belt about her waist.
Personality: Danny can be a bit shy about forming new acquaintances, but once she grows comfortable around somebody, she’s very friendly, quick to smile, and even quicker to laugh. She has no temper to speak of and will always think the best of somebody unless they give her reason to think otherwise.
Despite her general cheeriness, Danny is actually very closed off. It would be difficult to pick up on right off the bat, and even close friends wouldn’t necessarily notice. To all appearances, she’s just a very private person and doesn’t talk about herself or her past very often. Instead, she’ll steer a conversation away from herself if she becomes uncomfortable. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she can’t talk about these sorts of things or even doesn't know how. She prefers to tuck it all away and pretend that none of it exists.
Danny is also impossibly stubborn and intensely dedicated to her belief in nonviolence. If she’s forced into a combat situation, she will seek only to wound or incapacitate, but never kill.
Berserk Button: As even-tempered as Danny is, it’s still possible to piss her off. She’s fiercely protective of the wounded. If an enemy attempts to harm one of her patients on the battlefield or elsewhere, she’ll resort to any means necessary—often violent, lethal means—to eliminate the threat.
LIkes: Singing, baking, Henry Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body, homemade apple pie
Dislikes: Cold weather, bell peppers, crowds
Reiatsu Color: White
Zanpakutou: Kōtetsu (lit. Ironclad)
Zanpakutou Spirit: For the most part, Kōtetsu takes the form of an enormous blue roan destrier. Nearly 21 hands (more than 7 feet tall at the shoulder), he dwarfs Danny. He’s enormously powerful, but exceedingly gentle and patient. Unless provoked.
Kōtetsu can also take human form as a tall, well-muscled man who closely resembles the soldier Danny was attempting to rescue when she was killed. However, this particular form won’t make an appearance until Danny trains for her bankai.
Inner World: Danny’s inner world is a broad, snowy landscape. It is empty, quiet, and still, save for the snow that falls continuously. Beyond a few snow drifts, the landscape is utterly featureless and seems to extend as far as the eye can see in every direction. The sky is pale and gray and the air, always bitterly cold, smells of wood smoke.
Sealed Form: In its sealed form, Kōtetsu takes the form of a tantō dagger. Its handle is a simple affair, wrapped in black linen with very simple gold accents. The blade itself is also black, chased with gold designs. Finally, the whole affair is encased in a lacquered, black sheath.
(Not yet obtained) Release Phrase: “Guard, Kōtetsu,”
Shikai Description: While Danny’s blade does not change, a suit of formfitting scale armor originates at her wrists and spreads to cover her body, but leaves her head, throat, hands, and feet uncovered. The armor manifests beneath her clothing, so it is only visible at her throat, wrists, and shoulders, due to the cut of her shirt. The overlapping scales are a silver so bright as to be nearly white, and they shift and settle fluidly with Danny’s movements so that she is not hindered in any way.
Danny’s armor is nearly impervious to most simple attacks and can withstand both extremely high and extremely low temperatures. Of course, the effectiveness of her armor varies with her opponent. If she comes up against opponents of her own level, it proves extremely resilient, but as the difference in power levels between herself and her opponent increases, it becomes easier to wound her despite the armor. It should be noted that, although she is safe from a blade’s cut, she can still bruise beneath her armor if the attack has enough force behind it.
The armor also helps Danny to focus her reiatsu, allowing for faster movement, greater strength, and an increase in the potency of her kido, especially her chiyudō.
Shikai Powers:
Scale Armor: As described above, Danny’s shikai is primarily for increased defense. The armor will turn most blades and protect her from many elemental attacks, though, again, the armor’s effectiveness varies depending upon her opponent. The armor also serves to increase Danny’s reiatsu control so that she moves more quickly and becomes a good deal stronger. Most importantly, her kido casting, in particular her healing techniques, become more powerful.
Empathy: In shikai, Danny develops a powerful sense of empathy that aids her in administering care. She is able to touch a patient and immediately sense the physical complication as well as dull some of the pain associated with the wound. Direct physical contact is required for this technique, that is, Danny's bare skin must also be touching a patch of bare skin on her target. The main drawback of this particular skill is that, in order to draw the pain away, she has to take it into herself. For example, if she chooses to take the pain from the victim of a stab wound, she'll immediately feel that pain in their place. Continual training with this technique will help Danny develop a considerable pain threshold.
(Not yet obtained) Bankai Name: Pax (working title, since Danny’s bankai is a work in progress)
Bankai Description: (WIP) A black filigree washes over Danny’s shikai armor, and its strength and durability increase exponentially. Danny herself practically burns with a reiatsu so white that it can blind an opponent. In her bankai, she displays a strength that is absolutely disproportionate to her size and she becomes a kido-casting powerhouse.
Bankai Powers: WIP
Special Accessories: As mentioned above, Danny sports a black bandolier worn across her chest from her right shoulder to her left hip. The small pouches of her bandolier contain first aid equipment, although some of it, most notably sulfanilamide powder, harkens back to an older era in combat medicine.
Skills/Abilities: In her past life, Danny served as a field medic and she still retains that knowledge of wound care and general combat medicine.
During her time in the military, Danny found she had an ear for languages and picked up a smattering of French, German, Italian, and Japanese.
Danny also loves to sing. Her voice is a smoky alto, and she’ll sing anything from classical to modern pop, but she’s shy about this. Most singing happens in the shower.
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)
Chiyudō:
- 1.Yawarakai Seppun (柔らかい接吻, Soft Kiss)
Description: The most basic of healing craft, it is used into the skin. The newer version has replaced the lips with the tips of finger of the medic. This is used to remove small or moderately sized bruises from the skin. The original form was literally practiced with a kiss, the user pressing their lips to the patient's bruise and channeling their reiatsu through the mouth and the fingers.
Incantation: N/A
5. Kire no Kizu (切れの傷, Slice Wound or Cut Wound)
Description: This Kidō is used to heal cuts to the flesh, it does nothing to cure internal wounds. Kire no Kizu can be used as a type of bandage to keep a patient from bleeding out before higher Chiyudō are used to cure the internal cuts and bleeding.
Incantation: N/A
12. Shoushaku (焼灼, Cauterization)
Description: Used in place of Kire no Kizu, Shoushaku is a painful way to close wounds and seal off blood vessels, but guarantees the absence of infection because all bacteria and other contaminates are burned away. But as many medics have learned through experience, Shoushaku can be used as an offensive spell. To cauterize, the spell forms a layer of superheated reiatsu over the user’s hand(s). With enough practice, a medic needing to defend themselves can mix Hakuda with Shoushaku to produce hits that cause second degree burns or worse.
Incantation: “Turbulent flow of life, straighten now! Burning poplar, engulf this wound!” (生命の乱流流れは、今困窮する! 非常に熱いポプラは、この傷を巻き込む!)
Biography/History: Danny was born in New York in 1922 to an old, powerful, upper-class family that had made its fortune in the steel industry. She, along with her elder brother Fenton, attended a private school in the city. Her brother went on to study law at Harvard, while Danny herself attended Barnard, a prestigious women’s college. Her family had always been considered high New York society, so it was expected that she would graduate and settle down to become a socialite and a dutiful housewife to the son of one of her father's business partners. As the scion of the St. Claire family, Fenton was supposed to assume his place at his father's side and eventually take over the company.
Of course, the advent of World War II threw a wrench in the St. Claire's long-term plans. It was Fen who dropped out of school first. Always a good-hearted patriot, he felt that he would better serve his country as a soldier in the war rather than just another pencil-pusher, comfortably safe stateside while others went off and fought for their country. As he explained it to Danny, "... [there were] far too many Harvard lawyers, anyway..."
Fen had been on active duty for a year when, Danny herself dropped out of school in order to aid in the war effort. Although her parents urged her to remain in the States, she applied to become a field nurse, quietly hoping that they might station her near Fen. Unfortunately, he was wounded in action and shipped home with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his trouble only days before Danny was sent to Europe.
Danny had always been a quick study and was fascinated by medicine, so she volunteered to be a test case for female field medics to observe women's fortitude in combat situations. She served admirably until 1943 when she was killed by an enemy grenade while trying to treat a wounded soldier. She was posthumously awarded the Silver Star Medal for gallantry. Despite her performance, it wasn't until 1947 that women were accepted in the Army Medical Department.
Danny was left shell shocked by the circumstances of her death and still retains almost no memory of her life beyond her medical skills. Wandering in the Rukongai, she was taken in by a clinic in the lower districts where she soon recovered enough to lend her skills to the clinic’s cause. The work seemed to revive her somewhat, though she rarely spoke, seldom smiled, and never laughed. As her mind worked to repair itself, her reiatsu and spiritual pressure began to grow.
It wasn’t long before she received a visit from agents of the Seireitei who strong-armed her into joining the Gotei 13. Her reluctance stemmed from what little she could recall of her past life, causing her to quietly hate most, if not all, military organizations. Still, powers like hers could not remain untrained, and so she was packed off to the Shinigami Academy, despite her most fervent wishes to remain at the clinic.
As a student, Danny proved infuriatingly stubborn. For the first few months, she point-blank refused to pick up a weapon. The instructors only put up with her frustrating tendencies because of her proficiency in kido-casting. It wasn’t until she discovered that gaining her own zanpakuto could help her cast more powerful healing spells that she willingly participated in weapons practice. In fact, she threw herself into her studies and gradually seemed to make a full mental recovery, though she never quite regained her memories of her past life. At any rate, if something inside of her is still broken, she certainly hides it well.
By the time of her graduation, Danny was more than proficient in kido-casting and self-defense. She had also developed into a capable fighter, able to use her tantō dagger in a defensive style that sought to disarm or incapacitate her opponent, rather than kill. This particular style of combat earned her both praise and censure from her instructors.
Powers: Beyond basic kido, self-defense, and swordplay (well, knife-play), Danny has no other powers to speak of (yet).
