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 Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 1:21 pm
 Ugu Estate: Clan Ugu has been in existence for a thousand years. Younger than more clans it has always been at the bottom of the social ranking, and its name no longer pervades through-out Soul Society. Most nobles view this clan as nothing more than a peasant holding, and seek to ignore whomever may come from its lowly holdings.
Also, since it hasn't provided the Shinigami Divisions a ranked shinigami for more than three generations it has fallen from grace. Its members are dwindling, its powers over Soul Society's aristocracy is diminishing , and its name is dying a long and slow painful death. If nothing happens soon the Ugu clan will disappear from Soul Society within twenty years.
Clan Dogma
1. Honor above everything,
2. Learn to follow then to lead,
3. Avoid killing,
4. Avoid sin,
5. Avoid malice and ill-will toward/from yourself,
6. Avoid malice and ill-will toward/from the family,
7. Avoid malice and ill-will toward/from your allies,
8. Learn,
9. Live,
10. Listen.
Members and Servants:
'A set of oak plaques line the wall to your left as you enter the house. Your curious eyes look on at the carved out names on the pieces of wood, rather intrigued of who has their names on them. As you read them you see that they are the members of the house, and are as follows:
Servants
(NPC) Amiishe Zalu [Note: House Servant]
(NPC) Kaaize Ugyz [Note: Butler/Guardian]
Members
Ugu Zenmaru
Ugu Annie
Chateau Ugu:
The building in which the clan gathers is situated in the western reaches of Sereitei. It is a simple two story house with a relatively small (compared to the other nobles' housing around the region) plot of land. It possesses a small garden in the front, a large backyard, and several conifers that block the outside world from looking in.
The landing is as simple as they come: a wooden staircase going to the second floor and two halways to each side of the staircase. Both hallways stretch on for a couple of meters to cross by severals rooms that house clanmembers and borders. On the second floor, which is dedicated solely to ceremonies and the room belonging to the head of the clan, there is a wide corridor with several mats placed randomly about.
In the basement of the house there are several rooms and a fairly large sparring area. This dojo-like room is 40x40 meters and possesses numerous weapons that are attached to the wooden walls.
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Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 6:51 pm
Zenmaru laid there, motionless, staring at the ceiling. His lime eyes rarely wavered from the wooden panes that were stapled into position above his head. He tried to turn his body, to look away from the ceiling, but only found several tonnes of pain rushing into him. The mountain of a man let out a small 'urk' and shifted back to his original position.
Earlier that day he had been brought from the hospital to his home. Earlier than that he was demolished, destroyed, and defeated. Someone who he had never heard of, nor had any contact with before their battle, has destroyed him entirely. When he was at the hospital earlier his mangled body sent several nurses to the ward's psychiatrist.
But his deformity didn't phase him. He was Ugu Zenmaru-- a warrior, a fighter, a tactician.. His looks didn't matter. His blade even agreed with his: he had to let it go. But he didn't let it go, did he? He didn't let the battle go.. He didn't let the world turn to darkness and send him reeling before he removed several gallons of blood through his vomiting. ".. What am I to do," he asked aloud, rather saddened by Egeus's advice.
'Let it go'? He had let it go, didn't he? Yeah. The memories. He thought he let it go, just let it waver and sink to the back of his mind where he would never think about it again. Wasn't that enough? Wasn't that letting it go? Wasn't just pushing it away 'letting it go'? What else is there to do? He let those feelings go, and he was done with them. Simple.
Or maybe it wasn't so simple? People don't change so easily.. It takes time. A lot of time. For him to reach this amount of strength took him years of focus and hard work. It took him quite a long time to change who he was. Some ten years of constant physical training, constant fighting, constantly waging a war against himself.. Did Egeus want him to let go of -that-? His struggling? What would he be then though? An empty shell without a goal?
Wouldn't he be some secondary character in a plot that revolves around some better, cleaner, and superior protagonist?
Zenmaru tensed his eyebrows together as he pulled himself out of the blankets that seemed to bind him to the ground. He soon stood up, against the pain endowed onto him by Iba Kimigahara. His strained eyes looked about himself and quickly recognized where he was--the Ugu Manor. Perfect. This would be the perfect place to prepare himself for the up coming battle against those Ryoka.
His home, away from the commanders and elite shinigami of Soul Society, would do quite well for his training. But first, though, he would have to leave his room. Leaving the room required him to move his leg-- a feat that he wasn't quite able to do yet. He tried, though, and he found himself falling over like a tree falls over when it has been cut by a woodsman. Exactly the same sound echoed, too, as his body made a wild 'thump' against the wood floor.
The man remained there, fixed and binded by the pain of the fighting and training he had done that day. Had he pushed himself too far? Had he-- stop. "No more second guessing, Zenny," Zenmaru said quietly to himself. "No more of it.." He shifted his hands away from his fresh white obi to push against the ground. Within moments he was standing again.
Those people who he failed to defend. Those three souls, whom he had healed and given to the mob of refuges in the Inuzuri section of Rukongai. Those people he had failed to defend, and which the elites of Soul Society could not defend against. Those people there, whom had the power, could do nothing against the power of their opponents.
A grimace formed on Ugu's slashed face as his body leaned from side to side. He tested his balance, his strength, and other parts of his body. Egeus, and those sickly nurses at the hospital, had made sure that the more grievous injuries were taken care of. After many more moments of testing he shifted out of his chambers and walked down a hallway. After walking for many more moments, with each of his steps sending a shudder of pain up his body, he made it to a stairwell.
There he slid his feet from one step to the next. Slowly, ever so slowly, he pushed his body to fight against the piercing pain that billowed up his legs in order to get to the training dojo in the basement of the house. More minutes passed and he cleared the twenty some steps that led into the dimly lit basement's main hold. For a moment he stood there, taking in the damp air of the room.
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Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 10:36 pm
He took another breath. A rasping sound came from his throat as he sucked in the soggy air that surrounded him. The basement was quiet and almost serene. Only the fidgeting of some mice in the rafters made any sounds. The man inched to his right, where a light switch was. He raised his right hand and flicked the room's soul-plastic switch. Within a second the room illuminated itself.
His eyes looked at the dusty floor. It seemed to be ages since someone swept and washed the room. Annie, his sister, never trained here. He, too, didn't train here either. None of the other members of the clan used this facility, either, and the servants of the household were most likely able to ignore their duties.
A sigh came from him as he continued along the wall to his right. He eventually came to a doorway and slid his right hand into its empty abyss. Pulling his hand back he revealed to himself that he had gotten the broom on the first grab--exactly where he had placed it ten years ago. 'Ten years?' he repeated to himself as his mind turned to the days before his acceptance to the academy.
Back then he was a mindless idiot. He was a mindless idiot who did nothing more than sulk and brood about how the people important to him left him, forever. His mother, father, the nurses.. Zenmaru shook his head from side to side. No. That line of thought goes against Egeus's advice.
He shifted his pained body away from the utility closet and gripped the dust-laden broom with two hands. Slowly he began to gather the accumulated dust on the floor with the broom. His movements were slow, almost graceful, and sped up as he regained some movement. Zenmaru let his body do the work, let his hands and feet go on without his mind, as he pondered about his sword's advice.
'Let it go, he said,' the man thought to himself as he continued to sweep. When Egeus said that.. Didn't the sword mean to say to throw away the thoughts of his past loved ones? Just let the people of his past float away with the stream of time? That's what he had done.. That's exactly what he had done. It was easily to push those foreign thoughts out of his head, and to let them rot in the recesses of his mind.
.. But that didn't quite work, did it? There wasn't any surge of reiatsu energy that people talk about when they've achieved a greater grasp of their zanpakutou. There wasn't a single blip on his mind when he applied Egeus's advice to his mind. So was his sword's advice right? Or was his interpretation wrong?
His arms swung from side to side, gently pushing the dirt on the scratched floor toward an ever growing pile. "Maybe I'm going at this.. All wrong?" he asked himself, aloud, as he continued to sweep. 'Maybe I should be dealing with the problem and get it out of the way? By dealing with my issues I can finally be free of them and finally 'let it go'?' The man's sausage-like fingers tightened around the wooden shaft of the broom. 'So what can I do? Do I phone up the shrink at Shinigami HQ?' He let out a laugh as he thought about that. His superiors would be laughing at him for months-- Zenmaru the Baby, the Crier, the.. "Heh," he grunted to himself.
He'd have to deal with it himself. Like normal, he'd rush against this problem with both hands wrapped around his blade and calling upon his soul slayer's might. Wait. 'That didn't sound right,' he thought to himself as he stopped sweeping. 'This isn't a problem that I can just charge in and thrash to pieces. My.. My heart isn't like that. If I could change that easily I'd have never been in this mess to begin with.' The shinigami's eyebrows tensed together as he pondered about this. As his 'brows tensed, though, he made way to the closet that held the broom he currently held. The broom's brother, the dust pan, would be in there. It was there, as he found, and the large shinigami made way to go back to the massive pile of dust in the center of the large 40x40 meter room.
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Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 5:20 pm
'.. And who says I'm in a mess, anyways? I want more strength and my zanpakutou just says 'let it go'. Letting go of my past might not be what he's talking about..' His eyebrows tensed as he bent down just a few inches off of the pile. He began to sweep the dust into the dust pan he had just gotten from the closet and kept on with pondering.
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Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 7:41 pm
It was as if hours had slipped away, never to return and never to leave a mark on him. He continued to kneel there, quietly thinking, as he swept up the thick dust that had gathered over the years. His lime eyes watched the small bits of dust flake upwards and into the air and continued to watch the dust settle back down onto the floor. Time seemed to slow, nearly to a pause, while he swept the clumps of grey.
After another few moments of sweeping he stood up. He walked over, much more steadily than before, to the closet and neatly placed both the broom and the dust pan on the closet's floor. He'd toss the pan's trash in the garbage later. Zenmaru then shifted his feet to allow himself to look at the room. His eyes looked at the cleared off floor, and the small glimmer that radiated off of its just cleaned surface.
"..."
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 10:45 pm
".. No," he said flatly to himself. His voice radiated off the floor and the ceiling, surrounding him with several echoes. "No. No, Zenamru," he continued, "That will not do. That simply will not do.." His mouth formed a smile, while inched on insanity, as he spoke aloud to himself. "What is this confusion?" The shinigami broke out in laughter as he finally knew the answer.
'It's too simple..' He continued to chuckle and the echoes continued to flow through the basement. "I've felt it. I've felt it every time I fought. I have bathed in the answer." Tears slid from his eyes, bursting from his lime coloured orbs. 'To fight, to fight, to fight.. To get stronger I must fight, and to fight is to fight.. It is the means that is the end!' The man cackled madly as he unsheathed his zanpakutou.
"To fight, to fight, to fight.." Another blast of laughter shattered from him. "It's.." His smile remained. ".. So simple. It has been how I've gotten to here. I've fought with hollows, shinigami, monsters, and with myself. To get stronger I need to fight. To fight at a higher level, and reap those benefits of fighting there, I need to fight. Let everything that's secondary to that goal go.."
'I've fought like that for.. ages. When the adrenaline is pumping through my veins and victory is only around the corner, I let everything go from my mind except my battle.' He brought his right hand up to his brow and slid his fingers through his hair. His smirk remained, and his eyes remained stalwart against the clarity that he was now given. ".. And now all I need is someone to fight."
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:26 pm
Ugu took a deep breath and sheathed his soul slayer. His grin remained fixed on his mouth, and his mind remained focused on his goal. He threw the thin kimono he wore across the room to rid himself of its constricting grasp. A howl of laughter left his throat as he rushed upstairs to his room, and to don the shinigami.
He shifted away from his chambers, flying out its doorway, to shunpo right back down to the basement. The 7'1 man took a hellishly long deep breath and exhaled it. His zanpakutou became unsheathed once more and his thick sasauge-like hands wrapped around the blade's green-woven hilt. As he held his blade, though, he calmed himself.
He calmed himself. The man didn't let his wish for combat overtake his other wishes. The shinigami took another deep breath, and exhaled it moments later. Zenmaru let his thoughts flow, letting his mind wander to all the topics that just seemed to explode into his mind. Then, upon command, he thought of nothing. His mind was clear. He could feel his whole body, its scars, and its screams. He let it all flow into his mind.
It was... odd. The feeling was almost like floating in an ocean, with the waters lifting and sinking beneath you. The emotions of rage, like fear or anguish, rose and dived to grow the emotions of happiness. In an ocean of fears and rage, in addition to an ocean of love and kindness, he remained and allowed himself to float idly by. This was 'letting it go', wasn't it?
His body crept with the waves of his mind, feeling the tinges of emotions that slinked out from it. 'Strange, he thought to himself as he let his body float along. 'Let it all go, and give yourself to one purpose. One purpose.' Zenmaru swung his blade down, and made a large step forward, slashing at the air in front of him.
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Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:19 pm
He straightened his posture as his eyes pierced the air in front of him. With crystal clear clarity he saw his path. The path that seemed to be his destiny was now set in front of him-- and it would require every single inch of prowess he possessed. Fight. 'Fight,' he mouthed, letting his mind talk rather than his voice.
Again he whipped his blade, but this time to the side. Egeus, his zanpakutou, slid through the air harmlessly. It eventually drew to a halt, and he let out a long sigh that rattled the floor boards beneath his bare feet. The silence of the room of deafening as he quieted himself.
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Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 6:41 pm
Quiet. The basement, aside from Ugu Zenmaru, was empty. Its lit interior seemed to speak tomes about the tomb of the Ugu fortune. Its previous dust-filled appearance lent itself to the decadence that had befallen his clan for so many years. The shinigami's mind slipped to the thoughts that he had been forgetting to think about as of late: his clan's revival.
To fall from prominence, and to fall from the grace, in the eyes of the other clans in Soul Society was something that his family had fought off for hundreds of years. 'Sadly, only...' he thought to himself, '.. Only if the clan head had lived longer.. The duty of reviving clan Ugu wouldn't have fallen unto me.' He took another step forward, slashing at the air with one more attack. 'Ah. If only.'
The grin from before remained as he thought about his path. 'Now I can raise the name of my clan, and I may do it in the way I see fit. No longer shall this clan be at the bottom of this rotten system.' His eyebrows tensed together as he slid his right foot forward. Shifting along with his right foot the man's left foot swung back, and he swung his lengthy zanpakutou from right to left. His swing whispered in the air, letting a sound radiate into the empty holds of the basement. 'I heard that lord Yamamoto-Genryūsai-sama had appointed a man to replace him. That means that the man who was newly appointed left a vacuum somewhere in the hierarchy of Soul Society...'
'There, I think, I should strike. To rise to prominence, and carry my clan with me, I need to surpass that man. First, though, I need to know who he is. Maybe by looking at why he was chosen I might find where I could direct my focus?..' Zenmaru, after another moment of contemplating, sheathed Egeus back into its sheath.
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Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 6:49 pm
'No,' the shinigami thought. Emulation is not the tool for true strength. Following the new leader in what he has done, or how he has trained, would not be the right path. Zenmaru smiled as he rubbed the handle of his Soul Slayer, and continued to ponder.
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Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 6:49 pm
More minutes past as he stood there. Pondering, thinking, and sleuthing through his issues he began to create a plan. All it would require is focus, determination, and inner strength to achieve his goals. These three things have always been in the forefront of his training, too, so it wont be too tough to really start training them.
The shadows in the room slowly became less dark as his eyes continued to adapt to the basement's poor lighting. Spots where he had missed some dust soon became apparenti, and the broken boards near the back of the room soon showed themselves to the tall man. "Heh," he scoffed, as his lime green eyes pierced the darkness opposite of him.
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Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 7:27 pm
Her appearance was sudden and quick. No one upstairs could have possibly seen or sensed her. Her reiatsu was hidden nicely, she was here for one thing and one thing to search out for clues of a technique that the Ugu's possessed. She had heard from other shinigami that it was quite a magnificient and powerful skill that it eventually was sealed up and forgotten. "There must be traces of it somewhere,". She shunpoed all over the manor making no sound as she appeared in the basement only to stand infront of a man who stood at about 7'0. She stared up at him from her height of 5'6. She knew who this was. "Zenmaru, giant of the Ugu Clan," she took a few steps back before she grasped both her zampakuto and leaped back. Her face was covered by a mask and her reiatsu was tightly consealed, if she escaped there would be no way he would know who she was.
Her goal was the Ugu's secret technique, not a fight.
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Humbra rolled 1 20-sided dice:
14
Total: 14 (1-20)
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Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 7:50 pm
The silence of the manor seemed rather eerie the large man noted. Its emptiness seemed.. strange to him. Something was also prodding his mind somewhere in its deepest and darkest recesses. Something was iffy about the room now. A chill seemed to pass down his spine.
He turned around to look to the stairs that went up to the main floor of the house. "..."
[Awareness Check: +4] [18]
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Tsai Mule rolled 1 20-sided dice:
17
Total: 17 (1-20)
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Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 10:13 pm
The woman quickly shunpoed out of the eyesight of Zenmaru. The giant was big but his vision wouldn't be too great down in a basement which was a bit dim. Plus Yuki was all in black, probably making it hard for her to be seen by the giant but then again who knew? "If Zenmaru sees me, I have no other option but to beat him down so I can continue my search, one less shinigami won't help Soul Society in it's attempts to protect it but... if it means I learn a nwe technique then so be it.."
[Awareness Check: +5] [22]
She was luckily not sighted but she was now far from the stairs to the stairs to the main floor. She would have to play peek-a-boo with Zenmaru as she stayed where she was with her reiatsu hidden. If Zenmaru turned his head, she would shunpo away.
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Humbra rolled 1 20-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-20)
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Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 10:23 pm
Zenmaru made a long drawn out 'hmm' to himself as he turned away from the staircase. No one was there and his gut feeling must have been wrong. Still, though, he wasn't so sure. If someone, or something, was there, it definitely wasn't using brute force or anything.
If someone was there that meant that they were looking for something. A burglar, perhaps? No.. Burglars cannot hide themselves this well. A shinigami, perhaps? What would a shinigami have to do with this measly little house, though? What could be worth a court martial? Or maybe the person was working with Soul Society to kill off his already dying clan?
'No,' he noted softly to himself, 'There is no need to get paranoid. If a person is here and I cannot feel its presence it means that he or she isn't willing to fight me.' A frown soon grew on his lips. "Or maybe.." His left hand flew to his zanpakutou's hilt and unsheathed it.
[Awareness Check: +4] [8]
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