This article, Kei Hirata, is property of Stylx |
Kei Hirata | |
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Race | Shinigami |
Birthday | 2nd February |
Age | 25 (Physical) 201 (Actual) |
Gender | Male |
Height | 181 cm (5'11) |
Weight | 77 kg (169 lb.) |
Blood Type | O |
Professional Status | |
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Affiliation | Gotei 13 |
Profession | Shinigami |
Position | 6th Seat |
Division | Thirteenth Division |
Partner | Chiyoko Mori |
Base of Operations | Seireitei |
Personal Status | |
Education | Shin'ō Academy |
Zanpakutō | |
Shikai | Hyōjin |
First Appearance | |
Story Debut | Dawn of Hardship: Cold Road |
- "Amorally just."
- —Stylx
Kei Hirata (敬平田, Hirata Kei), is a Shinigami and the Sixth Seated Officer of the Thirteenth Division in the Gotei 13. He serves under Captain Tamiko Iwasaki. His partner is Chiyoko Mori.
Appearance[]
Kei appears as a young man of Japanese descent who looks as he is in his mid 20's, he is surprisingly tall and has a toned and lean physique, having good muscle to fat distribution for his height and weight and generally looking physically conditioned and fit. He has short, matte black hair which is rather spiky and somewhat unkempt. Kei's facial features are naturally thin and lean, he has a rather long, angular nose which curves sharply at it's end, Kei's eyes are a sharp, steel grey in colour, and have a dark Corneal Limbus surrounding his iris, his jawline is sharply defined and his chin ends off with a slightly rounded point, making his face look rather triangular.
Kei normally wears the typical Shinigami attire of a Shihakushō, which overall consists of a black Hakama and a black Kosode, a white Shitagi, a white Obi and finally a white Tabi and Waraji that all Shinigami normally wear. Kei doesn't have any visible modifications to his Shihakushō that are notable in any way, he does, however, wear elbow length black arm warmers at all times along with his Shinigami uniform. During expeditions in the Human World, Kei wears casual attire that is inconspicuous in nature, consisting off a plain white, short-sleeved T-shirt, a pair of normal fitting jeans and plain white trainers, also on occasion Kei wears a plain black jacket along with his typical Human World attire.
Personality[]
Kei typically displays a distant and dismissive demeanor to most people he interacts with, preferring not to converse with others if it can be so, while he is able to form bonds and relationships with others to a certain degree, they rarely go past being professional in nature, and while it is possible to establish some sort of friendship with him, Kei's cold demeanor typically means he is unable to hold said friendship for any long length of time. Due to Kei's preference of relative isolation and his solitary personality, Kei's reputation with his comrades is strained at the best of times, due to his comrades disliking Kei's flippant attitude while subsequently Kei disliking his comrade's comments about him, often spurring him to make snide remarks towards them when they annoy him to much. His constant friction with his peers causes Kei's teamwork to suffer, as he is unable to properly communicate with his teamates making team specific objectives hard to achieve due to him not working with his comrades properly and faltering.
While he certainly dislikes annoying and aggravating behaviour, Kei has a surprisingly long fuse towards any annoying individual, he is generally able to shrug of the annoyances anyone shows for a short amount of time before finally becoming angry and snapping at the person in question. Due to his long fuse, Kei is relatively cool headed in most situations, especially in battle, he is able to keep calm and not be rattled by most attempts to shock him. Also in battle though, Kei displays a fairly warped sense of justice, which was mainly brought on due to his "revenge" on the local Rukongai residence who murdered his family, Kei typically cares little for the severity of his methods in battle, often making amoral decisions which may be wrong or even cruel, usually calling for another person to bring him to his senses.
In the past, Kei's personality was quite vastly different from how it is now, during his time living in the safer lower mid-level District of the Eastern Rukongai with his parents, Kei was a lot more sociable and happy, if not slightly coddled, during this time Kei often enjoyed the thought of socialising with friends and would often handle any jabs at his shy nature relatively well, usually laughing it off nervously, despite being shy at times, he would openly state his displeasure at certain choices he disagreed with, a trait which he has surprisingly kept as he has grown up. During his time in the more dangerous areas of the Eastern Rukongai, Kei slowly and gradually lost his sociable disposition and became overly fearful or the new locals and more and more secluded and reserved, after his parents death and after being forced to fend for himself in a hostile environment, Kei's personality once again gradually started to change into his personality at present, becoming significantly more cold and dismissive in nature.
Despite Kei's dismissive and distant attitude towards most people, be they comrades or strangers, he has an oddly warm, if not slightly one-sided friendship with his partner and fellow Seated Officer, Chiyoko Mori. Initially their relationship was more typical for Kei, with Kei distancing himself from her, however, due to the two of them being partnered together, and with Chiyoko eventually surpassing Kei's rank while they were in the Gotei 13, they started to become rivals of sorts, before finally becoming genuine friends. Kei's attitude towards Chiyoko is a lot more caring than that of his typical attitude, mirroring that of his younger self slightly. He is able to converse with her more with others, and despite his still cool demeanor towards her, which Chiyoko usually handles well, he genuinely values her as a friend.
During his time off, Kei often spends his time training and honing his Zanjutsu skills, usually opting to go to the Seireitei's Dōjō in order to do so, during the times he isn't training, Kei goes into the Rukongai to relax and just walk about quietly. Kei particularly enjoys clear, cold, windless nights and is often seen laying down on one of the roofs of his Division barracks, idly staring up at the sky, stargazing. He has a slight interest in the electronic equipment that the Human World has, usually observing various pieces of equipment which interest him, because of this, Kei has some knowledge on how it works and has amassed a small collection of electronic Human World gadgets that he keeps in his quarters.
History[]
Kei was born and raised by his parents in a lower risk mid-level district of the Eastern Rukongai, during his early and intermediate childhood in the Rukongai, Kei grew up as a relatively happy and social, if not a slightly coddled child, often either helping his parents do chores or just playing with the local kids who had made him their friend.
However, despite living in the relative safety and comfort of their District, Kei and his parents started to become more and more financially strained, becoming unable to support themselves and Kei due to their difficulties. The family was forced into moving out of their old District, and moving into a higher leveled and subsequently more lawless and dangerous District of the Eastern Rukongai, despite Kei's pleas of disagreement and fits of anger due to him losing his only friends.
During his time in his new new district with his parents, despite the seemingly easier to earn supplies, Kei and his parents quickly become the targets of constant hostility from their new neighbors due to the locals disliking their former luxuries that they had. Due to the consistent harassment of both him and his parents, Kei started to become more timid and increasingly more isolated until he didn't go out of the house at all due to his fear of the locals.
A couple of months later, while both Kei and his parents were inside their house, a mod of angry locals abruptly stormed their way into Kei's house, accusing the family of once again stealing and threatening death upon all three of them. The mob them proceeded to viciously attack Kei's parents as they protected Kei long enough for him to retreat out of the mob's sight, however Kei, desperate to see his parents, returned some time after the mob had left, only to find his parents brutally killed and dead.
With no one else to support him, Kei had started to steal, lie and even attack others in order to survive like many other orphaned children who shared his fate, however despite being forced to do so, Kei kept feeling guilty for the crimes he committed in order to live. After a couple of months however, Kei started to become less shy and more desensitized to the acts of theft and deception that had previously made him feel guilty, he became increasingly more dismissive and cold towards others, he started to despite the brutes that had murdered his parents instead of fear them, finding a sense of twisted justice in stealing their food and water, living off the lives that lived off his parent's lives and even attacking some of the locals out of anger.
Kei continued living like this for a number of years, he kept stealing food and water in order to keep him alive, he kept scrapping both with adults and younger kids and he started to eavesdrop over anyone he could in order to keep himself informed about the world around him, while doing this one day, Kei overheard two men conversing about spiritual power, and how people with large amounts of this spiritual energy could join the Gotei 13, the army of the Soul Society and the home of the Shinigami, who had a guaranteed place of comfort. Kei found this opportunity to take advantage of the higher class irresistible, and after finding out that he had enough spiritual power to at least join the Gotei 13, he immediately admitted himself into the Shinō Academy.
During his time at the Academy Kei was extremely cold towards nearly everyone he met, which initially shocked the young Shinigami trainee at first, as he had memories of making loads of friends and being overtly social, however, despite his shock, he continued through his education, eventually forgetting about his change in personality and his lack of care for his peers. During his first aptitude test, Kei ultimately failed due to his lacking skill in Zanjutsu, the Shinigami art of swordsmanship, forcing him to retake his last year in order to have another attempt at his test, during this year Kei trained extensively in Zanjutsu, becoming so absorbed in the art that he started to neglect his other areas of combat, however, in his second attempt he managed to pass with slightly above average grades and he was initiated into the Gotei 13, as an unseated member of the 13th Division.
After he became a member of the Gotei 13, Kei continued with his Zanjutsu trained along with his new duties, coldly ignoring his peers and become more dismissive and removed from his Division. During one of his practice sessions, Kei was called by his Captain to introduce a new recruit to the division, Chiyoko Mori, Kei was assigned to become Chiyoko's partner and to help her train and improve, initially, Kei completely ignored his new partner, acting cold towards her and openly stating to her that she was annoying, however, as they both raised through the ranks, and with Chiyoko starting to surpass Kei in skill, they started to become rivals, changing Kei's perception on his partner and finally warming up somewhat to her, and gradually developed a genuine friendship with Chiyoko.
After a couple of years in continuous service, Kei managed to attain the position of a 6th Seated Officer while Chiyoko subsequently attained the position of a 5th Seated Officer, both of them being assigned as each other's permanant partner due to their surprisingly co-operative relationship.
Powers and Abilities[]
Expert Swordsmanship Specialist: Due to both the nature of his melee-centric Zanpakutō and his initial incompetence in Zanjutsu, Kei has extensively trained in the art of Zanjutsu over all other aspects of Zankensoki and has subsequently been able to attain an extremely high level of skill in the art of using a Zanpakutō. Kei's expert skill in swordsmanship allows him to hold his own and makes him even capable of pushing back certain opponents with just his swordsmanship alone. He is able to combine and mix various Zanjutsu techniques into rather relentless combination assaults, however Kei often drains himself extensively when he utilises his Zanjutsu techniques too liberally, often causing him to perform worse in drawn out battles. Kei's preferred style of fighting is mainly a mix of different attacks which vary in complexity, swapping from simple, straightforward attacks to more erratic and irregular jabs and cuts which are meant to catch the opponent off guard, Kei also implements Iaijutsu into his fighting style, as he tends to start off his battles by performing a slash which starts while his sword is sheathed.
Hakuda Practitioner: As a result of growing up in harsh areas of the Rukongai when younger, being forced to scrap with other kids and local merchants, Kei started to learn to fight in hand-to-hand combat to a proficient degree, after being formerly trained in the basics of Hakuda, Kei is able to fend off human sized opponents competently for a short amount of time without the use of his Zanpakutō or his Kidō spells. However, due to Kei's focus on Zanjutsu, he has neglected his training in Hakuda somewhat, and as such Kei employs a much rougher and unrefined variation of the Zankensoki art, using more brute force in his attacks rather than speed and finesse that Hakuda usually emphasises, despite his lack of advanced knowledge in the art, Kei is still able to fight hand-to-hand, using a sufficiently powerful, if not slow, impromptu fighting style. Kidō Practitioner: Kei's skill in the art of Kidō is basic at best, he hasn't expanded much upon his ability to utilise the demon spells much past the low levels due to his preference of training in his Zanjutsu. However, he is still skilled enough to utilise the low level Kidō he knows effectively and with a good amount of power and control, even without any incantations, he does however, need to use incantations for mid level spells at all and he is unable to use high level Kidō spells due to the consumption of energy and overall lack of control, power and knowledge in them. Kei's favourite Kidō of choice is Hadō #4, Byakurai, due to its low level, its decent level of penetration damage and its small radius, allowing for it to be used liberally in battle while Kei has creating an opening in the enemy's defence. Shunpo Practitioner: At the Shinō Academy, Kei showed fair progress in Hohō and more specifically, the use of Shunpo, while he wasn't outstanding in the use of the high speed movement technique he was still able to travel impressive distances without immediately tiring, however, due to his initial failure at passing his aptitude exam on account of his lacking Zanjutsu skills, Kei focused solely on his swordsmanship, neglecting his other areas of combat, especially Shunpo, eventually opting to use his natural speed instead of the Hohō technique. As such, Kei's skill in the use of Shunpo is acceptable at best, he is still able to use the technique to travel significant distances in a short period of time, however, his Shunpo is slow, lacking the speed that it should have, causing it to pale in comparison to his peer's Shunpo. Due to his overall lack of experience in the technique Kei can become slightly fatigue after prolonged use of Shunpo. |
Keen Intellect: Kei's distant and dismissive personality makes him especially observant of his surroundings at the situation he and his allies are in, because of his observant nature, Kei is able to figure out an enemies predominant fighting style fairly quickly and can formulate plans of action to counteract them in a decent amount of time, however his overly blunt demeanor with his allies tends to make it hard for him to properly execute his plans out properly. Above Average Strength: Despite initially being rather frail while he was young, Kei's constant friction against the locals and other kids who also had to do what he did to survive eventually forced him to fight against others in order to keep his food, or to steal his attacker's food from them, this scrapping allowed Kei to become slightly more hardy and fit, despite his constant battle for nutritious food. After joining the Shinō Academy, Kei was taught in both Hakuda and Zanjutsu, which furthur increased his strength to rather high levels, even for a Seated Officer such as himself. Kei's attacks deliver a rather shocking level of weight and power, his strength is able to push back weaker or less vigilant opponents with relative ease and is on par with high leveled Seated Officers, his strength however is not at the same level as that of a typical Lieutenant's strength. Enhanced Speed: Despite his lacking skill in Hohō and Shunpo due to him neglecting them in favour for Zanjutsu, Kei makes up for it with his impressive natural speed and agility, he is able to use his speed to effectively keep up with his opponents without the use of Shunpo and subsequently outmaneuver them, employing complex footwork and athletic maneuvers to "dance around" his opponents. Kei typically forgoes the use of Shunpo in battle, opting to use his natural speed in most situations due to him being able to conserve more energy while still being able to out-speed and outmaneuver his foes. High Spiritual Power: Kei, being a Seated Officer, boasts of an above average level of Spiritual Power equivalent to other Seated Officers of and around of his calibre. Before actually honing it, Kei's Spiritual Power was rather weak in comparison to the Spiritual Powers of his peers, as he was only able to create a small aura when he was young, however, due to him honing his Spiritual Power in the Shinō Academy and during his time in the Gotei 13, he has been able to raise his overall amount of spiritual power and gain significant levels of control over it. Kei's Reiatsu visibly glows Teal when he exerts it. |
Hyōjin (輝く刀, Glistening Sword): When sealed, Kei's Zanpakutō takes the form of a normal Katana with a mostly hollow Tsuba which is circular in shape, the hilt of Kei's Zanpakutō is green. It is carried in a navy blue coloured sheath which is tied to Kei's obi.
Shikai Special Ability: Kei's Zanpakutō is a melee type Zanpakutō, and as such, it performs optimally in close range melee combat, due to the bigger length and width of the blade, Kei's attacks gain range, weight and area of impact while the spiked edges of his blade allow him to cause rather considerable hacking damage, which tends to cause less lethal wounds but more grievous cuts due to the blade's irregular shape. However, the main ability of Kei's Zanapkutō lies in the actual serrated spikes on the blade themselves, the spikes can be used for a number of techniques that vary in range, damage and overall application, be it melee, medium or long range, these techniques are activated when Kei calls out the name of the corresponding technique. The spikes also have the ability to regenerate themselves after a short while after they are fire from the blade itself, as the blade of Kei's Zanpakutō is able to manufacture the spiked blades from inside itself, finally splitting open at the edge bevel and allowing the spikes to once again form around the outside of the blade's edge.
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Trivia[]
- As an ever developing character, Kei has been initially portrayed as a relatively weak individual who throughout his adventure grows in both his power and his personality, eventually realising his full potential.
- Kei's two themes, as chosen by his author are Pinch Battle, from the Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor OST as his main battle theme and Power For The Future from the Tiger and Bunny OST as a theme for when Kei faces an extremely challenging situation which requires him to use all of his strength.