Rikkard Kahssi - 2nd Division, Unseated
General Information:
Height: 190cm
Weight: 85kg
Age: 260
Apparent Age: 28
Appearance:
Rikkard is a relatively tall man, he is of adequate strength which shows in his medium build, but he favours agility over power, as such he has built lean muscle mass rather than bulk. His shoulders and chest are broad enough, though nothing to be intimidated by. His dark brown hair is unruly and thick but not by any means long, he wears his fringe pushed back and away from his face. A beard matches perfectly the style of his hair. Rikkard Kahssi is unshorn to say the least. Beneath the hair he has squared features, a solid jaw, flat chin and a perfectly centred nose with a stout rectangular bridge. His dark brown eyes are shallow in his skull and discrimination between his pupils, and his iris can be very difficult without close study.
Personality:
Like many souls of Soul Society, Rikkard is old, at two hundred and sixty years old he has seen much. He has had plenty of time to calculate the reasoning of others, the beliefs of many, to make his own mistakes and to have experienced conflict; these experiences have placed Rikkard on the outside looking in. By now he has lost much of his passion and finds he is no longer blinded by a comfortable ignorance and easily accessed emotions. Age has made him too aware of the nuances of human nature and aware of how little things truly matter. This idealism makes it easy for him to forgive in most cases, easy for him to ignore his own troubles and let things work out for themselves. It is a complicated notion for many to grasp, he can often be mistaken as apathetic. However he merely reserves his passion and emotion for things that - after years of human study - he has deemed worthy.
For instance, Rikkard will not be easily goaded into battle. Insults to his honour, pride or to him don't bother him at all. These things are just words and Rikkard takes no offence from anything that can't directly harm him. Generally in attempt to avoid ego-driven contests, and attention from obnoxious minded people eager to criticise your form, often the thing they selves need to work on. Seeing himself as a sort of 'spiritual anthropologist' his sense morality is lenient when compared to that of others: thievery tends not to bother him, violence is just a part of human nature, alcohol and drug use are indulgences designed for enjoyment - how could he judge?
However leniency does mean non-existent, he has a fierce loyalty to innocence and will refuse to see it harmed (innocence most often coming in the form of children) and of course a fierce loyalty to Soul Society, the Sereitei and his fellow Shinigami (though not necessarily their morals). His position as a Shinigami is one of the rare things he takes seriously these days and the only thing he has deemed worthy enough for proper attention since the very beginning.
Biography
Life before Soul Society is unbeknownst to Rikkard, one day he was awake, thrust into the Soul Society. It was a bright light, an incredible gut-wrenching rush and he was conscious, on his back in the fields of Rukongai breathing the air. Everything to him was instinct, language, walking, eating and breathing - and one thought he knew to be true. That he had been reborn, somehow, from somewhere and his life was only just now beginning. For the bulk of his life in Soul Society Rikkard was a wanderer, out of some anthropological interest he engaged in many experiences the Rukongai had to offer him: The runner-up champion of the local fight club in District sixty-four, a fish merchant in District nineteen, a patron at many of Rukongai's whore houses and sake bars, a student of the art of meditation and a teacher years later, even a well-achieving student in the 'District four School of Origami and Other Crafts.' There was no moral black and white to him, all things in Rukongai begged to be experienced.
All these things were Rikkard's life for going on two-hundred years, it was a good life.
It was not until one late evening that he stumbled across a man in the streets, he was dressed head to toe in mysterious black robes. Though he had never seen a Shinigami before Rikkard knew immediately his occupation. The man himself was overly-proud and arrogant, dismissing Rikkard's enthusiastic introduction, yet remaining in the street to regale him with tales of success and superiority. Despite his arrogance the stories he told held Rikkard's silence, it was obvious that despite the man's self-confidence he still held the Gotei 13 in the highest regard. The two adjourned from the street and entered into a near-by restaurant, where the two held discussion for the remainder of the night. He told Rikkard of the intricate art of combat, the in-depth study of Kido and the long lasting culture that the Gotei 13 was built from. The ranks, divisions and organizations that had their own customs and identities. It was this man that gave Rikkard his true purpose after near two hundred years of life and a new anthropological interest. Soon after he sought to join the Shinigami Academy. His life still had many hundreds of years left, he had spent the first of them as all infants should in the world - learning and developing themselves, by now he was ready for adulthood, to protect the thing he had grown to cherish and allow for others to experience the wonder of Rukongai and Soul Society.
Not to mention the hidden potential of any Shinigami is near impossible to deny, eventually they all enrol. He spent the six years of education in the Academy and specifically focused on his Hakuda, honing his hand-to-hand combat to be his speciality as the time he had spent in various fight clubs amongst the Rukongai district were fond to him and the old experience came back to him naturally during his training.
Zanpakutou:
Rikkard's Zanpakutou is still in its Asauchi state, it resembles a simple katana. The blade is of a more subtle curve than other katanas that begin their curve in the very early sections of the blade. The hilt is decorated with blue wrapping and with a rhombus hilt guard.
Stats:
Reiatsu: 1000
Zanjutsu: 100
Hakuda: 400
Hohou: 300
Kido: 200
Reiatsu: 1000
Zanjutsu: 100
Hakuda: 400
Hohou: 300
Kido: 200
Sample Chapter:
It was always liberating to leave the confines of the Academy, especially in these late days. Graduation was approaching, and the pressure had been unbearable since the date for final exams had been announced. He had only intended to spare himself a few hours out here in the forest and even that, he knew, was much too long. But people trained for years for this occasion and years more afterwards towards greater things, if he didn't take this time to breathe now - would he ever?
The lush trees and the clean strong wind gave him a moment of peace, it was to this sound and feeling that he had awoken to two hundred years ago in Rukongai. He recreated his rebirth more accurately and fell to his backside, laying down on his back and staring straight up to the sky. He closed his eyes and let sleep take him, it was still only early afternoon, once he awoke he would force himself back to the academy to train for his Kido final. For two hours he thought he had slept, his dream had been short and he could still remember closing his eyes, but the moon above told him otherwise. He had blazed through the entire afternoon in what seemed like minutes.
"Oh, shit," he cursed, pushing himself up from the long grass.
He saw the way back and began along the route the he had taken to get here, the glow of the bustling twentieth District quite apparent in this evening darkness. The Kido final was barely two days away now, this wasn't a mistake to be taken lightly - there would be no more sleep until then he decided, too dangerous to squander six years of training to slothfulness.
Although I might have done so already...
His brisk pace cut through the long grass easily, he had strayed heavily from the path earlier in the afternoon looking for some kind of solace away from the others he would surely meet along the road. In hindsight-
He stopped himself
A useless attribute, he thought. Hindsight serves no purpose but to instil regret.
He began to run, not that it mattered much by now but it would be nice to say he didn't at least try when he failed the exam. His huhou was adequate enough to speed the process, but it would still take him a long time before he could return to the academy.
"Wait!"
He halted his run, skidding across the silky grass and taking a knee to stabilize himself. He turned his head back toward the denser forest he had just left. The voice was a man's voice, he seemed very distressed, and there was no mistaking the urgency in his voice.
"Yes, I'll wait! Come quickly!" Rikkard called back
"No!" the voice begged from amongst the forest "I need you to come back, I'm hurt, you ran straight past me!"
Rikkard stared into the forest, the situation was suspicious, cliché and the students had been warned before about this kind of behaviour. Hollow's baiting Shinigami or any kind of prey with a feigned innocence, only to devour them the moment they had the chance. What was worse was this voice was coming for the forest, it was no doubt rife with hiding spots for the creature. If there even was a Hollow.
"What hurt you out here? It's only the forest, the academy is just a few minutes away" he tried.
"I hurt myself, I was practising my kido and near drained half my Reiatsu channelling it into my technique."
A downright fool if he's being earnest, a clever killer if he's not...
"And you say you can't move?" Rikkard asked, still only yelling into shrubbery and trees
"No I can't, I can barely yell out any more, please just take me back to the academy!"
His mind had already made itself up a few minutes ago. He was going in, but his better judgement sought to delay him, maybe to persuade himself away from the situation.
Two hundred year of yourself, a thousand years more to come of education, gone because of a foolish act of selflessness...
"I guess so..." he sighed to himself, approaching the shrubs he has just before run through, his mark of exit between them still evident.
"Just hold on, I'm coming now," he assured the voice.
His guard was up, his senses were fully alert, he was sure many had taken this precaution before him and still failed but it was theory into practise all the same. He leant low and pushed back through the shrubs following from where he had remembered the voice. He was back into the denser forest and across from him he seen the man, just a few metres from where he had ran though like the voice had said. He was leaning back against the base a tree trunk, in between two large roots, his head hung low - he wasn't moving. Rikkard came quickly to his side, calling to him as he crossed the distance but with no reply, he arrived at his side and placed a friendly hand on his shoulder, while tilting his chin up with his free hand.
The face, if it called be called so, was faceless. In that very moment Rikkard knew he had damned himself. The man started to fade away, Rikkard's senses betrayal becoming apparent. There had been nothing there at all, no man, no shoulder to grasp or chin to hold, had the voice even been real?
A barb lashed out from behind him and struck deep into his back, slamming his front side into the tree. He felt the warm blood spill from his back and he certainly felt the cold wood that had smashed heavily onto his face. Without a warning he was hurled backwards by the barb in his back and thrown into the air and across the grassy forest floor, his blood spraying in the night across the moon above him. He was sprawled on the ground without a thought to him other than the searing hot pain in his back, he could see across from him some large scorpion like Hollow crossing the distance between them, with each step its savage legs stabbed into the ground.
thud thud thud thud thud
The sound brought him to his senses, cleared his mind of its agony for a short while. Escape was the only option here, he knew the route and he could possibly live to see it finished tonight. The barb came at him again and he leapt from his sprawled position, using his hohou to barely speed his movements. It was enough to escape death but as he moved for the break between the shrubs, the barb still pierced his leg and ran the cut through as Rikkard moved away from it. He landed at the exit from the dense forest on his right leg, lest his freshly pierced left leg terrorize him even more.
Bursting from one foot would make no difference but he used the technique all the same to speed through the shallow forest, the village was just over the ridge. The 20th District was near enough to Serietei - there would be a Shinigami posted guard without doubt, but could even he face this enemy? He heard the Hollow's sickening cry from behind him and knew it was engaging in the chase. He could hear the pointed scorpion legs stabbing the ground still, it had picked up the pace drastically.
thudthudthudthudthudthud
Every step he took spilled blood from the open wound in his calf, the Hollow seemed to smell it as it roared to the night unable to contain its raw blood-lust. The academy drew closer, but not close enough, upon his back he felt the hideous legs of the scorpion make contact. He was forced to the ground, the cold evening dirt beneath the grass grinded against his face and overwhelmed his senses. The four legs that penetrated his shoulders and back were like a distant pain. He was pinned to the ground, unable to move and any sound he could make would surely go unheard; he would be devoured tonight and scarcely anyone would know or care, less competition for his classmates even.
"Go on then!" he goaded the beast, with the reckless savagery of a dying man.
Of course, in the final most desperate moments, someone always arrives. Before the thing could claim its meal, before either of them even realized someone else was there. The thing's mask was cloven in two, a Zanpakutou thrusted neatly into the centre of its face, the Hollow's cry of agony faded before anyone could even hear it along with the soul particles that drifted with the wind and the lost soul that found its way to Soul Society.
The Shinigami took a knee, holding up a flat palm before him to hush Rikkard as he began to explain himself. He slung Rikkard's arm over his neck and pushed off with his foot, the two of them moving across the rest of the unsanctioned forest like mirage images appearing and disappearing.
"You..." he struggled, memories of the restaurant in Rukongai flashing back to him. Rikkard would have been surprised if his saviour had even remembered who he was, arrogant as he was. But not corrupt.
Rikkard's sight was dulled, he had only just awoken from his nap but sleep beckoned him again. He was slung across the shoulder of his instructor, but it still drained him to support himself. After all he had lost a lot of blood. All was black and the comfort of unconsciousness settled his nerves, in the distance he could just barely hear his old acquaintance.
"You're a damned fool, Rikkard" he could hear him say "A damned fool"
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