Maeno Aritomo [Shinigami]

Basic Information

Name: Maeno Aritomo (last first)

Age:
Appears: 17
Actual: 850

Gender: Male

Division: 3

Seat: Captain

Looks: Very strange-looking clothes, at least by shinigami standards. Unless it’s a formal occasion in Soul Society, you’ll never see him in a hakama or kimono. I mean, seriously, the garments are so very impractical, and any spiritually sensitive person will look twice if they see a man running down the street dressed like some kind of cosplayer…
Right. Hair and eyes are brown, skin is light, hands are smooth (or “girly” if you’re critical), body type is lithe (or “frail” if… nevermind). He looks like he weighs about 135 pounds (while carrying a zanpakuto) and a (bulging) bag of tools. Which he normally is.
While sitting his posture is relaxed, oriented towards a single target at a time. When standing (at about 5’ 10”) or moving, his head is all over the place (but mostly up in the clouds). People often look surprised when he greets them—most don’t think he’s aware of his surroundings at all.

Spoiler:

Personality: Really, really focused. His assistant (or, failing that, his sword) has to interrupt whatever he’s doing to get him to eat, sleep, write reports, etc. He values competency above everything else—someone once tried to steal an experimental scanning device from his laboratory, and Ari spent two minutes chastising them for the attempted robbery but two [i[hours[/i] critiquing all of the mistakes they made in the attempt. On the other hand, he’s honest. So if he says something is good, his staff knows he means it. The habit is somewhat disconcerting for new members of the division, though.
He tends to prioritize saving lives over anything else (like, say, defeating Hollows). In a rare introspective moment, Aritomo decided this was residual guilt from when he ate people. Other than that, his personality is practically nonexistent. Behind his back, some members of the Third say that when the Captain’s brain was built there were so many other things going in that only the most basic humanity was installed.

Zanpakuto Information

Zanpakuto Name: Kyomu

Zanpakuto Looks:

Spoiler:

Zanpakuto Description: It has a sharp edge and it’s made of metal. Scary!

Released Zanpakuto Description: When released, Kyomu seems to bulge, then shatter. A piece flies off in each of the eight compass directions. After they reach a short distance (~15 feet) from the original blade, each generates an (illusory) three-dimensional image of Aritomo, complete with his sword. The images appear to act independently of their originator, but if something (such as a barrier) cuts them off from his reiatsu they vanish. Hitting them, obviously, has no impact on anyone. However, from moment to moment Ari can change which one is real, simulating teleportation.

Zanpakuto Release Phrase: “Never Kyomu!”

Released Zanpakuto Looks: As this picture. The blade is about four feet long.

Spoiler:

Zanpakuto Spirit: Kyomu looks like something out of a rock’s dream. Yes, exactly like that. The voice Ari sometimes hears sounds vaguely feminine, so he thinks of Kyomu as “she.”

Zanpakuto Realm: The real world, or very close to it. Kyomu proves ‘her’ existence based on reference to external factors which are known to be real. Losing touch with reality would, therefore, be tantamount to proving that there’s no such thing as Kyomu. Ari thinks it’s a bit silly, but she’s brilliant company in all other respects.


Bankai Information
(This applies to captains, and advanced lieutenants only)

Bankai Description: All pieces of Kyomu (including the blade held by the real Aritomo) explode into scores of fragments. In the blink of an eye, they –all- manifest as images of Aritomo. Through a strange confusion of identity, every one of the pieces is the “real” Ari when they act, but when they are the target of an action they’re “really” Kyomu. This means that while any image can strike an opponent, an opponent can only effectively strike the original reaper. However, in this state the original cannot be changed (unlike Shikai).

Bankai Looks: A small remnant of the original sword, less than a foot long.

Spoiler:

Kido/Technique Information

Spoiler:

History and RP Sample

History:

Maeno Aritomo had a happy childhood. He was an only child in a suburban two-parent household that had enough money to pay the bills (even for his eyeglasses), but not enough to bother with private schools. This was most fortunate, because it was at Westchestertonfieldville High that he met a man who would change his life forever. That man was the Physical Education teacher. He was also a member of the Cult of Cthulhu.
Contrary to popular belief, the Cult (at least as practiced by the Winchestertonfieldville Circle) was not especially fond of blood sacrifice or staying up until 4am chanting. This might be because it was headed by a PE teacher who knew how harmful such activities were to your health. Besides, people slaughter animals every day, and the most horrifying otherworldly monstrosity that turns up is an OSHA agent. So the secret of the cult must be in the incantations and rites, the things that do NOT happen every day. Aritomo ate this up. It was exciting, interesting, and they made H.P. Lovecraft jokes. What more could a teenager want?
Don’t answer that. Eventually he graduated, went on to higher education, wrote a revolutionary physics thesis (at undergraduate AND graduate levels), and died (still a virgin). No, I will not tell you how. Don’t be morbid!

After death, he became an earthbound spirit, haunting an area of his apartment complex where he’d performed a ceremony that was supposed to make him immortal (several times). This was a pretty well-hidden area, so he stayed in obscurity for quite some time. Then a small medium (about age eight) blundered into his room. Ari, convinced that his original ritual was in some way flawed, asked the boy to help him get the chain off. Five minutes later he saw his first otherworldly non-Euclidian horror. By looking in the mirror. A shinigami caught him with blood still on all three of his mouths. Then his fifth arm caught the (novice) shinigami.
A friend of the deceased took the event rather personally and spent a week doing nothing but hunting the Hollow. He succeeded, eventually.

The afterlife was REALLY DULL. Maeno Aritomo had lived for two things—cutting edge physics and dark ritual arts. These two things cannot be found in the Rukongai. It’s like being dropped into a medieval farming community. Dull.
Well, Ari didn’t have the resources to start a new physics laboratory, and all of his old principles (like, say, gravity) seemed to act arbitrarily here. And the Reapers weren’t willing to talk to him, much less participate in experiments to find out how they flew. So instead he tried to restart the Cult of Cthulhu.
This might seem counterintuitive, since he’d already discovered that his immortality ritual was a failure. But at the same time, he’d seen a real Shoggoth. Most of his half-remembered incantations (still) didn’t work. Ditto the rituals. But at some times, certain incantations produced a slight but visible effect. He began experimenting and determined that it was his mental state (rather than any external factors) that influenced the success level. From that point on, whenever he wasn’t honing an incantation that already worked he was looking for new ones. It was inevitable that someone find him. That person was a shinigami from the third division.

It’s not every day that a reaper finds some random soul practicing kido. Sachi made a detailed report of the incident, and the leadership decided that something had to be done. Several options were proposed, but in the end (fortunately for Tomo) they agreed to admit the “soul with the new kido” into the Shinigami academy.
He really stood out. Since almost everyone in the Academy uses a practice sword rather than a real Zanpakuto, relative strength is a matter of physical capacity and kido skill. And Aritomo already knew quite a bit about kido.
It was not until he went back into the real world again that he found his sword. While hunting a practice dummy, Ari heard a voice reciting poetry. “I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too?” The voice caught his attention because it was coming from overhead, and he was already higher than all of the nearby buildings. He tried a tentative greeting. The response was immediate. “Go away. You’re just hearing things.” Ari had to investigate after that.

After graduation, Ari was assigned to a division that specialized in research, Kido, and some other unimportant stuff. It was like heaven, for the first time since he’d reached the afterlife. He and Kyomu worked hard. Her strange personality made certain types of techniques extremely easy, even to the point of mastering Bankai while in a Fourth Seat. The position really didn’t matter. Then he saw the LAB.
The LAB was perfect. He only saw it once during his entire time with the division (he was delivering a sample at the time), but it was unforgettable. It reminded him of when he was alive and researching, except better. The walls themselves seemed to hunger for new discoveries. The entire staff was competent! He immediately requested duty there. “Sorry, only the Captain and his staff can go in there. We call it the ‘Holy of Holies.’ But there’s a research position open…” Ari wasn’t even listening. He had a new goal. He achieved his goal because the Captain believed his Bankai was just an extension of his Shikai. Most in Seireitei still do.

RP Sample:

Spoiler:

Notes: I think someone changed the template while I was working on this. I went over everything again, but if there's something wrong then that's my excuse :).

I'll moderate this for the time being.

I really only have a few problems with this app. Your ability seems to be much like the blade master from Warcraft three, so I will assume they cannot harm anything.

And then your two custom kido, 100 meters is really big for something that powerful. It would allow you the ability to kill all your enemies around you, if they have 50% reiatsu or below.

The second is smaller, however there doesn't seem to be a way around this. No matter what the level, as you have it put has the ability to take down many people around you. You could be fighting the espada and easily take the out with that one kido. That's a little op for my test.

Also, I think you may want to increase everything and fix your grammar. I'm not sure this is going to be approved.

Alucard wrote:

I'll moderate this for the time being.

I'll just assume you have the right to be posting here and the admins aren't about to land on this thread with both feet, then :). Besides, it gives me a chance to clarify things.

Quote :

I really only have a few problems with this app. Your ability seems to be much like the blade master from Warcraft three, so I will assume they cannot harm anything.

I'm not familiar with Warcraft, but it sounds like you've got it right. The Shikai images are essentially "magic holograms"-- they have no mass and couldn't hurt someone unless they had severe photophobia. Only the one that's currently the real Aritomo can actually lift a paperclip, let alone attack.

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And then your two custom kido, 100 meters is really big for something that powerful. It would allow you the ability to kill all your enemies around you, if they have 50% reiatsu or below.

I pulled the range out of thin air. It's inspired by the "presence attacks" that so many combat experts seem to have (notably Kenpachi). It's the idea of your spiritual pressure completely overwhelming someone. Perhaps the range should change to 50-75 meters and require direct line-of-sight? The % is the relative power of the user and the target. So if you say a basic Hollow has 1/4 (or less) the reiatsu of a Captain, then the Captain could paralyze that Hollow with the no-incantation version of this Kido, which seems fair. I couldn't find a master chart listing how much reiatsu each rank had, so I used the Kido chart (I'd originally intended to use Stamina). Based on that,
User-- Target (result)
Full strength Captain-- Full strength Vice-Captain (fails)
Full strength Captain-- Full strength Third Seat (succeeds)
And so on.
The cooldown should prevent it from wiping out huge numbers of weak enemies effortlessly. But as I think about it, aren't high-level Shinigami supposed to be able to do that anyway?

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The second is smaller, however there doesn't seem to be a way around this. No matter what the level, as you have it put has the ability to take down many people around you. You could be fighting the espada and easily take the out with that one kido. That's a little op for my test.

I was worried that this one would send up flags. Back when there was a stat system, I had a neat little formula for its power. It basically subtracted the user's normal stamina/20 from the effective stamina of any targets. So if a Captain and an Espada each had 50 stamina (what I'm considering "average"), using only this Kido it would take the Captain 20 posts to knock out the Espada (reduce their stamina to 0), assuming the Espada didn't have any ability to, say, regenerate lost energy or move out of range. If an opponent had 1 stamina, on the other hand... Well, they probably deserve what happens to them.
It IS impossible to dodge if you're within the area of effect, I admit, but it should be fairly easy for an opponent to attack from beyond that range if needed. Espada, for instance, all seem to have multiple variations on Cero. Shinigami have kido (and a surprising number of long-ranged Zanpakuto).
The one time where this kido would really advantage the user is in an extended melee battle. Of course, the loss of focus needed to use a kido in the middle of a melee duel isn't precisely an advantage ;).

I came up with the kido because I needed something he'd "developed" based on Cult of Cthulhu rituals. They're useful, but the important thing is the flavor. If these specific kido are too much of a problem I can make up some new ones, so don't think I'll be particularly upset if you reject them categorically.