Lyvalaea [SHINIGAMI]

Today, we talk about loss

There are many people who had become accustomed to change. Many who had embraced the life of a shinigami... as a soldier.

Lyvalaea is not one of them.

She had, in the past fifty years, been one of those who took happiness in doing only their function. To flit by and seem as though they never existed, sticking to the methodic chores and dull tasks that are otherwise uninteresting. She had a stable job that did not require deciding on other people's fates, had a handful of people she loved and trusted, and she was able to do her life's desire: to heal. She was content in upkeeping this comfort.

But the world had other plans for her.

Whatever sense of security she had shattered, the entire illusion she'd tried to create herself broken by a series of unfortunate events that spiraled deeper and deeper into the pit she'd worked to hard to hide.

It unmasked the frailty of her heart against larger, stronger creatues, at the expense of innocent lives that she swore to protect. It would have been nice if she could at least protect herself. Except she couldn't. With all her guards down, she had fallen prey to a man with questionable intent. One among those she'd been told to stay away from: Arrancars. Such was the peril of the world that was not her own.

And yet, when she thought home was what she needed the most, the world decided that home needed her most. She returned to Seireitei with a few broken bones and woke up with a few bandages, but it was nothing compared to what her closest friends suffered in her absence. She left them as people, and she came back to them as charred remains. Even the house she'd resided in the past eighty years had crumbled into ash. The place she'd considered home, the people she'd considered family, had disappeared just like that. The lone survivor of the entire ordeal who had to live with the torment burning in his mind barely clung to life. Her employer. Her mentor. The man she'd looked up to in these past decades, lying on a gurney left only to deal with his trauma.

It was then that she realized that her problems were too little. Too insignificant compared to what others have to endure. She couldn't even speak about the pain her body was in. In the face of everything, she felt that she didn't have that right.

And as a loyal servant, she did what she must do: to do what her master so wishes.

She attended the noble speeches in his place after forcing her body to succumb to healing. No matter how nerve-wracking, even if she had to endure it with a placebo, it felt like the least she could do. Standing there, before the people, among the nobles, she'd never felt so small. Every slip, every word, every action mattered. If she did any wrong, even just one, she'd fail in more ways than she'd ever failed before. It wasn't even just her on the line. It was her master's lifeline. But for all she did, that was all she ever was: a servant. She merely obeys. She only echoes what she'd been told to say. She doesn't make decisions. Especially not when her any option she had for that decision would lead to her master's further harm. The choices were to subject the family into traitorship, or to make them lose their nobility.

That massive decision wasn't hers to make. Like an answer to her prayers, someone came in to make that choice: a woman named Maya. Despite the time she spent working for the household, Lyvalaea never knew, let along heard of the existence of this woman. And yet, in the few minutes that she'd known the woman, Lyvalaea came to admire Maya, the same way she admired Reima. They were, in many ways, her savior. Even when she didn't matter, they saved her. And at that moment, she wished that Maya would come to the hospital with her, earnestly hoping that Reima would be delighted to know about his sister. Maya refused.

Lyvalaea was the one left alone in the rubble, with the Captain Commander's order ringing in her ears. Do your duty. They lost many lives that day, and she wandered on the streets, on the smoke and the rubble, wondering where to start. She was a mere recruit. Her responsibilities only included assisting the officers in the hospital. That was where she belonged. And yet, the world decided to give her a chance... a choice. To not lose everyone. To save her friend from the maws of death. And that, she did with the best of her ability. She did her best so that she wouldn't lose anyone today. At least, not her friend, Nagisa. And most especially, not on her arms.

That much, she was able to accomplish. To her relief, Nagisa lived to see another day. And yet, her responsibilities didn't stop there. Lyvalaea left Nagisa to Seryu and ran off to call reinforcements on the simultaneous hollow appearances on Rukongai by the request of Naoko, and to assist here and there in the hospital when the first rush of bodies came in. They lost. And they lost a lot.

At the end of the day, Lyvalaea was the one who had to break the news to Reima. She was the one who had to tell him that the last straw he held on so dearly had vanished. She was the one who saw him thrash the suite, scream the rest of his vocal cords out, fumble in the light with the loss of sight he had incurred. His dreams, stolen. His family, killed. His home, ravaged to the ground. In a matter of weeks, he'd become a nobody. Lyvalaea tried her best to reach out to him, to reassure him that he wasn't alone-- and it was then that he decided, she'd crossed the line. She was a lot of things, they were a lot of things to each other. But she wasn't family. She wasn't what he needed. He rebuked her efforts and cut her off, completely. Lyvalaea heard that he set out to seek revenge on Kirishi, and that was the last she heard of him.

With the loss of the people who'd called family for the last few decades, Lyvalaea finds consolation with her work, basking in the comfort of sleeping scantily and overworked days, determined to take her mind off everything. In spite of her efforts, the world continues to mock her. Her soul is spread thin, as does her powers. When she meets an old enemy, she crumbles in the face of responsibility. She found it harder to smile. To live. She found it ever more difficult to trust in herself, and to deliver sound judgment. Lyvalaea finds her own sanity slipping, and along with it, her will to stay on. 

And yet, she clung, despite how feeble her efforts might be.

She struggled to put a show, to act that it was fine. To be there even when she didn't feel qualified to be, to play the part of a friend to those dear to her.
Even then, she failed.

Miserably.

LEGEND
* denotes an ongoing thread
** denotes an inactive thread
*** denotes a dropped thread due to partner inactivity/site departure/disinterest (if I owe the post on the said thread,
they are declared abandoned via site departure of the thread partner, unless stated otherwise)

TURN BACK THE PENDULUM
Late Night Meetings :: with Reima Tanaka, back in 1935
After the War :: with Reima Tanaka, back in 1945 ***
Heartstrings :: with Seryu Akamine, back in 1961
Flow of Destruction :: with Atasuke Kazuyoshi, back in 1964 ***

FROM THE COURT AND BEYOND
Tolls of Innovation :: with Ezekiel ***
Healing Hands :: with Chinda Nagisa **
The Dangers of Texting and Divining :: with Yamane Kokoro *
Bartender in Soul Society :: with Tsubaki Ichiro *
Basics of Kidou :: with Robert Muhle, Yuki Kameko, and Ametsuchi Houmaru **
Good Day for a Doctor's Visit :: with Yuki Kameko ***
King of Limbs :: with Kohara Hi-To *
Soulweaving :: with Shun Minamoto *
Peacekeepers :: with Hanbei Karatsu and Mad Dahlia *
Fox and the Otter :: with Tsukiyo Kionchi *
Gods of Death :: with Tyrant
Luckiest Catch :: with Sobek Septicemia
Noblesse Oblige :: Shinigami open // nobles
All Tumbling Down :: with Tanaka Maya
Bloody Needlework :: with Chinda Nagisa and Seryu Akamine
Healing :: with Chinda Nagisa *
Freedom to Die :: with Bertolt *
Fifth Leads the Way :: with Chinda Nagisa, Fujimura, Ametsuchi Houmaru, and Sekai Fujimura
Danse Macabre :: with Tyrant *
Propinquity :: with Yuichiro *
Bitchkrieg :: with Seryu Akamine and Chinda Nagisa
See What I've Become :: with Jian Oreachi, Seryu Akamine, Chinda Nagisa, and Tsukiyo Kionchi
tbd :: solo


THE IMPOSTOR
tbd :: solo
Chasing Wayward Souls :: with Mirabelle Bonnet **
What's Left Behind :: with Machie
Tethered Fragments :: with Machie **
tbd :: with
tbd :: with
tbd :: with

THE GENDERBENT CHRONICLES
Levi :: with Atasuke Kazuyoshi ***
Misbehave :: Seryu Akamine, Takasugi Ayumi and Hisui ***

THREADS THAT NEVER CAME TO BE
The Moon's Secrets :: with Victoria ***

ARASHITE (based off Shunko)
Arashite is a method of combining the arcane force of kidou with physical combat to add power to their attacks. In works in a similar manner to Shunko, with one remarkable difference: Arashite relies on the intricate control on the flow of kidou, rather than the physical prowess of the user.

Rather than the simply augmenting the one’s strikes with ‘explosive’ kidou, Arashite works in a more versatile manner: it manipulates the way kidou moves around the limbs. By flattening the film of reiatsu, it can resemble the effects of a sword, and will have the power to easily rip through things. By making the reiatsu spin, it will resemble a drill. By controlling it to function like a spring, it will focus on the throwback power of the assault. The forms of manipulation Arashite allows for is limitless, making it a potent skill even outside of battle.

Notable techniques under Arashite

art by aureate

HEIGHT AND WEIGHT :: Beneath the voluminous layers of clothing that she wears, Lyvalaea’s stature can be described as highly unimposing. Her full height reaches only up to five feet and five inches, and seen only on rare occasions when she isn’t slouched mousily on a corner. This meager height often raises the curious eyebrows of those who come to discover her remarkable weight, yet her explanation is rarely accepted as the full truth: her weight of roughly a hundred and sixty pounds is not an effect of large muscles or voluminous fat, but massive, highly dense and disfigured bones.

HAIR AND FACIAL PROFILE :: Lyvalaea’s strawberry blonde tresses cascade down to the curve of her waist in soft waves. Often, her fringes are kept to the side with little clips, while two locks of hair are intentionally left dangling to frame her small, heart-shaped face. She usually adorns her hair with accessories, and is enthusiastic about styling her hair to keep it away from her face. She bears a healthy and clear complexion that shows the thin network of veins on her cheeks.

Lyvalaea's silver, almond-shaped eyes stare out into the world with an abundance of warmth. Her deep-set eyes slant up at its outer corners, with its moods emphasized by a pair of flat eyebrows. Lyvalaea's straight nose, blush-kissed cheeks and thin, well-defined lips complete the image of a distinctly feminine visage.

VOICE QUALITY :: Lyvalaea's voice is usually soft and expressive, with a pitch that is neither too high nor too low. As a testament of a voice that is rarely raised, her voice has a distinct smoothness in its quality.

BODY FORM :: Lyvalaea possesses the body of a predominantly "fit" endomorph, with healthy curves on all the right spots and unhealthy curves on some unfortunate spots. Due to her languid lifestyle, Lyvalaea did not develop strong muscles to begin with, and had accumulated a healthy amount of fat. However, due to her body complication, her skeletal structure still seems to be the most prominent part of her body. Some of her joints are abnormally large, particularly the shoulder and the knee joints. The curvature of her legs are not symmetrical, as one leg appears to be straighter than the other although they appear to be of the same length when Lyvalaea stands upright. Some of her bones are smooth, some are subtly ragged while some have small lumps across its length.

In a general perspective, Lyvalaea's body has a lithe frame, further undermined by her posture and gestures. Her face, her hands and her feet are all relatively small and generally bony in appearance. The high level of calcium in Lyvalaea's body greatly affects the strength of her nails, though she prefers to keep it manicured.

[ POSTURE, SPEECH AND MANNERISMS ] Lyvalaea is a person whose most notable pattern of behavior is in 'laying low'. This is not merely an effect of simple social avoidance, but a complete amalgamation of her attitude, disposition, poise and speech.

Often, she merely scurries past people with her head tilted down, with her eyes on peoples' feet more than their faces, and do not actively seek attention more than what is necessary. Most of the the time, she prefers to remain seated on a comfortable spot, tending to her own business until someone gives her more. When presented with a predicament, she fidgets a lot, especially with her fingers and her curls-- the harder the decision, the bigger portion of her hands move. Generally, she is careful with her actions, and appear to be somewhat restrained or hesitant.

She speaks in a manner that is unusual, not by vocabulary, but by form. Her speech is formal in wording, whether they are directed towards a superior, a colleague, or a junior. Sometimes, it might even have awkward or hesitant undertones, characterized by frequent use of repetitive words or stuttering.

[ REIATSU CHARACTERISTICS ] Lyvalaea's reiatsu manifests itself in an abstract form reminiscent of a sunflower. Under normal circumstances, the peach-colored reiatsu spins around her feet. As her emotions intensify, more layers of petals manifest around her, growing in size with each new addition.

FASHION STYLE ~ In Seireitei, she dons an over-sized uniform, tailored to look more like a dress in comparison to the regular ones, with the loose hakama reaching way down to her ankles and her kosode's sleeves reaching midway her fingers. When she feels like it, she would replace the white obi for a pink one, or a thicker white obi, but nothing too flamboyant. Also, instead of wearing the prescribed footwear, she prefers not to wear socks of any sort, while substituting the waraji for a pair of shiny black doll shos with a cream-colored ribbon in its toe cap. Lyvalaea is also often seen with a white scarf around her neck.

When she is given the chance to choose her own clothes, she often wears loose dresses that are distinctly elegant, yet simple in style. Certain colors and prints are irrelevant to her, as long as she can wear something that covers almost the entirety of her body, and will not emphasize her 'odd curves'. She also prefers cute heels over flats, although nothing higher than three inches.

SCENT ~ Lyvalaea often wears a 'powdery' scent, soft and generally pleasant to the nose, like scented baby powder. Unlike others that fade within a short time, her scent simply lingers for a long while, and easier caught when she walks by.

As a human, Lyvalaea was a bright girl whose personality shone with confidence, curiosity and enthusiasm. But then, time changes everything. As a lady who went through a lot of pain after her first few years, her entire personality shifted to something that could hardly be associated to the girl born with her face and her name.

Lyvalaea can be described as passive at best, without a desire to succeed, and with a penchant to put others before herself. The harsh realities of Rukongai molded her into someone who prefers existing without anyone noticing, someone desperate to get away but easily clings on to anything that shows her a little bit of mercy. She's frightened, she's somehow regretful, she's unsure of why she continues to endure. It was those experiences, perhaps, that led her to have a heart and sincere desire to help others with going through such a struggle.

She is a lady of many fears, most of which includes social rejection, disappointing her loved ones and having people get hurt because of her. This fear guides the myriad facets of her personality into obsession— to be an identity forged entirely by what it wants to please. There is the awareness that she's immensely flawed, and she completely hates it. Thus, she secretly tries to be good at everything, and be the best on skills she feels passionate about.

As a stranger, she is wary of people until she is certain that their purpose is not to hurt her— only then will she make the first move and step up in her role. As an acquaintance, she is polite and empathetic, willing to build a lasting and pleasant relationship if she is certain that its furtherance does not lead to her destruction. To a potential foe, she is observant, vigilant, and wary, hesitant if she had not yet fled. As a friend, she is caring, supportive and protective— she might not be the best person to ask an honest opinion from, but she will never lead her friends to their death. As a lover or a family member, she is loyal, thoughtful, considerate and loving— she will do her best to keep them happy, and to support their highest good. With all her might, she will try to protect them and cherish them more than her own life.

As a shinigami and a healer, she is steadfast in her duties, with high respect for the law and with higher respect for life. She works tirelessly in order to accomplish her duties, and willing to shoulder another's if the situation calls for it. Even on her free time, Lyvalaea devotes herself into studying and training, all for the sake of being a better healer, to save lives more efficiently, and perhaps, to help more people than she could as it is now.

From a vantage point, she's desperate, she's needy... and she subconsciously misses the life she had as a human.

POSITIVE TRAITS
ANALYTICAL :: "This world is simply too complex to take at face value, do you not agree?"
When she moves, it’s not just her heart at work, but also her head. She is studious, but she likes the challenge of analyzing how it works, rather than what it is. She is observant, and her mind instantly looks for things to associate her observations with. She knows her crafts, and she is inclined to find other uses to make herself more efficient. Perhaps, it was not just the compassionate side of her that drew her interest to the realm of physiology and emotions-- perhaps, it was also the challenger in her seeking for the most complex of puzzles: the workings of the heart and the mind.

BENEVOLENT :: "The littlest act of kindness does wonders."
Lyvalaea understands that each soul is pained in its own right, with a different burden for every unique soul. She, as a soul that had taken her own share of pain, feels that everyone deserves to be treated with kindness and respect— and she is more than willing to do just that. Be it a small animal or a brutish human, she treats everyone with the care and tenderness as though they’ve always been close to her heart.

DISCIPLINED :: "As adults entrusted with the task of maintaining the balance, we are not just paradigms of children who aspire to become one of us, but also to set an example of what it means to be a responsible adult."
Lyvalaea is a person who likes doing what is expected of her and as a person with different roles in society, being disciplined is one of them. Finish work as assigned. Follow rules. Respect authority. Be a good paradigm to the young ones. Don't do anything reckless. If there was one generally accepted rulebook on how to be a disciplined person, she'd probably treat it as her own sacred scripture. As a person who so often regards society's views heavily, being disciplined is almost as integral as putting herself into good light.

EMPATHIC :: "People work in mysterious ways, but I am fairly certain that there has to be a shared bond somewhere in the line."
Lyvalaea may not remember everything she experienced in the past, but a part of her remembers just enough to recognize emotions in people. It’s a gift that almost comes naturally to her-- the ability to not just see and recognize, but to feel and understand others. Even without words, her empathy enables her to relate well with others, and to adjust her own responses accordingly in order to make them feel better. Sometimes, she doesn’t even have to consciously act on it. When she sees the happiness in others, it makes her heart feel a little lighter, in the same manner that it breaks her heart whenever she sees the agony in others.

HUMBLE :: "Either way, I would not have been able to accomplish it successfully without their aid."
To the person whose motivations and actions are highly influenced by others, she finds 'self-entitlement' as something that is rather nonexistent. In Lyvalaea's perspective, every work done is simply a collaborative effort of different ideas and actions of people working together towards a similar goal. Even if she really does deserve the praise, she opts to attribute it to other aspects outside of her own control, such as fate, luck, and goodwill of others. To her, she has nothing too good to ever be proud of.

NEAT :: "They sort of... bother me."
Lyvalaea dislikes disorder, not just among people but among things as well. Anything that is too cluttered or too dirty "hurts" her eyes, almost as though they were mismatched clothes and deviating patterns. She likes everything squeaky clean, and without the musty scent of a dirty space.

PEACE-LOVING :: "No fighting in the morgue, please! You might wake up the corpses!"
Lyvalaea firmly believes that people can coexist without war and violence. To her, these aspects of life are unnecessary and well beyond what is desirable. She understands that conflicts may arise from opposing ideas. Even so, Lyvalaea still firmly believes that conflicts can be solved by diplomacy, even though it’s not always the easiest path. Even in her interactions with people, she chooses her words and actions carefully so as not to invite strong negative emotions from others. Lyvalaea finds sadness not only in her dissent with others, but also among those who are close to her.

PROTECTIVE :: "I owe them so much. This is only one of the things I can do for them."
Inasmuch as Lyvalaea feels strongly inclined to 'lift' people from their pain, she also feels strongly inclined to protect them from getting more. This extends not only to her kin, but also colleagues, friends, pets and innocent people, pretty much everyone except the one threatening their safety. She might not be the ideal 'protector', she tries her best nonetheless.

TACITURN :: "Some words are better left unsaid. If they were not conveyed to you, it was probably not meant for your ears."
Once trust is broken, it can always be repaired, but it will never be the same. Lyvalaea is grateful to the people who are willing to trust her, and takes great care in ensuring that she never breaks that trust. When people share their feelings and experiences with her, she understands that each one bears its own importance on the person, and that each word is for her ears only. She respects the confidentiality of each individual, and does her best to keep their secrets safe.

NEGATIVE TRAITS
CRITICAL :: "They just sort of... stick out like a sore thumb, no matter how many times you ignore them."
Silence is her choice, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it slips her notice entirely. Whether it's of her ability, or her work, or another person's work, she has the impulse to immediately look for something that isn't right, and try to think of ways to make it right. The good thing is that she manages to find flaws in her work before she ever shows it to anyone. The bad thing is that she's obsessed about finding critical points, even when none such thing exists.

INSECURE :: "D-do these bones make me look like, you know, a hollow?"
Due to the lingering effect of her zanpakutou spirit, the increased volume of calcium in her body often results to disfigured body parts. Because of this, Lyvalaea feels insecure about her body, like a freak that desperately seeks to fit in with the crowd. She feels that she couldn’t train as much as her peers, and couldn’t keep up with all the socialization that everyone requires. Her accessories often steal the attention away from her body, and layers of conveniently shaped clothes conceal her queer frame, but she cannot erase the image of her own bare body in her mind. To her, no matter how much she conceals it, it’s something that is always a part of her. Lyvalaea feels that no matter how many good traits she has, no matter how accomplished she becomes, no matter how many she helps, she’s still the same ugly freak that was the point of ridicule during her time in Rukongai, and the same 'weird' classmate in the Shino Academy.

LONG-WINDED :: "So, I heard you like otters..."
Enthusiasm is a good thing, except when the other person cannot keep up anymore. On the rare times that Lyvalaea is genuinely enthusiastic about something, she has the tendency to talk and ramble on without considering whether the person still understands her. Sometimes, it can be simple, like providing too much information on something that interests her, to something more complex like discussing the intricacies of the body using medical jargons when the person really asked about how ‘brainfreeze’ works. Among the aspects of herself that she adjusts upon seeing its negative implications on others, being long-winded seems to be the one that generally takes her the longest to notice.

SKITTISH :: "You cannot really blame me for thinking that there are secret apocalypses that I am not well-informed of. Seireitei works in mysterious ways."
For someone who finds herself attracted to the arts that count concentration as a crucial element, being skittish is almost a surefire way to not succeed at it. In the midst of silent rooms and empty practice halls, every sound makes her heart skip a beat. Anything nearer is almost guaranteed to warrant a frightened squeal or worse, an accidental punch. Her skittish thoughts often intensifies to a slight paranoia when the tension building inside her isn’t resolved, and longer it drags, the more drastic her actions tend to become.

SHY :: "I have been well-informed, thank you very much."
She may be readily available to assist and give solace, but it doesn’t mean that she simply throws herself to others at every opportunity. Lyvalaea relates with people easily, but isn’t quite willing to reveal more about herself as though she would open her life for everyone to feast on. Interpersonal relations with her is perfectly fine, but Lyvalaea is never to be one to host parties and fly from one friend to another. What drives her to inhibit herself isn’t her incapacity to relate with people, but the intense fear of social rejection.

SELF-SACRIFICING :: "Well, they need it more than I do."
Lyvalaea’s heart is fully invested into helping others, and she so often fails to recognize how much of her heart is left for herself. That investment is not just mere devotion, but something that edges into complete obsession. To Lyvalaea, going out of her way to accomplish something for someone else isn’t a bother. On the contrary, it’s a pleasure, even if it means suppressing her own needs. It is to say that she has extreme difficulty in denying others of her assistance, even when the assistance required is actually manageable without her help. It doesn’t even matter if her efforts go unappreciated. What matters is that she was able to lend a hand.

EXCESSIVE DESIRE TO HELP :: "No ulterior motives, I assure you. Do come for me when you need me and I'll be happy to help!"
Her innate compulsion to help others is unstoppable, sometimes to the point that she could not stop herself from helping even when the other only really needs a listening ear, or a shoulder to cry on. Because she readily offers solace to everyone, she doesn’t take offense when she finds that her advice is unwanted, let alone recognize that it may actually be unneeded. Her desire is sincere, but may come off as ‘Trying too hard’ to others who might not recognize this compulsion of hers.

DIRECTIONLESS :: "Thoughts about the future? Let me get back to you when I have thought about it."
Lyvalaea is goal-oriented on a short term scale and is good at getting things done. However, most of her goals are clutter that do not give direction to her life or her career. She has vague desires for the future, but she simply isn't the person to consider 'big' dreams as viable goals for herself-- even if she does consider goals, her inclination to put others before herself often makes her forget that she even made them.

DOUBLE-BARRELED TRAITS
ENDURING :: These challenges are given to us by fate because it knows that we can conquer them."
Lyvalaea is someone who lasts long in the face of adversity. Long, repetitive tasks? Check. Walking to the other side of Seireitei to deliver a report? Check. Babysitting 50 children? Check. Most of the time, Lyvalaea's thoughts are too focused on the fulfillment of completion that she so often fails to recognize that it may have adverse effects on her. Specifically, she has the strong inclination to focus only on the positive outcomes, thoughts and feelings that may arise upon being able to "do something", without bothering to see its negative implications on her being. She will endure through anything, just to make sure that she doesn't get anyone's criticism for being inefficient.

SENSITIVE :: "Oh, please, do take my feelings off your mind. All I need to do is to immerse myself in work and get lots of sleep... it always worked that way."
As a naturally empathic person, being sensitive to feelings is her greatest asset... and her greatest downer. She is vulnerable to feelings, as though she can share and absorb it through mere observation. However, inasmuch as she is vulnerable to the effects of other's feelings, she is also just as, if not more vulnerable, when it comes to their criticisms. She cries at ridicule just as quick as she laughs at jokes, and usually take negative words to heart. When people so often speak ill of her, the insecure part of her brain latches on to those words and repeat them over and over to her, making it extremely difficult to break away from the vicious cycle.

SUBMISSIVE :: "I am quite the neophyte. With your advanced knowledge and experience, I assume your idea will work more efficiently than mine. Shall we go with it, then?"
As a person who considers others' opinions above her own, Lyvalaea readily takes a submissive stance in the relationship. Does their idea sound good? It doesn't matter. If it keeps the harmony between them, she would rather go with it. Even if the other is wrong and she is right, she would rather back down just to avoid conflict. It deprives her of her voice, the right to assert, and often compromises her potential to contribute in the overall machinations of the team's plans, but she doesn't consider herself as a 'contributing factor' to anything that works. Or anything, for that matter.

[ SPIRIT ] "I highly doubt the possibility that this hideous creature if a reflection of my soul. I mean no offense, but I expected someone more... like-minded."
The sealed form, morbid as it is, is not without an origin. It stems mainly from the soul that resides within Lyvalaea: the fruit of darkness that caused her death and followed her thereafter-- no other than Koschei, the creature of lore.

Koschei is a thin, pruny man with barely a layer of skin draping over his bony features. In place of eyes, there are nothing but black gaps of eyeless sockets. Even the innards are nonexistent, leaving him with only a piece of a disfigured, pulsating heart of emerald to sustain his existence. Koschei is often enshrouded by flames of pure black, flaring ever more depending on his mood. He often talks in a wheezy manner, a testament to the toll of age and timelessness.

Put together, Lyvalaea and Koschei are two beings that contrast in apparently everything imaginable— appearance, beliefs, nature, conviction, among many others— in such a way that the synergy between them becomes highly questionable. However, on a more personal level, they are two beings whose existence is directly anchored to the other, this indicating the inevitability of accepting the other.

Their meetings are rare, if not recognized. At this point, Lyvalaea regards Koschei as a fragment of her nightmares, possibly an advocate of the devil that seeks to push her into insanity. on those few occasions, Lyvalaea felt inherently inclined to hate, fear, and despise Koschei. Through the years, she never knew that it was her zanpakutou spirit's attempt to communicate with her.

[ INNER WORLD ] "A truly frightening place. If I am given the choice never to visit this place again, I would take the opportunity with much delight."
Buyan, in lore, is an island that can appear and disappear, as well as the place where Koschei keeps his soul hidden. However, while the lore speaks of a vibrant land with a lush environment and an abundant land, Koschei's world is nothing but a remnant left behind by what once stood there. While Buyan was known for its ever changing weather, this world knows only but two: that of dismal nights and crimson afternoons. The vibrant cerulean sea that once engulfed the island has become a hue of deep red, changed by the blood of those whose remnants now litter the whole island.

The whole island is covered with earth, with not a single spark of life to be seen. Around, only skeletons lie buried in the soil, some half-buried and most left undevoured by the earth, so much that even the land itself had become a sea of bones. In Buyan, the stale air always reeks of decay and rotting flesh, the distinct stench of death from those whose bodies are yet to expire completely. The visibility is fairly low in the whole area, which makes it relatively easy to trip upon the protruding bones all littered around the area.

If one is to listen intently, screams from a distance may be heard, as well as the shrill cries of children and the pleas of those who are about to die. Whispers from the dead come constantly, and though they may be incomprehensible at first, each word becomes more and more distinct with every second that passes, until such time when their whispers become a part of the mind, as if they were collective words of humans who live and speak right before the spectator.



[ SEALED FORM ] "Please, do take a look. Would you really prefer to have an item such as this to become your weapon? It is not... aesthetically pleasing."
In comparison to other blades, Koschei’s sealed form is unlike any other: instead of a metal weapon, Koschei’s form barely resembles one.

In place of metal, Koschei's sealed form is a 30-inch cutlass blade made of smooth calcium. However, instead of having just a single side sharpened, both sides can be used to cut: the curved side is unevenly jagged as if weathered by battle, while the other side is cleanly sharp. Even its guard seems rather unsightly for a normal weapon, especially when held by Lyvalaea: at first look, it may look like a black lump, however, at closer look, the lump appears to be a dried heart, with the main vein and artery still protruding out of the organ. The black heart is covered by shielded by a structure of bones that resemble the ribcage.

While majority of the blade is made of bones, the hilt is entirely different, in such a way that its core is concealed to make way for something different. Instead of a smooth bone, the hilt’s core is concealed by dried skin and hardened flesh, with the vein patterns under the skin blackening, but still visible. The worst part of the hilt perhaps, is the fact that it is shaped like a portion of a thin arm. When touched, the hilt is hard and slightly rough, as though it could crumble any second. Lyvalaea uses dark red and brown strips of cloth to cover the hilt of the sealed form, with a small black string that attaches several beads as an adornment. The remarkable thing about the weapon is that, no matter how cold the temperature is, the hilt feels warm and at times, may seem as if it pulsates lightly.

[ SHIKAI APPEARANCE ] "A frightening one, really. It feels distinctly like being a gravedigger warrior, minus the stench."

Release Phrase :: "Crawl back to life, Koschei!"

Upon the utterance of the initial release, Lyvalaea’s weapon rapidly decays, akin to skin and flesh rotting away with time. In place of the weapon, a mass of black fire enshrouds the hand that once held the bone, slowly forming the weapon she so chooses.

The weapons created and recreated within the release of her shikai appears to be different among others. The basic structure of these weapons are made with fragmented bones, usually adorned with dried blood, torn flesh, snapped veins and ripped skin; as if the weapons had been stolen straight from another living creature. Though it may look brittle, the weapons created are as durable as a normal zanpakutou in its initial release.

[ SHIKAI ABILITIES ] "It crawls under your skin... literally."
Koschei's power is unique, in such a way that it affects that which we cannot see, but can easily feel. His raw power as a spirit uses something that is already there, and uses it to interfere with the natural progression of the body and what already lies within. The shikai's actual abilities manifest themselves differently, united only by a singular theme that he embodies: death.

Decay. Manipulation. Corruption. In contrast to most abilities that seek to cripple the enemy from the outside, Koschei's specialty is corrupting them from inside out, to let the victim feel the pain and not know how much damage he has sustained until it is too late.

Within the human body, Koschei's main connection is calcium, which can be manipulated in a number of ways: to create constructs out of pure calcium, to affect the amount and concentration of calcium of the body, to disintegrate cells, to deprive one's control over their muscles, to tamper with the functions of neural impulses, to remarkably increase or decrease the pace of healing, and a variety of other functions.

Necrosis, however, is not an extension of his ability to manipulate calcium, but the dominion over pulling something nearer to their 'death'.

INTERESTS
"I mean no offense, but is this really needed in our personnel file? It seems a bit... personal."

.:: Cooking | Particularly, she likes cooking pasta, pastries, and creamy viands. She dislikes eating and cooking food with strong flavor, and often experiments with meat and fruit recipes.
.:: Gardening | Since she's primarily in charge of maintaining the house garden, she knows a lot of things about it. Her interest is in medicinal plants and ornamental flowers.
.:: Animals | She likes animals in general and has a special liking for otters.
.:: Weird Medical Phenomenon | Nothing catches her attention longer than having to obsess over unexplainable things, especially when it pertains to the body.
.:: Fluffy, Colorful or Shiny things | Despite being a relatively old soul, Lyvalaea has the eyes of a child. Any object that's too attention-grabbing is bound to get her interest.
.:: Antiques | She finds extreme fascination in things that are "older" than her, or at least, something that she doesn't encounter everyday. She is particularly fond of the smell of old books, above other shinies.


BATTLE STANCES
"Regardless of function in the court, the Academy stressed the idea that we are, inevitably, soldiers. It might prove helpful one day, but perhaps, not today."

The Shino Academy and its rules might have forced her to compromise her attitude towards fighting, but her ideals never changed. Whenever the prospect of hurting someone is involved, Lyvalaea thinks twice before acting, even if her class standing is involved. It was then that she decided her stance on fighting, the stance she sticks to until the present time: she is willing to inflict only as much damage as she can heal. It challenged not only her fighting potential, but also pushed her to improve her healing abilities.

.:: Zanjutsu || She finds massive weapons difficult to use. However, she is known to use normal items as weapons and is fairly more proficient at using them. She prefers small weapons because she prefers precision of hits over scale of damage. Household items and medical apparatus are most favored.
.:: Hakuda || Due to her body complications, she finds it extremely difficult to train for hakuda.
Lyvalaea 'cheats' by integrating various techniques with her hakuda to make them more devastating... if, by a rare chance, they actually hit. Rather than utilizing various melee techniques to show her (fairly nonexistent) hakuda skill, she often resorts to using her medical knowledge to discern which part to hit.
.:: Hohou || She can apply it just enough to evade most borked attacks, but not good enough to evade fast attacks and those with particularly good aim.
.:: Kidou || The best skill in her arsenal.
-- Hadou: she can fight on par as expected of a neophyte shinigami, but not enough to excel in the art.
-- Bakudou: she treats it like her greatest weapon when she is overpowered or when she feels she can't outrun her opponent.
-- Kaido: her medical knowledge, coupled with the fundamentals of kidou enables her to use existing kaido and use her idle time to experiment with these spells. She isn't particularly keen about showing off the full capacity of her healing abilities to others, but she trains hard to make sure that it's always up to snuff.

SNAPSHOTS

[-118] Year 1900 :: Born in Yakutsk, Russia
[-098] Year 1920 :: Death by disease
[-097] Year 1921 :: Purification and passage to Soul Society
[-083] Year 1935 :: Employed in the Tanaka household
[-063] Year 1955 :: Entered the Shinigami Academy
[-057] Year 1961 :: Graduated the Shinigami Academy, enlistment in the Third
[-003] Year 2014 :: Promoted to Third seat (Previously 'Head of Trauma'; has since reinstated to 'Medical Center Director')
[-002] Year 2015 :: Relegated to unseated after Wakahisa Miyuki's directive, refused to participate in any activity regarding the Rukongai
[-002] Year 2015 :: Subdued by Akamine Seiryuko
[-002] Year 2015 :: Taken over by Koschei



NOTABLE RELATIONSHIPS
.:: TANAKA REIMA || Employer, doctor, mentor, and father figure
.:: KONSTANTIN || Brother
.:: AKAMINE SERYU || Former Inter-lifetime friend
.:: CHINDA NAGISA || Close Friend
.:: TSUKIYO KIONCHI || Student, and friend
.:: TYRANT || Hollow Rival
.:: KOSCHEI || Leech (Zanpakutou spirit)

.:: KISHIHARA DARYA || (npc) Rukongai friend, trainer, and motivator
.:: NAKASE MUNNO || (npc) Academy friend and co-conspirator
.:: MIYAHARA CHUN || (npc) Former flame

Lyvalaea Kandinsky was born in the wintry city of Yakutsk, Russia, slightly influenced but not entirely affected by the social conflict that had come to plague the entirety of Russia's capital. In an era of war and industrialization, the autonomous region wasn't subject to the constant threat of weaponry, but of forced labor. Due to Yakutsk's almost-eternal winter, travelers could only reach their place when the summer heat thaws the vast waters of the Lena River, or during the dead of winter when the river completely freezes into solid ice.

Early in her lifetime, life was relatively simple, and she was completely isolated from the world outside their permafrosted area. Her father worked as a medic who struggled to improve the lives of people in their region with the tools made available to him by the circumstances. Her mother managed the tavern they owned, often busy with all the miners and travelers they had as regular customers. She, along with her three brothers, were satisfied with assisting their parents once in a while, and Lyvalaea was more interested in helping her father than her mother, for reasons that the workings of the human body fascinated her tremendously. Lyvalaea was never properly sent to an educational institution, but her parents never felt short of the education she deserved. They taught her how to read and write, enough to read literature and understand her father's notes. The rest of the education she needed, she learned from their customers— a good variety of it, with snippets of languages, current trade tidbits and stories from their origins.

As a child, her only dream was to travel to the "brighter" places of the world— places where the skies aren't blanketed by fog and snow, where the trees and seas aren't dark and dead, places where life thrives in all its beauty. She wanted to visit the places she'd only visited through the stories of others, and to know whether their stories were real.

Lyvalaea kept close-knit relationships with the people around her, and was generally a bright person to be with. As she was the youngest (and the only daughter of the family), she was well-loved and protected. Majority of her life, she lived innocently, without the social pressure of politics, marriage, conformity and such issues that plagued those of similar age.

While mainland Russia was being torn down by war, Yakutsk was steadily being built. And with that, her increasing exposure to people that knew more, traveled more and lived more. For a while, Lyvalaea felt the need for variety in her lifestyle. She liked her life, but felt that she needed more. At that time, at her age, she only had limited options-- but her brothers thought that it was the perfect time to challenge their little sister into different things their parents thought she couldn't do. Her brothers included her in their hunts and learned how to use arrows quite proficiently. With their help, she was able to pass off as a guy and go bar-hopping (she never drunk though— her brothers were completely strict with it). On times she felt stronger, she'd be allowed to help them collect firewood. On really rare times, her eldest brother snuck out only with her and taught her how to use a rifle, just like how their father taught him when he was of age. For years, she felt the peak of her bliss, not because she was doing 'man' things, but because she felt an inseparable bond with every member of her family. It was, no matter how short-lived, the best years of her mortal life.

It was near the end of her thirteenth year when Lyvalaea began to feel strange sensations in her body. Whenever she did manual labor, she felt stings at the core of her body, like needles pricking right into her bones. Her family was gravely worried, but it did her no major dysfunction, so they dismissed it as a mere effect of living in such a cold place and excessive activity. Nonetheless, they took precautionary measures to ensure that it doesn't get any worse.

When the Russian Tsarism toppled in 1917, life in Yakutsk was revolutionized at an alarming pace. However, it was fortunate that majority of Lyvalaea's family wasn't there to witness it. By the time Tsarism fell, Lyvalaea, along with their parents and two brothers, set off to another country in an effort to dispel whatever it was that had been afflicting her. Somewhere hotter and less chaotic than Russia. By the time they successfully departed crossed the Sea of Okhotsk and settled into Hokkaido, Lyvalaea was seventeen and was already having complications about her health, on top of the nightmares that started plaguing her thoughts. She was separated from her eldest brother, who, at that time, had already married and opted to maintain their mother's business as an additional means of income.

Her world shifted, and along with it, Lyvalaea and the rest of her family. Her family drifted apart in unexpected ways, not just physically, but also emotionally. Her father did his best to comprehend his child's afflictions, to no avail. With the little money he had earned from his medical career, he traveled to Europe, hoping that their advanced knowledge and technology could give him answers. Without him, Lyvalaea's days passed slowly, her heart aching that her affliction had somehow driven their father away, and laid the blame on herself. With their new settlement's proximity to the shore, one of her brothers decided to become a fisherman, while the other joined the coal-mining industry farther into the heart of the developing island. The former came home every day and ensured that they had something to eat, while the latter came home only during the holidays.

Lyvalaea's mother stayed at home as a full time mom, though the lack of variety in her daily routine soon took its toll on her interest. Although her dream came true, Lyvalaea was deeply saddened by the fact that she didn't have enough health to explore this new world around her in its entirety.

Her body failed her occasionally, but her hands were efficient in accomplishing simple tasks. It felt stiffer and stiffer with each passing day, as though her bones started to get ahold of her body and tampered with her body's homeostasis. It was then that strange lumps began to form on her body, and forced her to wear layers of clothes to cover the unsightly developments, despite the shifting heat and cold of Japan's diverse weather. It was then that she began to see blurred images of people and monsters, a sight that only she seemed to see. Sometimes, she found herself distracted by these creatures, until they materialized fuller, and felt as real as anything her hands could hold.

In the final years of her uneventful life, Lyvalaea found comfort in gardening, and worked as an assistant in an arboretum nearby. Perhaps, it was the life and the color that gave her solace, perhaps the hot summers and short winters that played its hands on the growth of these plants, perhaps it was the joy of being so blissfully detached to the world that threw itself to war and industrialization. Her mother was more than happy in joining her with this new venture, and found a new medium to maintain their close-knit relationship.

It took three full years before she became completely bedridden, and a few months before she expired on a cold winter night, a few days before she turned twenty years of age. The last thing she felt was her mother's warm hand pressed against hers and the last smell that drifted to her nose was her brother's scent of faint brine. The last she heard was her mother's incessant sobbing.

But the last glimpse she took of the world as life departed from her eyes was the silhouette of a black, skeletal man with a throbbing emerald heart.


Lyvalaea's soul lingered on earth for a few weeks and wandered aimlessly around Hokkaido, yearning to take a glimpse of her father's face for the last time. Make no mistake— several shinigami attempted to purify her soul, but her desire kept her soul bound to the vicinity of their humble abode. She was never safe, too, from the threats of these masked creatures prowling around the earth. She was a susceptible target, but shinigami patrols were efficient enough to eliminate them before she became a puny meal.

Day by day, she watched as the flowers endure despite the frost, watched the cold waves crash upon the rocks, and watched as the wintry snow began to melt, revealing the remnants of life beneath and to make way for new life to thrive. Three moons passed since her death, but she still couldn't get a glimpse of the most important man in her life. It took her not just a great deal of convincing, but also a great threat of a hollow rampage. With much regret, her soul moved on from earth, to the chaotic world of Soul Society.

Lyvalaea's first recollection of Soul Society was of eyes. Different kinds of eyes. On her arrival to the 26th district of west Rukongai, everything was strangely familiar, yet overwhelmingly foreign.As she walked past the streets, the only thing she remembers now is how they looked at her. Some were curious, some dismissed her as a mere passer-by, some judged her from head to toe, and some simply rolled her eyes at her.Perhaps, it was the way she walked mousily through the streets, or the way her gaze shifted from spot to spot as she took in this new environment, or the way her manner screamed, "I'm new!".



Ever since that incident, she had grown wary of the public. She hid during mornings and did her best to move during the evenings, and avoided drunk circles as much as possible. When she found decent housing, she'd try her best to obtain whatever she needed then moved out at the first chance. For six moons, Lyvalaea had a completely nomadic lifestyle, like a fugitive desperately running from her captors. Her health dwindled, like her memory of how the morning sun felt like.

By the time she reached the sixteenth district, she collected enough clothes to don herself like a winter traveler. She was shabby beyond recognition, looked and stank like a Rukongai citizen who never knew how to bathe. One night, she perchanced on an abandoned bakery that night on the outskirts of the 16th district, far enough from the common populace, and near enough to a stream that served as a border to a dark forest. Lyvalaea hid there for a full week, wondering whether to stay in the isolated house. And on the seventh day, she finally decided that it was a nice enough place to settle down.

In the next few days, she dedicated herself into cleaning the bakery she would call a home. It was complete with a dusty fireplace and a decent table, with rusty tools that could've been used for the business. The house was made of stone and she dared not to touch the exterior, for fear that she might be visited by residents when they discover that someone had moved in. She felt right at home, despite the rodents, lizards and cockroaches that seemed to invade her newfound home. Soon, her body's sleep cycle reverted to its original pace. Lyvalaea woke up in the mornings to tend herself, and slept in the evenings to enjoy the cool breeze. At nights, she often found herself awakened by noises from the forest, but was extremely thankful that none of them, so far, turned out to be assailants.

Lyvalaea became increasingly comfortable in the little place she settled in. From a dilapidated piece of work, it became something inhabitable, and without the need for food, she found contentment in just 'existing' there. Often, she occupied herself with knitting and created her own curtains, rags and clothes, and when she had enough, she'd sell them to the people in the inner parts of the district. Though she was frightened, the guise of clothes and prints made it easier for her to move around and not have her abnormalities noticed. She entertained small-talk from those who'd talk to her, but not enough to consider keeping a relationship. Life was good to her, at that time. With the money she gained, she began to pursue other interests that would mean more time at home— she'd deal with merchants and buy paint, she'd collect seeds and plant them around the house, she would, sometimes, take orders of multiple knitted clothes as an excuse to not being able to return for a long period of time While her choices set her up to a monotonous cycle of life, it seemed that the world had surprises for her, too. Pleasant ones, too!



The man who managed to find her house that night was a healer who often came to Rukongai with his father to help people out in the farther districts. Some women find themselves swooning over him, one of which was the daughter of the man who hunted him that night. He was allowed to stay that night, but his departure in the morning wasn't the last she'd see of him.

Chun came back a few days later, bearing gifts as a token of his appreciation. But with each visit, his curiosity intensified, until it became his excuse to visit her frequently. Two days a month became once a week, until he practically lived in the 16th district and visited her almost everyday, with questions about her home, her work and her. At first, it bothered her. She was remarkably vigilant of him and would often leave the house so that she wouldn't be there by the time he came, but he had his ways and managed to catch her just the same. It took her a full year before she completely brought down her defenses and allowed him in, not just to her house but also to her feelings.

A friendship developed between them, and later, affection.

He was the first person to treat her fairly in Rukongai, even with the knowledge of her affliction. Lyvalaea found comfort and solace with the acceptance that he offered, and a little bit of aid with his knowledge. At that time, she had no pain coming from this body of hers, but as soon as they attempted surgery, a queer phenomenon occurred: it grew more, and pain started to throb at her joints, as if they refused to be worked on. Since that time, they opted never to touch it again, fearful of the dangers it might spell for her. Instead, they focused on making meaning out of their time together, and to support each other in their aspirations.

They shared knowledge between them—Lyvalaea tried to learn a bit about healing and medicine, while Chun learned more about gardening. They spent idle afternoons on the thickets of forest beyond, or watching the otters do their thing in the riverside. It was a carefree lifestyle that both of them enjoyed with every bit of their being. Without them realizing, four years had passed between them.

It was then that reality caught up with them... with responsibility knocking at the door.

Chun had become lax with his training, his primary reason for seeking out the farther districts of Rukongai. However, there was a mutual understanding between them that it was not the primary reason that fueled his family's anger. It was the fact that their relationship existed... that she existed, in his life. His family, the Miyahara family, was clan that prides itself in producing remarkable women worth looking up to, a matriarchal one that preserves its lineage by allowing only soulborns in the family. And Lyvalaea fell short of all their requirements, and worse, it was one she cannot amend.

In the beginning, he stood up for her. Chun tried his best to protect Lyvalaea from the hostility of his mother, and the vicious loathing of his sisters. It was successful at first, but it slowly crumbled as time passed by. They were relentless and merciless, From idle threats, they began to poke where it hurts most: they played with her emotions and dug into her psyche.

She was reminded constantly, that she was not a shinketsu, and thus will never be accepted as a part of her family. Shishiku, Chun's mother, made Lyvalaea believe that her 'impurity' will be a taint that will corrupt Chun's progeny, that she would be the reason for Chun's downfall. Lyvalaea felt small— it was an inherent part of her that she couldn't change, and she remained silent as she accepted his mother's insults. But knowing that her relationship with Chun wasn't truly severed, she continued on. Fundamentally, she was weak and powerless, something that would gear the family into hating her and putting pressure on her. If ever she happened to cling on, she would be unfit for Chun, who was strong and able in his chosen field. They humiliated her, belittled her, and made her into no more than a laughing stock for them. But even then, Lyvalaea felt that she could endure it a little bit more. It was the last prod that left her questioning every bit of their relationship— it was the fact that she was weak that drew Chun to her. There was not love, but pity.

And with that, she broke. Lyvalaea was hurt enough to keep up with the relationship, but Chun refused to let go. Slowly, Lyvalaea became awfully confused of the line between lies and truth, even she didn't know what to believe anymore. She remained quietly at her home and shut herself away. Still, in order to keep her away from him, his mother had taken desperate measures.

Shishiku dragged her all the way to the inner districts and humiliated her in front of everyone, revealing the body that she always tried her best to hide. It was then that she felt the weight of their gaze pinning her down with shame. Lyvalaea was called names, the ones she'd heard not too long ago—a freak, a monster. Without a single hint of pride, she ran away, hunted down by those who wanted the freak erased from existence. Chun found her and protected her, but she pushed him away, the feeling of resentment dominating her consciousness.

So she did the one thing she knew she could do.

She ran away. Far, far away.


For the next ten years, it was all she did: to run.

Her wariness to the general public began to build itself inside her once more. The more she ran, the more vigilant she became. Lyvalaea took temporary jobs, with all of them not lasting more than three months, and moved away as soon as she hit her limit. Her route was an erratic line, and not a direct path closer to the lower districts of Rukongai. From assistant jobs to manual ones, easy ones and hard, she took them all, without consideration of the toll on her body. She pretended to swallow her fears and endured meeting drunkards, even persisted with working on bars. It didn't take long for her secret to be revealed, but even then, she endured their ridicule and kept up with her life.

During this time, she was completely devastated and heartbroken. At mornings, she'd try her best to work as though her feelings didn't matter. But in the evenings, she'd remain at her current residence and try to paint the face of the man she loved... and doubted. Lyvalaea was unsure of the extent of his sincerity, but she treasured him more than anything she ever had, and she wanted to at least keep him alive in her memories. Her resources then was fully invested into her pursuit, but she was always unsatisfied with her own work. Her skill was good enough to capture his body, his features, even the smile that melted her heart... but she couldn't capture the way his eyes looked. Even with her skill and love combined, she couldn't capture the benevolence and affection he always adored her with. It was then that she began to spiral down the muddle of doubt, depression, longing and regret.

Eleven years of depression led her nearer to the lower districts, and just when she reached the sixth district, Lyvalaea changed her course. Chun's district lied ahead—in the fifth district of west Rukongai. A part of her ached to see him, but a part of her wanted to stay away—for both of their sakes. Lyvalaea wanted to sneak in, but decided that she was far too weak-hearted to handle the possible consequences of her actions. With a heavy heart, she made her way all the way to the opposite side of the world, the eastern districts, and continued her course to the first district.

In 1933, she finally reached her destination. Lyvalaea became a cook in a bar somewhere in the first district of east Rukongai, and though she saw drunkards, they were surprisingly civilized, compared to the residents on the farther districts. She found herself warming up to the other people who worked in the bar with her, particularly to Darya, the tomboy waitress who taught her the first steps into defending herself.

Instead of working in the mornings and painting in the evenings, Lyvalaea started working in the evenings and training during mornings. Darya taught her how to use the knife properly, how to use a sword and a bow and arrow. At first, it was frightening. But then, she became rigorous in her training and started to train herself in smaller objects—pocket knives and forks, though bows kept her interest, too, probably due to the remnants of the Lyvalaea that once hunted in the wintry landscape of Yakutsk. As time passed, she became grateful to Darya in many ways. Darya taught her self-defense and kept her mind occupied. Lyvalaea thought of Chun lesser and lesser with each passing week. There was longing, but nothing that kept her from doing what she can do better.

Lyvalaea's life went on at a relatively manageable pace. She actually began to wish that her life would be so peaceful, but her friends' concern of what she's been practically ignoring brought her situation on an entirely different level. One night when the opportunity came, Darya secretly referred her to a doctor who visited their bar once in a while. He went by the name of Reima Tanaka, the shinigami doctor who would later be her employer, and her mentor.


It was summer of 1935 when she entered the Tanaka household as a maid, as it was the most fitting role for her condition and skills at that time. Lyvalaea found this employment not just an opportunity, but also as a blessing. With the Tanaka estate being in Seireitei, she was able to declare herself safe from being found by Miyahara Shishiku. It also satiated her curiosity of what existed beyond the white enclosure.

At that time, Reima doubled not only as her employer, but also her doctor. Occasionally, he took notes of her condition, but due to her body's reaction to having surgery, they were able to do nothing about her affliction, though constantly tracking its progress. Despite being an eyesore, it gave her no problems at that time—even with all the responsibilities she had in the massive estate and long hours of working, her body was able to function just fine, so they allowed it to simply be.

Her days then were too occupied to ponder on her lost love life. She somehow keeps Chun on her heart, but her resentment and fear of Shishiku decided that being away was actually better. During her first few months, she'd keep at her responsibilities from sun up to sun down, leaving herself barely enough time to sleep and tend to herself. Even when she doesn't have anything to do, she forced herself to have some more. As her proficiency with housework increased, she found herself looking for more ways to occupy herself. She picked up painting and continued training herself with the knowledge Darya imparted with her, but somehow, they still weren't enough.

With Reima's expressed permission, she was allowed to access the family's library, not just to clean but also to spend her idle time perusing the massive repository of books that the Tanaka estate held once her responsibilities were done. It eventually became almost a vice to her. There was a single area she wasn't allowed to wander, and though it made her curious, she respected the restriction—after all, the library held enough books for her to manage even without it.

In the beginning, she wandered only in the literature section and allowed herself to reimagine things outside of Seireitei and the kind of stories they grew up with. Later, that interest evolved into plants and later, to books that involved the human psyche and their physiology. It wasn't just her curiosity over Reima's work that called her-- it was a subconscious choice she made, guided by her inevitable affinity for medicine and lifetimes of frustrated dabbling in the profession.

At one point in time, she found herself slightly bit interested in the history of Soul Society, and she found wonders that inspired her to thrive further into medicine. Maybe it was the idea that diverse souls existed, or the fact that some people reincarnate with their zanpakutou, or perhaps the idea that lives in Soul Society never improved despite millenniums of existence. It gave her an idea that maybe, if she fulfilled her share of social responsibility and geared her abilities into helping others, there may be hope that people can ignore her anomaly and gain more acceptance in their world.

During her studies in the evening, she'd often hear of an old man studying with her. At first, she often thought it was Wesley, one of the employees in the Tanaka household. However, as time passed by, she realized that it wasn't. Lyvalaea became vigilant and frightened, and almost refused to go back to the library for a few days, thinking it was haunted. It was the same voice that changed her mind. The man urged her to return, almost as though it was simply her conscience in a different voice... but then it started protesting, something along the lines of having a different identity.

For a while, Lyvalaea actually thought that she was borderline schizophrenic. She thought that it was a result of her depression and a desire to have someone with her. The voice made commentaries during her studies, such as disparity between his observations and book facts, At first it was helpful, but then it started making frightening commentaries on various events concerning mass deaths and wars, with vivid details as though the soul itself was there. Its words became the substance of her nightmares, and the voice later grew to become a voice that Lyvalaea feared to hear.

It was in 1945, approximately ten years since her entry to the household, that she was allowed entry to the Tanaka's inner court, a group of highly trusted friends and servants of the family. Henceforth, she was allowed to use the name Lyvalaea no Tanaka, to signify the trust given to her.

Throughout those years, life went on rather peacefully for Lyvalaea. As a non-shinigami employee, she felt that her life, her problems, her achievements... they were far lesser than everyone else's. But at least, she was secure.

Things were changing for Lyvalaea in subtle ways that only manifested itself stronger the longer it went unnoticed. Ever since her entry to the Tanaka household, her bones had grown considerably larger, with some as large as an inch wider than before. Her joints began hurting once more, and often felt stiffer than usual. At one point, she dismissed it as the tolls of overworking herself, until other changes began manifesting.

Wooden utensils she used to work began to splinter, her pages of her notebooks yellowed quicker than usual, the food she prepares spoiled easily and the plants she tended often took more effort to keep alive. It was as though everything around her suddenly started dying faster. During that time, she was forbidden to maintain long contact with anyone, and had to stop her ongoing trainings.

It made her incredibly melancholic, and the only course of action they thought could solve it was for her to learn how to fully control her reiatsu. And on the year 1955, she entered the Shino Academy.

Her entire time in the Academy proved difficult for her, not intellectually but physically, and socially.

By the time she entered, she found herself shying away from her fellow students, partly because she was frightened of their unsaid judgments, and partly because she felt like she was not desirable enough to be around. Even without talking to them, she had been garnering curious looks from her classmates, and she knew that they were curious of what's beneath the uniform. It made her ashamed of herself, and she opted to stay away from the crowd. Lyvalaea tried her best to remain quiet. She paid attention to classes, studied rigorously and trained as much as she could on the evenings. Her grades were nothing short of stellar, and the only flaw in her performance came in the form of physical application of hakuda and zanjutsu theories. It was never enough to land her on the top of the class, but apparently enough to garner enough jealousy from her classmates. And it was only after their third exam had finished that she felt the full impact of her classmates' annoyance.

It was a conspiracy between those classmates-- she was certain of it.

That morning, on the day of their last exam for the year, her clothes disappeared while she was on the shower, and was forced to stay there, out of fear to be discovered. Her roommate was 'kind enough' to lend her a towel, but as soon as she had gone to their quarters, she realized that the contents of her entire closet was missing.

She borrowed her roommate's uniform, but it was much too small for her body. Its sleeves were short enough that it showed her slightly bulging elbow joints, and the hakama's cloth hugged her body in such a way that it showed irregularities in her body structure. The hakama was too short, and showed the way her ankles were not aligned. It was on that day that she felt her self-esteem at its lowest in the last few years. She was embarrassed to go to classes, but they were tests, and she knew she couldn't just ditch it. Turns out, the uniform anomaly was only the first thing to welcome her into the trainwreck of a day. Her turning up to classes was a disaster waiting to happen. Without her knowledge, her ink was replaced with disappearing ink. Lyvalaea answered the tests to the best of her knowledge, but all her efforts had gone into waste. They also botched her sword so that it itched her hands when held. By the time she returned to their quarters that night, everything she worked for had reduced into nothingness.

Over the short break, the other students were replenished by quality time with their families, while she spent it in depression and self-loathing. A new year dawned upon them, but their attitude towards her didn't change. Memories of that day were fresh on their memories, and she became a point of ridicule from then on. No one wanted to study with her, they left her out of group projects and ignored her advances... and she made sure that she wasn't worth it, either. Instead of trying hard to restore her reputation, she made sure that their words became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

She pretended to be lax on her studies and became mediocre in performance, a bit irresponsible, as it seems. During classes, she wrote and doodled, and her 'art' became another point of amusement among her peers. During the evenings, she rewrote them and made visual notes of each day's lessons. Instead of working with the techniques her mentors taught her, she integrated her own techniques and made them work somehow. Her mentors became increasingly disappointed at her, and she couldn't even lift her head to look them straight in the eye. She lingered on the verge of failing everything... except kaido. At that time, she knew she can handle derogatory statements from other teachers in the Shino Academy, but she couldn't handle disappointing the one man she owes her everything to.

For the first three years, she was delighted to remain as the student whom everyone shunned. She studied rigorously under Reima and trusted no one else. Even she thought she'd spend the rest of her academy life in the same disappointing state. Until one night, a meeting with a certain man had changed her life, in subtle ways she never let anyone see.



It was thanks to her that he survived that night, and both of them cherishes that moment to this day. Munno secretly went out every few nights or so to make the students and other shinigami more aware of the corruption in Rukongai and flaws in the Academy system. He recognized the problems and sought to increase awareness of the plight outside the walled city. He was, in many ways, an activist. Lyvalaea was proud of him—she became not only his secret keeper and partner-in-crime, but also his best friend. They leaned on each other, not just on their ideals, but also in their academics, and their social exclusion, which they both increasingly felt advantageous and delighted about.

Because of her poor health, she was forced to take a few absences and caught up with classes later. It became increasingly difficult for her, but her secret dedication to her studies remained. Although Munno had his own world, he'd try her best to cheer her up, give her stuff from classes and lend her books he wouldn't read. During those illnesses, she found her affliction not just a curse, but both a curse and a blessing.

In the second half of her stay in the Academy, she felt contented with the way things are going. She had more secrets than truths, but never once did she feel that she was duping anyone. It made her feel more useful, as her secret trainings were brought to secret fruition. By the time she graduated, she was in good terms with only two people, and was in awkward and/or disappointing terms with everyone else—but at least, she felt a little bit of contentment that she deserved. Her pride was at its lowest, so are her grades, but at least she was alive.

Upon graduation, she was drafted into the Third Division, a role she fully accepted and appreciated to the best of her abilities. News of her failures reached her officers' ears upon entry and they were, undeniably, disappointed to have such a failure under their tutelage. And while Lyvalaea didn't openly protest their negative perception of her, she allowed her performance to speak for her. She humbly accepted their teachings and took advantage of every opportunity she had to learn and gain more experience. Even when they undermined her ability to do things, she tried her best not to disappoint them. She became increasingly obsessed with trying to make up for the failures she did in the Academy. No matter how much she worked, though, she made sure never to cross the line of being too remarkable. She was, in every sense of the word, cautious.

As a foot medic, she was sent only on menial tasks around the division, and various patrolling tasks on Earth. And while she wasn't doing anything spectacular professionally, she thrust herself into an endless cycle of curiosity and learning. Secretly, she associated with her fellow patrols and opted to stay on the one place everyone didn't like patrolling—hospitals. Due to the number of deaths and unfulfilled wishes, hospital souls were the hardest to convince and purify, not to mention the amount of multi-tasking abilities needed to keep up with all the souls within the vicinity. She took the challenge, and began to look forward with every opportunity she had to look over hospitals.

From America, to Europe, to Asia, and to the other centers of medical learning, Lyvalaea watched the rapid development of medicine be implemented and applied. She learned a bit of their language and snooped on their business. Blue Waffles? Check. Lightning Flowers? Check. Parrot Fever? Check. Picas? Check. Cotard Delusion? Check. Name a weird medical phenomenon and she's probably heard or read about it, if she hadn't seen it up close in hospital operations.

She'd found an affliction close to her own, too— close, but not quite the same—humans called it the Stone Man Syndrome. Research showed that her physiology and her body's reaction to surgery was almost the same, even some of her superiors in the Third affirmed such an assumption. However, there seemed to be one crucial element that separated her from those suffering the same plight. It was the fact that the more she learned to control her reiatsu, the more control she also gained over her affliction. It never stopped progressing entirely, but she found herself able of temporarily stopping its development, if she wills hard enough.

At times, she felt slightly envious of the people who managed to form a bond with their zanpakutou spirit. To her, it was like they've started a life-long bond on good footing. Lyvalaea reserved time for jinzen, too, but all she got was silence. It was the one aspect of her proficiencies that she failed spectacularly. She has hope, yet it dwindles with every failed jinzen session. It was on the 24th of December in 2000 that she theorized that her zanpakutou spirit might actually work in a different manner— that it needed a special kind of jinzen. Their communication, thus far, were initiated by the spirit. Moreover, it seemed to communicate only when she was at the brink of death. Lyvalaea began to realize that it was the same voice, and the same reiatsu she felt whenever her afflictions hit her, or when the nightmares haunted her. Until the present time, she only held the clues but never ventured too far into attempting to communicate—after all, it was her life on the line, and she didn't have the courage to cross the line just yet.

In the last 53 years, Lyvalaea's life was relatively uneventful... but highly fulfilling. Unlike others who treated their job like a chore, Lyvalaea found happiness in the fact that her hands and her mind were always occupied. During her jobs, she dutifully fulfills the tasks expected of her. On idle times, she'd spend time integrating the knowledge she learned outside Soul Society and trying to re-imagine how it could be applied to help save lives. She trained rigorously, too, albeit secretly.

Nowadays, she reserves no time for herself to ponder on her lost love life, although she allows herself to give her friends some time, enjoying occasional meetings to catch up with Munno and Darya. She remains as an employee in the Tanaka household, not just a servant but also a student.

Shit happened, that's what.