Aoko Dokumuchi

Aoko Shizuka (しずか青粉, Shizuka Aoko)   is the Captain of the 4th Division who took the place of the exiled captain before her. She is known for her soft, long blue hair and piercing purple eyes, as well as, her whip which is the released form of her Zanpakuto. She is known quite well for her use of attrition tactics in battle as well as her attribute of poison.

Appearance
Aoko has noticeably milky and very pale skin that is often described as smooth or soft to the touch by people who've come in physical contact with her. This includes Hollows who have complimented her soft features and appearance sadistically in a desire to devour her solely for her appearance alone. Her face is quite unique and including her chest size which gives her some back trouble, she is said to be very beautiful. She has noticeably piercing golden eyes with long, straight blue hair that is silky to the touch which is cut at the end in to make a straight edge with slight spikes. Her hair parts at the center of her forehead as it covers her eyes partially. Her eyes are connected all the way around and are narrow and feminine in shape and appearance with no separation to her top and bottom lashes to either side. Her pupils are normal circles as well as her eyes and facial expression tends to be, by default, gentle when on looking others she cares about. Her nose is average size and only slightly pointed, being more rounded than most. Her cheeks and forehead are adorned with violet, round facial markings that take the shape of various sized dots underneath her eyes and at the center of her forehead to be exact. The markings under her eyes pair in threes; the furthest dot/mark from her nose is the largest and is just noticeably oval-like in shape as the second dot is slightly smaller and lowered a few centimeters perfectly center of the two outer ones. The last dot is raised to parallel the largest dot and is slightly smaller, as well as the smallest dot,  than the two previous dots. Her eyes browns are average and not very thin like most females' eyebrows tend to be and are often arched going upward to give a calm, kind, and empathetic expression. Her nose crinkles slightly when she is angered. She is known to have peach colored cheeks when flushed or flattered and has a slight shine to her nose and lips.

She wears only one piece of jewelry and it is a decorative exorcist bead adorned crystal pendant tinted purple that lay dead center of her collarbone before the cleavage of her mostly covered chest.

For Aoko's attire, she wears two main outfits, well, one actually. The only difference between the two is very obvious as it is simply a variety of the same thing, but one adorns her in her captain's coat as captain of Squad 4. The coat is long and white with long sleeves that cover her hands. The coat subtly resembles a kimono  in style due to the trim along the part at in the center. It begins at her shoulders, two inches from her neck, on either side and is made breathable fabric and easy to move in. The bottom falls to her calves just before her ankles and is lined with a decorative trim to either side and around the back with black markings. The markings are simple in design and are a variety of lines and dots where they adorn two halves of a rhombus just at her waist which is surrounded by a black line, the top parallel to the bottom with a dot in the widest center of the rhombus. Other lines and dots that are spaced and parallel to each other in a symmetrical pattern from front to back adorn her coat's bottom trimming. Between each set of lines are the dots, each pair of lines being centered by a single dot. Dots and lines come to make up multiple accents of her outfit which makes her stand out. Beneath her captain's coat is a generic Soul Reaper kimono with cut, curved sleeves similar to the common cut at the hip design the outfit usually has. Beneath the cut of the arms are wrappings that stretch along her breasts, except the cleavage, to bring support to her chest to relieve backache while also having wrappings at the cut parts at her hips which are closer to each other towards the center than most which marks her attire as more unique regardless of it being a common garment. Something that also stands out is the white trimming along the end of the sleeves which covers up to roughly four inches of the sleeve and is accented with the black dots dead center on the front, and parallel to the back. The length of the skirt ends at her calves just above her ankles.

Other parts of Aoko's attire consists of a semi-constricting garment around her waste which appears sectioned into three parts with bordered lines similar to kimono trimming from each corner toward the center, and back out as well as trimming the top and bottom. This corset type clothing also is accented with large black dots in order from top to bottom; top right, mid left, and bottom right. She wears the Soul Reaper's common footwear which includes long socks that cover her feet with sandals made for easy gripping of the group, and light stepping.

Her weapon is held to her body underneath her captain's coat with the metal that separates the handle from the blade with a single silk ribbon that is tied tightly in the front. In order to get her weapon, she has to reach under her coat on the left side, due to being right handed, grip and unsheathe her sword which rests in a deep blackish-blue sheath that when not wearing her coat, exposes its blue hilt with blue crystals in the shape of a rhombus going down the middle of the top and bottom arranged in sets of three. The hilt also has lined patterns that go diagonally in opposite directions all the way to the blade in which it has a thin piece of metal separating the handle from the blade itself.

What is hidden under her bandages are things she doesn't want to see the light of day again in front of anyone but the one she loves. She has two large hollow bites on each side of hr from being double teamed by a paired of extremely dangerous hollows she almost died and rotted most of her skin away to defeat. Her rotten skin repaired itself for the most part, but not completely. The teeth markings run along her arms and midsection where they bit her, arms and all before she forced them away with her spiritual pressure.

Personality
As a child, Aoko was very friendly, fun loving, outgoing, and content with her life in the Shizuka family for many years before discovering the duty of a Soul reaper in her teens. She desired to become one and showed very strong perseverance, dedication, and even over exhausting herself during training before coming to realize she needed to be easier on her body when she trained. She became quite the knowledgeable person and developed a keen intellect and ability to remember many aspects of the Soul Society and even the Seireitei and its responsibilities. Being a Soul Reaper after graduating brought her much joy, excitement, and brought out her truly happy nature while she did have downsides such as being quite stubborn, revenge oriented, and very protective in a somewhat aggressive way which she had to learn to tone down.

During her hardships of losing her family, she began to know true terror and fear of losing loved ones to Hollows as her revenge complex and goal oriented demeanor began to bring out a desperate side of her seeking to honor her family's memory by selfishly taking on thw two Hollows alone showing how naive she can be and reckless as well. On the outside when people were around, Aoko was, and always acted as a normal and very kind, gentle girl who enjoyed waiting and listening to her surroundings and nature instead of rushing into any confrontational issues without warning. She was always stated to have a very beautiful personality and it was true she didn't, and still doesn't, consider looks to be the foundation of beauty alone as even the prettiest of people can have the ugliest of personalities. She preferred to give advice to students and was a caregiver and very protective of her squad members and is to her underlings and Lieutenant today. She can, and still does tend to become aggressive against enemies who threaten her "family" and so even with wisdom and knowledge, she can be quite reckless as to fight alone or shield others with her own body for the sake of saving someone's life.

After defeating the two Hollows, insecurity and regret set in as she realized her squad mates got involved and got hurt because of her selfishness. They just wanted to help and all because she had to uphold her family's honor, she could've lost so many of her new family members. She, even now, finds it hard to accept the concept of battling for one's honor when it won't matter if the person ends up dead and unable to express that honor other than in memory or tainting the memory of the dead further if they should fail.

Because she is so loving and kindhearted, even today, she has a hard time of letting her squad members go when they die and often finds herself alone by the koi pond with tears streaming down her reddened cheeks. In these times, she tries to focus on her more positive aspects which include her sense of dignity in her position bringing knowledge to younger Soul Reapers and humbly tries to fulfill her duties. She enjoys being supportive and caring to her allies and especially the students still in the academy.

Aoko generally is the type of person to love anyone with all her heart if given the chance and finds it very difficult to hate anyone except Espada, Traitors, and Hollows. Especially those who take people precious to her to the grave. She also has the capability of switching her attitude on a dime which brings out her stern, battle embracive focus and concentration in which she expresses and focuses on her attrition style demeanor in which she desires the shortest fight possible for most to prevent anyone else from getting involved or hurt unless it is completely out of her say so.

She is very self-conscious of her chest size and how it hurts her back and covers herself up quite well to protect her image while being insecure about her piercing golden eye color and oddly blue hair of which she was named after. When things become too stressful she'll regretfully switch her possession to the next highest ranking member and offers backup if possible so she can preserve her dignity, unknowingly fighting for her own honor of protecting her squad and the Soul Society so everyone can live in peace.

Aoko is quite clumsy around the person she loves which is currently no one at this moment and if she becomes too excited she can become more talkative than normal in which she sometimes speaks out of turn and is given small punishments for her little outbursts while normally being reluctant to out stage anyone in the Seireitei. She values the opinion of many in the Soul Society and trust no one as much as her Lieutenant. To take away a threat, she's been known to bend the rules as well and is punished for that as well while other things are overlooked at times. Overall, she's a very loving person to get to know, but don't hurt her or those she considers her family which will bring her to hunt you down until you are dealt with when she has the chance.

As for Aoko's deepest darkest insecurity and fear; she fears that due to the Hollow wounds she acquired getting vengeance for her fallen family as well as the small remaining rotten spots from that day that didn't repair themselves, she is terrified and certain no man who sees them will ever love her. She's also afraid that if anyone sees these markings, they will die by a powerful Hollow as some of her past partners had upon seeing her wounds for the first time. She feels cursed, but tries terribly hard to be happy and find joy as well as no one ever sees those wounds ever again; this makes her become afraid to love anyone and shy away from anyone who tries to love her, leaving her lonely in her happiness.

The things she tends to dislike the most are bickering, excessive screaming, thunder and lightning, loud noises, and constantly being asked for favors when she has enough to do already. She cannot stand hollows and evil hearted humans and fears severe thunderstorms and lightning which is a crippling weakness that brings her to a complete halt and makes her severely regret that she cannot get over this problem. She's usually comforted by her Lieutenant and can't do anything but shut down and shudder or shake out of pure fear when lightning is excessively crackling and shooting across the sky. It doesn't help that she tends to like rain and it becomes ruined by this natural phenomenon. She is afraid of Aizen and the Espada though she'll never admit it and manages to force her shaking to subside if she must fight an opponent stronger than her which makes her stubborn, but a strong honorable person who hates to give up.

She often enjoys rain and food while enjoying the company of her squad and is very cheerful and kind to her members and lieutenant and couldn't imagine any better occupation that the woman who gets to be around such wonderful people and helping souls find peace. She enjoys the rush it gives her when she fights strong opponents and hollows to get out pent-up agitation and anger with careful consideration, movement, and control. She can't stand excessive close combat, however, but enjoys toying with an enemy at times if they especially harm her comrades to ensure they're dealt with properly and shows her hateful and agenda based side of herself which many fear and hurt to see as it shows she's in pain without her being willing to admit this.

History
As a child, Aoko grew up properly taken care of, loved, happy and well respected. She was openly admired and welcomed into the Shizuka family for many years even up until she became old enough to become a student Soul Reaper and train to be one just like many other Soul Reapers of the Shizuka family. She has always spent her life training and constantly striving to become the perfect Soul Reaper which was compensated by excessive and nonstop training in swordsmanship and Kidou before practicing her speed until she had a solid grasp on Hohou. After a few more years, she had continued to keep practicing her Hohou abilities until she mastered Shunpo in her late 30s.

For the longest time, throughout her school days and graduation to a full-fledged Soul Reaper assigned to Squad 11, her life was pretty average and happy before two powerful Hollows defeated and killed a majority of her family, except for her. They murdered and devoured her comrades and loved ones ruthlessly and without cease as she shuddered in her hiding spot. She was never able to move while heavy thunder and lightning struck and streaked across the sky which left her too terrified to even come out from her bedroom closet where she continued to hide for the  hour long slaughter of her family. None of them, not even her brother and father were left alive as she soon allowed the trauma and despair to sink in. She felt lonely without them and became terrified of the outside world before she braved herself and sought to improve further for a selfish need for revenge which took away her gentle and kind demeanor whenever a powerful Hollow showed itself. She adjusts the same way on a dime towards a Hollow or any threat even to this day.

Her spiritual powers were once small and timid before the previous events. With each hardship, her determination increased her power as did her studies, training, and perserverance—not to mention pure willpower to destroy the two Hollows who destroyed her happy life before many years passed before she finally came face to face with the exact same Hollow that came for her. Her squad members intervened and she begged them to let her fight alone but many were too loyal and stubborn to leave her to the monsters by herself if only for her to die like her loved ones did. Her fight drove her allies to exhaustion until the was the last one left and more determined than every to finish off the half wasted Hollows that she had torn apart piece by piece with attrition style tactics and poisoning them more and more until they were incapable of doing anything but one last resort which lead them to bite her, nearly killing her along with her own wounds caused by the toxin attribute circulating within her spiritual energy. At the cost of her health for quite a few years, Aoko ends up getting back at the Hollows who devastated her family but at the cost of acquiring terrible wounds in her recklessness to defeat them with all her might. It wasn't even an hour before the Hollows finally fell in which out of desperation to save her squad, she had to try something to remove the toxins the Hollows put in their bodies. Thankfully, with the use of her toxins and healing Kidou she had been practicing for a few years now, she was able to heal them without fail or much of a mark on them. Their souls recovered and with the Hollows out of the way, they mattered more to her than ever since it was her fault.

As she matured and continued to grow older, she began to find the fundamentals of affection and love for many and some people she loved more than others in a more complex way;unfortunately for her, every lover/partner she had since who saw these wounds coincidentally died by the hand of a powerful hollow within the next few days after witnessing her visible insecurities. This only brought her more heartbreak even though she was never cursed as she began to assume she was. After many incidents like that and chances that were repeatedly given and given over time, she promised herself she would never show anyone her battle scars again and refused to love or accept love from another person regardless of what happened in the future and still lives in this fear today while hiding it behind her loving and compassionate personality.

After Squad 11, she switched to Squad 13 because she couldn't handle the stubbornness of her partner and the guilt she felt towards the injuries her fellow squad mates obtained because of her that day. She couldn't look them in the eyes anymore and wasn't allowed a new partner by her request and skill level to back her up. As she kept growing, she began fixing her mistakes and problems in her abilities and morals. She increased her reputation quite well and was quickly getting her name up into the ranks even if she never went any farther up in the ranks until many years later. On her 190th birthday, when she was noted to soon be promoted to squad captain of Division 4 after the previous captain was exiled, she was proud and jubilant as this wonderful and honorable news excited her before her. It gave her new hope of making up for her sins of selfishness and to give back to the community as well as make new bonds with a squad she now owned. The burden was now there, but the effort was not shirked and she began to show them her respect and loving attitude, as well as her stern and effective teaching habits to show how much she had learned over the years to prove her new stature as Captain of Squad 4.

In the present she is known and reveared for her hardships as well as protective and kind nature towards her comrades and her punishment for bending the rules was always given to her by her own selfishness which was kindly overlooked due to her need to fight for that honor of the family she lost as a child. After these mistakes, she becomes more gentle and docile again which allows her to further her training in which she's trained every day for many years of her life to improve her swordsmanship, Kidou, become a Shunpo expert, and much much more that defines her to the position as Squad 4 captain and is respected by many for her empathy for others' hardships and advice and dedication.

Equipment
Bandages: Aoko wears the bandages around most of her body from her lower thighs up to he chest and shoulders to hide her past wounds of Hollow bits and some rotten skin, as well as, they're made specifically strong in their contents to prevent them from being so easily rippable.

Powers & Abilities
Skilled Swordsman: Aoko is very skilled with her Shikai weapon, yes, but also very much capable of showing just as much skill with Hiren in sealed form. It is well known that her forte as she prefers to fight with her weapon's released form, with Hiren as a curved katana, her abilities range from sparingly utilizing resolution style while mostly focusing on multiple movie sets used in attrition style of which she majors with her weapons in either state.

Aoko is very capable of exhibiting effective blocking skills and then counterstriking, as well as, has mastered the sword shield technique which makes her tough to get at with a blade and most other weapons. She is not impenetrable, however, as her swordsmanship is only at about 84% in the successful execution of her techniques. As it's only natural, the longer the fight, the less acurate she becomes offensively and defensively.
 * Whip Mastery: Aoko is a very skilled mistress of the whip. Her Zanpakuto, Hiren, is a large part of her body and spirit and becomes a whip when released from its sealed state. In this form, she can easily utilize her weapon to its full capacity without much problem. Aoko is very capable of defending herself against multiple blows in a very short time as well as can perfectly utilize it to manipulate her surroundings to trip up enemies or send large objects their way to get in the way as well. While avoiding and evading, it is easily possible for her to take a flash-step back and lash at her opponent from far away due to Hiren being a blade, but a segmented whip. She more than often not aims to use attrition style abilities as well as partial resolution while her weapon is in sealed form.

High Spiritual Power: Due to ranking up to become the captain of the 4th Division, it was only natural that Aoko had very high and potent spiritual pressure/power which is increasingly hard to hide as she gets stronger and is incapable of fully hiding her presence because of this, though, this doesn't make her all powerful or unmatchable in strength either. It is safe to say that when you feel her spiritual pressure and she steps onto the battlefield, you better be prepared for a heavy fight to the death as this spiritual power is what also allowed her to manually secrete poison from her sword/whip Hiren.

Enhanced Strength: While Aoko may not physically lift people with her own body or own two hands, she is quite capable of taking down very strong opponents with the strength she puts behind throwing her whip around. This even includes the fact she can lift multiple types of objects ranging from light, to very heavy with the upper body strength to pull it through and swing or throw the object towards her opponent to buy herself time or damage the enemy offensively. This also includes distractions as well as being able to lift a human with her whip when it has successfully coiled around the target's arm, waist, leg and pretty much any other body part or parts she can reach with her whip.

Shunpo Expert: Being heavily linked to her excellent, but not expertly masterful control of her spiritual power/energy, Aoko is very capable of many elements of fancy footwork which include increased speed that she has come to lead to mastery over Shunpo or the "Flash-step" technique that she can utilize anytime she wishes with ease which makes her a very hard to pin opponent, but not untouchable at the least. With this speed, she is capable of excessive and successful avoid and evade tactics as well as flash-stepping backward or forward, while being attacked before spinning herself and releasing  Hiren' s retracted segments to lash out at the opponent. With Hohou, she uses it in order to wound her target quickly and with small and repetitive wounds over time—also known as Attrition. All due what capability Aoko does have over the control and concentration of her spiritual power, her Hohou abilities continue to be a success if only 89% of the time.
 * Advanced Evasive Hakuda: Aoko is quite masterful combining her Hohou and Shunpo to make very efficient evasive maneuvers that can be classified as Hakuda due to being able to prolong battles up close for a certain amount of time with her avoid and evade capabilities. She may not be able to attack head on without Hiren's sealed form, but she is definitely capable of some fancy evasive footwork that can land her a devastating counter attack.

Kidou Practitioner: While Aoko is not very capable or efficient in prolonged close combat, she learned that she had to make up for this weakness with three two types of Kidou; restraining Kidou and defensive Kidou techniques. She studied night and day and constantly practiced with multiple students on a daily basis. She was completely fine with working herself to the bone to perfect her defensive and ensnaring Kidou spells to make sure she could mostly make up for what she lacked in defending herself otherwise. Upon Aoko finally learning her Zapakuto's name,  Hiren, and releasing it, she needed Kidou as back up and sparingly at that, but it's still important and always up to par. She never stops practicing her Kidou for future battles and ever seeks to learn new spells.
 * Healing Kidou: Aoko, due to fighting the two toxic and very powerful Hollows who killed her family along with previous squad members, she was able to learn in desperation how to detoxify Hollow bites and heal the scars as well as most fatal internal damage to being taken over or deeply bitten by said Hollows. With this Kidou in her arsenal, she practiced in order to develop this Kidou to mastery which made her officially qualified to become the captain of Squad 4 after a previous debate on giving her a promotion from Squad 13. The downsides to this Kidou is; she's incapable of healing herself and must heal naturally over time due to having poison as her spiritual attribute. With the prolonged use of her poison, her body is even unrepairable by her healing antitoxins. It is crucial for the person affected to be brought to her within the time period of one hour in order to guarantee full recovery from Hollow venom and/or wounds.
 * Defensive and Restrictive Kidou: Aoko is capable of using a few very effective restrictive and defensive Kidou. She can erect a barrier in front of her by holding out Hiren in Shikai form or sealed form while holding the weapon with one hand and placing her palm firmly against it parallel to her dominant hand. With this, she chants the incantation that puts up a barrier in front of the weapon to defend herself. As for Restrictive Kidou, she is able to use the basic Bakudo #1 which is a paralysis spell, as well as three other restringing and ensnaring Kidou spells that can render her enemy simply due to paralysis, poison, and a barrier type aura around he enemy to hinder its movements by measurement of her willpower and spiritual concentration.

Zanpakuto
Hiren (悲恋 , Blighted Love): Hiren in its sealed form, is a long upward curved blade that is well built for blocking and attrition tactics. The blade is specially made with silver and black metals which make up the top and blade of this Zanpakuto and is important that this blade is used properly and with precision. The handle of the blade is blue with striped ridges zigzagging in opposite directions facing diagonally while being encrusted with three violent amethyst crystals front and back as adornment. It has a ring that has a long silk string with a grayed pom at the end that matches the handle in color while the hilt is as violet as the amethyst gemstones. 
 * Shikai:  Hiren's Shikai command is spoken in an incantation of a poem called a Haiku. Five, seven, then five syllables make up this activating spell to bring out her weapon's Shikai form. The poem is soft-spoken and calmly made clear to the enemy in the heat of battle; "Pierce through thine dark heart, hinder them with your being, this blight shall destroy all. Lash, Hiren!. In Hiren's Shikai form, it resembles a long segmented bladed whip that can retract at the wielder's will as well as secrete poison upon the user's concentration of Spiritual Energy whiled focusing on using their attribute of toxins. The blades along the segments are connected by links which can turn inward and retract the whip as well as keep it short for blocking in which she uses her captain's coat to grip two handed to effectively prevent her from cutting herself while blocking. The handle of the whip is the same color as it is in its sealed form followed by the fact is still retains the gemstone studding on both the front and the back. The hilt and end of the handle are relaxed by a silvery metal which composes a majority of the weapon while being black at the tip to ensure efficient piercing of the flesh and Hollows. The handle end is also a circular metal pattern that has a ring at the end at it does in sealed form, but without the silk pom string.

Combat
- Close Combat: Aoko's biggest weakness is prolonged close-combat as well as her Shunpo dwindles over time as her body is affected by exhaustion after a long period of battle. Ever since she was a young student training to become a Soul Reaper, she was never very skilled in close combat or hand to hand combat with fists and mostly excelled in kicking the enemy away. Close combat weakness in her case is most likely due to her feminine nature and behavior and desire to overall be gentle which she cannot be to suit the Soul Society's preferences. She had to make up for this weakness somehow and learned to block more efficiently but only giving her a 60% success rate until she became much older to which it has reached a max of 88% success rate out of 100%.

She cannot avoid and evade 100% of the time leaving herself open on several occasions for a Kidou or physical attack. She tends to have an issue fighting enemies that repeatedly attack for seconds on end which can loosen her grip on Hiren in whip form. - Poison: The poison her spiritual energy carries within it to use with her weapon doesn't just affect her enemies, it also affects her body the longer she uses her Shikai and can damage her soul in which she has to recover for short to very long periods of time depending. She uses attrition style to purposefully avoid using too much highly concentrated poison at once in order to take down her enemy. This increase was due to awakening and releasing her Zanpakuto into its whip form. Aoko also has weakened peripheral vision in her left eye. Also, if you can tie up her feet, it's impossible for her to avoid or evade efficiently or at all while she's also open during incantations for Kidou.

- Kidou: Aoko is weak against most offensive Kidou as well as anyone who outmatches her in Hohou capabilities. She cannot avoid and evade 100% of the time leaving herself open on several occasions. She tends to have an issue fighting enemies that repeatedly attack for seconds on end which can loosen her grip on Hiren in whip form.

Zanpakuto
- Excessive Blocking: Hiren has several weaknesses which involve excessive blocking weakening the hold the user has on the weapon in which Aoko has to be careful of it slipping which risks her cutting herself as fatigue sets in during battle. - Fire: Whether as an attribute or used in Kidou, fire is a notable weakness as it heats up the metal of her weapon's Shikai till it can become untouchable anywhere other than the hilt making blocking, which requires two hands, impossible without suffering burns. - Water: Since it utilizes poison, water is a key weakness to washing it off the outside of the blade, sharp edges, or the tip it wields in released form. Water encourages Aoko to have to use her Zanpakuto more offensively without the aid of poison which can benefit her health, while prohibit her full potential and therefore force her to change up her fighting style as attrition could still work, but not the same was as it does with the aid of her toxins. - Poison: Hiren can poison its own wielder which requires immediate treatment and is why Aoko carries two antidotes with her in a pouch—but only two. Her skin in the past has rotted quite badly during stressful and prolonged fights against strong Hollows. Even though most of the rotten cells repair themselves, some poison seeps in too deep to be fixed within any given amount of time and remains permanently damaged.

Trivia

 * Aoko means "Blue Child", this most likely refers to Aoko's hair color.
 * Aoko is often made fun of or disliked due to her oddly piercing golden eyes that stand out quite a lot compared to the rest of her. This has become an insecurity as well as her blue hair.