Azali Mizuki

Azali Mizuki(みずき,Mizuki Azali)is a young girl and talented shinigami who belongs to 3 seat 8th Division and close friend of Ichiken Harukawa.

Appearance
Azali appears to be a teenager, around the age of sixteen or seventeen. She is rather lanky for her short five-foot stature, with long arms and legs in comparison to her torso, perhaps from her lifetime of running around and stealing as well as some malnutrition. She has fair skin that, although is quite light, contrasts strongly against her pure white, chin-length hair. Her hair is cut so that it slopes from a shorter length in the back to longer ends in the front, with straight bangs. It is always worn down, with a simple black bow. Azali’s eyes are a calming blue, which ranges from a lighter sky blue when she’s happy to a stormy grayish-blue when she is angry. Her shihakuso is modified to fit her tastes, which she acquired after visiting the more modern human world. The hakama is cut at a little above knee length with white frilly trim, and she wears a pair of black shorts underneath. The sleeves of her shihakuso are shortened to rest at her elbows, and an elastic band is sewed in at the hem of each sleeve, which are frilled at the edges, embroidered with the pattern of a small white bow. Her outfit is always accented with a bright orange scarf around her neck, which she insists on wearing even though she is often told that it clashes with her shihakuso.

Personality

Although she has been “alive” for a while now, Azali still retains much of her playful childishness from her time as a human. She makes sure to get her fair share of jokes and pranks, and is a master at petty tricks and excuses. She never really means any harm, nor does she hold grudges; she just simply wants to enjoy what she has. Her favorite thing to do is intimidating people upon first meeting them and watching how they react. She simply shoots them a glare, emphasized by the icy blue of her eyes and the sharp angles of her face.

Azali usually manages to keep a façade of nonchalant bliss with her laissez-faire ways of life. She doesn’t really initiate anything herself; instead, she waits for things to come her way and goes about those issues in whatever method is most enjoyable and requires the least work on her part. She complains a lot when she has to actually get up and do work against her will, but she’ll complete her duties, although somewhat badly, if she’s ordered to. The quality of the work depends on the authority of the person who ordered her to do it.

Azali’s laziness also has another side though. When she’s passionate or determined about something, she puts all her effort into making sure it gets done. She is also this way toward her friends. She places a huge emphasis on relationships, and sees her friends as family, people she can always rely on. Because of this mutual trust, she feels a duty and a desire to protect, and she is extremely loyal. She would go to any lengths for the people she truly loves, but she is also wary of throwing herself into such a close relationship. Behind her mask of smiles and happiness, she is always calculating and judging people she first meets. Despite their seeming spontaneous, all Azali’s actions are intended. Basically everything she does is thought about; after all, if it wasn’t, she would just be wasting her efforts.

History

Azali was born in the port city of Yokohama to a lower-class working family. Her parents didn’t have enough money to send all of their four children to school, so only her oldest brother received the privilege to attend. At first, that bothered Azali, and she would sulk in the corner of their tiny “shack” when her brother left for the day, but soon she realized there were more exciting things to do. Her two other brothers and three of the local children spent the days together, running around town, weaving through crowds, and stealing what they could. They had a bad reputation around the area, but nothing their parents did or said could deter them from their ways.

Azali never really had an education. Her parents attempted to teach her at home with what little books and materials they had, but she couldn’t focus. All the information went straight out of her head, and when “class” was out for the day, she rushed to join her friends as quickly as possible. She was more street-smart than book-smart, which in her case was the handier thing to have.

The day Azali died was the day after she turned eight. As they often did, the six friends were playing tag on the harbors as ships were coming in. One of the neighborhood boys pushed Azali in an attempt to tag her, but she slipped off the edge of the pier into the deep water just as one of the larger ships was coming in. When Azali surfaced to gasp for breath and tried swim to shore, the ship ran over her and its rudder tore through her body. The rest of her friends looked for her for hours, until they finally found her shredded and mauled body floating a dozen piers away, near the edge of the harbor.

As a soul, Azali stayed near the harbor, waiting for her friends to come back, but they never did after being traumatized by her death. After a few weeks, a Shinigami on duty at the harbor found her and sent her to Rukongai, Soul Society, where she found herself when she awoke.

Azali grew up in District 67, a town that slightly resembled her old neighborhood. She didn’t have family there, and for the first year, she barely kept herself alive, often finding herself on the outskirts of the town, starving and freezing. After some time though, she started up her old stealing ways. Azali got by stealing clothes and necessities from the townspeople, escaping to whatever dilapidated shack she could find, and gathering whatever was edible around the town. As if she was living a reincarnation of her former life, she became familiar with the other kids around the area, most of whom were also homeless and resorting to thievery.

After a decade or so of that life, everything changed one day when a shinigami on patrol found her and some friends attempting to steal some clothes from a shopkeeper. She told her friends to run while she tried to distract him and hold him off in a chase. Obviously in the end, she was no match for a graduated Shinigami that was already in a division, but the man was impressed that a little girl like her could at least hold his attention for more than a minute. Sensing some reiatsu from her, the man suggested that she enter the Shino Academy so she could learn to control it. Seeing it as a promising path, Azali agreed and entered the Academy the following year.

Azali found herself adapting to the training very quickly and naturally; her honed instincts and agility from years of running about and being chased helped her immensely in the areas of combat. However, since she had never gone to school before, she was very lazy when it came to bookwork and written material. She simply couldn’t bring herself to put down whatever enjoyable activity she was doing to sit down and read a stupid book. So while she remained at the top of her class ability-wise, her lack of determination to actually get any work done pulled her down. Her classmates graduated in six years, but Azali stayed behind. Finally, the rumors and jeers of others became too much. A comment from a visiting fukutaichou that heard about Azali’s failure to graduate was the last straw. That year, Azali pushed herself hard and got through two years of work work, albeit grudgingly. It took her eight years to graduate, but she finally did. People in the Academy couldn’t believe it; they never thought somebody as lazy as her could be that determined.

Upon graduation, Azali was recruited into the Second Division, but she soon found the strictness of the stealth division much too different from her personality, and was soon transferred to the more laid-back Eighth Division, where she has been ever since.