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Arisu Shiruba (詩流羽・有栖, Shiruba Arisu lit. Poetry Verse Method Feather, Den's Existence), also known by her current name of Alice Silver (アリス・シルバー, Arisu Shirubā) – which actually isn't too different from her normal name – is a former Shinigami who was the fourth seat in the Thirteenth Division of the Gotei 13 before she left to pursue her dream of becoming a stage magician and actor, deciding to station herself as a Grim Reaper (海外の死神（グリム・リーパー）, Gurimu Rīpā lit. Foreign Death God) in Broadway, Manhattan as the protector of that borough after her defection from Soul Society. Originally a dedicated follower of the Shinigami way, after serving as the Guardian Shinigami in Akihabara for a while and interacting with the humans there, she realized how alien the Shinigami's way of thinking was, and defected. Moving to New York City, Arisu decided to work as the town's protector, away from the authority of Soul Society – though it was mainly because she wanted to become an actor to make people happy through her stage magician antics.
After making it big and becoming a world-famous comedian and actor, Arisu began to travel the world, stopping in various locations across the globe to entertain people with her skills while also discreetly defeating any spiritual threat that she sensed within those places before they could hurt innocents whom were unaware of their presences.
Arisu is a beautiful young lady with an enigmatic and ephemeral air about her, described as by those around her, especially those of the opposite sex. This is especially shown in the way she presents herself, going from her oddly colour-coordinated clothing to her long, silver hair; she is a fairly busty young woman who seems to be in her early-to-late twenties, though truthfully, her age is incredibly difficult to properly determine, even by those who have known her from the very beginning. Due to the almost flawless grace that she displays while in combat, she is described as a maiden with a fair skin tone, being peachy-white in colouration Arisu's hair isn't something that one would really refer to as "conventional" – it's a far cry from the ankle-length rapunzel-esque hair of a supermodel nor hair that's just cut in a bob and left like that as per a tomboyish young lady, but rather, Arisu's vibrant orange hair is cut short (around chin-length) and is rather curly, with two big fluffy lumps of hair on both sides at the back and a serial of random strands hanging over her forehead which are just left like they're a bother, no point in cutting them; but to be fair, she isn't the kind of person to really put any care into her personal appearance unless she's going to put on a show. Arisu's orange bangs frame her face on both sides and are parted in the middle to slightly expose her forehead, as two long clumps tied into braids trail downwards to frame her youthful face. There is a trio of bundles of blazing hair exposed in the very middle of her forehead, with the longest extending down to reach her nose – freckles are dotted all around her face. Complimenting this is her shining emerald eyes that constantly glitter and the pink bow on the back of her head.
Arisu has a slender, waif-ish build; her skin is said to be so white and smooth that it appears almost like she's made of porcelain. Her facial features are very child-like to the point that when she smiles, it is completely radiant. She has snow-white skin that is akin to a princess's; along with a full figure, with a large chest, long, slender legs, and a shapely rear. Arisu is noted to have a kind expression plastered upon her face nearly constantly, projecting an affable aura that makes her seem always approachable. As contrast to most other Soul Reapers, who are generally quite Eastern in appearance, Arisu possesses features that are a far cry from that of a woman with attributes that were considered desirable in the real-life location full of ninja and samurai and sudoku that Soul Society was based upon; indeed, she has fairly Western facial features and a build that makes her stand at least a head above most female Soul Reaper. Because of this, she herself always felt quite awkward in Soul Society since she looked so different that she seemed almost like an elephant in the room. However, when combining her facial features and the fact that her given name sounds Western, it can be at least theorized that Arisu was a foreigner who died in Japan, resulting in her admittance to Soul Society- though while it can be said that she comes from an American state and is presumably of San Francisco descent, since souls who reach the afterlife generally lose their memories, such a theory cannot be properly confirmed.
In terms of attire, Arisu is near-constantly clad in a rather provocative set of clothing that exposes her stomach and upper thighs – indeed, it could be said to be an attire that can be comparable to a pirate's; which makes sense considering that her latest manuscript is about the Caribbean and pirates, but no jars of dirt. Clad in a deep blue long-sleeved overcoat with golden patterns which is barely tied together by a golden diamond gem with rope wrapped around her neck area. Underneath this is a white top that terminates just underneath her ample bosom, serving as a cleavage window of sorts with red belts holding it up. Arisu is also dressed in a dark-blue miniskirt that itself is held up by a large brown belt with a silver buckle, and she is clad in thigh-high armoured brown boots. As part and parcel of originally being a god of death, Arisu once wore the traditional Shinigami Shihakushō (死覇装, Garment of Dead Souls); which is the black kimono worn by Shinigami—she wears a white night-gown underneath, as well as a sapphire armband on her left arm; however, after her defection from Soul Society, Arisu simply wears her regular outfit around when off on Shinigami duties – though one thing that remains a constant is that she carries her Zanpakutō at her side.
Personality and Traits[]
Generally, Arisu is a rather relaxed and casual young woman, who has the habit of rarely taking anything fairly seriously. Because of this, she can be seen as a rather scatterbrained and dimwitted as commented by her peers at the Spiritual Arts Academy and those in the same division of her when she acted as a Shinigami. She is shown to be extremely boisterous in order to compensate for her small and unimposing stature; she is shown to be noble and rather overbearing. While she is generally not pragmatic, she will act according to her impulses. Most of the time, Arisu is hot-headed, wild, and relatively inconsiderate to others, being possibly the least culturally-sensitive person around. She is constantly jovial, and Arisu's actual persona is that of a larger-than-life, ridiculously hammy and loud, seeming to constantly talk. Truth be told, Arisu has trouble socializing with others; more often than simply bombarding them with jokes and her impressive acting skills because she enjoys doing so and it is partly born from her burning desire to make the whole world smile. Arisu is usually friendly and cheerful, always being curious and not worrying much about things, though she subtly manipulates people at all times. She usually tries to raise the spirits of others, making her the mood maker of any group. She has problems reading the atmosphere in situations and just speaks out what comes to mind, sometimes making others surprised at her actions.
A talented entertainer, Arisu is rather theatrical and loves nothing more than making others happy and bringing smiles to anyone that she meets by her acting and jokes. Even when she was growing up in the Lush Forest Peace of Rukongai, she tended to lighten the mood for her friends, and despite the harsh environment that they all lived in, Arisu making a fool of herself on purpose or telling bad jokes could cheer anyone up – because of this, she can come off as relatively buffoonish. This attitude stems from the fact that her childhood as a mere soul in Soul Society was so hellish that she turned to comedy and acting to keep herself in high spirits; however, underneath that lied a true loathing for everything, whereas her entertainer persona only came about to cleanse the hatred in her heart after a certain incident in her past. Rather charismatic despite her relatively goofy personality, Arisu is said to have the uncanny ability to make friends easily because of her kindness and humour, and when she becomes excited, her ditzy behaviour gets turned up to eleven, forgetting about everything else she's supposed to do in favour of focusing solely on what perked her interest in the first place. Despite believing that an entertainer's job is to get the attention of everyone in the room through their actions, Arisu doesn't really mind sharing attention with others – indeed, whenever she notices that another person enjoys making others happy as well, she believes that the chances of "world peace" have increased ever-so-slightly.
Despite her devotion to being a "Grim Reaper", Arisu is noted to be fairly lazy regarding matters that don't involve being an entertainer—often being a ridiculous procrastinator, if somebody says "do this in a week" she will subconsciously interpret it as "do it in six months", and then ignore any attempts to correct this. She tends to distract herself while undertaking a task by playing video games, watching television, interacting with animals—indeed, during her brief phase where she was going to take being a Shinigami seriously back when she was interested in them, Arisu undertook a job of killing a Hollow however, normally two hours after getting down to business, she'd go home out of boredom, and come back a few days later—though, the efficiency and skill level in which she accomplished her task was impeccable. Because of this, many are particularly reluctant to assign her a job—not only is she unpredictable with accepting jobs, but she is extremely lax about performing her tasks as well. Despite her laziness, Arisu is known to be fond of nature—she loves each and every aspect of it, even the "nastier" parts of nature such as the more ferocious animals. She is a proud 'tamer' of animals—she's capable of getting even the biggest of creatures to act like a docile puppy.
Despite her seemingly endless confidence and silly nature, Arisu shows an inferiority complex that makes her believe she can't do anything right or complete; it was partially this and her inability to stray from her habits of being lazy and generally just screwing around without a care in the world, along with the actions of a superior, that she left Soul Society. Even so, Arisu can incredibly flippant, casually mouthing off to even the most powerful of opponents, and she generally enjoys rubbing people the wrong way. Due to her time spent as the Guardian Shinigami of Akihabara, Arisu has gained a certain aversion to bright lights and technology, because of her overexposure to them. Because of that, Arisu decided that America was the best place to go—as not only was it visually beautiful, New York City seemed to not rely on technology as much as Japan did even though the people were infinitely shittier. In addition, she found the water channels and hopping across rooftops relatively soothing, overall finding her new home superior to where she was originally stationed. From that, it can be indicated that Arisu has a love of fresh, open air and freedom in general, refusing to conform to others' standards.
History[]
Like with most Shinigami and souls in general that enter the realm of the dead known as Soul Society upon their passing, not much is known about Arisu's past before she became the woman she is today – however, going by her appearance, slight accent, and the fact that she's relatively loud, it can be theorized that she is of American descent. Her age and cause of death are unknown, but upon being accepted into the shitty portion of the afterlife known as Soul Society, she soon took up the name "Arisu Shiruba" because the kanji that composed it sounded "cool" and felt familiar, in her own words – she was admitted to the Lush Forest Peace (潤林安, Junrinan), the first district of West Rukongai; she was sent there during the 10th Century, originally being from an earlier era. Originally, in the Lust Forest Peace district, Arisu was simply focused upon surviving for a living, stealing food and getting into fights whenever she was forced to. She had another batch of friends whom she met while beating up whomever got on her nerves – however, one by one, they dropped like flies as living conditions became worse and worse and the craziest of the crazies revealed themselves, causing Soul Society to reveal its true disposition as a Ghost Samurai Florida.
After twenty years, only Arisu and the leader of the group she became friends with remained, the two rather close despite Arisu's emotional detachment from pretty much the rest of "humanity" as she felt no joy in her life. During a fight in Lush Forest Peace district one day where Arisu defeated several seated officers with her bare hands and a stick she used to imitate swordsmanship, the Captain of the Thirteenth Division (十三番隊, Jūsanbantai), who probably isn't that Jūshirō Ukitake guy; who, while disappointed with how effortlessly she had dealt with his seated subordinates, saw immense potential dwelling within her frame and suggested that she enter the Spiritual Arts Academy due to her impressive power – while normally, Arisu constantly had a serious problem with authority figures, she did agree to his request after he mentioned that if she joined the Thirteenth Division, he'd give her enough money to let her begin a life of wealth, that and the captain guy wasn't a "colossal jerk-off" like the rest of the Captains. Two years later prior to that encounter, Arisu enrolled herself into the Spiritual Arts Academy in the hopes of joining the Thirteenth Division and then immediately quitting after being given her cash to live the rest of her life well-off.
In the Spiritual Arts Academy, Arisu quickly rose to fame as one of the various quick learners to be schooled there, displaying an aptitude for properly utilizing the main methods of combat for a Soul Reaper, revealing a rapid learning speed – because of this, Arisu was hailed as a prodigy as she quickly rose to fame as one of the greatest potential Soul Reapers schooled in the academy, with numerous officials paying visits to the academy to see what the big fuss was about. However, while the younger students of the Spiritual Arts Academy basically worshiped the ground she walked on because of her talent and seeing her as living proof that they could surpass the previous generation, the older students and some teachers resented her and were rather passive-aggressive to her due to seeing themselves incomparable to the young prodigy. This certainly wasn't helped by her general disposition and nigh-unresponsiveness to almost everyone, retaining a rather professional attitude that many actually saw as haughty.
In terms of studies, Arisu possessed a certain determination in regards to mastering the art of swordsmanship, manifesting her Zanpakutō quite early on which helped her excel in her lessons. Arisu prioritized her swordsmanship skills and Zanjutsu in general over any other forms of the Shinigami fighting style, with only a single attack to her name, as she believed in Bruce Lee's motto of "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."; it should be noted that due to the time-frame, the quote was attributed to somebody else, probably not that conservative jackass who was memelicious. Because of that, she had mastered this method of combat to the point that she could have surpassed her superiors in its utilization; though this is a citation that is needed.
As Arisu continued advancing her skills without pause throughout her time at the Spiritual Arts Academy, she became recognized as a natural genius who seemed to excel at damn near everything she did, before coming a sixth-seated officer of the Thirteenth Division; soon after that, she activated her true fighting style during a mission, where she and her squad mates fought against a Gillian class Hollow, and while they weren't able to put a scratch upon it, Arisu managed to finally get a proper grasp of her ideal fighting style, and in a flash of light, vaporized it. Impressed with her battle, the fourth seat offered to trade places, something which she declined, seeing positions as nothing important in the long run. A few hundred years after that, she was assigned as the Guardian Shinigami of Akihabara, the "Electric Town". Arisu never having encountered this much technology in her life, as well as the blinding lights, was quickly overwhelmed by all of the sensations. As her dislike of others continued, she returned to fighting everyone who got in her way, whether they were 'good' or 'evil'; and after a while, people began to avoid her, causing to head down to Osaka, in which things finally began to turn around for her.
Trudging through the rather backwater-looking streets, Arisu saw something that would change her forever – a clown in a circus big-top entertaining children and the audience cheer for him. The circus acts had lions and all sorts of animals following the commands of the conductors as the show illuminated the covering that shrouded it, bringing joy to everyone witnessing this. To somebody who had lived by violence all their life, like Arisu, seeing these powerful creatures and amazing actions peacefully coexisting while the audience was laughing and clapping, this circus became a new inspiration for Arisu, deciding to discard the scars of her past and dedicate the rest of her life to bringing people the same joy that this circus act did. After being recalled to Soul Society, Arisu began to cheer up her squad-mates and become a mood-maker with her acting skills and bad jokes, deciding that she'd quit the Gotei soon and move somewhere where she can inspire people the same way she was inspired.
Having barely survived the first Vandenreich invasion, when a certain crazy scientist had slaughtered twenty-eight thousand souls in Soul Society to restore balance, Arisu, whom had learnt that Souls and Humans were very similar, and that Shinigami logic was "alien", quit in disgust, but not leaving a thank-you letter to her captain and her fellow squad-mates. From there, Arisu entered a Gigai and travelled across the world while bringing joy and laughter to anyone that she met, spreading the ways of "making the whole world smile" as she cherished before finding the place known as Broadway, Manhattan; deciding to continue to make people happy, Arisu set her sights on becoming an actor in Broadway. Not only this, as she found the open city and its environment rather breathtaking, Arisu bought a house there, deciding to live there, while acting as its own Guardian Shinigami, a "Grim Reaper" —mainly because as far as she knew, there was no foreign alternative to Soul Society.
Before we begin, it should be noted that due to all her time spent wandering the world and settling down in the United States of America, Arisu has deviated greatly from the norm of traditional Zankensoki that's so commonplace amongst Shinigami – while every other Shinigami who obtained a majority of their skill in the Spiritual Arts Academy displays a specific focus on finesse or reckless brutality with no real in-between, Arisu's combat style is much, much different; Arisu Shiruba is an entertainer first, not a warrior, and as such, she prefers to make her opponent and onlookers enjoy the battle, even if it puts her in mortal peril frequently, as her goal is to entertain the audience instead of winning, as she honestly believes that if people walk away happy and satisfied, that is a true victory for her. Deviating from the more technical and Eastern-based Zankensoki of other Shinigami, Arisu has replaced any "no fun allowed" type techniques and movements with more Western-based ones such as exchanging karate for boxing and including a large amount of spinning and flipping about in her movements while holding her sword in a rather unorthodox reverse grip.
Arisu's happy-go-lucky attitude is her greatest asset in the heat of battle, as her personality serves as a great distraction to throw her opponents off-balance through how scatter-brained she acts, while making important actions from unexpected angles and getting an advantage over the opponent while acting as goofy as ever. She has the habit of hiding another one of her trick moves inside of another trick in order to corner her adversary, and thanks to her knowledge of entertainment and "what can be used to do X" as part of that knowledge, she is capable of fully harnessing the environment that she and her opponent do battle in to her advantage through her imaginative prowess. Arisu is fond of using the numerous essentials of a stage magician's tools and displaying them in an enhanced form through her spiritual energies to confound the opponent, such as the standard hat tricks, pulling doves out of nowhere, an infinite tie loop, and escape artistry, all of these unorthodox implements assisting her in showing the opponent up rather easily – while Arisu isn't really that powerful, it's in her nature as a stage magician to impress the audience, and so everything looks ten times more awesome than it really is.
While she does lack in physical power, Arisu still uses a close-range, high-speed style that involves her overwhelming the opponent through force while making creative usage of her abilities to add a sense of wonder to her battles, and given that her fighting style is built around being nearly relentless in assault, it would probably be classified as the best defense is a good offense, steamrolling opponents in style while still being as fancy as ever. As per her sole goal of making people smile through her battles, Arisu constantly unleashes big and flashy moves while still keeping track of her (admittedly low) amounts of spiritual energy as to conserve power and keep a window of victory open as a possibility; even though it's quite hazardous to herself, since she is an entertainer, Arisu recognizes that going for a 'slow and steady' or 'death by a thousand cuts' fighting style won't really impress anyone. Balancing these two opposites is quite difficult, but somehow, Arisu manages to make the most of it.
Proficient Swordsmanship Combatant: Arisu, during her time at the Spiritual Arts Academy, became particularly versed in the art of Zanjutsu (斬術, Swordsmanship); which is the fighting style for the Zanpakutō (i.e. sword fighting) and is one of the four basic fighting styles of the Shinigami. While she did not particularly show any favour of the traditional ways in order to learn Zanjutsu, Arisu decided that after her time in the academy to drop any of the traditional teaching and simply "wing it"; though she has a rather flashy fighting style as befitting her "job" as an entertainer. Generally, Arisu brandishes her blade in a decidedly offensive style, eschewing any defensive technique abilities such as the Counter sword strike by constantly going on the offensive to keep the opponent on-guard at all times, refusing to even consider utilizing a defensive technique even the slightest moderation of supplementary powers with the exception of her various Kidō spells and Shunpo in order to concentrate her efforts on attack and movement speeds. Despite her relatively frail constitution, Arisu still avoids defensive maneuvers to keep the audience on the edge of their seats, and after all, she won't be able to gain applause and acclaim by sitting still, defending constantly, and whittling the opponent down little by little – indeed, impressive displays of physical strength and speed are a massive draw to spectators, something that Arisu takes full advantage of.
Her aggressiveness compensates for her lack of defense, both spiritually and physically- it's quite easy for an exceptionally strong foe to take Arisu out of the battle with a just a few high-power attacks, Zanpakutō ability or otherwise. Unlike other Shinigami, Arisu's fighting style is more combo-oriented, and thus, focuses more on dealing consecutive blows instead of having single strikes which deal the full amount of damage, defeating her enemies through a continuous onslaught of two or more strikes for every split second; indeed, she often attacks rapidly side-to-side with wide, sweeping combos that leave little time to block or evade, leaving a trail of rainbow light behind in the wake of her slashes. Arisu is capable of performing an almost uncountable amount of attacks, both physical and spiritual, effortlessly chaining her attacks into one another, putting an immense amount of pressure upon the opponent, attacking with impossible skill, separating and connecting her weapon in the blink of an eye while spinning herself and them around. At the end of many combos, Arisu unleashes a powerful outward strike after a delay, leaving shockwaves in the process before dashing forward in order to continue her offensive game. If knocked into the air at any point during battle, Arisu often spins vertically forward in midair and falls forward towards the enemy's location with her blade pointed downwards at the opponent, allowing her to retaliate instantly after landing.
While in the heat of combat, Arisu is less concerned about her own well-being and more that those whom are watching are enjoying and cheering her on, lifting their spirits even if she's put in mortal peril – this is due to her belief that battle, despite its bloodshed, should be properly used for the purpose of making people happy, turning something rather grim into an event that aims to bring smiles to her, the opponent, and those whom serve as onlookers. Fighting as flashily as possible, Arisu leaps about like a spider monkey in all directions with in a near-constant serial of death-defying acrobatic stunts while landing a vicious flurry of steel that pierces and slashes at the opponent in the blink of an eye. While she cannot tank even a single hit, Arisu is fond of making it appear that the opponent's attack has missed by a hair's breadth, using subtle movements along with the cold steel of her blade to push strikes away, displaying surprisingly intricate knowledge of how her Zanpakutō would interact with opposing sources of spiritual energies and kinetic energy. Arisu often balances on her sword and controls it telekinetically, often using it for humour skits in battle, making her fights seem like the circus acts that she loves.
Reverse Blade Style (逆刃流, Sakabaryū): The Reverse Blade Style is a highly unorthodox style of swordfighting that involves the swordsman holding the grip of their blade no matter its type so that the blade points the direction opposite to the wielder's thumb, exposing the front. Pun aside, the Reverse Blade Style is a bit of a double-edged sword, as it imposes several restrictions on the swordsman, as for one, the reach of their sword's normal movements and attacking angle is rather noticeably reduced when compared to holding the blade in a more orthodox style, while completely disabling the ability to thrust at the opponent directly; not only this, the Reverse Blade Style causes the wielder's grip to loosen ever-so-slightly due to the fact that the crossguard of the blade may frequently bump their hand and thus their grasp on the sword as the weaker pinky takes precedence in this holstering style. However, despite all of these seemingly crippling disadvantages, the Reverse Blade Style does come with some advantages, such as granting the swordsman the ability to use longer blades much quicker. Even so, the "reverse grip" grants the wielder the ability to perform long and sweeping strikes that are capable of taking down multiple opponents at once, whipping the blade forward like a bullet with the motion of throwing a punch in the direction of the adversary. Despite how silly it looks, the Reverse Blade Style is actually rather tactical, as it is perhaps the easiest style of swordsmanship to parry an enemy's own sword strike while possessing little-to-no strain on the fighter's wrists, while also enabling instant counterattacks via the above mentioned motions; the sword is moved in arcs or figure-eight motions while retaining perfect control over the sword. The Reverse Blade Style is prominently characterized by swift and wide backhanded strikes with a blade that land near-instantly and in quick succession, and due to the manner of grasping the sword, while the strikes aren't as powerful as more orthodox attacks, the sheer speed of the Reverse Blade Style makes up for this lower power.
Hand-to-Hand Combatant: Obviously, the art of hand-to-hand combat is not Arisu's forte—being a sword girl and all—but notably, she at least has a fair amount of skill in the area. As such, she prefers to avoid utilizing hand-to-hand combat whenever possible. Hakuda (白打, White Hits) is a close-combat style of fighting, in which one is unarmed and uses only one's body, and is one of the four basic fighting styles of the Shinigami; during her time at the Spiritual Arts Academy, Arisu was never too interested in the art of Hakuda, preferring to focus upon Shunpō and Zanjutsu with some interest in Kidō. While Arisu prefers to use her impressive swordsmanship along with her stage magician-esque tricks, she still recognizes the potential threat of being disarmed from her Zanpakutō and being incapable of casting Kidō, and so she began to learn a bit more about hand-to-hand combat after she defected from Soul Society as to compensate for her becoming downright helpless if those two assets were stripped from her, and as such, Arisu decided to join the BK Gym (ＢＫ・ジム, Bēkē Jimu) in Manhattan to polish her skills in hand-to-hand combat.
Taking upon a boxing (拳闘, Kentō)-style approach to combat – a combat sport where two fighters square off in fisticuffs – Arisu generally fights by throwing her everything into the match, possessing an unrelenting fighting spirit that allows her to prevail more often than not. Arisu herself is known to possess a certain ingenuity in regards to how to go about boxing, to such an extent that it could be said that it was set in stone that she could become the lightweight champion of America's boxing circuit when she first decided to take up the sport, and could have even won the world title with or without the teachings handed down to her by those at the gym she used to frequent when she was a teenager. She has a rather unorthodox fighting style in comparison to other, more "traditional" boxers- indeed, Arisu's boxing methods integrates all sorts of traits from almost every single "boxing type", though she mainly takes upon the combat method of a swarmer, with a specific focus on an aggressive fighting style which enables her to overwhelm her opponents through constant pressure, closing in on an opponent instantly while letting off a vicious flurry of hooks and uppercuts.
Physical Capabilities[]
High Speed: As per her "high speed, high power, low defense" fighting style whether she's wielding her Zanpakutō or going at her opponent with just her hand-to-hand skills, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Arisu Shiruba is almost stupendously swift on her feet despite her blindness with the ability to move at unprecedented amounts of speed, and of course, her relatively slim build only augments such a thing even further- it could be theorized that Arisu wears so little because supposedly "too many clothes increases the drag one's body produces while in motion" or something stupid like that, but there's a more obvious reason at work. Arisu displays very little physical strain or exertion when in motion; not only this, each and every one of her movements possess a consistent trait of being extremely fluid and precise, never wasting any time while darting around and keeping up an economy of motion in a fight. In her human form and in the Human World, it was documented that Arisu moves at velocities that casually outstrip the motions of the finest athletes, showing that even when limited by a lack of spiritual power, her physical limits still aren't the limits of a regular human. Arisu has shown to be so agile that she is capable of leaping to the top of a lamp post with ease while jumping from rooftop to rooftop- Arisu was an avid practitioner of parkour in her younger years, and even now, still practices it- this, along with her enhanced reflexes, has granted Arisu what can simply be referred to as "speed beyond speed"; at least without using any speed-augmenting techniques ever-so-typical of every race around. Arisu's full control over her speed and her status as a traceur has given her maximum potency in battle, leaping around and performing gymnastics-heavy moves in order to dodge projectiles or other physical attacks as easy as going out to get the newspaper; Arisu makes liberal use of back handsprings, pushing off of walls, doing twists in mid-air and finding safety without getting a single scratch; thanks to this agility, she can use the battlefield to her advantage, jumping from wall to wall to keep her opponents unsure of her attack patterns. She is capable of moving at such a velocity in both on the land and in the air that no human eyes can perceive her movements and actions- even more-so, anyone with some sort of future sight cannot predict her motions, moving at a blindingly swift pace, effortlessly evading attacks and dodging projectiles launched towards her at close-range. Thanks to her impossibly tough leg muscles, Arisu is capable of moving at such a swift velocity that she can instantaneously close long distances with only minor assistance from her Shunpō techniques. Interestingly, Arisu is able to induce a vibration of her molecular structure while in motion, enabling her to become intangible to phase through objects of all sorts, and Arisu's law-defying movements are accompanied by intense winds that she is able to manipulate ever-so-slightly as a form of aerokinesis. Arisu displays full control over the absolutely incredible velocities that she moves about as well as the resultant momentum, and she is capable of integrating it into her fighting style while accelerating to her maximum speed instantly without any build-up – but of course, to contrast, she is also capable of stopping and turning on a dime, dashing straight up vertical surfaces such as skyscrapers as well as running upon ceilings, and darting across bodies of water like some other guy in a book that a buncha people follow.
Hohō (歩法, Step Method): Arisu, during her time at the Shinōreijutsuin, decided to at least put some effort into learning the Shinigami art of Hohō (歩法, Step Method); which is a defensive style of fighting which relates to footwork. Since it is an important skill for most Shinigami, which incorporates speed and agility; Arisu had taken it up and quickly managed to get a basic handle upon the skill. The skill level of Hohō can be enhanced and improved through concentration, training, and mastery of it. Arisu is highly proficient in the art of Shunpo (瞬歩, Flash Steps); which is a movement technique that allows the user to move faster than the eye can follow. The focal point which determines the basis of this technique is speed. As speed is the main factor of the technique, the method is best characterized by how fast one can get from point A to point B in the least amount of steps. Training and skill are what determines how fast a user of Shunpo can move; users of little skill in the technique or those who have not used it for an extended period of time would obviously be out of practice, causing them to be considerably slower, which requires the use of more steps to move the same distance and become winded in a shorter amount of time. It should be noted that Arisu is highly proficient in evasion techniques, in both close-quarters as well as from a distance, constantly moving in zigzagging patterns to confuse her opponent, thus making hitting her almost impossible if not for the most advanced combatant. Unlike other Shunpo users, Arisu does not disappear while moving, instead; white streaks of light scatter off of her feet as she accelerates, while creating multiple after-images of herself, which have the added effect of confusing the enemy.
Middling Strength: In stark contrast with the fact that she's, well, a scrawny-looking kid, Arisu possesses positively enormous amounts of physical strength, at least at a level higher than her would realistically have; the actual reason why she seems so strong is unknown—however, what is known is that it certainly amplifies her threat level to the point that she could kill an evolved Hollow in five strikes, as a contrast to others of her position, whom would fall quite easily to the hands of the animalistic abomination; however, something to note is that effectively, Arisu possesses the physical constitution of a fragile teenager, but the sheer momentum that she moves about at is what forms the bulk of her strength, as the kinetic energy gathered through her movements builds up, and with her kinetic energy manipulation, Arisu can transfer the kinetic energy of her movements into the oncoming blow, dealing an astounding amount of damage far beyond what somebody of her size and stature would be capable of displaying in terms of physical might. Without the assistance of her kinetic energy manipulation bolstering her strength and/or when standing perfectly still, Arisu is shown to be about as strong as an ordinary human girl her biological age that does the bare minimum of exercise, and when not in motion, she's more often than not stumped. She has enough trouble as it is breaking a board made of wood, and her punches cannot be referred to as actual punches, but rather, a light breeze in the wind. Indeed, while Arisu has truly amazing speed, when focusing solely on movements she's almost akin to a force of nature, even against monstrously powerful enemies; however, once she's stopped, she's almost completely helpless without her speed, as in terms of athletics that don't have to do with her reflexes and speed, she is exactly the geeky person she looks like. Even when taking the common saying, "like taking candy from a baby" into account, Arisu would have an incredible amount of trouble to even yank a lollipop from a toddler's hands. Overall, Arisu's unarmed attacks seem to be unable to harm anyone, simply rolling off of her target like raindrops falling off of their body- meanwhile, she can barely move a five kilogram boulder, exerting an absolutely enormous amount of effort to even move it two inches. However, it should be taken into consideration that while she's weak for a spiritual being, she's still above most Fullbringers and ordinary humans – it can be said that because of this, she's still more-than-eligible to become an entertainer.
Low Durability: As expected of a purely speed type fighter whom relies solely on her reflexes to "defend" herself by just leaping out of the way a split-second before contact, Arisu is known to be almost completely incapable of taking a hit; while her constitution was always bad; because of her enhanced reflexes and weak immune system, her sense of pain is amplified, and thus if she were to take a hit, she'd be knocked out in a single strike. Arisu is generally quite 'flabby' in that her body contains almost zero muscle, but is otherwise quite thin. It is virtually impossible for Arisu to take a 'serious' hit no matter the type of strike thrown her way, and if struck and sent careening across the ground, Arisu will, more often than not, have her legs buckle inwards as she slides, as contrast to almost any other close-range fighters, who tend to keep their legs bent strong. Arisu even notes that in a straight up close-quarters battle with anyone worth their salt, she would go down in "five seconds, give or take" and this was well shown as a Captain was able to knock her out in a single strike; because of this, she figured that instead of taking a more confrontational job where she used her combat skills, being a speed-type fighter was her best bet as she is completely unable to fight prolonged battles in close-quarters, and thus, she opts to utilize hit and run tactics by leaping into the fray, bombarding the opponent with a swift flurry of bladework, and then jumping out of there as her primary means of offence, hoping to incapacitate a target before taking them out; additionally, her slender and small frame makes her a difficult target as she's shown that with some assistance from her reflexes, Arisu is able to make minute dodges that, to the untrained eye, is just Arisu standing still and the opponent's attack misses, whereas she's actually moving her body rather subtly to evade an attack – while risky, it minimizes her chances of being struck and it allows her to remain in close-quarters and still attacking a mile a minute. However, it can easily be displayed that with each hit that Arisu takes by somebody with immense physical strength, she more often than not gets sent careening across the landscapes, tumbling through the ground and skies before she eventually manages to catch herself. However, if she's forced to physically exert herself for more than an hour at a time, she tires out extremely quickly- though she frequently goes for hour-long-walks at least once a day because she enjoys experiencing the sensations of the peaceful surroundings and helps her take her mind off things, but after this, upon returning to her house, Arisu is pretty much not going to do anything else for the rest of the day.
Enhanced Reflexes: As an entertainer, Arisu is noted to be very acrobatic and fit, and her status as a Shinigami only enhances this even further. Arisu's agility, sense of balance, and her coordination are leagues beyond even the finest Olympic athlete. Indeed, Arisu displays astounding amounts of control over her kinetic energies, borderline supernatural precision, and uncanny reaction times – all of these accompany her inarguable super speed. Thanks to her incredible reflexes, Arisu has shown herself to be a rather impressive acrobat, which factors heavily into her skill with parkour as she is almost constantly seen leaping around while effortlessly evading any obstacles that would normally bring her movements to a complete halt with her flawless yet delicate movements. Whereas normally, anyone moving at velocities even close to Arisu's speed would commonly have their surroundings vanish in a split-second in their own eyes, thanks to Arisu's enhanced reflexes, she is capable of experiencing the surroundings as normal as to process everything going on around her and react accordingly without missing any detail no matter how small it is as a by-product of her incredible speed, she sees everything in a "bullet time" of sorts; this extends to the point that she is able to recognize incoming attacks from behind her. She can evade powerful projectiles while balancing herself on one hand, reacting so swiftly to current events in her battles that it seems as if she has a sixth sense of sorts; even being able to react to attacks before they're released; this enables her to evade point-blank blasts from several opponents simultaneously while coming off no worse for wear. As she moves about, Arisu's agility and reflexes assist her in adjusting her position to assume any stance possible by instinct while additionally achieving perfect balance on any terrain. For example, Arisu is capable of evading a Zanpakutō's Shikai ability that caused the user's blade to expand near-instantly like a spear simply by keeping focus on the motions of the sword when the ability was about to be activated and then subtly stepping out of the way while it was still in mid-flight, making it appear to onlookers that the extending blade had missed her completely while Arisu simply stood in place.
Other Abilities[]
Notable Intelligence: Despite her demeanour, Arisu is shown to be fairly crafty. This is due to her time as a street rat, where she was forced to fend for herself and develop a certain cunning in order to survive. Because of this, she's shown herself to be fairly analytical and deductive despite her relatively unassuming appearance. Despite the fact that she more often than not focuses solely upon her physical skills to overwhelm an opponent through her speed and bladework, Arisu is capable of completely analyzing and thinking up an appropriate countermeasure for her opponents' techniques no matter their origin through sensing the atmosphere with her enhanced reflexes, which grants her the ability to somewhat predict the opposing attack a second time around—though this is not fool-proof. Simply through observation, Arisu is capable of discerning the opponents' battle style and powers, quickly grasping the situation at hand and immediately going to form plans to work according to her current advantages and countering possible threats. On that note, Arisu is generally aware of her capabilities and limitations, which assists her in properly coordinating every effort she makes in the heat of combat. Arisu is a recognized genius; though this only applies to certain subjects, i.e. the things that interest her; which isn't very much due to her narrowly defined interests. While it is obvious that her intellect does not extend to her piss-poor knowledge of behaviour of other beings -either because she possesses horrible social skills or everyone around her needs to see a shrink, though quite possibly it's the former reason- in regards to minor things such as little bits of trivia about the most random of subjects. Even so, she seems to have lost the ability to even formulate proper mathematical equations as after her departure from the Spiritual Arts Academy, Arisu decided to simply say "screw this" to the ghastly and heretical practice known as "school work" but to be fair, nobody likes mathematics.
Kinetic Energy Manipulation: Thanks to her extensive training in regards to both her time at the Spiritual Arts Academy and her rigorous exercise to become an entertainer, Arisu possesses a not-too-common ability to manipulate her own kinetic energy, which is effectively the energy that is possessed by any object while in motion and the necessary work that is required for anything at all with a given mass to move from its stillness. Because of this ability, Arisu Shiruba has displayed a thorough understanding of how to make the most of her natural speed, which grants her the capability of harnessing the momentum she produces in any sort of environment –not limited to but including the seas, the air, and the ground- and she can channel the forces produced by her movements for various applications, including lightning-quick offensive and defensive measures. These techniques and abilities that are only available through her mastery of her body's momentum and top speed are highly varied, with almost countless applications at her disposal. While she's darting around, Arisu has shown that she is able to transfer the momentum generated by her movements into kinetic energy through numerous parts of her body, resulting in each and every one of her blows possessing a rather explosive amount of force – this is a major reason why Arisu possesses such incredible strength despite her seeming fragility as her attacks and movements impart the kinetic energies that build up with her speed into each point of impact, often releasing shockwaves that radiate across the flat surface accompanied by a small explosion as Arisu lands on a solid surface; this also enables Arisu to instantaneously blast off and shoot forth like a speeding bullet from a stationary position while casually unleashing a furious flurry of blade strikes that land at amazing speeds rend anything that they come into contact with in twain. However, the kinetic energy gathered while she is accelerating forth is modified once her momentum also becomes altered, meaning that once she stops moving, the kinetic energy in her body built up through her movements vanishes.
Supernatural Abilities[]
Low Spiritual Power: Despite being a former sixth seat in the Thirteenth Division, Arisu has not shown any type of incredible amounts of spiritual energy, even after her numerous centuries away from Soul Society helped her improve every other forte she has drastically. Indeed, she simply has the basic amount needed to be accepted as a Shinigami. While extremely powerful and considered a genius due to combining spiritual power and swordsmanship; something that not many people know is that Arisu does not have a truly staggering amount of spiritual energy unlike most Shinigami, but this is most definitely not to say that she is weak—in fact, she is the exact opposite of such a term. Because Arisu's spiritual power is fairly miniscule, she has absolute control over it; as it does not leak out and seep into the environment like other spiritual beings; but when she exerts it at full power, it is revealed that the texture of her spiritual energies are the same shade of orange as her curly hair. While normally having only a small amount of spiritual power would be a disadvantage, Arisu has shown such masterful and precise control over her power that she is capable of shaping and utilizing her spiritual power in a multitude of ways; showing several techniques and applications that can leave Soul Reapers with more sheer power than her confused, as her mind is considered to be fairly advanced in its thinking patterns.
For example, Arisu is capable of projecting her spiritual energy as unnamed spheres or waves of pure spiritual energy which can deal a fair amount of damage, ropes to bind enemies, jet-bursts of speed, or she can use it to boost her defenses by wrapping it around her entire body, serving as a barrier of sorts against both regular and spiritual attacks, as well as working to protect her from opposing spiritual pressures- more detail on this is mentioned below. However, because she has a fairly miniscule amount of spiritual energy dwelling within her slender flame, Arisu has to conserve her power at all times when she is within the heat of combat, meaning that every action she takes that is fuelled by her spiritual energies must be made to count; while normally, such a restriction would result in any other fighter being more often than not a loser of all of their combat rounds; but in the case of Arisu Shiruba, thanks to her keen sense of judgment and her in-depth knowledge of how each and every one of her powers, both physical and spiritual work, this generally doesn't merit much of a problem.
Thanks to her downright tiny amount of spiritual power in comparison to Lieutenant-and-beyond level Soul Reapers, Arisu has to make perfect usage of what she does have, and as such, she has achieved a fine control over her spiritual energies to the point that she could be confused by onlookers as having a truly staggering amount of spiritual energies of all kinds dwelling within her slender body. Because Arisu lacks the abundance of spiritual power so common in pretty much every other Soul Reaper, even though on-and-below her level of power, in the heat of battle, she has to make maneuvers and actions that guarantee one-hundred-percent efficiency with no wasted movements, never making any mistakes in the battlefields of war. Every action, every spell cast, every utilization of her Zanpakutō's special abilities—all of these are performed with economy of motion in mind, gracefully transitioning from ability to ability with no spiritual power leakage that would cause her energy total to unnecessarily drop at any moment. Not only this, thanks to her careful utilization of her spiritual energies, Arisu is shown to possess a natural affinity for utilizing spiritual energies in any way that she deems suitable- as long as she is capable of imagining it being done, effectively, the sky is the limit.
Spiritual Pressure (霊圧, Reiatsu): Arisu is also noted to have a medium amount of spiritual pressure, which is the physical force/pressure that her spiritual energy creates when released; when her spiritual energy flares up, being released into the environment in the form of pure energy; this holds considerable pressure surrounding it. This spiritual pressure can be utilized in order to intimidate another person, or as a preparation for a particularly strong Kidō spell. A single spiritual pressure can have a wide variety of effects dependent on the power an individual exerts; Arisu's aura almost consumes her in its colour, leaving nothing but a phantom-like apparition to remain- her spiritual pressure, just like her energy, is completely orange in texture, the same shade as her curly hair. However, it does not have much width or length due to her small amount of spiritual pressure, and instead is mainly used for extra defense or to power up her spells and Zanpakutō abilities. It should be noted that Arisu's spiritual pressure has a unique property; it gathers and condenses stray spiritons as long as Arisu is in the immediate vicinity, drawing them into her spiritual pressure, where they are converted into spiritual energy, thus making the spiritual aura more powerful.
Spiritual Energy Control[]
Spiritual Energy Control: Thanks to her careful utilization of her spiritual energies, Arisu is shown to possess a natural affinity for utilizing spiritual energies in any way that she deems suitable- as long as she is capable of imagining it being done, effectively, the sky is the limit. Arisu is capable of bringing out the power of her own spiriton-enhanced attacks to the utmost maximum as well as stunt her enemy's own spiritual prowess through minute amounts of manipulation of various opposing projectiles of any kind- visually, this appears as Arisu making rather subtle movements with her hands, directing the spiritons which are saturated within the atmosphere to interfere with the mass of energy heading straight towards her, serving as a semi-solid barrier of pure spiritual energy that does not "defend" but rather works as a super-adhesive glue, slowing it down to the point that any motion that was once apparent in the seemingly almighty blast shooting in her direction, streaking through the skies in an attempt to knock her off of her feet turning into naught but a useless wad of energy that moves at the rapid pace of a snail, allowing Arisu to simply walk around it. This method of harnessing the miraculous particles which make up the entirety of their beings for those from the afterlife can be compared with that of the fabled Quincy, who utilize the spiritons which are saturated throughout existence itself in order to form the majority of their skills.
However, a Quincy uses the spiritons in the vicinity and merges it with their spiritual power in order to create weapons of many kinds, thus fighting with a power from outside of their body, whereas Arisu cannot reach the same level of feats displayed by those ghostly nazis as her soul is not completely suited to spiritual energy absorption, she is able to hold some semblance of dominance over spiritons as she can simply manipulate them instead of doing pretty much anything with them. Indeed, Arisu is able to manipulate the spiritons for offensive, defensive, and supportive purposes in any way that she wishes; enabling her to harness her spiritual more efficiently and utilize it in a variety of different ways than most other Soul Reapers; but this mainly revolves into compressing more spiritual powers into her various attacks to give them an enormous boost in power. Generally, because of this, Arisu's prowess with spiritons and the like functions as a defense against illusions due to her sheer mastery over it, making her all but immune to everything except the strongest of fabrications, something only bolstered by her Zanpakutō ability; and even then, she is capable of shrugging them off effortlessly. In the heat of combat, Arisu frequently combines her spiritual energy manipulation with other objects and her various abilities to perform complex and creative attacks that can confound her opponents, all in the hopes of getting an advantage over them and making those watching the fight laugh and cheer.
Chain (念監剣（チェイン）, Chein lit. Thought Controlled Sword): Chain is a basic technique that is available through subtle manipulations of spiritons and extensive usage of a blade – Chain enables the user to control their Zanpakutō through thought alone and gestures alone without the actual need to hold their weapon. When inducing Chain, the user begins to manipulate the spiritons from both within themselves and from without them – this includes the spiritons which are ambient within the very atmosphere itself – to summarize, it can be described as the user visualizing the movement of the matter that they wish to affect, mentally seizing their sword in this case while exerting their will on it so that it performs as they wish, effectively putting their Zanpakutō under the thrall of their mind. Once the Zanpakutō has been affected by Chain, the user is capable of levitating their blade and suspending them within the air- the user can also spin their sword rapidly within their hands while using the precious seconds that they are whirling their weaponry around rapidly to form a makeshift shield that can defend her against all sorts of projectiles while cutting anything that comes into contact with it – in addition, with Chain, the user can instantly recall their sword if it ever gets knocked out of their hand with naught but a simple gesture.
Kidō User (鬼道, Spirit Way): Kidō is a form of combat more often than not exclusive to Soul Reapers- though regular spiritual beings have been shown to utilize it on occasion; it is an existence that can be likened to magic and spell-casting from the books of old. These spells are commonly produced by the user's spiritual energies that are directed through their mental commands and an infusion of spiritons that are ambient within the atmosphere, helping them take shape according to the caster's will before their effects are set into motion, causing all sorts of effects to make themselves known upon the opponent and the environment in general—there are seemingly no limits on this powerful form of spell-casting and as long as the caster can imagine something happening and the proper catalysts being available, the sky is the limit. Kidō comes under two categories, Hadō, which is used for direct attacks, and Bakudō, which is mainly for battle support — as another note, commonly, a Kidō spell, requires an incantation that usually has to do something to do with the effects about to be unleashed to trigger the formation and release of the power; however, experienced users can trigger them without an incantation, though the effectiveness of the spell will be diminished.
At the Spiritual Arts Academy, while Arisu performed about average in every other subject, teachers noticed that she had a certain knack for Kidō (鬼道, Spirit Way); though she herself wasn't too interested in using the way of the spirits for its qualities in the heat of combat, as she believed that "magic is meant to make people happy", not used to wage war; because of this, her teachers deemed her quite strange and rather atypical for a Shinigami in general, whom often took great pride in the fact that their powers could rend the skies asunder and devastate the earth. Preferring to use her powers for recreational purposes such as making people laugh and keep them on their seat through using it for entertainment, Arisu still learnt the bare basics of Hadō and Bakudō as to pass the exams, and as soon as she no longer had to keep up the façade of using these spiritual arcane powers to fight against eldritch beings, Arisu distilled all that she had learnt, modifying their existences as to serve the purpose of tools of entertainment, but when in battle, she isn't afraid to mix some things up to keep the opponent way and on their toes.
However, it should be taken into consideration that despite the sheer variability of her Kidō spells that she displays, Arisu isn't actually too good with the art; however, she can get away with this because she is a stage magician; getting the audience to think what she wants them to think is her stock in trade, using the art of misdirection and her magician's tricks to appear to be a powerful Kidō user. For a stage magician, she was admired for her preparation and command- as every little trick she performed had to be made more awesome than it really was. Like the rest of her fighting style, a majority of Arisu's Kidō spells are derived from techniques commonly present in stage magic such as balloons, hat tricks, doves, and many more, allowing her to confuse her opponents as she runs rings around them.
Hadō Yongō: Byakurai (破道四号・白雷, Way of Destruction Number Four: Pale Lightning): Byakurai is a low-level Hadō spell which enables the caster to fire a single concentrated bolt of blue lightning at the opponent. When performing Byakurai, the caster expels spiritual energies from their body, causing spiritons in the vicinity to be drawn towards these energies like a magnet, resulting a the typical fusion of spiritons and spiritual energy, but from this point, the caster focuses these supernatural energies to condense upon their left index finger, before they mentally command the spiritons and spiritual energies to change their structural makeup into that of electrons while keeping their very nature compacted, accelerating the movement of these electrons as they spiral around their finger before the user releases the electrical particles in the form of a single, crackling bolt of azure lightning that shoots forth near-instantaneously – releasing the compressed electrons from their compact state only accelerates the movement speed of the lightning bolt tenfold to the point that an expert in Flash Step would be incapable of evading it unless they had a head-start and started dashing away a split-second before the spell was launched from the caster's fingertip. As the lightning bolt known as "pale lightning" tears through the atmosphere, it possesses a certain spiralling motion as the thunder strike functions similar to that of a drill utilized for excavation, eating away at bedrock little by little as it continuously turns – in the case of Byakurai, the drilling effect displayed by this bolt of azurite eats away at everything in-between the Hadō spell and the user's target, which results in the lightning strike tearing the atmosphere apart in its movements while a sizzling sound continuously reaches the ears of those in the vicinity, instilling a certain sense of dread for those whom are about to have this attack impact upon their vulnerable frame at any moment. Thanks to the constant discharge of static that surrounds the Byakurai while it's in-flight, the spell is able to wreak havoc wherever it passes, releasing a small amount of the spell's destructive power into the vicinity which the static comes into contact with, effectively turning Byakurai into a "corridor of absolute annihilation". Once the Byakurai lands upon its designated opponent, it grinds into them like a drill while releasing all the lightning that composes its existence to surround the opponent instantly, resulting in them being blown away instantly. However, thanks to its electric composition, anyone struck by the Byakurai spell will become paralyzed for one full second, leaving them vulnerable for the caster's next attack.
Arisu harnessing Hadō Jūnigō: Sentō.
Hadō Jūnigō: Sentō (破道十二号・千刀, Way of Destruction Number Twelve: Thousand Knives): Hadō Jūnigō: Sentō is a low-tier yet highly versatile Hadō spell that enables the caster to harness the air as a medium to manifest their spiritual energies which they can shape into a series of swords that can be harnessed as substitute weapons or as projectiles, being directed according to their mental commands through Chain. In any case, when inducing the Sentō, Arisu snaps her middle finger and thumb on any one of her hands- this gesture acts as a conduit which focuses and dictates the flow of spiritual energy, tapping into the spiritual energies that already exist within the earth and matter; representing the cyclical flow of spiritons and turns that power to manipulable ends; allowing Arisu to mold and initiate the fusion of spiritual energies and spiritons without having to draw it towards herself, manifesting a serial of dull-textured blades that possess a shining emerald power symbol in the middle of the bronze hilt, along with numerous emerald lines that run parallel to a single side. These swords, commonly manifested in a group of ten-to-eleven, float behind Arisu in a wing-esque formation, following her everywhere that she goes; she is capable of grabbing one or more swords and using them as a perfect substitute for her actual Zanpakutō. Ironically enough, alongside their close-range capabilities, the ghostly swords have no difference in functionality from firearms, albeit they possess absolutely zero recoil, giving them a slight advantage over a gun. The wings of blades hovering behind her frame commonly serve as single-use barriers that can slice an opponent upon contact, damaging anything they come into contact with while slicing projectiles in half if they even so much as touch the blast homing in on Arisu's frame; however, upon contact with an existence that Arisu deems as a suitable target, the ethereal swords vanish, making this utilization a decent short-term protecting her. With a snap of her fingers and hand gestures or more simply, direction through thought alone, Arisu is able to launch these ghostly swords to anything she designates at a suitable target, being fired towards her targets with a velocity far higher than that of a bullet; the blades penetrate the air itself while in motion, ripping straight through the atmosphere without any pause; their flight paths guided to Arisu's will, and as such, they are capable of homing in on an opponent to land a certain hit, piercing the opponent and rendering them immobile for a split second, allowing Arisu to quickly close in on her foe.
Bakudō Hachigō: Seki (縛道八号・斥, Way of Binding Number Eight: Repulse): Bakudō Hachigō: Seki is a low-tier Bakudō spell which enables the caster to reverse a single close-range attack thrown their way. When performing Seki, the caster expels spiritual energies from their body, causing spiritons in the vicinity to be drawn towards these energies like a magnet, resulting a the typical fusion of spiritons and spiritual energy, before the caster exerts mental command of the spiritual masses to focus them around their hand while shaping these energies into the form of a light-blue sphere that is only slightly bigger than that of a marble. This marble-esque mass of azurite spirals around at high speeds, explicitly waiting for an opponent's incoming attack to make contact with it, but in the meantime, the swirling sphere continues to gather stray spiritons that are ambient within the atmosphere to increase its power. When the opponent falls for the bait and launches an attack at close-range at the user, the caster quickly reacts by moving their hand –and the Seki orb- to intercept the blow, and upon contact with the opponent's strike, the Seki marble's special property activates –no matter if it's unarmed, weapon-wise, or entirely spiritual in nature- upon intercepting the attack, a cascade of spiritual lines that glow a bright azure so typical of spiritual energies are expelled from the Seki orb; these multitudes of spiritual energies induce a transference of kinetic energy; the moment that an attack comes into contact with the caster –and by extension, the Seki orb, the Seki marble absorbs the shock of an impact and reduce the effect it would have on the user's frame to the absolute minimum, effectively draining the kinetic energy from the incoming blow, before its next step is induced – once the energy has been drained from the opponent's strike, the Seki orb gathers it and compresses the energies, before returning it to sender in the form of an invisible shockwave that radiates from the Seki marble towards the opponent in a split-second while dispersing the Bakudō spell, blowing the opponent away near-instantly; effectively, this allows the Seki orb to repel whatever strikes it.
Bakudō Njūhachigō: Shiya no Mabako (破道二十八号・死破の魔箱, Way of Binding Number Twenty-Eight: Death-Defying Magic Box): Bakudō Njūhachigō: Shiya no Mabako is a special Bakudō spell invented by Arisu Shiruba which allows her to cast a barrier around herself in the shape of a box with knives in the sides – upon the opponent coming into contact with the box, the knives stab in further and allow Arisu to teleport somewhere else within the vicinity. When performing Bakudō Njūhachigō: Shiya no Mabako, Arisu expels spiritual energies from her body, causing spiritons in the vicinity to be drawn towards these energies like a magnet, resulting a the typical fusion of spiritons and spiritual energy, before she exerts mental command of the incredible amounts of spiritual energies in order to mold these masses of energy into the form of a large barrier that shrouds her body, which itself is shaped into the visage of a human-sized black box that is gilded in gold on the sides and possesses a serial of purple question marks superimposed over the furred red portions in the middle of each box. Aligned within the sides of each box are a series of knifes that are embedded within the box blade-first. While sealed inside the box, Arisu is incapable of taking any actions – however, the spell's ability activates when the opponent's strike – whether it's physical or spiritual, close-range or projectile – comes into contact with the box. Upon experiencing the force of the opponent's attack impact into the box, the knives littered into the box slide in closer, causing Bakudō Njūhachigō: Shiya no Mabako to activate its special ability – the knives resonate with the barrier holding Arisu within it, releasing extremely high purified energy particle concentrations; and in that instant, Arisu will have her body broken down into elementary particles as the particle concentrations of Bakudō Njūhachigō: Shiya no Mabako absorbs her- being directed according to Arisu's will as she is instantaneously reassembled in said location, literally teleporting to effectively any location that she wants to go- when teleporting, the heat signature and spiritual power of Arisu becomes incapable of being detected; commonly, she uses this power in order to reappear behind the opponent, taking them by surprise. This spell is based on escape artistry, which is commonly used as a magic trick that has the magician reappear somewhere else.
Bakudō Sanjūnanagō: Shijū no Makanchō (縛道三十七号・四重の魔頂冠, Way of Binding Number Thirty Seven: Quartet of Magical Top Hats): Bakudō Sanjūnanagō: Shijū no Makanchō is a specialized Bakudō spell of the barrier-type developed by Arisu Shiruba – effectively, it's a series of four stylized top hats hewn from Arisu's spiritual power that swirl around both her and the opponent – one of these hats has a projectile inside, and choosing wrong can result in disastrous consequences for the opponent. When performing Bakudō Sanjūnanagō: Shijū no Makanchō, Arisu expels spiritual energies from her body, causing spiritons in the vicinity to be drawn towards these energies like a magnet, resulting a the typical fusion of spiritons and spiritual energy, before she exerts mental command of the incredible amounts of spiritual energies in order to mold these masses of energy into the form of a quartet of stylized tall, flat-crowned, broad-brimmed hats which are mainly a deep blue in texture with black and white checkered patterns near the brims and a large golden question mark emblazoned upon the front. Once these magical top hats have been brought into the current plane of existence, Arisu is capable of subtly manipulating the structure of a single hat in order to store an offensive projectile – most commonly her Byakurai – inside of the top hat while the opponent remains unaware of what has just happened. From here, the magical top hats are rendered completely indestructible to an opponent's attack no matter its strength or any other factors as she shuffles the hats around, with Arisu herself keeping track of which hat contains the projectile while the opponent is more often than not left bewildered at the high speeds that the hats move around at. After the hats have ceased moving around, Arisu asks the opponent to choose a single hat – while three of four hats are perfectly harmless and as such are the "correct" choice, if the opponent is unfortunate enough to pick the hat that contains the projectile hidden within it, the hat will unleash the projectile towards them with more speed and power that the attack would usually have, impacting near-instantly while all the hats vanish. This Bakudō is based on the common magic trick of using hats to hide and/or make things appear.
Uncategorized[]
Rapid Cancel (現指令強再持ち場（ラピッド・キャンセル）, Rapiddo Kyanseru lit. Current Directive Forceful Re-Routing): Rapid Cancel is an un-categorized Kidō spell which, as its name would indicate, enables Arisu to cancel the preparation of any attack in her arsenal and use the preparation time for another one of her attacks much more rapidly. Rapid Cancel itself was derived from Arisu's love of video games- specifically that of 2D fighting games and various bugs that tournament-level players exploit in them. Rapid Cancel, to put it simply, is an existence considered akin to that of 'move-cancelling' theory as seen in fighting games, which is defined as breaking out of a current animation or move by inputting another move that cancels the previous one. Move Cancelling is said to be impossible to achieve through human bodies as doing so would put enormous strain on a squishy body and possibly tear limbs and drain spiritual energy swiftly, but as Arisu is quite knowledgeable on Kidō and how spiritual energies function in regards to her own body's composition, it enters the realm of possibility for somebody like Arisu Shiruba. With Rapid Cancel active, all of Arisu's attacks have an 'insta-fire' effect that disregards the influence of nature and assorted things in order to launch her attacks instantly without any prior requirements or preparations, using her body's own kinetic energy and spiritual energies in order to bring the required powers into the current plane of existence, and she is capable of aborting any maneuver process in progress, automatic or otherwise, in order to perform a more favourable maneuver as required during the flow of battle. In terms of how Rapid Cancel affects her combat prowess, she can launch hundreds upon thousands of slashes accompanied by punches per second, eliminating any need to pull her fist back after a strike through spiritual energy manipulation, resulting in an unrelenting barrage of blades that rains down upon the enemy- however, in terms of her named techniques, she is capable of switching the technique used to another one instantly, for example, she can use the "preparation sequence" for a Byakurai as the "preparation sequence" of another strike, either spiritual or physical in nature, without modifying anything visually. However, switching so hastily and launching never-ending strikes towards her opponent without rest can put a noticeable amount of strain on her body.
Kyōsōkyoku (狂想曲, Extravaganza) is the name of Arisu's Zanpakutō. When Kyōsōkyoku is in its sealed form, the blade takes the form of a kodachi (小太刀, small sword), a class distinct from the regular four Zanpakutō classes of katana, wakizashi, nodachi, and tantō – this special form of Zanpakutō is known to be exceptionally rare, with only a few Shinigami in the history of Soul Society shown to possess this type of soul-cutting blade. Among them is the mythical Shūsuke Amagai, whom was supposedly once the Captain of the Third Division at one time, but there is no real proof of him existing at any point, because he's a filler character there are no records of him. There is a rumour that any records of his existence were burnt by his own Zanpakutō before somebody destroyed it, but that's simply a joke told by members of the Gotei Thirteen. As a kodachi, Kyōsōkyoku is, like the rest of the four Zanpakutō types, an eastern-styled sword which was used by the samurai of feudal Japan, a trait passed onto the Shinigami, whom style themselves in the manner of samurai from various eras prior to the introduction of the rifle; the kodachi were forged in the time period of 1185 to 1333 known as the Kamakura period. Being a kodachi, Kyōsōkyoku possesses an absolute dismal length for something that's meant to kill otherworldly beasts born from those whom could not come to the shithole known as Soul Society – the sword is only sixty centimeters long, only slightly more than half a meter. Given the rather Freudian-esque theory of "soul cutter = girth", if it were used by a male, Kyōsōkyoku would probably mean the wielder is an elephant considering that it's the inverse of compensating for something.
Kyōsōkyoku itself is rather extravagantly decorated, with various starburst patterns around the crossguard and pommel – it's in all sorts of colours, with golds and silvers being the most prominent of its textures – though its silver blade with golden speck gilds stands out the most. The cross-guard of the kodachi is a vibrant golden in texture, possessing a slight oval shape with short straight thin radiant green lines that appear similar to stars that illuminate the heavens strewn about inside the cross-guard on both top and bottom. Kyōsōkyoku has a rather distinct tapering that covers the grip, being mainly a slightly bright shade of red with diamond patterns in the direct center on the grip that expose the light-brown wood used to forge the handle. The pommel of the Zanpakutō is relatively extravagant, shaped like a few masses of stars that orbit a moon with various multicoloured tassels attached to the stars, making it appear as if they were shooting stars. With a blade of borderline golden steel that curves ever-so-slightly, Kyōsōkyoku's form is said to be almost half as long as Arisu is tall. The cross-guard has four curtain-shaped cloths extending downwards – these curtains of a sort are hooked into the blade by four prongs, which possess "emitters" at the end of these prongs—these prongs release small amounts of spiritual power whenever the user utilizes their Zanpakutō as a medium for numerous abilities. Extremely elaborate in its design, Kyōsōkyoku looks more like a sword for decoration rather than for combat – something that suits its showy ability quite well. The sword's sheathe has two hangers which allows it to be worn in a horizontal position with the cutting edge down
Shikai: With the command, "Entertain our guests, Kyōsōkyoku" (座持ち, 狂想曲, Zamochi, Kyōsōkyoku), the kodachi that was once Arisu's Zanpakutō has its blade instantly dissolved into the spiritons that originally composed its existence, breaking from its form as sharp steel into a 'freer' form that flows about like smooth waves in a creek, effectively making the former state of Kyōsōkyoku resemble a mass of spiritons loosely attached to the gaudy hilt. From here, Arisu is capable of activating the Zanpakutō's special ability by swinging the hilt around, scattering the spiritons of its composition into the immediate vicinity. After the Zanpakutō's special ability has been engaged, Arisu can generate a whip lash of sorts from the empty hilt, allowing her to use the blade to command the animals she can summon as part of Kyōsōkyoku's special ability.
Shikai Special Ability: Upon the transformation of Kyōsōkyoku into its initial released state, the ability is automatically activated in a sense. Expanding the territory of destruction that wielding a soul-slicing blade would grant anyone, Arisu focuses her energies, both natural and supernatural, before she swings the mass of spiritons coalesced upon the grip of the kodachi forward, scattering each and every particle that composed the blade of Kyōsōkyoku, interlaced with her own spiritual power into the immediate vicinity. Upon this step, the area is subjugated to Arisu's will and the vicinity itself explosively reacts, allowing Arisu to momentarily take possession of the area she and the opponent are fighting in, temporarily overwriting the surrounding reality with a landscape representative of her soul, manifested into the current plane of existence by focusing her spiritual power along with her Zanpakutō's power, condensing it to its utmost limit before releasing it in a gigantic explosion of pure energy that radiates throughout the vicinity, shrouding everything within the area in these energies; effectively putting anything and everything which steps into the area-of-effect of the release under Arisu's command with very few chances to break the hold – this is referred to as a "Mindscape Projection" type Zanpakutō as it effectively induces terraforming upon the vicinity in order to transform it into Arisu's inner world.
With a serial of crests expanding outwards from all directions that forcibly transforms the surroundings into that of Arisu's inner world, with the sigils of spiritual energy being a flashing gold and silver in colouration as the markings in the outer ring of the seal resembling fleur-de-lis and the marking in the middle resembling a star – truly, the mark of an entertainer. Overwriting the surroundings is a theatre space that resembles a mixture of a Broadway and a stage and a rather arena theater- the stage is in the middle with countless seats for the audience arranged on all sides and a sextuplet of large poles extending upwards from the ground arranged around the arena; the whole arena is in a circular formation, with the stage itself being ever-so-slightly below the audience, causing it to resemble a pit of sorts- the user and their opponent can enter and exit through the audience from different directions or below the stage; however, for the opponent, they are incapable of leaving until the Zanpakutō's ability has finished. The moment that the arena is brought into the current plane of existence, spiritual energies gather and condense into the sextuplet of metal poles, before instantly shaping and expanding into the form of nigh-indestructible sheets that drape over the arena while spiking upwards, causing the big top referred to as the Dramatic Theater (ドラマチック・シアター, Doramachikku Shiatā) to fully come into existence as the Zanpakutō's ability begins.
As the manifestation of the Dramatic Theater may ever-so-subtly indicate, Kyōsōkyoku's ability is that of the power to put on a circus performance, done by clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists. Overall, the ability is known as Entertainment and Wonder (エンターテインメント・アンド・ワンダー, Entāteinmento ando Wandā); Kyōsōkyoku's ability is said to be a power born from Arisu's burning desire to become a famous entertainer who can make people smile no matter their mood through her actions and tricks. Those whom were in the vicinity of Kyōsōkyoku's release are also swept up into the big top, becoming audience members whom view the performance, while Arisu and her opponent stand upon the stage floor – upon manifestation of the stage floor which both Arisu and the opponent stand on, a red and golden phantasmal curtain drapes over the main stage, preventing the audience from seeing them until Arisu says so; once on-stage, the opponent cannot escape through physical nor supernatural means. Before the Zanpakutō ability truly goes into action, Arisu, in order to make the power a reality and induce the curtain call, must complete the drawback, referred to as "Rehearsal" (下稽古, Shitageiko).
Rehearsal requires Arisu to relay information about the circus acts to the opponent – more specifically, the type of acts they will be performing with Arisu as the two are now "members" of the circus until the Zanpakutō ability finishes. The Zanpakutō's power displays a "new" type of entertainment known as a Circus Play, which is obviously a mixture between a circus and a play, merging the circus acts with a story so typical of a play; Rehearsal requires Arisu to tell the opponent the type of play they will be performing, whether it be comedy, drama, improvisational theatre, a restoration comedy that explores relationships between close people, commonly those of the opposite sex, but those of the same gender can also act in this play (which requires the user and the opponent to have some close bond beforehand to be deemed as "acceptable" by the Zanpakutō), tragedy, historical, and finally, musical theatre. Not only this, Arisu is forced to tell the opponent the circus acts as well, which all fall under the Hovey Burgess pedagogy, a division of circus skills into three categories, each subdivided into three skill levels. The first skill, Juggling (ジャグリング, Jaguringu) involves throwing objects of all shapes and sizes into the air and balancing them continuously as well as object manipulation in general; the second skill, Balancing (バランシング, Baranshingu) involve, well, balancing, and maintaining equilibrium, commonly attempting to maintain their balance while walking across equipment or balancing a prop upon their body. Lastly, the final skill, Vaulting (ボールティング, Bōrutingu) has the actors jumping around and turning their bodies along their long, medium and short axes. From here, Arisu is capable of choosing various acts out of the dozen or so subsections of each skill for her and the opponent to perform for their eager audience – typically, for a one-on-one battle, there are only two roles each that Arisu can designate upon herself and her opponent for a single act each, but for large-scale fights, the repertoire is expanded to allow more options so that Arisu is able to affect anyone in the immediate vicinity. Once Arisu has chosen the roles for herself and the opponent, the curtain rises as the performance begins, revealing Arisu and her opponent to the audience, ready to begin the three acts.
The performance itself is known to be extremely variable in terms of content and script in that Arisu and her target can act out something pre-made such as Shakespere's classic tragedy King Lear which depicts the titular character's descent into madness through circus acts or something completely made up by Arisu – but either way, Arisu will have to relay the basic plot of the story to the opponent. Once the curtain has risen, the performance begins and the two actors begin to do their job. For every line and action, those that are in the vicinity of Kyōsōkyoku's release are required to follow through lest they feel a portion of their spiritual energy drained from their body and bestowed upon Arisu – though if Arisu messes up, the reverse is true, but if both screw up, the spiritual energy is drained and scattered to the wind. Thankfully, upon release, Kyōsōkyoku's Zanpakutō spirit telepathically relays hints of what is supposed to be done in any situation to both Arisu and those affected by the sword a split-second before the action is required to be performed – the rules of the circus and theatre must be adhered to, no matter what. The "audience" watching the play are actually masses of spiritual particles fashioned in a humanoid shape – though those that Arisu who doesn't wish to affect with the Zanpakutō's ability can be onlookers. The watchers are required to sit through the performance, as the stage is directly influenced by their thoughts and feelings, increasing the spiritual energy amount and physical parameters in one forte to the actor who is being cheered on the most, whereas the least favourite will have any damage they take double in quantity as their physical parameters in one forte decrease.
Upon manifestation of the Dynamic Theater and the beginning of the performance, a serial of purple-ish lights coalesce at the center of the stage and then disperse to various locations in the theatre; the scripts are spread out immediately for Arisu and those under the effects of Kyōsōkyoku's release to find or can be made available at different times via the circus act's setting – these lights are actually manuscripts that take physical form once the user or one of their targets acting in the performance makes contact with it. Known as Demon World Scripts (魔界台本, Makai Daihon), the manuscripts are able to grant the one who obtains it the ability to suddenly rewrite the performance to either their advantage or disadvantage, with the one against the person who obtains it commonly being thrown off by the sudden shift in tone. The changes in performance script can range from "X will become the hero whereas Y suddenly turns evil and becomes the villain of this piece" to "X suddenly becomes stronger" and many more variables are at hand. The Abyssal Scripts effectively mean that the flow of a performance and thus, the battle, can change on a whim, much like how a pendulum swings back and forth constantly. In addition to forcing those in the vicinity of its release to partake in a circus performance, Kyōsōkyoku grants Arisu the ability to manipulate the environment to her advantage through stagecraft and speed up or slow the play down. Overall, Kyōsōkyoku is known to be an extremely variable Zanpakutō with many abilities and possibilities at it's and Arisu's disposal, meaning that more often than not, no two releases are the same.
Ringmaster (リングマスター, Ringumasutā): The ringmaster is a significant member of the circus whom acts as the ceremonial master, introducing the various circus acts to the audience. Ringmaster is not an actual ability of Kyōsōkyoku per-se, but rather, it is a permanent role of overseer that the Zanpakutō bestows Arisu with upon release, allowing her to oversee and command the directions of the circus performance by synchronizing various aspects of the three acts, ensuring that more often than not everything goes as planned. This encompasses a wide variety of aspects of the circus acts, as mainly detailed below, but as the ringmaster, upon the formation of the stage, Arisu, as the wielder of Kyōsōkyoku is required to inform those participating in the performance about what's about to happen and their role, with her deciding the roles of everyone involved by her lonesome. To the audience, while Arisu acts along the others forced to participate, she also fulfills her job as a ringmaster by introducing the various acts about to happen while guiding the audience through the experiences, directing their attention to the numerous areas of the circus arena while also getting the attention of onlookers to appropriate sections of the Dramatic Theater while the previous act's props vanish into spiritual energy and the next act's props are manifested from her thoughts alone; though above all, her role as ringmaster requires her to maintain a smooth flow of the performance, meaning that if an act's not ready, she commonly subjects the audience to some of her bad jokes – but if an act isn't ready, she experiences a rather minute drain of her spiritual energies. As such, not only does Arisu, as the wielder of Kyōsōkyoku design the script of the performance, the costumes, and the like, along with her control over the environment, she controls all aspects of the performance by calling the cues for all transitions, allowing her to use a combination of stagecraft and her job as ringmaster to effectively change the content of the performance in all aspects to her whim, designating the scene changes and sudden plot developments mentally for her Zanpakutō to force upon those involved in the circus performance.
Role Indicator: Protagonist (機能指示記号・主人公, Kinōshijikigō: Shujinkō): Role Indicator: Protagonist is one of three Role Indicator abilities which are granted by Kyōsōkyoku to Arisu upon release of the sword – it is the power to designate who under the effect of the Zanpakutō's power will be the character that the audience follows and the script of the performance is about in most cases. The protagonist, as the leading role and the one that the script and audience follow, has the most lines as well as actions in many cases, meaning that it requires the most acting and memorization on the part of whom is given the role – while the protagonist is often a squeaky-clean hero type, anti-heroes and villain protagonists are also available, but less common to see. Initially, in the first few acts, the protagonist will often be at a severe disadvantage, often suffering from beat-downs by the antagonist and all other sorts of unfortunate occurrences, but as the play progresses, the protagonist becomes stronger and stronger, allowing them to continue rising to keep on fighting while their power keeps increasing with every setback – once the play is in the final act, the protagonist can and will finally defeat the antagonist, earning a commonly happy ending for themselves. However, given that Kyōsōkyoku does not influence the durability and threshold of pain of those involved, the role of protagonist is both a blessing and a curse; while the protagonist is guaranteed a certain victory over the antagonist, they have to make it to the final act first, because otherwise, the antagonist can still beat them senseless and they'll be unable to remain standing, meaning that their ability to endure to that point depends on the durability of the character in the role themselves.
Role Indicator: Antagonist (機能指示記号・拮抗薬, Kinōshijikigō: Kitsukōyaku): Role Indicator: Antagonist is one of three Role Indicator abilities which are granted by Kyōsōkyoku to Arisu upon release of the sword – it is the power to designate who under the effect of the Zanpakutō's power will be the character that causes the main conflict and the most trouble and the script of the performance is against, being the character whom the protagonist strives to conquer. The antagonist generally does not appear as much as the supporting cast, serving mainly as a threat that looms overhead and serves as the "ultimate obstacle" for the protagonist to overcome, but whenever they do appear, the antagonist displays incredible power, whether combat-wise or intellect-wise, commonly enabling them to run rings around the protagonist and have their plans succeed with very little, if any, setbacks. If the one who has been given the role of the antagonist is weaker than the one in the role of the protagonist, then Butaigeki will give the character who has been designated as the antagonist a boost in power all across the board to the level of making them able to defeat the protagonist until the play is over, additionally granting the person as the antagonist various story-breaking abilities that they would not have normally, such as mind control that only works on those in the play – however, if an ability granted to the antagonist revolves around suggestion, it would not work on Arisu as the wielder of Kyōsōkyoku, at least to the point that the antagonist is unable to influence her into deactivating the Zanpakutō's ability. The antagonist is only capable of doing battle with the protagonist and their companions, whereas they are incapable of harming their own allies or non-combatants. While for the first few acts, the antagonist is effectively invincible, upon the dawning of the final part of the play, their capabilities dramatically decrease as the protagonist grows stronger by the minute, effectively culminating in the protagonist achieving victory over their adversary, spelling certain defeat.
Role Indicator: Extras (機能指示記号・ちょい役, Kinōshijikigō: Choiyaku): Role Indicator: Extras is one of three Role Indicator abilities which are granted by Kyōsōkyoku to Arisu upon release of the sword – it is the power to designate who under the effect of the Zanpakutō's power will play various bit parts, ranging from supporting characters to one-note cameos in the circus act. While Arisu, as the wielder of the blade is capable of giving these roles to anyone aside from herself and the main target that she chooses, if there is a lack of people affected in the immediate vicinity, Arisu is able to use Kyōsōkyoku's excess of spiritual energies released in order to fashion these miraculous particles and supernatural energies into the form of various beings of pure spiritual power whom act out their roles according to the directions of the circus performance, serving the purpose of supporting characters and the like. They cannot really be considered truly sentient per-se, but rather, a "living prop" in a sense (but not in the sense of standing there and doing goddamn nothing – they follow the stage directions and interact with others in the circus performance according to the script, possessing no real identity of their own, more like a glorified item. These beings of spiritual energy molded into a humanoid form are known as the Demon World Troupe (魔界劇団, Makai Gekidan), and outside of the costumes they wear as per their roles in the script, they resemble various kinds of entertainment artists, albeit given a rather demonic touch with techni-colour skin and glowing eyes of all textures. As per their roles, the Demon World Troupe are as powerful as the narrative indicates they are, meaning that at one moment, they can fight on-par with the protagonist or antagonist, but the next, they are being slain by the hundreds by either role – effectively, this makes them mooks of a sort. The Demon World Troupe can assist the protagonist or antagonist, all depending on the tone and subject matter of the story, with powers and abilities thought up by Arisu if the script does not designate their powers itself – additionally, it should be taken into consideration that the Demon World Troupe are incapable of interacting with Demon World Scripts for those that they serve under, meaning that the protagonist and antagonist will have to grab them by their lonesome.
Stagecraft (演出技法, Enshutsugihō): Stagecraft is the technical aspect of theatrical production, including scenery manufacturing and placement, hanging and focusing lighting, costume design, makeup, props, stage management, and sound control – stagecraft is more technical than artistic, but in any case, since Kyōsōkyoku grants Arisu complete control over the performance, it would only be natural that she possesses the ability to manipulate the technical aspects of a play and its performance before audiences. While a rather mundane theatrical performance would just have stagecraft as an implementation of the designer's artistic vision, as Kyōsōkyoku induces the transformation of the vicinity into a supernatural big-top, most of the main disciplines of stagecraft correspond to a certain effect that can range from elemental strikes to manipulation of senses. Since Kyōsōkyoku revolves around circus with a story, this stagecraft extends to the various props that are manifested through Arisu's spiritual energies, allowing her to generate rings of fire for the opponent and herself to leap through in a move known simply as "Jumping Through the Fire Ring" (火の輪くぐり, Hi no Wa Kuguri); these rings of flame can also launch circular blasts of fire towards the opponent while they're in close proximity, quite possibly causing them to botch the jump and thus have a portion of their spiritual energy sent to Arisu. The lightning that's a constant while Kyōsōkyoku is activate is capable of intensifying upon Arisu's command, quite potentially momentarily blinding the opponent to have them screw up in their acts, and the sound constantly played can amplified to the point of piercing the ears of the opponent – curiously, Arisu's ears and the ears of the audience are left unaffected. Other forms of stagecraft that Arisu is capable of manipulating are the Trapeze Terror (トラピーズ・テロ, Torapīzu Tero), which is swinging on a horizontal bar held up by two ropes in a spinning motion; Arisu can cause the trapeze bar to shake violently, thus endangering her opponent, and riding a unicycle along a wire-thin rope suspended several feet in the air. She can also force the opponent to participate in sword-swallowing, fire breathing-and-eating, knife-throwing, and of course, the human cannonball act – all of these are exceptionally dangerous and if they fail, the opponent would suffer physical damage alongside the spiritual energy drainage so associated with Kyōsōkyoku in general.
Animal Tamer (動物の調教師, Dōbutsu no Chōkyōshi): Animal Tamer is another technique that Kyōsōkyoku grants Arisu once the sword's Shikai form has been activated - effectively, it's the ability to summon animals through her spiritual energies just like manifesting props for the circus and directing them through thought alone, in essence creating familiars forged from her spiritual energy that move according to the "will of the circus"; it is not dissimilar to that of Role Indicator: Extras and its Demon World Troupe. When inducing Animal Tamer, Arisu gathers and condenses her spiritual energies, before expelling spiritual energies from her body, causing spiritons in the vicinity to be drawn towards these energies like a magnet, resulting a the typical fusion of spiritons and spiritual energy - however, unlike most other abilities, when activating Animal Tamer, Arisu then shapes that mass of supernatural energy into the form of a glyph of spiritual energy which shines magnificently while she envisions a proper animal; at which point, Arisu is capable of manifesting said animal from this glyph of spiritual energy - these beings of spiritual energy take upon a white-blue colouration and emit a soft glow while they also possess apparel such as top hats and polka dot bow ties. Typically, in the entire history of the form of entertainment known as the circus, countless animals have been trained and used, with a wide variety that vary from circus to circus, but exotic creatures rarely seen frequently in more contemporary areas are commonplace such as elephants, horses, lions, birds, and bears; though domestic animals are also available; and as such, with Animal Tamer, Arisu is capable of manifesting all of these animals to go along with the circus act. While Animal Tamer focuses on animals of spiritual energy, human body parts and the like can also be formed; Arisu can also manifest full humanoid beings; Arisu more often than not utilizes the creations made manifest by Animal Tamer in order to assist her in battle, be used as diversions from all sorts of incoming blows, and last, but not least, as a means of transportation to reach heights that would normally be considered impossible or to evade an enemy's onslaught. Animal Tamer is said to be more quickly utilized than other forms of spiritual being manifestation; though they generally cost more spiritual power to maintain due to Animal Tamer summoning beings which more often than not requiring Arisu to direct and command them; though after a while, these spiritual guardians are capable of displaying free will and thought, making all sorts of movements on their own judgments based on the current situation, allowing them to take appropriate action in many cases. With Animal Tamer and a good memory, with enough focus, Arisu has the ability to summon avatars of the foes that they've defeated in a more animalistic form, the stronger they are the better.
Bankai: Not Yet Achieved. Interestingly, Arisu believes that her Shikai is more than enough to fulfill her ideological wishes of bringing smiles to the opponent and onlookers of her battle, so she's never really displayed a desire to unlock her sword's final form.
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Trivia[]
Arisu's images are that of Penny Polendina from RWBY; all credit goes to the associated artists and Rooster Teeth.
This is the first thing that Per has done in like...shit, maybe two years. It was also done out of boredom. While Bleach is pretty garbage now, one must admit that the mythos and worlds are nice.
Arisu's basic hand-to-hand fighting style draws inspiration from numerous characters in the shōnen manga known as Hajime no Ippo, a long-running (as in the heat death of the universe will come before it ends) comic about boxing.
Arisu is the author's entry into the RPCQ Exam, as a fourth-seat level Shinigami, done to the best of the author's ability to not come off as overly powerful.
