Joel Goldsmith

"I always asked myself, if I could be reincarnated, what kind of a person would I be? Or rather, what kind of person would I want to be. However, I'm afraid that this may be a question that doesn't have an answer. But if I were to take a guess, I would want to be born as a kind, gentler soul. Not this demon that I have been cursed to be in this lifetime. And second, what kind of world would I live in? I would want to live in a world without war and struggle, like we are all cursed to live in right now. In this world, there are no evil people. There are either pure people or regular people, who's hearts have been tainted and twisted by the world itself. And that is the truth. Don't even try to tell me that what I'm saying is wrong, Urehara, because you know it very much yourself. Is that not why you created the Hogyoku? To try and bring peace to this ever war torn world? Do not try and deny it. Even if we have beings in this world with honor and justice in their eyes, pride will always consume the pure hearted,and turn them into something ugly. In this world of war and hatred, I have been searching for an answer to this question, but have, so far, came up with no answers."

- Keiichi Kuchiki to Kisuke Urahara and Yoruichi Shihoin

"Most humble of all men, howling at the heavens, seeking redemption."

Keiichi Kuchiki is the Lieutenant of the 2nd Division in the Gotei 13, and the co-commander of the Onmitsukido's primary assassination corpse. His Captain and Onmitsukido commander is Yoruichi Shihoin, who retook her position as Captain sometime after SoiFon's death. He's a member of the famed Kuchiki Clan, but at some point in the past he refused to have anything to do with them, due to his beliefs of honor conflicting with their beliefs of pride.

Appearance
Keiichi is a tall man with long, flowing, dark purple hair, tied in a long ponytail stretchinng down to his middle back, and two long, thick strands stretching on either side of his face. He's adorned in a thick, dark purple robe, with light purple sleeves so long that his hands can just barely be seen normnally; he supposedly wears this unique attire as an act of rebellion to his family's standard attire. He wears a brown laced sandal on each of his feet, has a silver ear ring in his left ear, and presents the facial expressions and complerxion of a confident yet humble individual. He has two dark purple sheaths strapped to either side of him, in which he sheaths both of his Katanas. During training, he does usually wear his family's standard white robe/cloak, but only due to it being more comfortable to train in, and for no other reason; he also lets his hair down during this time, in which it is so long that it is actually capable of reaching his butt. When he's shirtless tattoos are visible all over his flesh, which were marked on him by the Red Dragon, who was one of his many teachers in being humble and honorable, as well as getting stronger.

Personality
Keiichi Kuchiki is very unique among members of the Kuchiki Family. Keiichi believes in honor above all else, and rejected the pride of his family, refusing to enter a battle solely on pride alone. To him a battle of honor is the greatest type of battle, which shows what type of character a man truly possesses. He's very humble and, despite his advanced abilities and high status, does not believe he is above his subordinates in any way, and even though he has served in many wars for the Soul Society, doesn't believe anyone owes him anything; shortly after he became Lieutenant he even picked a fight with Captain SoiFon for hovering her pride above all else, earning himself a few months in prison. He is very kind to others and treats them with respect, so long as they can treat him with respect as well. Although he does have a little bit of pride remaining, it's not all that much; according to Yoruichi, he appears to only have as much pride as he has to have in order to be proud of his achievements and accomplishments, but not nearly enough to make him stuck up and egotistical, which are the types of people that he absolutely despises. It wasn't always this way, however. Growing up he was raised by his father to believe that, because he was a Kuchiki, he was better than almost everyone else around him. This allowed him to get along quite well with his previous Captain, Kenpachi Zaraki, when Keiichi was the Lieutenant of the 11th Divisoin. However, after witnessing the suffering of the world, and being knocked donw a peg by several of his superiors, most notably Yoruichi Shihoin, who he now admires more than anyone else out there, he changed his ways, working hard to obtain a strong code of honor, and rejecting is family forever, most importantly his father. He also made the transition to the 2nd Division, before Yoruichi took back over again, so he would be away from Kenpachi Zaraki, who he grew to despise around this time.

Keiichi harbors a large amount of loyalty for those he respects a great deal. One of them is Yoruichi Shihoin, who he considers to have "saved him from his madness." In addition, due to her overwhelming powers in Zanjutsu and Kendo, Keiichi admired, respected, and remained loyal to Yachiru Unohana up until her death at the hands of Kenpachi Zaraki, (although he never learned the truth about her death or the what her true personality was).

Keiichi enjoys combat, but not in the same way he used to. Before chaning his ways he enjoyed battle in a very bloodthirsty manner, slaughering countless opponents without a care in the world, and only showing his true power to those he deemed worthy; that basically meant they had to be strong enough for it. After changing his ways, however, he still enjoys battle, but in more of an honorable way than he used to. He prefers not to kill if he absolutely doesn't have to, (but is willing to go through with it should the circumstances demand it), and will show his full power to his enemy no matter what, should they request it, without them having to be "worth" of it, as a show of respect to his opponent. He also won't finish an enemy who can't fight back; this is a trait that he possessed before, except that then it went against his code of pride, and now it goes against his code of honor. Keiichi believes that people should uphold their ideals under almost any circumstance; however, if one should change their ideals, like he did, then they should never, ever flip flop back and fourth, as that shows signs of a week constitution, which is something that Keiichi highly frowns upon. He also believes that their is no form of combat more honorable than Zanjutsu, which is why he opened up his very own Zanjutsu dojo, in which he teaches new and vetrine Shinigami alike how to fight like a master with their own Zanpakuto. When fighting, Keiichi never uses cheep or sneaky tactics to win, as he feels that this is also very unhonorable and demeaning of one's character.

Despite how nice he normally is, Keiichi can be very fierce and demon-like when it comes to several things. One of these things is betrayal. As someone who has been betrayed by ones that he has trusted and/or loved countless times in the past, Keiichi gets very defensive and violent whenever he is betrayed nowadays. He believes in loyalty above all else, and that anyone who is unwilling to commit to absolute loyalty to someone or something is the lowerst form of a person. He will also kill without hesitation, (but will still have a b it of remorse), if the lives of those he cares about, such as family, friends, or lovers, are threatened. An example of this is when his mother was killed by Sosuke Aizen; Keiichi left the Soul Society without the proper authority to hunt down Aizen by himself, almost costing him his life when he caught up to him, and causing him to be thrown in prison for three months after he finally returned. Keiichi will fight to protect what is precious to him no matter what, but will also go out of his way to protect others in need to, no matter how far he has to travel, which often puts him into conflict with Ichigo Kurosaki, who has stated on numerous occasions that he will only attempt to protect what is right in front of him, and won't go out of his way to protect those that are out of his reach.

Another notable trait is his romantic life. In his youth, Keiichi was in love with a young woman from Rukongai named Sora Hiragi. Even thoug his family was against their romantic envolvement, he pursued her anyways, due to his rebellious nature. The two were not only inseparatable with their love, Keiichi going out of his way to protect her no matter what, (and Sora often doing the same for him), but they were said to be the best duo in combat, both part of the 2nd Divison, and fighting alongside each other all the time. However, after she was killed during a mission at one point in the past, something in his mind snapped; from this point onward, he was no longer capable of comprehending emotions such as "love" in a romantic way, at least like others are able to. In order to cope with the mental stress of loosing the only person he's ever truly been in love with, for several years he would get infatuated with random women whom he's had very little, if any, interaction with before hand, especially if they looked similar to Sora. In order to break him from this rut, his twin sister, Shion Kuchiki, decided to work with his mind, using her special Kido. She succeeded, but resulted in him falling in love with her instead. However, this time it was different; before, it was as if he wasn't in his right state of mind, and whenever anyone would attempt to criticize him for his actions to his fact, he would completely deny it; this time, however, he was able to acknowledge that being in love with his sister was wrong, and even made a deal with her that they could keep their interactions on a mostly sibling level, but he also noted that this didn't change his feelings for her, as he wanted to attempt to recapture the same feeling he once had with Sora.

Innate Abilities
Immense Spiritual Power:  Keiichi is able to emit abnormally large amounts of Spiritual Power, even among the Kuchiki Family. It's so strong he can use it to crush mountains without effort, and to easily paralyze Lieutenant level Shinigami with fear almost instantly. Due to his detest for violence, he prefers to do this to scare his enemies away, or at least get them to not insist a battle, whenever he can. At one point Yoruichi commented that, while most Spiritual Pressure feels like a wave or current of strong air that's englulfed you when it's used on you, Keiichi's feel's like neetles, priking, poking, and eventually slicing away at you; although it doesn't literally "slice" you up, that's what it feels like, and the victim is too mezmerized--or terrified, whichever--to even notice the difference. He also has abnormal control over his spiritual power for a Lieutenant, commanding almost absolute control, with few flaws. He's stated that it's been a long time since his Spiritual Power has ever gone out of control due to pore conditioning. The few, rare occasions when it does are when he's so enraged at something, (usually someone bosting their pride, or a loved one of his being injured or killed), that he can't think straight, and even then it's been over a hundred years since it harmed or killed anyone, so he's never too concerned about it.


 * Mukei Jokenduke (条件づけ ·  条件付け  Spiritual  Conditioning):  The method he used to harness this amount of control over his Spiritual Power so quickly is a spiritual technique he created and named Mukei Jokenduke.  This is the method of taking all of the spiritual power that you have inside of you, and having it crush down on top of you.  It risks death, but when he succeeds not only does he come out much stronger, but he also acquires more control.  The reason is because the only way to survive is to control his power to the point it doesn't crush him once he releases it all.  The first time he did it he was almost killed and had to be stopped and saved by Yoruichi.  However, due to him repeating it thousands of times over, his control has continuously grew much greater.  He does it at least once every week.

Great Tactical Expertise:

Zanpakuto
The name of Keiichi's Zanpakuto is Kuruma no Undou. In it's sealed state it takes the form of two normal sized katanas, each one sporting hilt guards guarding purple hilts. They're sheathed in purple sheaths on either side of him int he front of him.

Quotes

 * (To Kisuke Urahara and Yoruichi Shihoin) "I always asked myself, if I could be reincarnated, what kind of person would I be?  Or rather, what kind of person would I like to be?  However, I'm afraid thiat this may be a question that doesn't have an answer.  But if I wer eto take a guess, I would want to be born as a kind, genlter soul.  Not this demon that I have been cursed to be in this lifetime.  And second, what kind of world would I live in?  I would want to live in a world without war and struggle, like we are all cursed to live in right now.  In this world, there are no evil people.  There are either pure people or regular people, who's hearts have been tainted and twisted by the world itself.  And this is the truth.  Don't even try to tell me that what I'm saying is wrong, Urehara, because you know it very much yourself.  Is that not why you created the Hogyoku?  To try and bring peace to this ever war torn world?  Do not try and deny it.  Even if we have beings in this world with honor and justice in their eyes, pride will always consume the pure hearted, and turn them into something ugly.  In this world of war and hatred, I have been searching for an answer to this question, but have, so far, came up with no answers."
 * (To Ichigo Kurosaki) "To surrender who you are and live without belief is more terrible than dying.  Even more terrible than dying young."
 * (To Sora Hiragi) "We're searching for a reason for existence.  With our own strength because, maybe the truth is, there's no meaning or purpose to life from the very beginning.  Everyone hopes and tries to desparately hard to find a reason for existence.  The reason of birth, of staying with someone, of existence, believing we have to find them all with our own hands.  Like finding a place for ourselves in dreams, in jobs, in people.  The reasons we discover may be fragile, indefinite, and desolate.  We may lose it too, but even so, we want a reason.  As long as I'm alive, I want it too.  If possible, I want to find a reason for existence with a person, with someone."
 * (To Kenpachi Zaraki) "Only a brute warrior finds glory in destruction."
 * (To Shion Kuchiki) "Of what worth is a Shinigami who fails to protect the powerless."
 * (To An Unknown Enemy) "If you do evil out of hatred for evil, the hate and rage will only birth new conflict."
 * (To Kenpachi Zaraki) "A man without fear cannot be wise."
 * (To Kenpachi Zaraki) "The weight of my swords is equivilent to the weight of my pride.  The wound from my battle with you, not a fetter."

Trivia

 * Keiichi's theme song, chosen by the author, is Asylum by Disturbed.