Raidon Higurashi

Raidon Higurashi is a Kami born to the once noble Higurashi Family, the eldest son of the Higurashi siblings, most notably Raiden Higurashi. He was once a member of the Albatross Syndicate before being one of the five founders of the Holy Guard, roughly 500 years before the start of the series. At some point in the past he went missing, and later showed up again, workign with Shikyo Fushiawase as a member of the Balance Breakers organization. A prodigy in his family, he's never been able to excel in anything higher than an Expert level in any area of the Zankenoski; instead, to conpensate for this, he learned how to combine any two, any three, or all four of these fields to create downright devastating techniques.

Appearance
Raidon Higurashi is a fairly tall, failry thin albeit muscular man, who appears to be in his mid to late twenties, with blue eyes, (they were gold when he was young, but changed colors when he got older because of unknown reasons), shoulder length, blond hair, a strand dangling between both of his eyes, an elongated cloak which is white on the outside, purple on the inside, and has a yellow rim all around it, and a long turtleneck reaching up adjacent to his chin, almost always sporting a cocky smile on his face, weather because he's arrogant or psychotic or both a mystery. His casual clothing, (which he doesn't wear often anymore, but used to wear all the time before joining the Balance Breakers), includes a lanky, thick hoodie, the hood grey and the rest navy blues. During his time in the Albatross Syndicate, he bore the standard uniform of the organization, which included red robe covered by a black Kimono and Hakama, a scarf covering his head, the triangle headpiece stretching toward his eyes, with the well known symbol of the Albatross Syndicate, the All Seeing Eye, placed on the front, his blond hair stretching down to his shoulders, which he must have had cut at some point. As a child, aside from his eyes being a different color, his hair was much longer, stretching all the way down to his middle back, and  he didn't smile nearly as often, instead usually boring either a frown or a scowl on his face for various reasons. His clothing was also different, instead adorning in a very plain, white robe, kimono, and hakama, a turqouise under shirt barely seen underneath of his robes. He normally walks barefoot, except when attending not only meetings of the Albatross Syndicate in the past, but also meetings of the Balance Breakers currently, in which he'd wear brown laced sandals, to show some level of respect. Due to possessing the power of a Kitsune Raidon has the markings of the Kitsune on his back; like all other Kitsune blood, the tails he has tattooed on his back resembles the amount of tails he's able to release, all connected together; for him, that would be five tails.

Personality
Raidon has a very deceptive, even illusionary personality. You could ask 10 completely differnet people, who have zero connection to each other, what Raidon is like, and each one of them could possibly give different answers. Although not his true colors, so to speak, Raidon has a very childish and playful personality, both in battle and while engaging in normal banter. As a child he would give people, both those who were close to him and those who weren't, nicknames based on their personalities, their appearances, or a combination of both; as he grew up he stopped giving people nicknames, (albeit bringing back some of the older ones every once in a great while), but continues to make jokes and tease people who he doesn't like or peole who he feels does or says something stupid or silly, which he also did when he was young. When training people, which he doesn't do very often, he also teases them by stealing their weapons, tying them up, and fighting them in very comical and mocking ways, such as tripping them, or fighting him with only using one or zero hands; although the person he's training simply sees this as arrogant mockery, the primary reason for this is to motivate them to get better, a very cliche method, as he acknowledges, but he's so good at it that it almost always works. Raidon also has a perverted side. This is seen when he not only tries to peak into the girls bathouses and hotsprings, both in Soul Society and in the Human World, (not using a Gigai, so he can't be seen), but also often eying the large breasts and skimpy clothing of many women who he's talking with.

To others he appears charismatic and aloof. Due to his good looks many women find him attractive, even sometimes forgiving him when they find out he's been spying on him, (albeit not all the time), and he had many friends in his youth due to being kind and funny. However, his charismatic side is just the first part of his most devious trait, being a master manipulator. Without a doubt, Raidon is one of the best and most cunning master manipulators in all of Soul Society. This started out at a very early age, as he loved tricking people and coming up with clever, complicated schemes. As he grew older, these schemes got much more devious and complicated, until it eventually involved completely decieving everyone he loved, until he left Soul Society for unknown reasons. He's charismatic enough to win over someone's affection, friendship, or loyalty, without ever getting too attached to them in most cases, so he can attain new, powerful, useful allies, without being distracted from his ultimate goals. Once someone finds out about his manipulation, however, they usually tend to leave him, despite the fact that he doesn't intend to depsose of them in the end; he just has very little, if any, confidence in earning people's trust in any legitiment way, and feels he has to manipulate them and lie to them in order to get them to work with him and to get close to them.

During training, Raidon can sometimes appear playful and teasing, as explained above, but other times serious and determined. This depends on who he's training of course, but the primary determining factor appears to be how difficult it is to train them. At first it appears as if he's only serious and strict with the weaker of his students, as a way to look down upon them. However, although this does work as a clever illusion, in reality it's the exact opposite, as he's more strict to those who have more potential than others, but aren't being serious enough to unless their true potential. He also acts more serious when training those close to him, such as when he took on his sister, Raiden Higurashi, as a student when she briefly leaves the Soul Society and joins the Balance Breakers.

Despite his wide variety of personality traits he has, Raidon doesn't often show true affection for anyone, despite possessing true affection for quite a few people. He constantly saves his sister, even though he'd be better off killing her cause she's one of his strongest opponents, and finally admits at one point that she's the only person who he could never kill, no matter what. He also had a lover during his younger years in the Albatross Syndicate, whom he still has a picture off, and looks at it often, using her as a form of motivation for everything that he does in the present day, even claiming that his current plans were originally devised by her, he just altered them slightly and put them into motion. Although not normally showing to care about his other siblings and his parents, he does acknowledge them as family, and even thanks his parents at one point, his mother for raising him, and his father for training him, (and for helping to raise him whenever he was able to). In addition, the lengths he's willing to go to in order to protect his sister are borderline suacidal, such as when he tries to attack Shikyo Fushiawase, who he knows is stronger than him and could kill him without batting an eye, for threatening his sister's life.

Raidon is very arrogant and prideful in his abilities and combat powers. He's never always been a jack of all traits in the Zankensoki, rising to an expert level in all four arts, Hakuda, Zanjutsu, Kido, and Hoho, but never going higher than that. To compensate for this, however, he developed many unique and unbelievably devastating combination techniques, combining any two, any three, or all four of the Zankenoski. This is where the core of Raidon's pride lies, as he's one of the few who has mastered this type of combat, (almost never seen using anything else to fight and win difficult battles), and is arguably the absolute best with these combinations. That's why he's so prideful, because it's the one unique aspect about his personality that makes him stand out from everyone else. This has, hwoever, also made him extremely arrogant, causing a lot of people to be turned off of his personality immediately when they see him fight; this sometimes extends to his comrades, friends, or women who he's charmed with his charismatic persona.

Underneath every layer of his personality, at heart, Raidon is a damaged, cynical individual, who hates the  Soul Society; more specifically, he doesn't hate Soul Society, as he explains, but he hates those who govern the Soul Society, feeling that the way they rule is ineffective. This deep seated hatred goes beyond the Gotei 13, Central 46, the Royal Guard, the Holy Guard, and even the Spirit King, and goes straight to the celestial beings inside of Nirvana, which he claims overthrowing is his ultimate goal, although Raiden thinks there may be more to it than that. However, unlike Sosuke Aizen, whose need to control came from concern turned to corruption, Raidon appears to be genuinely concerned  with the state the Soul Society is in, and wants to change it. He hates Soul Society, but the Souls that resides in it, and wants to help them; however, to do this, he's willing to go to some great extremes, such as killing thousands of innocent people, and even "risking" breaking the balance of the world, such to reach his end goal.

In his younger years, Raidon suffered from major social issues and lack of self confidence, with both translated not only to his inability to interact with others, but also the inability for him to train and successfully increase his powers. That's the main reason, even today, he finds it impossible to reach a level higher than Expert in any specific area of the Zankenoski. Raidon has always had trouble interacting with other people. His strange attitude, such as ignoring people or giving them an angry face often gave off the impression of him being stuck up thinking he's better than them, but this wasn't the case; in reality, he didn't understand how to interact with other people outside of his family, and his very small group of friends, (the latter of which also had the same issues as him), so he was never able to fit in. Although he has overcome this to a degree today, he still retains some remnants of these issues, except with different behavior; his perverted and joking behavior replaced ignoring people or giving them angry faces, which obviously gives him a whole new host of problems, such as women slapping him, or people getting irritated, due to it seeming that he can't take anythink seriously, even though he can. He has also been criticized in the past for his outspoken nature, telling people exactly what he thinks about them or about certain situations, not even considering their feelings regarding the matter. He's also been known for being able to tell what other people are thinking simply by their mannerisms or the very few thinks they say, and blurting it out as well, also causing people to not like him as much. He's still very similar today, but he doesn't blurt these things out in public anymore, instead opting to say them in private, which people do seem to prefer; although some people still don't like how he butts in to their business, other people are appriciative if he's able to help them, which he never cared about doing in the past.

Raidon's outspoken and straightforward attitude was caused by the lack of self confidence in his own personality and his own abilities that he felt on the inside, which just happened to manifest itself on the outside in a way that was unfavorable not only to himself, but also to others. As a child the death of one of his elder sister Ra Higurashi, whom he looked up to and admired, psychologically damaged him. His sister always trained him and encouraged him to never stop being his best and improving, regarding both his personality and his abilities; with her gone, his personality changed, (something he's been working to fix his whole life), and his training was hindered greatly.

Natural Abilities
Immense Spiritual Power:  Being one of the strongest members of his family, not to mention an individual who went on to become one of the five founders of the Holy Guard, Raidon has always possessed simply gigantic Spiritual Power, even at a very young age. When he joined the Albatross Syndicate, which was at the age of thirteen, he could already match many Gotei 13 Captains regarding Spiritual Power. That being said, however, considering he was a member of the Holy Guard, whose members are stronger than the Royal Guard, his Spiritual Power was considered to be pathetically imp in comparison to his fellow Holy Guard members. According to his father, who trained him for many years, Raidon was a prodigy during his younger years regarding high levels of Spiritual Power; however, this ended up being his downfall, because he was unable to control this large amount of Spiritual Power, which prevented him from growing his Spiritual Power to overwhelming levels, which he undoubtely would have at this point if it wasn't for that critical weakness. When releasing his Spiritual Power, it has a bright yellow coloring to it, wtih a slightly faded orange outline.

Average Physical Strength:  Raidon does have a certain level of physical strength, although it's nothing too fantastic. His strength does aid him with Hakuda battles, or to suppliment his Zanjutsu attacks or, at certain times, even his Kido attacks, but he can almost never rely on his physical strength alone to win fights for him, unless he's fighting really small and/or really weak opponents.

Master Manipulator:  As explained above, Raidon is one of the most intelligent, most devious, and most charismatic manipulators in the Soul Society. He's very charismatic in terms of his good looks and his kindness, allowing him to grab the attention of not only women on the end of good looks, but also men who want to become his friend because of his kindness. This makes it very easy to get people do do all sorts of things for him, even if they may be very deplorable, although he laments that it isn't nearly as easy for him as it is for people like Sosuke Aizen or Shikyo Fushiawase. When talking to people he speaks gently and warm to draw them in, weather he's trying to find a lover, a friend, a comrade, or a student, all of which to manipulate. Once someone finds out about his manipulation, however, they usually tend to leave him, despite the fact that he doesn't intend to depsose of them in the end; he just has very little, if any, confidence in earning people's trust in any legitiment way, and feels he has to manipulate them and lie to them in order to get them to work with him and to get close to them.

Master Tacician & Strategist:  As a former Commander in the Albatross Syndicate, Raidon boasts incredible skill regarding stradegy and tactics in both full on combat, and while directing forces during warfare. Raidon was the primary commander during many of the wars that the Albatross Syndicate took part in, and his comrades trusted him to lead them to victory every time; even if it resulted in the deaths of their comrades, the enemy would still fall in the end, and the majority would still live. He's capable of thinking at least ten or more steps ahead of enemy forces, and each of his primary plans will always have a backup plan, with each of those backup plans sometimes having more backup plans; some say that the most shocking part about this is how he's able to remember all of these plans and strategies. While he himself is engaged in combat his mind works very similarly, except it's even more advanced because he's very skilled with discovering the strengths and weaknesses of his opponents in relatively short lengths of time, remembering them, and successfully exploiting them.

Hakuda Expert
Although never excelling past expert in any of the Zankenoski, Hakuda has always been Raidon's favorite to practice. He's always been attached to using his own body as a weapon, and thus began his Hakuda training at a very young age.

Zanpakuto
The name of Raidon's Zanpakuto is Kagami Dougan Giman (鏡童顔欺瞞 Mirror Faced Deception):  Raidon's Zanpakuto is very odd in its sealed state; it mostly has the shape of a Tanto, but the blade is three times as long as one. It possesses a diamond hilt guard, and a hilt stylized with elegant golden and silver stripes, sheathed in a yellow sheath on his left side.

Shikai
The Release command for his Zanpakuto is "To the last I grapple with thee, from Hell's heart I stab at thee, for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee." Upon release, his Zanpakuto stays exactly the same in terms of its form, the only difference being that it glows a vibrant gold, both the hilt, the hilt guard, and the blade. Raidon's Zanpakuto, very much akin to his personality, is very deceptive; you could ask ten people what abilities it possesses, and each one might give a completely different answer. However, unlike his personality, which is due to a more open form of deception-- meaning all the personality traits he has are part of his overall personality--his Zanpakuto is deceptive by being an illusionary type, and has no overall ability. Once he slashes an enemy--he can do this anywhere, and the size of the cut is completely irrelivent--Raidon releases from their mind their deepest, darkest fears, and brings them to life by the preception of the victim of the technique. This ability, known as Inochi no Osore (恐れ虞畏れ怖れ命 Fate of Fear) brings to life anything that they fear and uses it as a weapon; the fear itself can physically harm the opponent, even though it's only happening in their mind, and the only way to beat this technique is to move past the fear itself so that it's no longer a "fear" to this person. For example, if that fear is the death of a loved one, (which would obviously only harm them psychologically, not physically), the way to beat it would to accept the fact that the loved one might die, (or maybe has died in the past), and move on. While all this is going on, Raidon is completely unable to see what the fear is, so it remains a mystery to him as to exactly what is harming his enemy, and what they have to overcome during the very few instances in which they actually do overcome it.

Bankai
Not Yet Revealed

Omoimoyoranai Shinsou
Not Yet Achieved