Naraku Shukuzen

Naraku Shukuzen (粛然奈落 Shukuzen Naraku, lit:Silent Hell) is a member of the secretive sub-division of the Royal Guard known as the Shinsengumi. Well known for his lazy and rude demeanor among the Shinsengumi, Naraku, regardless of this, is a very active member of the C.I.N.T (Counter Intelligence Operations) section of the organization, being one of the few to actually reveal himself in the organization.

Appearance
Naraku is a male of average height with a muscular build, usually hidden by his standard clothing, possesses tanned skin and brown eyes. He is stereotyped by many to be a rather lazy and uncaring individual, something which is commonly seen from him. He is known to radiate a large murderous intent to enemies despite his lazy attitude. He possesse black hair which is short and clean, with two locks at most standing at the tip of his forehead, has rather long and slightly curved sideburns as well as some stubble on his chin.

Usually seen in a rather modern attire due to his frequent travels to the Human World, he has taken up human fashion as his preferred clothing choice. He wears an unusual black-sleeved and collared yellow hoodie which has a jolly roger on it at the center of his chest, with his sleeves usually rolled up nearer to his elbow. Along with this, he is commonly seen sporting blue jeans with unusual paw-like markings that are at the thigh and knee area, as well as the ankle area of his legs and a pair of black pointed shoes. Commonly seen with his trademark hat that is a fur hat and obscures most of his hair, and has markings similar to the ones on his pants, except slightly ligher and usually wears golden earrings of some sort, with two piercings on each ear. At times of relaxation, or just pure preference, he would wear a standard blue kimono kept fitting with a white obi sash and usually leaving one half of his kimono not worn and hanging, revealing a considerable portion of his muscular definition, and sometimes wearing a lighter blue haori over his kimono for the sake of it.

He has many tribal-like tattoos which are on his forearms, although the exact significance of these are unknown. On his left hand fingers and thumb however, are tattoos of letters that spell "Death", which are D,E,A,T,H in respective order from the thumb to the pinky finger.

Personality
Naraku is a rather lazy and uncaring individual at first glance, seemingly being overloaded with the tasks he is given from the Shinsengumi, and prefers to sigh at any given oicworkload. At times when there is no social interaction with others, Naraku will normally "curse at his own fate" while walking along his paths, causing awkward situations to arise within public places, especially considering the projection of his voice while doing so. Naraku seems to prefer sitting on a couch and watching television then going around and scouting worlds to protect his own organization. He also doesn't seem to be above giving workloads to others using simple deceit and manipulation, much to others' chagrin.

In conversation, Naraku doesn't really know the meaning of etiquette, and is ill-mannered and not above speaking his mind, even to superiors. Although, regardless, Naraku has brilliant self-control over his mannerisms, in formal situations, especially in regards to superiors, he tends to bind his tongue, at the least, enough to make sure that he doesn't outright insult them, but, he isn't above the subtle remark once or twice. However, he knows very well that his superiors are far more cunning than they make out to be, and as such, usually binds even those subtle taunts. These traits make him seem, in front of a superior, seem like a gentlemen, which is almost the opposite of what he actually is.

In a standard conversation, Naraku's tongue usually gets the better of him, and can easily turn the situation from mild to abnormally tense within a matter of moments. Naraku depicts this, metaphorically as him "putting a gun to his adversary's head, merely waiting for an opportune moment to hit a trigger and ensue chaos". This small quote depicts him as a person of bloodlust, to a limited extent at the least. In most cases, he is described, merely, as a pest, or a "bee", because of his tongue which is constantly "humming" insults to another, Naraku tends to work up, even the most silent of characters, to a limited extent at the least, with his comrades being the ones who normally are subject to this annoyance.

In a battle situation however, Naraku can be seen as mildly sadistic, and is normally depicted with an emotionless and cruel tone to his voice. He rarely, if ever approaches them with any senseless chatter, despite paying attention to them solely, mainly through observation to their techniques and battle-style. Even then, however, he sometimes, when needed, uses nonsensical chatter to his advantage, provoking them with taunts and making them the ones who are subject to his annoyance, Naraku is able to gain the upper-hand in many-a-situation, all because of the tongue that gets him into them.

Regardless of the lazy aura that surrounds him however, and the ill-mannered and rude person he is, Naraku is surprisingly devoted to his work, but even then, is commonly indulged in procrastination, and does most of his tasks at the last minute, or takes very long breaks in between the task. However, it seems that Naraku completes all of his tasks on the right time, and dependent on what he needs to prioritize, usually completes most of them with above-par standards.

Naraku, by all means, is a homosexual male, although not open completely, he isn't afraid to bring it up in a conversation. He is devoted to his relationship with Ishi Zeijaku, and both of them have utter trust in one another, as well as a mutual attraction for each other. Yet, he does seem to have attractions for other males, as well, seen in his interaction with Shigenaga Arma, where he commented on his physical appearance, although noted his personality wasn't all that appealing, showing that he not only is interested in physical appearances, but in personality as well.

Naraku seems to have a fondness for a few materialistic things in particular. Firstly, his favourite food is Tofu, and if not at work, and sometimes, even at work, Naraku is seen chowing down on some sort of Tofu dish, whether it be tasteful to others or not, Naraku has an unusual fondness, bordering on addiction for Tofu. In particular, he favors very spicy Tofu, which, despite it's spicy taste, is extremely delicious, at the least, to Naraku. Another one of his strange tastes is his fondness of honey, of any kind, he likes to have honey with many of his breakfast meals, in particular, his favourite pancakes or waffles. Finally, he has a fondness for any sort of alcoholic beverage. Although this isn't an addiction, considering that he drinks a wide variety of wines and liquors in particular, mainly as a "collector" rather than a drunkard, although he does like to occasionally become drunk if the opportune moment arises.

Finally, Naraku seems to have some sort of deep attachment towards his trademark hat. Although the exact reasons are unknown for this deep attachment, it was shown during his meeting with Shigenaga that it has an extreme significance in his life, considering he didn't hesitate at all to try and kill Shigenaga when he threatened to "slice the hat into eviscorated noodles".

Synopsis

 * Frozen Cruelty and Lazy Devotee (Meeting and Conflict with Shigenaga Arma)/Complete
 * Second Encounter, Ploy of Fate? In Progress
 * The Bee and the Scarred Man In Progress

Powers and Abilities
Keen Intellect: A member of the Shinsengumi, a secretive organization who operates in the underground. His duties force him to be constantly kept outside of the base, and under pressure from all around him. His job is to prevent leakage of information through deception and cunning, acting as a first line of defense before anything else. Naraku is highly skilled in his job through his sharp wits and tongue. With ease he is capable of formulating elaborate schemes and is normally seen in control of his emotions, further helps him in his cause. Generally very laid-back, he has a tendency to observe everything around him despite not seemingly up to the task. With his observations, he is able to calculate his percentage of success and accurately form initial strategies to tackle any problem. Because of his very independent work, Naraku has encountered many life-or-death situations and still remains intact because of his rate of adaptation.
 * Expert Strategist and Tactician:
 * Manipulation Adept:

Expert Assassin: Naraku is skilled in the art of assassination, coupled with the compression of his spiritual power and high speeds, he is quite stealthy in comparison to most of his occupation. Against most opponents, his presence would be kept hidden until the utmost moment, in which they would normally not have enough time, or reflexes to react accordingly. Although it should be noted that Naraku's concentration does waver at times, which can slip his presence, and his emotions can easily get the better of him because of certain events.

The amount of spiritual energy Naraku possesses is rather strong, and is considered an average captain class' reiatsu. Although not specifically "unique", Naraku's reiatsu is a bright yellow, and is constantly seen fluctuating, albeit in very small amounts and makes an unique "humming" noise, much to an opponent's chagrin when they deal with this damned noise. Regardless, Naraku is highly capable of condensing his reiatsu to the point where it becomes similar to even Hierro, enhancing his physical strength somewhat.
 * Enhanced Strength: Through compression of his spiritual power, Naraku is able to enhance the force behind his blows by hardening his skin similar to Hierro. He uses this, normally when he releases his zanpakuto, considering he has no blade to work with at those times.
 * Enhanced Durability: Again, through compressing his spiritual power around his skin, he is able to take upon even bladed attacks without much difficulty, due to the compressed power usually deflecting most of the damage.
 * Insect Influence: Due to Mitsubachi's influence upon his spiritual energy, he is able to influence surrounding insects with some degree of concentration to perform tasks of varying difficulty for him. However, this can be quite straining, as such, he rarely performs this feat, unless needed.

Master Swordsmanship Specialist: Naraku is a masterful swordsman, to say the least, regardless of his own modesty, claiming he isn't as masterful as people suggest. Naraku is capable of flawlessly changing from one style to another, using precise timing to do so. Naraku has shown himself to normally use wide arcs when fighting, and tends to use an almost semi-circular pattern with his strikes. Normally attacking in arcs of different angles, he uses these offensive strikes as defensive as well, and is capable of repelling most attacks on him without exerting too much effort. On another hand, Naraku is capable of a decimating offensive using multiple thrusts simultaneously, combined with the slight channeling of spiritual power on his blade creating an irritating humming sound, much like a bee's, his strikes are rarely found by the unaware, catching most off-guard. It should be noted that his skill was enough to fight on-par with a master of the blade, such as Shigenaga Arma with relative ease.

Shunpo Expert: Naraku has gained a great understanding and is a skilfull practitioner of the art, when accompanied with his swordsmanship skills, make a deadly combination. Normally using it in almost any confrontation, he normally moves in an unpredictable pattern with small, but almost instantaneous leaps to his next destination. Due to his constant movements, a slight yellow haze is seen after every one of his movements, with a slight sound similar to a buzz. Naraku normally couples his flash steps mastery with his swordsmanship and overall battle style, using simple deception and speed to achieve the desired victory.
 * Hanauta Dokubari (鼻歌毒針 Humming Stinger) a simple technique of his creation in which Naraku will use many repeated steps in rapid succession circling his opponent in small afterimages. At the peak of the speed reached, Naraku outstreches his blade horizontally, in which the victim inside the circle will be repeatedly slashed with sword strikes to varying parts of the body.

Kidō Expert: Naraku has shown himself to be proficient with the application of Kido in general combat. He has shown innovation and cunning with various spells, allowing him to use mild combinations and the like with lower leveled spells. He expertly utilizes destruction and binding spells to fit the situation, relying mostly on lower-leveled spells to fulfill their respective purposes.

Expert Hakuda Combatant: Due to there being no bladed form of Mitsubachi's release, Naraku has trained extensively in Hakuda to remove the weakness of fighting in close-ranged combat. He has shown proficiency in arts of traditional , including knife-hands, chops and straight kicks. Along with this, his strikes are simple but they are noticeably fast, and are capable of catching several foes off guard. With defensive maneuvers he is seen to use traditional blocks, and adapt himself to situations accordingly.
 * Shikai Enhanced Style: Due to the nature of his Shikai, Mitsubachi can serve to enhance Naraku's Hakuda skills noticeably. By allowing his bees to keep within a close proximity of himself, he is able to use the sounds produced by the bees to unnerve his opponents. These sounds also serve to confuse his opponents, causing them to be mislead by the overwhelming number of sounds. Along with this, he may use them as extensions of himself, letting them sting his opponent whilst he is using his Hakuda. If this is used correctly, his shikai can become very deadly.

Zanpakuto
Mitsubachi (蜜蜂, “Bee”) Mitsubachi in its sealed state takes the form of an average length, lavishly decorated Katana with a dark-green design and handle; the sheath is bound by a matching band of green material and features several unique markings and dots - the Tsuba is also intricately decorated and cut with holes that are arranged in order to mimic sakura leaves, it is considered to be one of the prettiest Zanpakuto in Soul Society due to its appearance.


 * : Mitsubachi is released trough the command phrase "Swarm!" (群れ, mure), followed by the name of the Zanpakuto in question - this is accompanied by a burst of energy which immediately changes shape into a large swarm of bees, these bees can then be used by Naraku to make use of Mitsubachi's unique abilities.
 * Shikai Special Ability: Mitsubachi's special ability is the summoning and domination of bees in all forms and shapes, Naraku may choose to summon swarms of bees whenever he or she desires to do in battle without it effecting their provess in the least - the Shinigami in question also serves as the Hive Mind for all these bees and can thus command them to perform all sorts of tasks which would under normal circumstances be impossible for them to perform. In addition to this, Mitsubachi also grants Naraku the odd, but surprisingly useful ability to communicate with any insect trough the use of telepathy. Perhaps the greatest and most useful ability of Mitsubachi is the fact that Naraku can share vision with all of the bees at once, this ability is not active constantly though and is limited to two conditions; the first being that the Shinigami activates it manually, the second is that whenever the bees sense that a hostile presence is near they will immediately show Naraku what they see, and pass along any nessecary information that they are capable of discerning.
 * Swarm Summoning: As previously stated, Naraku can summon an additional swarm of bees whenever he desires by expending a small amount of energy, when the swarm is summoned it is immediately added to the Hive Mind and follows the same guidelines as the rest of the bees.
 * Mitsubachi: Amaimitsu (蜜蜂：甘い蜜, "Bee: Sweet Nectar") Rather than to poison a target by injecting venom or other negative fluids, the stingers of the bees controled by Mitsubachi extract a tiny amount of energy from the victim at each successful sting, the amounts drained are very small and therefore they are harmless in and of themselves - but when one is stung multiple times it becomes much more noticeable and debilitating; the true purpose of this however is not to weaken the opponent but to accumulate enough energy to produce a special kind of nectar that is made trough the bees delivering the energy directly to Mitsubachi - this nectar has very powerful healing properties and if consumed can heal the wounds of the imbibed almost instantly, furthermore, it is known to permanently increase the capacity of the imbibers Spiritual Core; thereby providing a permanent boost to their Spiritual Power in the process. Also, if the imbiber had aged considerably, they will temporarily be restored to the point in life where their body was at its most powerful and healthy.
 * Mitsubachi: Ōhi no Juyō (蜜蜂：王妃の需要, "Bee: Queen's Demands"): This functions similarily to Mitsubachi's normal domination but this allow Naraku to designate a one or more bees which can be tasked to accomplish very advanced tasks; such as stealing an item of worth, bring a message to an ally or enemy trough a form of case-sensitive telepathy or attack an opponents weak spots - there appears to be virtually no limit to this ability as long as Naraku specifies what he wants them to do clearly.
 * Mitsubachi: Seisoku (蜜蜂：生息, "Bee: Inhabit"): There are a special kind of bees that make up residence within Mitsubachi itself, these bees are supernatural and possess abilities and traits unlike any other normal bees - by uttering the name of this technique, Naraku can choose to release these bees which are noticeably bigger than the normal bees and much quicker, with agility to match. These bees do not absorb energy by using their stingers - instead, their poison is a very powerful cytotoxic that is known to affect the spiritrons of Spiritual Beings in such a manner as to cause serious necrosis. Even more dangerous though, is that these special bees are intelligent enough to enter the body of a sufficiently restrained, helpless or dead subject trough the mouth or other orfices, once inside they will begin to feast on the energy and thus break the subject down from the inside - it should be noted however that these bees take any kind of damage that their victim takes from outside forces as long as they inhabit the body.
 * Mitsubachi: Miminari (蜜蜂: 耳鳴り "Bee: Buzzing in the ears"): This technique is activated through Naraku's command, at which the swarm of bees produced by Naraku collectively began to buzz at far louder rates than what they naturally would. As a result, this technique can have multiple effects dependent on what situation it is used in, including; defending against another large-scale sound-based technique by surrounding the bees around himself or a group of people or using it as an assault or misdirection against an opponent. Naraku likes to use this technique to irritate his opponents, an old habit of his.
 * Mitsubachi: Dokushin (蜜蜂: 毒針 "Bee: Stinger (of a bee)"): This technique is activated on command by Naraku. The stingers of these unique bees are able to insert a spiritual poison which can disrupt the flow of spiritual energy in the limb or body part they insert themselves into. Disruption of this flow causes the use of said limb to be limited until the disruption goes so far that the limb becomes completely inactive. However, the effects only last for a few minutes each individual sting, though collectively the effect can last much longer. An added effect of this spiritual poison is to disrupt the usage of Kido or any technique such as Cero or Bala, because of the gathering and release of spiritual power being greatly disrupted.
 * Mitsubachi: Hachimitsushu (蜜蜂: 蜂蜜酒 "Bee: Honey Wine"): This technique is one of the prized techniques of Mitsubachi, and Naraku loves to take advantage of this technique. Through filtering the spiritual energy absorbed by Mitsubachi's bees (whether it be his own or his enemy's), he may produce a liquid-like substance from the bees which is similar to honey in composition, albeit slightly more liquid-like. It may be drunk by anyone to rejuvenate their energy. Due to being able to constantly produce this honey, it is very useful in environments where food may be scarce, or when Naraku simply has no money.
 * Mitsubachi: Dokushu (蜜蜂: 毒酒 "Bee: Poisoned Alcohol"): This technique is essentially the inverse of Hachimitsushu. By filtering the spiritual energy of either his opponents and/or himself, the bees then "taint" the spiritual energy with their own poison, at which they are able to spray in concentrated amounts. This liquid is highly poisonous, and at the moment of contact with any form of spiritual energy, it causes an adverse reaction at which, it disintegrates the energy automatically.
 * Mitsubachi: Mitsurō (蜜蜂: 蜜蝋 "Bee: Beeswax"): This technique is a variant of the Hachimitsushu technique, by compressing the spiritual power of the liquid honey, Naraku is essentially able to create something similar to honeycomb which is able to be eaten. Along with simply rejuvenating the individual, it can serve to fulfill hunger requirements.
 * Mitsubachi: Hachinosu (蜜蜂: 蜂の巣 "Bee: Honeycomb"): This technique is one of Naraku's less favored techniques, but is still of great use. By converting all of the presently summoned bees into raw spiritual power, Naraku is able to surround himself and any individual in it, and then solidify it into a potent shield which can be used to repel spiritual based attacks, along with physical attacks. The shield bears the appearance of hexagonal honeycomb, which can also absorb certain levels of spiritual attacks, making it highly useful.
 * Mitsubachi: Tentekomai (蜜蜂: 天手古舞 "Bee: Humming with Activity"): A very unusual technique in Naraku's opinion, but it is exceedingly useful. By resonating a specific spiritual signature with the bees' own, the bees are capable of mimicking the voices of the specific spiritual signature by altering their collective hums to form each individual letter of a word and then form sentences. This process, though in theory seems lengthy, is actually rather fast and is capable of effortlessly mimicking a specific individual's voice. By creating multiple swarms one is able to mimic several voices at once, thus allowing a flawless deception until it is found of course.


 * Jōubachi (女王蜂 "Queen Bee") is a technique which Naraku seems to only use when needing transportation and/or brute force to help him win a fight. By converting every single one of Naraku's summoned bees into spiritual energy and then merging it together, and forming a single bee, an excessively large bee may be created. This bee is able to fit five people on it at once and can still fly at relatively fast speeds. It's stinger is also able to inject a powerful acid which can burn through structures both spiritual and non-spiritual and finally, it's brute strength is rather excessive.

Behind the Scenes

 * Credit to Naraku's zanpakuto goes all the way to Master N, thanks so much pal!