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This article, Jaromira Hizakura, is property of Zf6hellion |
| Overview |
| Jaromira Hizakura | |
| |
| Race | Soul (Zanpakutō Spirit) |
| Birthday | December 30 |
| Gender | Female |
| Height | 162cm (5'4") |
| Weight | 48kg (107lb.) |
| Blood Type | O Negative |
| Professional Status | |
|---|---|
| Affiliation | Herself |
| Previous Affiliation | Gotei 13 |
| Profession | Shinigami |
| Previous Position | Captain of the Twelfth Division |
| Previous Division | Twelfth Division |
| Previous Partner | Garland Dragan Satoru Kyōfu |
| Base of Operations | Muken, Seireitei, Soul Society |
| Personal Status | |
| Relatives | Izakata Hizakura (Lover) Kanaya Hizakura (Daughter) Iyori Hizakura (Son) Garland Dragan (Adopt. Daughter) |
| Education | Zazen Various Sciences |
| Zanpakutō | |
| Shikai | Gūjinkiyo |
| Bankai | Tantoride Gūjinkiyo |
| First Appearance | |
| Roleplay Debut | Worlds Apart |
- "The eyes that see far, often lose sight of what's closest."
- —Character tag.
Jaromira Hizakura (緋桜 八炉美等, Hizakura Jaromira), once known as Jaromira Adachihara (足立原 八炉美等, Adachihara Jaromira) is a Shinigami and founding member of the Gotei 13. She headed the Twelfth Division during her tenure and had Satoru Kyōfu as her lieutenant during this time. Her actions in the ill-remembered War of Days lead to her being charged with several crimes by the Central 46, and though she evaded them for a time, Jaromira eventually turned herself in. Sentenced to 10,000 years in Muken, she has resided there ever since, even through the Thousand Year Blood War.
Appearance[]
Jaromira is a woman of average stature, possessing a rather pale complexion. She is relatively thin, but not unfit. Her hair is a long, flowing voluminous mass of deep red that runs down behind her back as well as her right side, a large portion of which hangs over in front of her, obscuring her right eye and much of her face in the process, then feeding into a long curled tail of hair that runs over her chest to reach as far down as her stomach. Evening things out are a few strands that help frame her left side, giving Jaromira an unusually mature look. She has thin, smoothed eyebrows as well as curved, gray coloured eyes. Her facial features are all smooth and curved, fitting a woman born of noble birth; though her nostrils have a slight natural flare to them, and her beautiful pink lips are cracked with scars. She dons a sleeveless shirt that is made up of a high jabot-style collar with two horizontally aligned rows of pointed frills. The collar is tied by a small silk necktie. Below the collar, the shirt is divided down the centre by a vertical line, with the left side being white and the right side being a light, sheer blue. The blue portion is further divided with another vertical line splitting it into two even sections. The white side is detailed by a pair of black lines fanning outwards at differing angles near the bottom. Over this shirt she wears a long white coat, similarly lacking in sleeves and marked by gold trim across its borders, the coat tails having the addition of a silver embroidered design running behind said trim. The coat is marked by two threaded lines running down the front and across its sides, and is only closed over her chest by a set of three golden, arrow-ended straps and a clasp around the collar, thus leaving the shirt beneath exposed with regards to her stomach. Her arms are dressed up with a pair of detached sleeves that cover all the way down to her hands, though they leave the fingers uncovered. The sleeves are tied by a pair of clasps at the top of her arm, and are themselves marked by golden trim and frilled edges at the top. They are also mismatched in colour; the left sleeve being black with white clasps whilst the right inverts those colours. She wears a short, simple, black pleated skirt and a pair of brown leather boots, each having the cap dyed in gold. Though they are each marked by high heels, the right boot only rises part way up Jaromira's lower leg before terminating in a gold trimmed cuff, the left boot, however, reaches all the way up her thigh and is itself marked by a golden arrow-shaped crest.
During her time as a founding Captain, she was a full foot shorter, and her hair was a lot messier, left to simply grow and run down her face. She wore the standard Shinigami Shihakushō, which was made up of a white shitagi worn underneath a black kosode which was paired with a black hakama tied with a white hakama-himo. Instead of the typical footwear, she wore zōri. She also did not wear a haori as was the tradition that Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto wished to establish, instead she opted to wear a bulky coat with fur linings, though its design matched the haori of her fellows; white in colour and emblazoned with the symbols of her division. Her hands were also covered with a pair of fingerless black gloves, an unusual anachronism for the time.
Personality[]
Jaromira's design.
Jaromira is an incredibly self-absorbed woman, caring only for her own interests with little regard for the lives of others. As far as she is concerned, people are little more than noise. They are to be heard, and then promptly forgotten. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but it isn't a matter of fulfilling any form of realistic criteria, Jaromira simply takes interest in certain individuals that she finds promising. Such occurrences aren't incredibly rare, as the first several hundred members to join the 12th Division upon its founding were made up entirely of such individuals. But it is rare for her to take interest in anyone who is well-established in life, most anyone she listens to are those one would believe are inferior to her, either in intellect, prowess or accomplishment. Thus someone who is considered a "master" at a craft is very unlikely to have any leeway with Jaromira. This was true of her fellow founding Captains amongst the Gotei 13, all of which she seemed to ignore. Only Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto managed to be worthy of her attention. But for those of the lower echelon, Jaromira is unusually helpful. She is, on the surface, still the same person, dismissive, arrogant and completely callous. But should one confide in her regardless, their problems suddenly disappear and opportunities find their way to that person's doorstep. For though Jaromira may care little for her fellow man, she is still, at heart, a mother.
Taking a rather twisted view of her own Human life, Jaromira adopted the name of a local deity, the God of All, Dragan (全神・ヅラガン, Zenkami, Duragan) when she passed over into Soul Society which is where much of her egotistical nature stems from. Warped by the method in which she passed on from life, it became a dominant part of her personality, as even in life she was viewed as a deification, even if only in passing. Thus Jaromira sees herself as God, and mother to all life in the world. It is unseemly for a mother to allow her children to fall, true they may stumble, but they never touch the ground in her presence. A mother is a master of subtlety, pushing their children forward through encouragement and hints. In this way, Jaromira's nature as a cold hearted woman is a facade, meant to hide the fact that she truly cares for those under her, be they her charges, her subordinates, or simply those around her. It would stand to reason then that a "master" is someone she views as a child that has grown up, someone who no longer needs her to care for them and so she has let them go so that they might stand on their own. Of course, this is merely her own way of looking at things and very rarely is it reflected as being true to life.
Typically she is utterly ignorant to the will of others. Knowledge, rules, opinion, facts. All of it, from the mouth of someone else? It is nothing but insignificant chattering from fools not worth heeding. She had gone nigh on a millennia breaking the laws of Soul Society before Central 46 finally saw fit to arrest her, though the way she sees it is that its only natural for her to break such rules as she sees fit; for a God can do no wrong. To enter into an alliance with Jaromira is always a relationship based upon gain, for she is beholden to no one but herself and as such can only be trusted so far as her goals align with another. Those that manage to impress her, or otherwise pique her interest, may find themselves exempt from her ignorance, if only for a time. Though, as before, there is no true criteria for such an occurrence. She simply picks people on a whim. Hachū Bōkunō, Jojishi Kyōjin, and Satoru Kyōfu, each wound up in her sights for different reasons, the former because of his unique insight given his cursed form, Jojishi for his skills, and Satoru simply for his height. The only person to have ever earned her undivided attention was Izakata Hizakura, whom she loved for his unending naïveté.
She is most content with the act of testing things. As the words of everyone else in the world are essentially meaningless to her, she then tends to see things as if they were a blank canvas. All fields of study are ripe for the taking, all crafts and forms, too, are hers to do with as she pleases. As a Human she passed the days by studying the resources of the forest, combining them to see what they could do and recording her findings. As a spirit, she does this with practically everything. One could possibly derive meaning from her studies of each field of science, given its rudimentary state in the Human World when she died, but her forays into crafts like pottery or candy making are only ever perceived as unorthodox and unusual. Not only does she get enjoyment out of learning everything as if it were new to the world, but she also uses it as a means to advance herself and her intellect. It is not uncommon for her to take a mundane principle of one craft and transform it into a near-mystical concept for another that brings unparalleled, if unusual, advancements to the field. She tends to fixate on whatever she dabbles with, as of the time of the War of Days she had been obsessed with making candy, and today that fixation seems to be on her own line of figurines.
She has reservations against taking life, preferring not to if she can help it. As the mother of all life, to slay what she sees as her own children is surely needlessly painful. It isn't something that manages to restrict her much though, as she has come to limit herself to a one chance rule. She offers everyone unlucky enough to fight her just one chance to give up and flee, should they refuse, Jaromira won't bother asking again. Likewise, attempted blackmail is a sure way to have her forego this rule entirely as more than one individual has found out. She does not suffer the whims of fools, and she especially does not cater to them, any true child of hers would recognise this fact and never attempt something so asinine as to "bargain" with her. Life is little more than a place for games to Jaromira, especially given her advanced state of undeath. Testing the minds of others, using battle to corner people like rats, it is all little more than amusement, though she wasn't always so callous about it, which speaks of the results of having no mind but her own to deal with for five hundred years. In a less grim sense, she very much loves games of intellect and strategy: Chess, Gō, Mahjong, even the relatively modern Battleship manages to capture her attention. She detests rice as boring and tasteless, but has an obsessive love for well prepared drunken shrimp. Her recent fixation on making toys highlights her unusual sense of taste, with a focus on abstractions and asymmetrical designs. They manage to be popular among the populace of the Rukongai, somehow.
History[]
In 603 BC a girl was born in the Milograd cultural region, an area which would become Southern Belarus, and Northern Ukraine. She lived in a forest region that was home to a few well-apart villages, and her parents lived in relative seclusion away from it all. It was five years after the child's birth that a pack of rabid wolves were loosed on their homestead, the parents were killed, but the child escaped. She ran, as far as her legs would take her. She didn't stop until her stamina was gone, and her legs themselves gave out from under her. And then she continued to crawl. A child so young, forcing themselves so hard, it was a given that she would pass out.
When she woke, she was in the comfort of a bed, the home of an old hunter who had stumbled upon her during his forays into the woods. The man gave the young girl shelter, saw that her wounds were healed up, and went in search of her family once he could ensure her safety. What he found was a homestead, ruined, decrepit and stained with blood. He took what goods he could carry, and were still preserved, and decided to care for the young child himself.
Once she was strong enough, the child repaid him with a knife in the back. A needlessly cruel "kindness". The man had done nothing but help her, share his home and his food with her, but the image of the wolf was what had come to define her youth. And as rabid beasts slaughtered her parents, two individuals that had done nothing but love and care for the girl, she repeated that cycle with the hunter. Killing her caretaker meant fending for herself from then on, but she had been given rudimentary lessons in using the tools of the hunt before she used them to kill her teacher.
She sustained herself by hunting lesser game, and when that proved ineffective she came up with her own methods to obtain the kill. She was weaker than most of the creatures that would provide a great source of food, so she overcame them with her mind. Herbs, plants, fruit that could be turned into enticing traps and poison. Fire, smoke, wires and wood became the tools to ensnare and direct her prey. She found joy in this, and once she grew old enough to easily hunt for a living, the act of toying with her surroundings is where she found joy.
A scientist, an alchemist, a herbalist, she could be identified as many things. But in the ages before enlightenment she would be called a witch. The villages in her region of the world tolerated her, as she brought plenty of pelts and meat when she came to trade. It was fine to give her the herbs and plants she couldn't obtain on her own, so long as it didn't come back against the village. This earned her a reputation of course, as people often spoke of things they had no business in.
And when sickness befell one village, she was either to blame, or she was its salvation. When a group of villagers appeared before her doorstep, the witch clutched a dagger, fully prepared for the cycle to repeat itself. Instead they begged and pleaded for her aid. A concoction, a potion, anything that could save their dying children. Loathe to incur her wrath, they had gifted her the name Jaromira. Without her permission, of course, though she did like the sound of it.
She helped them. Went with them back to their village and heard their tales. They hadn't blamed her, for the blame fell upon themselves. A weak harvest had led to them giving a lesser offering to a local God, a being they called Dragan, God of All. A curse had fallen upon them for their callous act, and the children of every household would die as a result. In truth, it was little more than a cold and Jaromira knew just the right supplement to strengthen their immune systems. People were fickle and easily swayed, so she told them:
"This is not a curse, but a blessing, for Dragan pushed you to seek aid from the world and thus did he give you unto me".
It was meant to keep them from turning on her, as though she had aided the village, she was still a witch; an abominable creature that went against life. She was successful in placating them, but at the same time whispers were abound that she was some sort of avatar for the local deity. Petitions for aid became very common after that.
Life moved on in equilibrium. She had carved a place into her society, the villages depending on her for healing and care that they could not come to on their own, and she was content to stew away at the various life around her, unlocking their secrets through rudimentary experimentation. Once she felt she had discovered all that she could, she grew bored. Her world view was exceedingly narrow. The forest was vast, and to her, who had spent all of her years there, it was all of the world. To have unlocked all of its secrets meant there was no point in continuing.
In 576 BC Jaromira claimed her own life. Barring the doors of her home and setting it ablaze, she was long dead from the smoke by the time the fire even got to her. Instantly, her eyes were opened to a realm far more expansive than she thought possible. The World of the Living held so much than she had ever realised, and beyond that was a far greater realm: the world of the dead.
Soul Society[]
- 99 BC: Jaromira is made one of the first Captains of the Gotei 13.
- 1108 AD: The War of Days occurs, Jaromira's actions in the war causes her to lose her position amidst the Gotei, branded as a war criminal by the Central 46. She goes into hiding.
A Scarlet Affair[]
It was 1440 AD. Having hid within the shadows of Soul Society successfully for three hundred years without incident, it was bound to happen eventually that Jaromira would slip up. She was prideful, arrogant, and truly haughty. She had recently snuck into the Seireitei to meet some of her old contacts, and whilst there, she felt an overwhelming desire to exercise an old pass time. Riling up the nobility. True to her title, she smashed barrier after barrier of the noble households. The Gotei and Onmitsukidō were mobilised to find the intruder, but they could find no trace of that perfectly hidden Reiatsu. They instantly knew however, that there could only be one individual behind such an act. The compounds were unharmed, the nobility were still alive, and their treasures untouched. To flagrantly flaunt such a power, and to break so many barriers with such ease; the military knew exactly who they were after. But they would never find her.
She had broken into the Hizakura household. A relatively high-ranking family that had been known for the incredible quality of their textiles. Whilst admiring their works for herself she was caught by none other than the current heir of the family, Izakata. The young man was instantly taken in with her, bombarding her with all sorts of questions. When the Onmitsukidō arrived to question him about the break in, he had her hidden away in safety. Afterwards they talked, Izakata had been a follower of the works of the 12th Division that she had led and so Jaromira quickly came to the conclusion that he wanted her genius to assist in elevating his lineage. He claimed that to be true, though in reality he was simply enamoured by her and needed a way to keep her form disappearing into her seclusion once again. Having not been able to practice her craft so freely whilst on the run, she found herself amiable to the idea, and so Izakata and Jaromira came to an agreement; she would be the shadowy arm of the Hizakura for a time.
They spent twenty-five years together, and it would quickly become apparent that Izakata had never planned for any sort of ploy to advance his clan. He was after her. She denied him, time and again, content to play the part that she had agreed to, happily did she use this time to delve into the sciences for whatever she wished. Eventually, however, she let him in. She allowed him to court her, partly out of curiosity and a desire to have some form of companionship that wasn't trapped behind the walls that she surrounded herself with. Thus a real friendship sprouted, and then descended into romance. A secret affair, of course, for she was still a criminal after all, and only those closest to Izakata were allowed to know of her existence. In the spring of 1465 AD, Jaromira became pregnant. She was ecstatic; the woman who acted the part of God, who behaved as if she was mother of all creation, had come into her own. These children would undeniably be of her making, the most precious gift that she could have received. Nine months later, she gave birth to Kanaya and Iyori.
After she had recovered from the tribulations of childbirth, Izakata began broaching the topic of marriage. He wished to reveal to the world that Jaromira was a woman of the Hizakura household, that their house would not stand for the accusations held against her and fight until her name was clear. Jaromira could not understand it, why he would ruin his family just for her. So she decided to leave. She claimed to hate him, to hate how Humans and Souls were such irrational little pests that she simply could not fathom. It was stupid, and she was lying. As she left, she asked for only one thing of her former consort. "Please, tell them I was a great mother would you?"
She set out for the Central 46 chambers that same day. She sundered their barrier, and watched as the Gotei 13 flooded the scene. Lap dogs to a corrupt order. The Captains she knew were retired or otherwise indisposed by this point, all except for Yamamoto. As a courtesy, when he demanded her surrender, she obliged.
She was brought before the judges and wisemen of the Central 46 and sentenced for her many crimes. Countless infractions from breaking down the barriers of the noble houses; Recruiting criminals directly from the Nest of Maggots without consent; Ignoring directives in allowing the Gentei Reiin (限定霊印, Soul-Limiting Symbol) to be released; Instigating the supposed death of Seia Tulia Honoria and the collapse of her expedition to Hueco Mundo; Evading arrest when confronted. All of these were true to an extent, she made no attempt to deny it. She was sentenced to death.
A week later, and they still could not kill her. Method after method was attempted, all to no avail until they were forced to take a different approach. A "reassessment of the facts" was what they called it. She was to be sentenced to Muken, for a period of 10,000 years. The rumour that went around the Soul Society was that she had been given a year for each Human that was affected by her actions in the Human World, but the truth was far more likely a result of every sneer and jab she gave her so-called executioners as they failed to extinguish her life time and again.
She was strapped in with the greatest and most powerful seals of her time. Tied to a chair, so heavily restricted that the only thing anyone can see of her is her left eye. There she has remained for the last 500 years. Where she still sits even today.
Inventions & Discoveries[]
As one of the foremost experts in the field of scientific study throughout Soul Society, Jaromira has come to create many items both mundane and profound that have incredible use and implications for the spiritual community as a whole. Her inventions span a variety of fields, befitting her nature as a scientist who stretches her wisdom to many fields, rather than specialising in only one.
- Dentonbo (伝蜻蛉, Communications Dragonfly): Jaromira is responsible for the creation of a specific breed of dragonflies that have evolved with the ability to communicate across dimensional spans. Small for the standard of their kind, the Dentonbo were cultivated over several generations so that they could one day fulfill the purpose of acting as communication devices for the Gotei 13. Raised in a highly regulated environment, with an expensive and strict diet composed of rare stock, their entire life cycle had been dictated by their "creator". The Dentonbo communicate with one another through the motions of their wings, which create vibrations on a specific frequency that can be caught by their antennae and relayed to the brain. When influenced by even minuscule amounts of Reiryoku, they can greatly increase the range of the vibrations they make, as well as how easily they can received feedback. In the hands of the Gotei, they are branded with seals that bind them to a specific Shinigami and they then latch onto that person's ear, designating them as a "host". The host bestows a small amount of Reiryoku upon them, and the Dentonbo then acts as if it were a two-way radio. This allows Shinigami to remain in contact with one another regardless of dimension, and may be used to allow as many as fifty persons to communicate with each other at once. After Jaromira was apprehended for war crimes, their food stores dried up and as the Captain never divulged what their diet required, they eventually died out forcing the Gotei to find an alternative. Despite their apparent extinction, Jaromira claims that reviving them would be easy.
- Seisei-Zai (浄精剤, Spiritual Purity Drug): An incredibly potent drug developed by Jaromira, meant to allow lower-level Shinigami to face off against opponents that would ordinarily be stronger than them. A rare concoction that relies on ingredients obtained from a variety of spiritual creatures, it facilitates a temporary expansion in a person's production of Reiryoku. Each person is limited by how much Reiryoku their soul produces each day, which is why Shinigami, who rely on Reiryoku for battle, require outside sources of sustenance unlike normal Pluses who rely purely on their spiritual energy to keep them going through each day. The Seisei-Zai rapidly increases the rate in which the soul can produce this energy, and as such, its users find themselves with massively expanded energy reserves for a brief period. In its rawest form, the drug is able to elevate a Sixth Seat-ranked Shinigami to the level of a Captain in terms of raw power. Of course, at such a level, the soul is forced into a state of hyperactivity and inadvertently causes sickness in the user as a result. To be properly used, the drug is diluted several times over, thus lessening its potency and its resultant effects. Once diluted enough to prevent damage to the soul, it is capable of increasing a seated officer's power enough to stand on the level of a Lieutenant, and a Lieutenant to that of a Captain, at least on average. This effect lasts a total of three hours, where the undiluted version lasts an entire week. Still, despite the sickness, if its users are sufficiently hardy, they may be able to suffer through the drawbacks of the undiluted version of the drug, and in fact, Jaromira used this very thing to overcome the lengthy process of awakening Bankai, putting a few members of the 12th Division through life-or-death training whilst under the drug's effects to force them to achieve the Zanpakutō's final release. She had successfully cut the process down to five days with this method using hand picked candidates. The drug may come in pill, or liquid forms, and can even be administered as a suppository.
- Funkaimon (紛界門, World Diverting Gate): The Shinigami preside over the Human World and Soul Society, that is all that falls within their jurisdiction, and all that they have natural access to. As Hueco Mundo, the home of Hollows, is disconnected from the Dangai, members of the Gotei 13 are unable to reach it, and thus their duties are primarily reactionary in nature. They can't attack the Hollows on their home turf, instead they are forced to wait until a Hollow attempts to hunt for souls before they can strike it down. Jaromira sought to overcome this hurdle by finding a means to create a gateway to Hueco Mundo from Soul Society. Her experiments first began producing results just before the start of the War of Days, and by the war's final stages, she had perfected the means to travel between these normally disconnected realms. Using two large heptagonal pillars as the borders of a gateway, Reiryoku is poured into them, as well as upon a catalyst, that rests between both pillars, something that has a connection to Hueco Mundo, such as a Hollow or artifacts that originated there. A gateway is opened using that connection, temporarily binding the summoning ground to Hueco Mundo for a time. If the gate is open for too long it risks pulling Hueco Mundo into the current dimension, which would destroy both realms of existence. Once the gateway is opened, an anchor is loosed into it which creates a massive bridge of Reishi that allowed passage for several hundred Shinigami at once, as expected of a tool created during wartime. The engineering behind the device was handled by Jojishi Kyōjin while Jaromira handled the more mystical aspects; as such it is a joint venture.
- Chosekki-yo (長石木世, The Realm of the Feldspathic Trees): The alteration of dimensional space. It is something a great many people aspire to, especially those who pursue scientific study. The ability to achieve something so great is not new, in the spiritual realm many beings can alter their surroundings to some degree, and the act of opening gateways between dimensions is a common means of travel. Breaking and warping dimensions can be seen as child's play almost, as such feats become startlingly common among the higher echelons of any field that is promoted in the spiritual world. However, there is a field that is rarely touched, and that is the creation of a new dimensional space. There are many worlds that exist beyond just the Soul Society and the Human World, but they all tend to have been present long before their inhabitants came into being. It is exceedingly rare for someone currently living to have been around to witness the creation of a unique reality, and even rarer still to have had any part in it. Jaromira's greatest masterpiece then, is that sacrosanct act of creation. An entire dimension, a unique realm of space with its own reality, its own laws, functions and inner workings. It is an entire universe unto itself, and exists apart from the Soul Society, completely disconnected from the Dangai. It is widely known, but rarely accepted outright, that the "world" is made up of distinct barriers, or shields, that interlace through every part of the world to keep everything separated. These barriers take many forms, but are all linked by the fact that they are typically imperceptible, and very few creatures can actually interact with these barriers for that is the sacred territory of God. Jaromira herself stumbled upon the barriers that protect the Human World from the empty void of space that separates it from the Soul Society, and after learning how to repeat her good fortune, came up with the means to not only study these incredible machinations, but recreate them as well. Thus she created partitions that could cordon off a section of empty space, and used her Gendō to fill that void with an entire realm of existence. Such a thing would normally be transient, as Gendō relies on the beliefs of others to make its effects real, thus Jaromira created the "cornerstones", select individuals who were placed into the realm under certain conditions that made them accept it as real. These "cornerstones" were Satoru Kyōfu, Jojishi Kyōjin, and Hachū Bōkunō who were each forced to spend five days in the realm whilst training. Having lived in and accepted those surroundings as "real", the three of them unknowingly gave birth to Jaromira's own world. At the time when they entered it, the world was dead earth drowned in blackness, but a thousand years since then, the world is now populated by trees made of feldspar, and a Sun now rises in its ashen skies. Jaromira has stated that the world appears so dead because it is currently in a state of infancy.
Esoterology (謎実学 (エソテロロジ), Esoteroroji; Study of Rejected Knowledge)
- Kushi-Mitama (奇御霊, Wondrous Soul): The soul sits at the very core of every being, whether they live in the spiritual world or the physical one. It sits at the heart of every construct, from people to animals to even inanimate objects and concepts. Everything that exists in some form possesses a soul and it is the most necessary ingredient for anything to exist. The soul is where memories reside, where a name is solidified, and it is the source of each individual's Reiryoku, constantly generating a certain amount of spiritual energy like a form of metaphysical heart. In a sense, the soul could be considered the truest form of life, that from which all else stems. For Jaromira it has been the greatest hurdle for her, both as a scientist and a being that claims itself a position of Godhood. She has spent a great portion of her career on developing instruments specifically to study the soul, to break it down and quantify every speck, every atom, of its construction so that she could replicate it. It is not considered a sin that she attempted such a thing, she was hardly the first person in Soul Society to ever be intrigued by the inner workings of a soul, but an irremovable black mark has been left upon her for succeeding. Late in the War of Days, Jaromira had completed her replication of the soul, a perfect artificial duplicate of her very own core. It began as a blank slate, and the last phase of her testing required that she place the soul next to her own, implanting it within her body so that it could replicate the details of her real soul. During her fight with Roshan Bamshad, she sacrificed the artificial soul to power a Shūryō spell, though the magic tried to claim her real soul as well, damaging her body in the process. This has since led her to believe that her artificial copy wasn't, in fact, truly complete as the spell should have accepted it if that were the case. After being freed from Muken, continued study of the soul has become her number one priority.
- Zanpakutō Sublimation: The powers of a Zanpakutō come from within their wielder, a piece of their soul that is separated from themselves and contained within a blade. It reflects the nature of their wielder as it is a literal part of themselves simply cut from the whole. It stands to reason that if the soul can be severed, then there should also be means to re-merge those fragmented pieces. While studying that particular avenue, Jaromira discovered that not only could she return the splintered portion of her own soul to its original place, she could do so in just such a way as to keep the Zanpakutō's existence intact. This resulted in a form of sublimation. Where the physical container, the sword, has been destroyed and subsumed by Jaromira but the powers, and the Zanpakutō spirit remain. This allowed Jaromira to, essentially, cannibalise her own Zanpakutō, robbing it of all autonomy, will and power, leaving behind little more than a husk trapped in the deepest regions of her Inner World. Though Jaromira is technically "whole", her soul has not actually been completely recombined. Instead, the fragment that is her Zanpakutō has been re-attached to a near perfect extent, but is held in place by an outside force, thus preventing it from truly returning to its master. Jaromira now exists in a state that could be considered both that of a Shinigami and Zanpakutō. Her achievement of such a thing is one of many reasons she was placed within Muken, as perverting the very nature of a Shinigami is tantamount to blasphemy in the eyes of the Central 46. Despite this, one need only ask to have the procedure performed on them as Jaromira's adherence to rules is well known to be lax.
Powers & Abilities[]
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Peerless Intellect: Jaromira is one of the greatest minds to have ever emerged in Soul Society, standing among the likes of Kirio Hikifune, Kisuke Urahara, and, Mayuri Kurutsuchi. She is immortalised as the first link in the chain that would give the Gotei 13 its own independence in scientific study and development. Before the Gotei 13 was founded, the scientific endeavours of Soul Society were handled by the Central 46 and other, unrelated bodies throughout the Seireitei. When Jaromira came into the fold, she pushed immediately for the scientific fields. The Gotei was to be a purely military organisation, or so the mandate went when the group was founded, but as was her way, Jaromira ignored this to pursue her own preferred goal. Thus she laid the foundations for what would be crowning achievements of many individuals, and her work is glorified through them. Of course, simply laying the groundwork for something to manifest later isn't much of a feat on its own, though it is hardly Jaromira's only one. Her entire life has been devoted to knowledge and understanding, and the only thing she can truly be referred to is a scientist. This was the path she walked, both in life and in death. Before science had even become a common craft in the Human World, Jaromira has been studying it. Alchemy, biology, chemistry, science has been her every waking moment for which she was labeled a witch in that simpler age. Though it wasn't untrue, as she dabbled in the esoteric just as she did the mundane. As such she possesses an incredible acumen for nearly all fields of scientific study, both those founded in Soul Society and outside it. She is almost encyclopedic in her knowledge of these subjects which she jealously guards, wiring her brain so thoroughly with Kidō that picking away at her secrets is more likely to seal her mind than reveal it. She rivals the upper echelons of the Kidō Corps in their own craft, and has consistently made a mockery of both the high nobility and the scientific community of Soul Society. Despite her antagonistic nature, Soul Society is forced to tolerate her because to see her on the enemy's side would be an immense and obvious disadvantage. So great were her academic applications that she had committed war crimes for centuries before they finally came back to bite her. She is responsible for many scientific discoveries within the field known as Esoterology; a difficult field of study that deals with the alien and mystifying rules of the spiritual realms. Through her studies she found means to manipulate Zanpakutō and even replicated the information found within souls themselves. She has an incredible eye for talent, and was one of the few Captains in all of the Gotei's history to personally recruit every member of her Division. Rarely did she relegate that duty, even rarer was it for her to accept someone who applied to the Division themselves. Instead she found those with the best minds and the greatest potential and brought them into her ranks, such was the case with her former Lieutenant Satoru Kyōfu, as well as Jojishi Kyōjin and Hachū Bōkunō whom she claimed from the clutches of the Nest of Maggots. She is also particularly keen to the minds of others, and takes great pleasure in something she refers to as the "grand game". She likes to guess and poke at the minds of others, seeing whether she can predict their actions ahead of time. Her prowess in magic would allow her to simply peer into the minds of people, but she decries such acts as boring. It is far more appealing to her to treat such things as if they were experiments of their own, to judge her own analytical skills and to test those around herself. Likewise, she is attentive to limits and potential in others, not only is she aware of people's innate ability, but she can often tell how that ability would progress when molded in the right ways. She is a master teacher, and a greatly obtuse one at that. She will often provide the means for someone to grow under different auspices and set the conditions in such a way as to enforce that her target achieves what she wishes to see or they will die. To date, there has never been a casualty among those she has put through her training methods. Just as she can perceive the potential and thought of others, she can also quickly deduce the flaws in something. Be it the form of a style, or the weaknesses of a spell's construction, even the plans someone has put together. It is rare that she will be placed in a situation and not notice exactly what she needs to in order to give herself a situational advantage. By reading one's body language she can point out the discrepancies in weight distribution or ability to react, by peering into the flow of energy she may point out the impurities and imbalances of a spell. Analysing a physical structure she could point out the flaws in its foundation or the materials behind it. Unexpected occurrences rarely hinder her either, in fact she often looks forward to having to devote more of her time to thinking of a way through a predicament. To test her at all is the greatest honour, or so Jaromira would put it.
Endless Spiritual Power: Jaromira has always been spiritually sensitive, though she rarely bothered to act upon it as a Human, she had the capacity to interact with the spirits of the dead, and could be sometimes caught observing those beings, even if she had no interest in meeting them directly. After her passing, this was reflected in a voracious Reiryoku that attracted its fair share of recruiters once she found her place in Soul Society. She shrugged them all off at first, mages, bandits, even the Balancers, until she was offered the prospect at being amidst the forefront of something new: the founding of the Gotei 13. As the founding Captain of the Twelfth Division, the generation hailed as the strongest in Soul Society's history, Jaromira obviously possesses a powerful Reiryoku, one strong enough to stand with her peers. But it has since evolved greatly in the time that followed. As a result of her battle with Roshan Bamshad during the War of Days, Jaromira found her own soul damaged. Using a copy of her soul to fuel a Shūryō spell, the fake was absorbed, but in the process the spell tried to absorb her actual soul as well, as the spell's cost demanded. She broke free of the effect, but a piece of her soul was torn away which left behind an irreparable wound. An affliction today known as a "soul scar" (霊傷, Reishō), it has left a hole of sorts in the core of Jaromira's very being through which her Reiryoku seeps. While it is an injury, the effect has had its share of benefits. Reiryoku is typically generated in incredibly limited amounts, enough to completely sustain someone of lesser power, but for those who possess enough Reiryoku to fight, it is rather meager. Jaromira's Reiryoku pours as if it were flooding out from a broken dam, and thus gives her incredible reserves to use at any time. While most Captain-level Shinigami require sustenance to stay healthy, Jaromira is able to rely entirely on her Reiryoku. In battle she freely casts high level spells, and unleashes powers equivalent to a Bankai with startling frequency all whilst showing no signs of fatigue. From those that have studied her condition, it is believe that Jaromira lives multiple lifetimes every second, under the belief that Reiryoku is regulated to be emitted by a soul for an amount encompassing the needs of a single day. As Jaromira taps ever deeper into her seemingly infinite supply, she burns through entire years worth of her own spiritual energy in a matter of moments. One's maturity is supposedly linked to the "age" of one's Reiryoku so it may speak well that Jaromira still retains a youthful appearance, having only aged a few years physically over the last 500 years. This energy is, of course, not entirely stable. The sheer amount of it causes problems for Jaromira, weakening her physical durability over all and afflicting her with a form of "energy sickness" where prolonged use of her own energy causes her to become sick with strain, reducing her to vomiting pools of liquid Reiryoku in the process. For those who face her, there could be no greater opportunity to strike than when her own power turns against her, even if only briefly.
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Kidō Grandmaster: When it comes down to it, science is about uncovering the underlying mechanics of something and unraveling them in such a way so as to create a system of rules that makes sense to anyone willing to pay attention to it. Or so it works in the Human World, at any rate. Everything changes when one enters the world of spirits. Though many of the realities of the Human World exist, one will be quick to realise that they have become malleable. The fundamental laws, such as those that exist for gravity, momentum, friction, even physics as a whole stop behaving as they normally would when presented with someone or something powerful enough to overrule the mechanics behind them. In that way, science, when considered by spiritual beings, is not making sense of something so that everyone can understand and follow it, it is the process by which one particular comes to understand these things; creating their own rules, and underlying mechanics in the process. This will often be challenged by others, as the rules won't make sense to everyone, but the only true rules in the spiritual realm are those created by Reiryoku and willpower. If one's will is strong enough, then their word is law, essentially. The only thing that can supersede them is a stronger will. As a scientist herself, it only makes sense that Jaromira would seek to understand something as complex as Kidō through that same lens. Since her very first encounter with the art form known to Souls as magic, Jaromira has sought to break it down to its most fundamental components so as to create a coherent system by which to manipulate this power in the best possible way. As her Human life was dominated by the practice of hermitage, it was only reasonable that this system would exclusively follow her own thought process, without input from anyone else. This makes her accomplishment rather astounding in practice, because not only did she succeed in her endeavour alone, but she created a system that works without any noticeable flaw. Manipulation of energy both internal and external is efficient and quick, her control over Reishi seems both natural and profound, with a clear domination over just how easily it bends to her wishes. The mechanics, rules and laws of Kidō were all broken down before her and then built back up in ways to suit the purposes she envisioned for them. Incantations, motions, sentience and identity, all of these things pervade her spellcraft still, but in ways that clearly stand out from those who merely practice Kidō, whereas Jaromira seeks to define it. In turn, one could say that Kidō very well defines her as well. The extravagance inherent of the spells speaks well of the grandiosity of her ego. The power and destruction that Kidō can be committed towards speaks similarly of her temper, and the spells inherent of Bakudō reveals her motherly nature and the truth of her cunning. The ease with which Reishi flocks to so many casters, the coalesced and disparate wills, they are a tale of caution for Jaromira's temperament. She isn't prone to remaining somewhere for the long haul, if it becomes boring, then it becomes a waste of her time. So too do allegiances and relationships fall through if she feels they have run their course. She is at best truly loyal only to herself, even if she does act the part of the mother behind closed doors. Speaking beyond the symbolical, her power is something that should be held in close regard. To ignore Jaromira is to invite demise, as everything unravels around you. Her mastery is, at best, murky; a hopeful result of her long time spent away from the public eye in Soul Society. At worst, her skill in Kidō is something unfathomable, stretching into the depths of knowledge and closing in on the gates of divinity. Despite her rank within the Gotei 13, and even her isolationist nature as a person, it is more than clear that her knowledge of spells travels a stretch far greater than what is made available for public or the military. She encroaches and consumes the territory of the Kidō Corps and beyond. She is not one to be satisfied with an arbitrary number, instead she greedily laps up all that she can come to know. For Kidō is an eternal pursuit, one chased by many individuals each with their own governing laws and purposes. It is rare to find a spell that Jaromira does not know, it is even rarer to find a spell that is unique in purpose to her, for if she does not know a spell by name than she is more than likely to know a spell of identical purpose from a different creator. Beyond theoretical knowledge, of course, lies practical application. Kidō has become everything for Jaromira. She has studied all of the Zankensoki and come to find each of its parts lacking, except for Kidō. To master it as well as she has, to break it down in every respect only to build it back up. It is unquestionable to think she would be unable to use these spells. It is almost blasphemous to believe she would limit their potential. Spells as simple as Shō and Sai becomes tools of complete domination and devastation in her hands. Rarely can it be said that she would ever need more than either of these two to completely decimate the ranks of her foes. But a master is not accredited on what they can do with the basics alone, but the security that they can pass even the most complex of their teachings down to the next generation. To witness Jaromira unleashing blazing torrents of flames and summoning bottomless oceans, is to acknowledge and accept that she is a master of her craft as she steps well beyond the realm of what one can achieve through natural means to embody phenomena herself.
  Jaromira's eye as it embodies Shō.
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Tantoride Gūjinkiyo (嘆砦偶人聖, Lamentable Fortress of the Sanctified Puppet) is the name of Jaromira's Zanpakutō. It once took the form of a tsurugi of standard shape, possessing a double-edged straight blade. It lacked ornamentation, and came with no guard. Its hilt was wrapped in a shimmering blue cloth, and its kashira was sharpened into a spiked protrusion, resembling a fang. As a woman who pursues mastery over something with unrivaled fervor, it makes sense that she would have unlocked every secret of the blade that carries a fragment of her soul. But as a woman who despises combat by arms, it makes more sense that she would forego its use entirely in favour of the means that suit her best. Though she was content with using it during her early days as a Captain, especially as lauded mark of her station, it has fallen into disuse the more she attached herself to her science and the art of Kidō. One of her many experiments allowed her to do away with the blade entirely, in a distasteful mockery of the pinnacle that masters of Zanjutsu seek to attain. Gūjinkiyo was forcefully sublimated back into Jaromira's soul, though not in the truest sense. Its physical form, the Zanpakutō, was destroyed and Jaromira herself was remodeled to become Gūjinkyo's container. In that sense, she is a Zanpakutō and may harness all of the powers of Gūjinkyo as she wishes. She has no need for release states, and may as well be likened to living in a permanent Bankai state. This gives Jaromira great illusory-based powers that she may cast as freely as any of her magic.
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Former Powers & Abilities[]
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Gūjinkiyo (偶人聖, Sanctified Puppet) is Jaromira's Zanpakutō, described as being immature and one of the few Zanpakutō to have a gender opposite to its owner. In its sealed form the sword takes the form of a tsurugi with a steel center and golden edges, giving the blade a two-fold colour. The sword lacks a tsuba, instead the blade flows right into the hilt which has ridges and curves across its entirety. The hilt is black in colour with a crescent pommel. The top of the hilt has the kanji for "life" (命) engraved on it. The sheath is made of an ornate red-wood with a durable pink string on either end to be held over Jaromira's shoulder. It is an Illusion-type Zanpakutō.
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Trivia[]
- Izakata Hizakura used to affectionately refer to her as Jara (ヤラ, Yara).
- Jaromira is a Slavic name meaning "peace", or, "world".
- According to Otoya Kurogane's Fullbring, Dirty Accountant, Jaromira possesses a Price Level of 122,000.
- Jaromira's Esoterology comes from User:Ash9876's own Esoterology article from the Fairy Tail Fanon wiki, though the translation used for its meaning has been changed. Its use was granted with permission.
- In Japanese, Jaromira would refer to herself with the pronoun chin (朕), it is an archaic word that was used only by the Emperor of Japan, mostly prior to World War II.
- Images on this article were drawn by Luminent-Soul on DeviantArt on commission from the author, and by User:ShonenChicoBoy upon request.
Appearances[]
- Bleach Crossroads
- Bleach: The Coven War
- The Sorcerers Gambit
- The Withered Branch
- All Around Jingshan (Referenced Only)
- To Right an Injustice (Referenced Only)
- Blood like Roses
- Worlds Apart
Gallery[]
