Junichi Kuchiki

Junichi Kuchiki (朽木 淳一, Kuchiki Jun'ichi, lit. "Pure One, Decayed Log") is a young from the noble, the son of   lieutenant Shinichi Kuchiki and Yuri Kuchiki. He is currently the 3rd seat of the Kidō Corps, having been recruited into the Corps as soon as he graduated from the. Considered to be one of the most talented prospects to have graduated from the Academy in recent years, there are nevertheless fears that he might squander his great talent and never achieve his true potential until he puts aside his wild, trouble making nature and becomes more serious about his future.

Nowhere is this rebellious side more evident than in his ongoing rivalry with Masatsugu Kobayakawa, the current 5th seat of the Kidō Corps and an old acquaintance of his from the Academy. The two have ended up in trouble with Midori Jinkou, the captain of the Corps, on more than one occasion and more often than not Junichi has been the one responsible for landing them in trouble. He is also a former classmate of Masatsugu's fiance Ringo Minami and Aisa Himegami, the girl he has fancied since their first meeting.

Appearance
Junichi is young as far as shinigami go and it is evident in his appearance. He looks very much like a teenage boy, with his slightly gawky appearance and still growing stature. He is fair skinned, almost pale in appearance, with messy black hair, that he keeps much shorter than his farther or uncle and bright blue eyes. A very prominent feature of his appearance are his exceedingly sharp teeth, made even more easily identifiable with him due to his tendency to be always laughing, with his teeth easily visible to all. He is of average height, though as he is still young he will grow taller as time passes. The same goes for his physique as his body is yet to fully flesh out and attain its full stature.

Junichi wears a variation of the Shihakushō, the standard uniform worn by most shinigami. It consists of a more or less standard combination of a white shitagi, a black kosode, a black hakama, a white hakama-himo, white tabi, and waraji, but with a blue robe worn over the entire ensemble as well as a face-covering mask. As a member of the Kuchiki clan and one who is considered to be one of the esteemed, he is allowed to wear three Kenseikanin his hair, signifying his position as a potential future heir of the clan.

While not on duty he is normally dresses in a casual manner, mostly in a blue hoodie and a pair of black jeans, clothing that he that he has learned is sported by many adolescent males in the human world and clothing that he has found to be very comfortable to don. A white jacket with big pockets is worn over the hoodie and a pair of black gloves, which leave the tips of his fingers open, are worn on both hands to facilitate easy spell casting. Since becoming a member of the Kidō Corps he has started dressing in a more formal manner, sporting a white shirt, and black pants, along with a necktie and a black jacket. He carries his Zanpakutō on his back, slinging it over his shoulder by means of a rope.

Personality
Junichi is hardly what you would expect from a member of the noble Kuchiki clan, with his lively nature and fun loving attitude being closer to a smart-aleck teenager than a scion of a noble family. With a lightning-fast wit and a sarcastic and deadpan sense of humor, his personality is in stark contrast to that of his father. Where Shinichi is strict and almost rigid, Junichi is carefree and fun loving; where Shinichi believes in hard work and determination, Junichi is much more relaxed and follows a happy go lucky philosophy. He possesses a much more positive and upbeat temperament, almost always laughing and smiling even in the bleakest of situations. He is a more optimistic, trusting and upbeat person as compared to his father.

He greatly loves his mother and has always sided with her in any of the arguments between his parents. He has inherited his mother's smart, cheerful, and confident nature, instead of his father's stern, broody nature. He is also a prankster, pulling jokes at the expense of almost anyone, seemingly without any consideration for other people's feelings. But if he thinks that he has truly hurt someone with one of his pranks then he does not hesitate to apologize. Alongside his playful personality, he can also be very competitive at times and more often than not lets his emotions get the better of him. This is most often seen in his ongoing rivalry with Masatsugu Kobayakawa, where in his attempts to outperform the 5th seat of the Kidō Corps often result in outlandish stunts which almost always get them both in trouble with Midori Jinkou.

Born in the noble house of Kuchiki, he's aware of the high expectations that he must live up to and a part of him resents the weight of those expectations. But like most members of the Kuchiki household, he has been taught the importance of carrying out his duties and does not shy from them. Though he might resent having to attend functions, or make appearances with his uncle or father, he grudgingly does it all. Though he might pull pranks on others, or get into trouble with his superiors, he always remembers the fact that the Kuchiki family's name is linked to his own and as such he has set a line that he will not cross, a line that will result in true embarrassment for his clan.

Summary

 * Dude (Looks Like A Lady)

Powers and Abilities
Child Genius: Unlike his father, whose current power is almost completely a result of hard work, Junichi has been blessed with more than his share of natural talent. A remarkably talented young shinigami, he is a gifted prodigy and is counted among one of the best students to have entered the Shinō Academy in recent years. Not only did he enter the Shinigami Academy on his first try, even at his young age he managed to graduate with some of the highest written and performance scores in each of his classes. It was his innate aptitude for the Shinigami skills that allowed him to graduate near the top of his class in a matter of just three years. His joining the Kidō Corps immediately after graduating lead to people start calling him a child genius. It was often remarked by his teachers in the academy that it was surprising how he got the scores that he did despite being a troublemaker and more often than not spending his lessons outside the class rather than inside it. It was only his natural talent and intuitive ability to quickly pick up on things that enabled him to graduate in the manner that he did. Some even stated that had he been just a little more serious about his studies he might have graduated even earlier than the three years it took him. : As a member of the Junichi boasts of a considerable amount of. Even though he is just the third seat of the Kidō Corps his spiritual pressure is said to be of lieutenant level and his own father has commented on Junichi's ability to potentially surpass him in a few decades time. While his current level is slightly higher than Masatsugu Kobayakawa in terms of raw power, it is still unknown how their final potentials would compare to each other. But regardless of just how strong he can be and whether or not he is even able to reach his full potential, he is already very strong for his age. He is capable of bringing lower ranking shinigami to their knees with the strength of his spiritual pressure alone and has shown himself to be able to withstand the effects of most captains exerting their spiritual pressure. His spiritual power feels very much like him, lively and full of energy. It has a blue coloration and often takes on the appearance of blue flames that surround Junichi. His control over his spiritual powers is very refined, having been trained in this by his father from a very young age. He does not waste energy and makes use of just the right amount required for any task. This great control over his spiritual energy is one of the reasons behind his talent with Kidō.

Even though he would spend most of those sessions trying to flirt with Aisa, he did still manage to learn a lot. At the same time this was one of the aspects of his training that his father took particular interest in. In order to impress Aisa, Junichi took whatever advice his father gave very seriously and put in a lot of effort into their private lessons, for a time forgetting his feelings towards his father. His skills with the blade are refined and his motions with the blade are fluid and graceful. Skill wise he is on par with an average lieutenant level combatant, though as he normally prefers to fight using Kidō, he does not have as much combat experience with a sword as most such combatants would have.

Kidō Abilities
In this regard he takes to his uncle Kazuya and not his father, whose own skill with Kidō is below average. From a very young age he displayed a level of understanding of how Kidō works that was well beyond his years. He was already a more than capable practitioner of Kidō before even joining the Shinō Academy, a result of his having being mentored by members of the Kuchiki clan, including his uncle Kazuya.

While he spent most of his time in the Shinō Academy pulling pranks or just goofing around, lessons related to Kidō were the exception, as he was eager to learn everything that he could and soaked in everything that his teachers had to offer. His skills are currently at a level that outside of the Corps he would have been considered a master in his own right, but with the Kidō Corps being full of numerous experienced Kidō users, he is considered to be an adept by other members of the Corps. The fact that he is capable of using spells ranging all the way up to the 90's and all spells up to the early 80's without using an incantation, is a good indicator of his talent.

He is skilled at using spells in quick succession and even linking spells together to produce effects that would not have been possible with any of the individual spells. He could mix together different spells to create a fiery tornado or something resembling a thunder storm, combinations that would seem like they were possibly the result of a new spell instead of two or more known ones combined together. With the vast number of spells at his disposal, he can potentially mix spells together in nearly infinite combinations, only his own ingenuity limiting what he can accomplish.

He is also capable of using spells without not only the incantation, but also the spell name, casting spells in completely silence. Not only does this give him a great advantage in battle, as his opponent has no chance to prepare against the spell he was not aware was coming, it also greatly increases the speed with which he can cast spells. But this is a skill he is still not completely comfortable with and can successfully cast spells silently for only those up to the early 30's range. He often uses silent spells in combination with verbal spells, so that even though his opponent hears the incantation for a single spell, it is two spells that attack him and not just one. This trick manages to throw most opponents off their guard and is one that he uses quite often.

He can use the spell at full power without incantations and even in complete silence, manipulate it to use it in ways completely unlike the original spell. He can modify the spell's consistency and structure to change it from a concentrated lightning bolt to a whip like strand of lightning based spiritual energy or even change the very nature of the spell so that instead of lightning it could be a bar of raging hot flames that burn through anything they touch. Using it as a whip is one modification the Junichi frequently practices, controlling the path the whips takes and can guide it to track an enemy if he so wants. He can also reduce the thickness of the whip while increasing the level of spiritual energy concentration in it so that it gains a high level of cutting power and can be used to slice through objects and targets.

Zanpakutō
Daiō Sakin (大王砂金, Great King Gold Dust) is the name of Junichi's Zanpakutō. In its sealed form it takes the appearance of a standard katana with a purple colored hilt. Its tsuba is almost rectangular in shape and projects out parallel to the flat surface of the blade, with small protrusions along the perpendicular direction. Its sheath is also purple in color with metal patterns on it in gold. Junichi normally keeps his Zanpakutō in a red cloth case that he keeps slung on his back.



Shikai Special Ability: Daiō Sakin's special ability is the creation of quantities of fine gold dust from its edge which can be manipulated and used in a multitude of ways. Upon the release of its shikai, the edges of the blade slowly start disintegrating on a molecular level to create the gold dust while it slowly feeds on Junichi's spiritual energy to rebuild itself, potentially enabling the blade to keep on producing more of the dust until Junichi runs out of spiritual energy or willingly stops the process. Though the drains on his reserves during this process are not significant, they can be a hindrance at times and he does opt to shut this power down from time to time.

Initially it was assumed by Junichi that Daiō Sakin's powers were similar to those possessed by former 10th Division Lieutenant 's Zanpakutō,. But Sakin's powers have since then been shown to be much more versatile and significantly more potent. While in a manner similar to Haineko, Sakin's gold dust can be used as a means of defense, the dust does not possess the cutting power of Hineko's ash or his grand-uncle 's Senbonzakura. Instead to use it offensively Junichi must use it more like a battering ram, pummeling his opponents by hitting them with volumes of the dust compacted together to create golden waves of destruction. He can control the movements of the dust mentally, moving it about as he wishes, though like with Senbonzakura, the movements of the sand are much faster if he uses his hands to guide their motion.


 * Kin'noha (金の葉, Gold Leaf): The gold dust is gathered together to form a number of thin golden leaves that float around in the air, though their motion can be controlled by Junichi. As leaves the dust now possesses some measure of cutting power as well, though its actually intended use is somewhat different. The leaves, which are thin enough to be missed being seen at certain angles, float around until they come in contact with a target, at which point they stick to them and begin pulsing with a flickering golden light. At this point each of the leaves sticking on the target then trigger the Kidō spell that is actually sealed within them. This is in reality Kin'noha and by extension Sakin's true power, the ability to seal Kidō within the golden leaves born of Junichi's Reiatsu that greatly enhance the effectiveness of his Kidō. Not only does this ability grant him a great advantage in battle by enabling him to execute Kidō spells without any forewarning whatsoever, it also allows him to overcome many of the limitations that some spells might have and offers both offensive and defensive versatility. It could be used offensively to make a suddenly explode against an target's body or be used in a defensive or supplementary manner so as to make a  spring forth form the leaves to hold his opponent in place.
 * Uranai-jutsu (占術, Scry): The gold dust is gathered to create sing or multiple birds, that fly around under Junichi's mental guidance. Each of the birds can lock onto a spiritual energy source and remotely follow it, not even needing Junichi's guidance to follow the target if they have locked onto a spiritual signature. The birds can also be used to search for a particular spiritual signature, in which case Junichi has to control their movement and using them as a remote point to sense the environment of the birds, search for his intended target. This is mainly a supplementary technique, albeit a very useful one, used mainly for tracking and scouting purposes.
 * Kōken'nin (後見人, Guardian): His shikai's ultimate defensive technique, Junichi gathers all the dust that he has created so far and creates a shield around his body which is entirely made of highly condensed golden dust. Junichi has shown his ingenuity by being able to mix this technique with modified Bakudō spells such as, making a defense that even the strongest of attacks find hard to penetrate. This particular variation of the shield is strong enough to hold its own against an level 90s Kidō and is considered to be one of the most resilient defensive techniques in Soul Society.

Bankai Special Ability: Unknown.

Trivia

 * Junichi's appearance is based on Okumura Rin from the series Ao no Exorcist.
 * The Hametsu technique is based on the Rasengan from Naruto, all credit goes to the original author for its creation.