Seia

Seia Tulia Honoria (チュリア・マーシャ・セイア, Churia Māsha Seia) is a and former, as well as a former member of the Balancers of Souls. She serves as the Captain of the in the Gotei 13 as one of its founding members. Her Lieutenant is Karo Tōsen.

Appearance
Seia is a woman of above average height with an athletic build and dark skin, she has prominent muscle definition on her arms and stomach which fades out elsewhere. She has shaggy and unkempt black hair that reaches as far as her shoulders, with a single clean braid hanging down from the left side of her face. Her fringe has a slight cow lick at the fringe and her hair also has several prominent streaks of red running through it. She has thin eyebrows and slightly curved eyes with deep green irises. She has no really prominent facial features besides a small beauty mark beneath her right eye. Her jawline and chin are somewhat pointed and her lips have strong laugh lines. She most commonly wears a black collared vest with a zip running down the front, often left zipped up to just cover her breasts but leave her neck exposed. She wars a pair of black cargo trousers and workman boots. Three belts adorn her waist coming in at different angles and all running through the same buckle that sits on the left side of her waist. Lastly she wears a necklace with a plue pendant attached.

During her time as a Captain, her hair was much longer, reaching as far down as her waist. It was kept straight and lacked the red streaks of her later hairstyle. She wore the typical Shihakushō though the right sleeve was removed. As fitting her rank she wore a Captain's haori with a underside, it had one long left sleeve but lacked a right sleeve like her Shihakushō. During her time in Hueco Mundo she adorned a Hollow mask that looked the skull of a deer over her right shoulder, held in place by a pair of belts, much of her uniform became ragged and worn during this time with ruined and torn edges.

Personality
Sierra can be described as a serious person that appears to be taking everything easy. She seems to take everything with a carefree nature though her actions often contradict someone that would simply go with the flow. She laughed when she realized she couldn't swim moments before drowning but spent several months attempting to find her father and his crew of sailors in Soul Society without pause. She went at everything with a relaxed approach though she was always ready for everything to go to Hell in the blink of an eye, as such she kept her weapon in hand, constantly carrying around her zanpakutō. She had a habit of fidgeting with the aforementioned weapon, never carrying it in one way for a long period of time though she did gravitate between having it in several usual places such as resting on her shoulder or being used as an impromptu cane if she felt the desire. It took an awful lot to get her to react seriously to a situation, and when she did she still appeared to take the same approach though she acted more dryly or appeared bored. One of the few ways to make her take a situation seriously was to harm her friends, as shown when Absolución dealt fatal injuries to Ma Kuan.

She was straight forward in her approach to most things in life, preferring to charge right in leaving strategy and planning to other people, she was no fool however quickly proving able to switch her tactics when needed. If one approach didn't work, she'd simply use another one. She could also be somewhat cocky, playing around with an opponent and drawing out a fight in order to tease or mock them into making mistakes that she could exploit. Her toying with people continued outside of fighting as well, often making playful remarks or hazing people for entertainment. A past time she shared with Icía. Despite this, people considered her friendly and she was quick to make it clear that she was only playing and not intending harm.

Sierra cared very little for titles or ranks, having viewed herself as just another person despite often being called a "daughter of Astarte" or her position as a Captain in the Gotei 13. She didn't let things like nobles or caste systems get in the way and tried to make sure people had the same standards of living, being forced to live in a down trodden slum because of some random lottery and the sloppy job of so-called protectors was something she wouldn't abide by, and joined the Shinigami purely out of a drive to change such matters. She was popular with her fellow Shinigami as a result, many of them hailing from the higher-numbered districts of the Rukongai themselves. She could be contradictory however, being very ruthless with Hollows even advocating a hostile conquest of Hueco Mundo in order to enforce the balance more directly.

She loved to drink sake, and had a fondness for various Indian-style curries. She felt very comfortable in coastal areas, having lived close to the ocean in her human days, she disliked Soul Society for the same reason, likening the lack of a good ocean to the Soul King being a horrible decorator. She very rarely referred to people by their names preferring to use nicknames that she would create for them on the spot. These nicknames took a myriad of forms, often descriptive of physical or psychological traits of those they applied to. Lastly she had a unique relationship with her zanpakutō, referring to it as an entiely different person rather than a tool or a split part of her soul, she never went into battle alone as Nichiyō no Hōsoku was her partner, as fitting her nickname habit she also refers to her Zanpakutō by an alternative name, in this case Inazuma (稲妻, Lightning). She was an avid lover of Spanish culture, having been introduced to it through Icía Cabaleiro do Val.

Daughter of Astarte
Gabrielius Marcellus Nazares Callinicus Stauracius was a merchant from Tyre, specializing in the sea trade, he built up his trade with the legendary purple dye that Phoenicia was named after. He once met a woman who saved his life and he sought her out at every moment he could, seeking a chance to repay her for his life she asked him to talk, and so he did. The pair grew fond of one another until that fondness became love and from there they had a daughter. They parted ways then, the woman to a world beyond Nazares, and the merchant to Tyre where his business awaited him. He raised his daughter alone, her name was Seia Marcia Tulia Honoria, born in the year of 323 BC.

She was destined for matters fit for her mother and by the age of fourteen displayed abilities could only be described as supernatural. She showed this ability publically a year later to an unsuspecting crowd and the people praised her, a gift of the Gods they claimed. When they finally got around to deciding, the majority settled on Astarte as her mother, though others claimed Artemis or even Apollo as the Gods that sired her. None were true, but the term Fullbring did not yet exist. She was given freedoms that no one of her station had, and she decided the simplest path, she decided to take up her father's craft and joined him in his ventures across the seas.

These trips would turn out to be for the worse as in 290 BC during one such trip during a storm their ship capsized, though not from the storm itself. A Hollow had found its way aboard when seeking out Seia's Spiritual Pressure and forced the ship to capsize in order to get at its prey without a fuss. Seia had grown up ignorant of the spiritual realm, or what her powers could do, but as she looked to the ship and realized that she could not swim, she laughed and accepted the cold embrace of death.

A Merchant in Rōjinki
A few days following her death Seia awoke in and immediately sought out her father or the crew of the ship, spending no time trying to discover where she had ended up. As the search continued fruitlessly for hours, Seia was eventually approached by a figure that easily stood out amongst the other people of this world. He gave Seia a simple card that said she was assigned to live in the Sixty-Seventh District of the Southern Rukongai, Rōjinki. After finding this district, and finding an empty house amongst one of the run down houses of the area she continued her search for months on end, other s did nothing more than speak of the futility of her search. Something that she came to accept, five months into her life in the Rukongai, she resigned herself to never being able to find her family but she wasn't out of the game just yet. She didn't feel any desire to lay down and die, especially not in a dump like this.

With the help of some other residents of Rōjinki, and a little merchant know-how, Seia opened up a shop in the district, run straight out of her home. With time her business flourished and began bringing some well needed funds into the impoverished district which Seia put to good use in helping her fellow Souls. Though the unsavory types were as short sighted as ever and began making a habit of stealing Seia's goods. She ignored it at first until they attempted to rob her store while she was present, they attacked her, but her made it impossible for them to hurt her and she dealt with them pretty handily. With her at the fore, crime in the 67th Southern Rukongai decreased and its poverty slowly vanished as more and more people began bringing money into the area. Seia was popular amongst the innocents, infamous among the criminals, and a target of interest for those that called themselves Balanacers.

It was almost two years after Seia had arrived in the Rukongai that a pair of Balancers came to visit her, asking that she join their organization. She refused, citing her distaste for people who do nothing. While they spoke of their roles in fighting Hollows, she made it clear that she meant in policing the Rukongai, if they couldn't do the job they should never have taken it. The visits continued over the months but Seia refused each time and always for the same reason. It wasn't until one of her neighbours mentioned the possibility of changing them from within that Seia started thinking differently. From outside all she could do is reject them, from within she could gear them towards change. And so it was that she headed for the.

Rough Lessons
Her training as a Shinigami began, in the time of the Balancers there was no instead her training was handled by one man, Altan Kartal. He was hailed as one of the strongest of his time, and a complete master of every field of the Shinigami Arts. "Everything is a weapon, and it can be mastered." Was his line of thinking. Altan taught Seia all four of the primary skills of a Shinigami starting with, then and finally  and. Her training continued for a total of one-hundred and twelve years, her skills were honed during missions to slay the Hollows of the time and when Altan considered her training complete he prepared her final lesson; The Shikai Ceremony.

They met in Yūreiryū, the 40th District of the Eastern Rukongai and proceeded to a secluded lake. When they arrived, the pair immedately drew their swords without a word and began to fight. Things escalated quickly with both combatants attempting to land fatal wounds on the other until, with a stroke of luck, Seia disarmed her teacher. So caught up in the moment she was however that she failed to notice Altan's swift change in motion and the palm that collided with her face. Utilizing the, Altan smashed Seia's head across the ground knocking her into unconsciousness. She found herself awaking not long after, though she was no longer in the Rukongai. Instead she was on a solitary boat surrounded by the ocean on all sides and only the vaguest hint of islands laid out on the horizon.

While searching for away off of the boat, or a clue as to how she had ended up there she ran into a young looking woman and the two started talking, Seia hoping to find answers to her predicament. Things only became more unusual when the woman revealed her name and Seia was unable to hear the words. She tried to ask the woman about this but was rendered speechless when an armada of ships arose from the sea around them. The woman told Seia that she would have to find her own power before she could learn what she wanted to know. At the same time clouds formed above them and one by one the ships were struck by lightning and started to sink. Catching the hint, Seia searched from ship to ship for anything that could mean "power" until she flet an instinctive urge to search one specific ship. Within the bowels of the ship she came across a chest that opened with a great burst of light and a sword emerged. When she touched the sword and pulse rippled through her form rendering her consciousless once again.

She awoke back in Yūreiryū to the sound of Altan carving away at wood with a knife. When she raised her hand she noticed the sword that she had found, its blade was missing, visibly severed from the hilt and was useless as a result. But Altan looked on with approval and told his student to speak the sword's name. It flowed like second nature from her lips; Nichiyō no Hōsoku.

With this she was a formal member of the Balancers and one of the last before its untimely collapse. She remained active as a Shinigami however and through Altan became a teacher at the Shin'ō Academy during its founding in 99 BC. Not long after she was chosen by to become one of the first Captains in the Gotei 13, her position was perfect for assisting the people of the Rukongai, and so she created the Rukongai Protection Initiative.

Trivia

 * Sierra (シエラ, Shiera) is a Spanish name meaning "saw toothed mountains". Alvarado (アルバラド, Arubarado) is a Spanish surname meaning "dweller by the white hill, or dry land".
 * The colour associated with Seia is Tyrian Purple, a shade of purple which, in Japanese colour culture, represents wisdom, celebration, insight, decadence, and God.
 * November 9th is the day that the was signed, ending the.
 * In Japanese, Seia would use the pronoun ore (俺), an informal word that is primarily used by men, though it used to be used prominently by both genders until the late, and still is in some dialects. It is typically used to establish a sense of masculinity and emphasizes one's own status when used amongst peers or those of a lesser status. Amongst family or friends it is seen as a sign of familiarity instead.
 * The images of Seia were done for User:Zf6hellion by JediKnight97 of DeviantArt.