Name: Raven Kanzaki
Age: Appears 22 ish. He is currently 119, not including the 61 year time hop.
Sex: Male
Species: Shinigami with quincys abilities. (Don't worry. I'll explain.)
Alliance: None. He is currently listed as guilty of treason and killed.
Appearance:
As is implied by the bio, he is currently wearing the standard shinigami shikakusho as to not attract tons of attention even though he has quincy clothes which are not with him for good reason.
Personality: Raven has come a long way since his first days as a shinigami and in a lot of ways he has not. In one sense, he went out and became somewhat successful. In another sense, he has had a terrible habbit of coming up short in the things that really matter. The mission in the Dangai and the matter of the quincys were both failures in his eyes due to the casualties, though he is unaware of the results of the latter at this time or even the fact that he's been dumped 61 years into the future. Though almost talentless barring invention, Raven throws himself fully at every task he takes on and does not take failure as an option. He will not allow himself to quit halfway. As a result, his failures are usually heavy ones. Unable to take loss well, he carries them with himself wherever he goes and cannot let them go short of situations where he is forced to act to accomplish what he needs. No sooner do things settle down do they resume slowly eating away at him as torturous reminders of his own limitations. It probably doesn't help much that he bickers with Shoukyaku left and right. They talk almost constantly and short of discussion about their current chess game which Shoukyaku is usually winning, Raven is subjected to hearing some of the most brutal hammering for his shortcomings known to man. This is further reinforced by the fact that she can tell what he is thinking and can thus hammer him in ways that no other could possibly hope to other than himself. When not being a ball of depression, Raven is very animated and jumps feet first into whatever it might be. This makes him on such an occasion enjoyable to be around and very productive so long as the task isn't something like a bunch of heavy lifting.
A very intelligent individual, Raven thinks on a high level but doesn't tend to share his thoughts or think up on himself too much. His language is formal but not overly technical except when it needs to be. Having Shoukyaku in his mind has been an excellent way to ensure that he didn't get an oversized head, full of pride. She may have taken it a bit too far but that was the silver lining of it. Though the two have a very abrasive looking sort of relationship, Shoukyaku is ultimately supportive. Often times, Raven would throw himself into work for days or weeks at a time without sleep and only through her constantly loaning him her stamina and reiatsu did he manage that kind of insanity. She respects his determination to work himself to the bone regardless of how tiring or painful it might be. His lack of talent she scoffs at. Even his intelligence which is quite considerable, she scoffs at. But she would never laugh at his effort and determination.
Raven is very resistant to discomfort, muscling through cold, wind, pain in general, and whatever else might be in his way but that does not make him a monolithic slab of stone. When not doing important stuff or moping, he'll usually be reading or struggling to beat Shoukyaku in a game of chess in their mind. As he learns, she learns with him, resulting in even a little teamwork with her guiding him through stuff. He will often find someone to do things with which results in an oh so slight but very vocal jealousy streak followed by hard denial. Then in revenge, she'll cause him all sorts of problems which have ranged from distracting him so he pokes himself with a needle to trying to get him absentminded while cooking so she can guide his hand into dropping a tomato or two or three or ten in to spillig his secrets to others because she can. These little vengeful streaks have led to him no longer cooking very often. If he wasn't so clumsy, he'd probably be able to avoid a lot of these pranks but he is and thus, he often can't. Raven dreads the day that he'll be able to materialize her. Then she'll be able to drive him crazy both inside his head and out.
Bio: Raven graduated from the academy 101 years BCB (before canon Bleach). He was a fairly typical student and an amateur scientist. In academy terms, we call that being a nerd. Naturally, he wanted to join the 12th, then Urahara's division. However, on his first day, any such chance of that was shattered as Urahara fled along with Tessai, Yoruichi, and the vizards. Nevertheless, he still joined the 12th division and had his world rocked once he understood what it meant to have Mayuri as a captain. It was literally working under a mad scientist and to survive, one had to tread very carefully to not end up as one of the unlucky ones experimented on. Interestingly enough, he managed to do pretty well. With a taste for invention, he shared a common pursuit of knowledge, perhaps not in as radical a way but it was a shared pursuit nonetheless. In the years that followed, he worked his way up to being a 10th seat which was just a token rank. As it turned out, he may have pursued knowledge but was not nearly as gifted as the likes of Mayuri in most fields and rarely was any more than an assistant. In fact, he was for the most part ignored until he got on the radar of Ichimaru Gin and not in a good way. Simply, he was too appealing to pick on. He voiced his wish to get stronger in the slightly too public space near the 12th but too close to the said captain after a good amount of getting pushing around by the likes of the 11th division's more thuggish members. Ichimaru interpreted that as "You're welcome to train me" and took him up on it, likely not for any care or concern, just because it was amusing to watch him keep falling on his face. No 10th seat said no to a captain, much less that one. As it turned out, the "training" did eventually bear fruit. After having been stabbed countless times over a period of nearly a year, falling into Ukitake's koi pond, and being pushed around by most division that weren't the 4th, Raven attained shikai completely by accident and proceeded to misuse it which led to a miscalculation by the captain that landed him in the 4th for three months. Neither of them understood the ability and while Ichimaru had intended to swing into the block, Raven's released sword had other plans, leaving him almost cut in half. That little incident led to Unohana's intervention and the subsequent "doctor's orders" to tone down how rigorous this training and sparring was allowed to be. It was there during recovery that he met the shinigami who later became known as Senna as she was trying to transfer out of the 3rd. Naturally, it didn't happen. That would be 83 BCB.
In the time that followed recovery, Raven still retained some closeness to the captain. Whether he was crazy or not, he was effective and extremely so. To take one who had a terrible learning curve for anything that wasn't science or kido and had chronic issues with acting under pressure and make him into someone whose strength actually befitted his originally bloated rank was no small feat at all. There was a daily game of chess between the two and usually some sort of philosophical conversation. Ichimaru still viewed him as a chew toy of sorts, tossing him into all sorts of minor trouble but things were better than before. With a greater amount of confidence and more near death experiences than he'd ever intended to have under his belt, Raven began making the occasional miraculous feat for a member of the 12th, defending himself from some of the random shinigami that liked pushing the 12th and 4th around, not even flinching to the jeerings of the 11th. Of course, he was still beaten up by the latter. Over time, these feats became more and more common till one day, the thugs from the 11th found themselves floored. From that point, Raven entered Mayuri's attention once more and we have reached 79 BCB. Things went rather well for Raven and he steadily rose in the ranks, working with the likes of Lenz Richter from the 7th, Karin Yamamoto from the 2nd (who has no relation to Shigenkuni Yamamoto Genryusai in any way), Senna from the 3rd who had still failed to transfer out, and Karen Fischer from the 9th, though she was rather reluctant to work with him. Following a fairly long train of successes he reached 4th seat at 69 BCB, doing all sorts of tasks for Mayuri, one of which included a team mission to the Dangai in which he screwed up, resulting in Senna's death there. In the aftermath of it, the Dangai research was shut down and she was struck from the history books to cover it up. That put Raven in a state of depression for a while but time to sit back was not given. That year also marked the recursion of the quincy war. That war had been fought and won by the shinigami years ago but over time, the quincys had apparently recovered, enough that they were gaining a somewhat significant amount of military might and had been found by the shinigami but only in passing, not the main source. The Central 46 declared wartime measures and ordered them wiped out. Mayuri hopped right on the bandwagon, deciding that this would be an absolutely wonderful opportunity to research the quincys which were before then assumed to be extinct. Raven was not so hot on the concept of just destroying them. The premise for their destruction was the case that the quincy arrows destroyed hollows as opposed to purifying them which when done set the worlds off balance and that if gone too far, it'd cause a great calamity which would destroy them all as one world spilled into the next. While it was a completely insane and irrational decision, he decided to do something about it, mostly due to a need to do something right.
While he was no longer depressed, Raven had effectively thrown safety out the window. Merely by luck did he not manage to die from it. He made detours during missions to the living world, making contact with the Japanese branch of the quincys.By pure luck, Raven was not killed on sight. Due to just being a contrary person, a mid level quincy named Rei Hiroyuki stuck up for him at a critical moment which stopped things just long enough to plead his case. He proposed a way to create a truce between the two sides. Since the quincys had no intention of just not using their powers to hunt hollows, he brought forth the possibility of inventing a method for quincy arrows to purify hollows much in the same way that zanpakutos do as opposed to the destruction of them which was the cause for the imbalance. If it could be achieved, the 46 would theoretically rescind the orders to wipe out the quincys and instead forge an alliance with them. The Gotei 13 were never as fast as they would have liked to be in dealing with attacks in the living world due to the need to dispatch a shinigami or a team to deal with it. The quincys could potentially act as a first response organization, stemming the influx of hollows and defending major cities from attack in the time that it would take the shinigami to arrive. Naturally, the idea did not go over too well. The quincys had neither forgiven nor forgotten the bloody war that they had previously fought with the shinigami and were not about to just trust a shinigami, much less talk about teaming up with them. Once again by pure luck, the quincys had just recently elected a new general to lead the Japanese division, Souichirou Tanaka. At age 42, he was the youngest of the leader of any of the main branches and also one of the most willing to listen. He allowed Raven to leave in peace, stating that they'd consider things and would find him within a week to report their decision. At the same time, not being an idiot, he moved their base of operations out of Tokyo for a while to prevent a complete meltdown should it just be a ploy. The time given had a dual reasoning. He wanted to give Raven adequate time to make any suspicious moves he might have planned to make. Souichirou gathered the council and managed to push things through based on the reasoning that should he be telling the truth, it would be spitting on the pride of the quincy to kill him. Also, a war would normally be inevitable. If he was telling the truth and could potentially do what he proposed, that would be inevitable bloody war would be able to be avoided, saving a large number of people. Protecting themselves from the hollows would be pointless if they got in a head on confrontation with the Gotei 13. The death toll would be many, many times higher.
After being notified that the quincys had accepted his offer, Raven made a trip back to Soul Society, receiving a mission from Mayuri upon his request. The captain had gotten a taste for quincys and was thus willing to grant him a mission that was completely off the record to go and obtain quincy technology, something that was sorely wanted. That something was also something that many of the quincys had quipped over, seeing it as a sign of betrayal but they were silenced by Souichirou. It was an absolute necessity that Raven be able to have untracked access to the world of the living for an open ended period of time. Without that, it would be impossible. This sort of puzzle was not something that would be figured out by studying their weapons. The top quincy scientists in the country were called over for this project. A laboratory was set up underneath the main Tokyo General Hospital, the quincy's main base of operations and they began work. Of course, it was a slow process. From the get go, Raven had absolutely no understanding of how quincy powers worked and had to have the entire theory drilled into him, backwards and forwards. At the same time, he volunteered his zanpakuto to be studied by both him and the quincys. He felt that there would likely be a way to replicate the way that the zanpakuto purified souls. If that could be applied to quincy arrows, they'd have essentially succeeded. However, why a zanpakuto did that was not something that the shinigami had bothered delving into. It wasn't only that either. Even kido spells or a shinigami punching a hollow hard enough led to purification while a hollow eating a hollow was just one absorbing the other which didn't threaten the balance. Yet when a quincy shot a hollow, it was completely destroyed. The basic conclusion drawn was that there was something odd about the quincy technology. No quick solution that both sides had hoped for was found and Raven occasionally had to make trips back to Soul Society to gather materials and such. Despite his best efforts, he fell under suspicion. Specifically, he fell under suspicion from Soi Fon who had been looking for stuff to get Mayuri for for a while. So in a sense, it was unavoidable. Luckily, Raven's actions, though suspicious were not worth per personal attention. Makoto Kamata, her then 4th seat was dispatched to find out what he was up to and preferably catch him red handed. This was sheerly due to the fact that she was a good friend with Karin who had previously worked with Raven a lot on the record. It did not garner the kind of advantage it was supposed to as Karin had no involvement nor knowledge of his latest campaign. Her entry marked the start of the involvement of Kaji Ryuzaki, then the 3rd seat of the 6th division under Byakuya. Obviously much stronger than his rank befitted, he always kept himself an arm's length from the duties of being a vice-captain. While not a noble himself, he was extremely refined and as his captain put it "not a noble but as good as a commoner could hope to be". Raven managed to enlist his help though a few more lucky occurrences, the most notable being Byakuya making an unintentionally related statement that helped him make the decision to help. Normally about as far from treason as they came, Kaji did an excellent job of throwing the searches off, allowing Raven to continue his research with a number of close calls but without being caught.
Raven's research made progress but not nearly fast enough. In the year following, 68 BCB, Souichirou made a groundbreaking suggestion, one that nearly led the quincys into civil war. The idea was that the issue with the research was each side's inability to completely understand the other. A quincy could not reasonably become a shinigami so the most obvious conclusion was to teach Raven the quincy arts from ground zero. The more conservative quincys viewed this as pure sacrilege and opposed it. When most of the younger prominent members of the council supported the motion, the outrage only increased. Threats were made and the situation almost exploded when the training began. Then Raven settled it in the most final way possible. His bow blew up. No, it was not purposeful. He was taught how to form a basic reishi bow from a quincy cross but it literally exploded within a second of being formed. The conservative quincys seemed satisfied that if he couldn't do it, it just wouldn't matter. They expected him to give it up as Souichirou hadn't pushed it since it started. However, Raven had no intention of giving it up. He started back up regular research sessions with the other quincys and practiced in between. He asked more than once if he was just really crappy at controlling reiatsu but the fact was that kido was his best area. It turn, he was asked in a roundabout way if he was just crappy at everything at to that, he had no answer. It was a disputed fact but a fact nonetheless that he was almost talentless. It stung a little since small children managed to make bows with no problems whatsoever and it stung more when they saw him training. He wasn't really being picky about the times so he was seen by anyone and everyone who passed through headquarters. After about a month of embarrassing himself, pity was taken on him. Actually, scratch that, he'd received plenty of pity before that but the source of this particular pity way a quincy named Yukari Toyoshima, one who was about as far from him as one could possibly be. She was refined, usually silent, and extremely talented. She was also one of the generals of the Japan Branch, the youngest one at age 26 and typically one of the more conservative. Compared to Raven who was clumsy, vocal when not depressed, extremely untalented, and currently technically committing treason, it was far off. She attempted to dissuade him several times with logic. He wasn't making any progress. A lot worse could happen than his bow just making a small explosion than sent him stumbling. It wouldn't help the research to wear himself down till he was falling asleep in the middle of handling explosive chemicals. It was plain embarrassing. Raven respectfully declined to give up the matter. After another week, Yukari started giving him tips here and there, small things about how to not have his bow explode, explaining in a few words some of the many things he was doing wrong. It was not an easy thing to tell since his form was horrible. Most wouldn't know where to begin but she managed. The explosions got smaller little by little. Then a week later, Raven really screwed up. He made a serious error while trying to make an arrow quickly before his bow could blow up and a large explosion ensued, one that put him out of commission. It was a good thing that so many of the quincys were doctors and a lot of those surgeons because the shinigami certainly wouldn't have been able to respond quick enough to save him from having his chest blown open. They did. He was supposed to take a month to recover. That wasn't going to happen.
Three days after being hospitalized, Yukari payed him a visit. She asked him if he was serious about wanting to learn the quincy arts. He hesitated. She socked him in the face, asking him why the heck he'd even bothered to try, then dragged him out of bed and over to the underground training facility. Summoning the bow was not allowed. They started from the beginning, how to think, how to move, how to dress, how to eat, how to sew. He was given new clothes till he was skilled enough to make his own and had the quincy's code of honor carved into his mind, body, and soul. When using the bow, unlike when casting a kido spell, clearing the mind was a guarantee of failure. Concentrating on the people and things you most wanted to protect, obliterating anything that dared to harm them was an absolute necessity. Then those feelings were brought through the cross, combined with the power of the world around them and formed into the shape of a bow and fired in the form of arrows. The elders frowned upon this. On top of it being sacrilege, they saw it as a waste of time that prevented the shinigami from doing the job that he was supposed to do. A year later, Raven was finally able to form a bow, form an arrow, and fire it without anything exploding. He was also able to perform hirenkyaku without smashing into a wall and ransotengai without pulling too hard and breaking his arm. The old men were not pleased that the he had been successful but didn't dare voice any complaints other than that it was outrageous for a shinigami to be given a taught how to make his own quincy uniform which he had already done and was wearing every other day while he finished making a second. Naturally, things didn't stay with the internal squabbles forever. By Raven's continued existence, those against him eventually got tired of complaining when they couldn't do much about it since an assassination was ruled out due to the blow it would deal to their quincy pride. On top of that, life just went on. By that, life meant that the search teams from the Gotei 13 were still roaming around, trying to locate the quincys. Raven's accomplices in Soul Society did a pretty good job of throwing the searches off while giving them just enough to feel like they had small leads, not enough to find anyone but not so little that they would be as wary of sabotage as they could have or should have been.
During the next year, 67 BCB, a critical even occurred, one which changed the course of the quincy central plans. The Central 46 had pushed forward the time of attack and launched a blitzkreig attack on five different nations, committing five divisions to the assault. China, Japan, England, France, and Germany were all hit. In these countries were 95% of the quincy population and by sheer military force with sweep checks, four of these countries were crushed. Thanks to a two o'clock in the morning 15 minute tipoff. In the rush, he took command of the Japan Branch forces and executed a brilliant multi-layered decoy strategy. Overnight, the Japan Branch which was originally the smallest of the major branches became the hub of all organized quincy activity. The remnants of the other branches either gave up the war, were wiped out, or made their way over to the Japan Branch just in time to see Raven become the commander in chief all all quincy forces, not that he wanted to but a majority of the council felt that their survival that night was completely due to his tactics. Naturally, a lot of the more conservative quincys had a cow over it as well as the ones that wandered in but there wasn't much to be said when the fact remained that the Japan Branch was still standing with barely any losses while all the others had been all but wiped out. Tension remained high as they couldn't accept that they were now taking orders from a bumbling shinigami, not that Raven lorded it over them because he didn't. The fact was that the tactics, brilliant as they were did not even belong to him. He had merely regurgitated the ideas of another. Of course, no one would have taken him seriously if he'd told them that he'd been instructed by an entity inside his head. This particular being was not his zanpakuto. What it was is actually not that important yet other than that it was nearly a mirror image of Raven but many times more experienced, many times more powerful, and eager to watch him flop on his face. It was also clearly not a hollow, though Raven himself originally thought so at the time and for a long time after. Shoukyaku adamantly refused to answer his questions about that entity no matter how much he asked or pressured her. At the high point of their little conflict, he stirred her in a mud puddle. She screamed at him all the while and for weeks afterwards but gave no answers. Eventually, the matter settled when Raven became too exhausted to pursue it any further. That other entity for the moment was not above his research in priority. The sweeps from the shinigami were coming more and more frequently. He was running out of time and everyone knew it.
Time passed rather quickly as the best time of Raven's life, arguably. Even though it took a while, even the quincys that disliked him stopped trying to get him executed and instead settled for pretending he didn't exist. The sweeps were evaded with a few close calls as usual, though they were all forced to move into Souichirou's house in Karakura Town, most of them living in the basement training area. There were just too many sweeps through Tokyo. It was unanimously agreed that if they stayed, they would inevitably mess up and be caught at some point in the near future. A couple years down the road, Raven cross paths with Urahara and the proposed fix of the time was advanced much further thanks to the input of the scientist. Of course, Urahara never made any contact with the main quincy forces but Raven visited him from time to time both for advice and social reasons. He was also happy to help supply them with some hard to come by materials for a fair price. However, not everything was spring and daisies. Every single lead met with failure no matter how good it looked. There was no answer beyond a temporary one. Years dragged on and the quincys began to wonder if there was a solution at all. A lot of them began dropping off in favor of just living out normal lives. They didn't see an end to this and no one could blame them. Then in 61 BCB, Raven came up with a theory on the matter. If only a zanpakuto purified or only quincy bows destroyed, then there could be a mechanical factor involved but that wasn't the case. Ginto, seele schneiders, and even a quincy killing a hollow with his bare hands led to destruction of the soul. The concept was that it wasn't a mechanical matter at all but one of ideology. Quincys typically focus on destroying hollows when forming or using their weapons whereas shinigami are naturally taught that they purify hollows, thus it became natural that that would be the result. It wasn't so much an ideology as it was an accepted fact of how things were. This theory was grounded in the concept that the quincy bow and the shinigami zanpakuto stemmed from the same source. It was nothing more than a misconception that resulted in them being seen as different. It was just that one was manifested into physical form and the other was channeled through an object like a quincy cross or a sanrei shuto. The answer was much simpler than anyone had originally thought but at the same time, it was not an incredibly easy fix. A technical fix could be proven sound. A fix like this would require monitoring everyone and tweaking the ideology. That was not an easy feat to pull off in a way that the 46 would agree to. Nevertheless, it was a solution, the only solution. By proving this one, it also proved that technical fixes would be impossible barring something like special arrowheads which would be nearly impossible to make in mass quantities even if designed. Leaving some notes on his discovery after testing it, Raven packed his notes and headed for Soul Society. Another heavy sweep was supposed to happen in two days and the Gotei 13 was supposedly sending three whole divisions to flip Japan upside down till they found the quincys.
Getting back into Soul Society was simple. Getting an audience with the Central 46 was not. Raven considered several different ways to do it. He could present to his captain but it'd be pointless. Mayuri wouldn't bother to stop the war. It'd be a waste of time. If it were possible, it would be best to show it to the captain commander as he actually had the capability to get an audience with the old men. Worst, he was actually in Soul Society and thus extremely vulnerable. He would have to keep himself from being arrested by the Omnitsukido. Worst of all, he could not make a fully convincing case as he was but that was how it had to be. He himself was still a shinigami so the question could be begged that his theory was in fact incorrect and that his arrows only purified because he was primarily a shinigami and not a quincy. Ideally, he'd need to bring a full blooded normal quincy to prove his theory solid but there was no way that he could just bring one of them to Soul Society for a demonstration for the 46. It was best this way. Or so he told himself. Ultimately, he was arrested. He tried to plead his case but was generally ignored and classified as out of his mind. Naturally, they also took his case as pleading guilty of treason and not nearly large enough a case to warrant an audience with the 46. Unwilling to let things go like that, he broke out and made it to the Central 46 with a little bit of help from Kaji and later from Gin Ichimaru, though the latter was just situational. The captain didn't do anything that could be proven as treason so long as he denied knowing that Raven was there and what he was doing. All he did was open the doors and get by security to have a chat with them about an off the record mission which allowed Raven to sneak in behind him. It couldn't be proven that he'd purposely allowed it. Raven made his case as quickly as possible over the outcries of the old men, even demonstrating with a small hollow kept in a box that he'd brought with him. They laughed in his face, one volunteering just enough to bring him to the terrible truth. Purifying souls was important but the quincys destroying souls was not an issue as long as they were not destroying souls by the tens and hundreds of millions. While many souls are recycled, it is not as if souls are never formed. Were that true, the total population of both worlds would remain approximately static and wouldn't be able to breach a certain point. At the dawn of humanity, they would have hit the road block of not having enough souls to recycle to give birth and the hollows long since would have taken over as the first shinigami hadn't come around till much later. It could be seen as fundamentally wrong to destroy souls but at these numbers, there was no realistic danger to the balance of the universe. It could have been solved as simply as not allowing them to breach a certain quota, allowing the quincys to defend themselves but banning mass hollow huntings. If souls disappearing from one side was actually a problem, then the movement of souls to the dangai in the form of blanks would have long since caused the collapse of the worlds. Of course, few people knew about the blanks. The only reason Raven did was from his prior hands on research in the Dangai. Long story short, whether he had an answer or not was meaningless as they were having the war for reasons other than world balance in the first place, probably having more to do with asserting dominance. Raven fled the chambers and was stabbed in the right shoulder and right below the right lung by Ichimaru on his way out from a couple long range hits from Shinso. It went without saying that the captain let him go but whether it was to help him or for amusement alone was ambiguous. It might have been both.
Raven tried to hurry back to the living world. Pursued by the Omnitsukido, he managed to open a senkaimon gate and get through it. It wasn't thought out too well in the rush. He went in along through several Omnitsukido members... and ran headlong into the Kototsu less than a second later. He'd managed to completely screw up, not having checked the times. The others that followed hadn't thought it out either. Upon being hit, he was sent 61 years into the future, landing on Ichigo and company as they ran from the very same Kototsu in the Dangai.
Zanpakuto: It is the standard katana plus another inch on the blade. The guard is in the shape of a five pointed star, not unlike the five pointed quincy cross.
Zanpakuto Spirit: Shoukyaku is a female assassin, always in black special ops gear. She is a little pale with a white ponytail and a few inches shorter than Raven not that anyone looking would be able to tell. If Raven randomly flinches, it is probably because Shoukyaku is screaming at him for whatever reason. He's making them look dumb. He should have done something better. He forgot to take out the trash. You name it. When push comes to shove, she is supportive of him but everywhere in between, you wouldn't know it because they bicker constantly. In fact, the only time that Raven seemed to assert his authority was in the mud stirring matter and even then, he didn't get her to tell him what he wanted to know. She has extremely high standards and does not like it when Raven ever falls below them. Naturally, he often does. If all else fails, he is berated for not being enough like a man. She might be a harsh mistress but is ultimately supportive in his most important endeavors. Note that this does not mean that she won't be driving him crazy the whole way through. She will.
Shikai: Gomen, Shoukyaku is the release command and you can bet there's a whole story behind that one. For the sake of his pride, that particular juicy details won't be touched on here. Raven's sword only undergoes a color change as far as appearance goes. The blade becomes pitch black and the back of the blade becomes pure white. From there, he has the ability to split it into two separate complete swords, one white, one black. The black sword will phase through all non-biological objects as though they didn't exist. This includes kido, zanpakutos in sword form, and armor among the other obvious stuff. the white sword is unable to harm anything biological, instead having a minor healing effect on whatever it touches.
Bankai: (I guess, unless they're like Ichigo or a captain- they won't get this!)<--------- Why do we bother with this since the captain slots are filled and Ichigo is an already made character? Having bankai at the start would be being auto overpowered anyway.
Other abilities: Shunpo, Hirenkyaku, Ransotengai, the skill to use ginto (specifically Gritz and Heizen), some experience with the seele schneider, Hados 1, 4, 11, and 32, bakudo 4, all chantless. Any other kidos are not fit for battle use. He has not learned how to shunpo and hirenkyaku simultaneously. The last time, he tripped and it wasn't pretty. Ransotengai was a crash course for learning how to control reishi well. Lastly, he has a one handed level 1 quincy bow. I level quincys bows like so. Level 1 is the energy looking reishi bow off of the quincy cross. Level 2 is the corporeal bow off the Sanrei Shuto. Level 3 is the spoked bow off of the quincy cross. The level 4 is the corporeal bow off of the quincy cross. Naturally, it means that he fires one shot at a time.
Items: A quincy cross, his zanpakuto, and one ginto. While he knows how to use a seele schneider, he does not have one.
Strengths: Speed, determination, and sword skill by effort.
Weaknesses: Dismal levels of raw strength, often a little clumsy, and being tissue papery.
