Watarimono Garuda

Name: Watarimono Garuda
Age: 23
True Age: 313
Sex: Male
Personality: He prefers working alone, but he has no choice in dealing with others, to learn and to train. His conversation skills reflect his ronin-esque personality, but he is more friendly towards those who give him proper, traditional, respects. However, he does not enjoy being alone. Because of his past lives, being caught in many traumatic incidents has given him both an appreciation of people around him as well as the value of being alone, but his preference is in being alone, feeling as if the world would just not understand the pain of losing family, losing property, losing everything in one fell swoop.
Likes: Meditation (direct contact with the spirit within his zanpakuto), interacting with nature, training
Fears: Dying alone, losing contact with his zanpakuto spirit, facing an insurmountable foe/unable to reach fullest potential/becoming obsolete

Character Appearance

Height: 6'
Weight: 172 lbs
Physical Traits:
Clothing: Preferring traditional wear, he is most often seen in a black and white kimono.
Accessories: Depending on his mood, he may carry an iPod, wearing overhead headphones rather than earbuds, listening to music that would've been released around the same time period Soul Society reflects.

Fighting Style

General Fighting Style: Prefers to fight one-handed when in one-on-one combat, however will switch to proper Kendo technique against stronger and/or multiple opponents. He also has to consider Tatsumaki's unpredictable nature and whether or not he wants to fight, as listed under Garuda's weaknesses. Garuda is also a meticulous student of technique, allowing him to pinpoint holes in an opponent's defence 75% of the time.
Strengths: Speed, Technique (Swordmanship/Zanjutsu), Kidou
Weaknesses: Garuda's primary weakness is in his frame. When forced into hand-to-hand combat, his strength is severely reduced, compared to his strength of technique in his swordsmanship. Also, Tatsumaki is a fickle spirit. In Shikai, Tatsumaki can revert to original sword form, stripping Garuda of his boosts. In Bankai, Tatsumaki can limit or strip Garuda of the abilities gained.

Zanpakuto & Kidou

Sealed Appearance:
Spirit’s Name: Tatsumaki
Spirit’s Appearance:
Spirit’s Personality: A brash, brutish individual, Tatsumaki is obsessed with death and destruction. Many times, Garuda comes into his zanpakuto's inner world through meditation, in an attempt to appease the giant cyclone. Usually, they just talk, debate, a war of words that keeps it from becoming a war of worlds. He is a physical representation of the very Greensburg tornado that took his life those centuries ago.
Inner World:

Spoiler:

Hado: 4, 11, 29, 31, 33, 58, 60, 73, 87, 90
Bakudo: 4, 30, 61, 62, 63
Custom Kido: Kouseitan'i Nousatsu, Sakujou no Kaze, Bure-do no Teikiatsu-Uzu
Custom Abilities: Summon Tatsumaki (Bankai only), Rebreather

Shikai

Call Out Command: Sweep away the chaff
Appearance:
Abilities: Able to kick up tornadoes up to F2 strength and gales with similar wind speeds to gusts coming off a funnel of F2 strength. These winds can pick up and throw objects if the tornado travels over it, turning something as simple as a rock into a bullet. It becomes a projectile weapon, able to throw an opponent around or, if the opponent is stronger, distract and blind him/her. It can also block, redirect, and even slingshot weaker-force Kidou.

Elements, such as fire or water, can be absorbed and utilized in the tornado, adding extra elemental damage. Vortices can also be made underwater, the tornado now being made into an F2-strength whirlpool eddy.

Also, because of the segmented ends, it can wrap around an opponent to allow the use of Hado #11. The segments can also come apart until halfway down the sword, and can be used similar to the technique Broken Baboon Tail. The broken segments can also become a small buckler in Garuda's off-hand.
Boosts: Speed, kidou (through the use of Hado #11)

Bankai

New Name: Shinjinbukai Tatsumaki
Appearance:
Abilities: Garuda's body kicks up a dust devil around his body, lightly shrouding him. Rather than the segmented sword, Tatsumaki is now a whip chain. Instead of only half the chain, the whole chain can break and come back together at will. The tornadoes produced in Bankai are much stronger, reaching past EF4 if Tatsumaki and Garuda are in complete sync. The rotational velocity would be enough to rip a much weaker opponent's body to pieces, also turning blades of grass into blades similar to Senbonzakura, and splinters of wood into small spears. The chain can also split into two separate, usable chain whips that can fire tornadoes of F2 strength similar to Shikai, but only the off-hand chain can re-attach to the main hand.
Boosts: Speed and strength

Back Drop

Background: Garuda's soul itself is a well-aged Blank, gaining more and more experience and years until it finally came into maturity when his last body died of old age. All of his lives involved someone who took martial arts, but where they lived was a different story. A couple of them were from Japan, in the feudal era; he knows much of his kendo, piece by piece, from that past. He also witnessed the great tsunami that swept away the village at Mt Unzen, himself being one of those who died. In following reincarnations, he witnessed the very storm that would take the form of his zanpakuto while a young man in Kansas, one of the victims of the Greensburg tornado that struck in the year 2007. After such an event, his soul was linked to the area within the USA known as Tornado Alley. With each death, whether he was a human or an animal, he has been linked to great natural disasters: Hurricane Katrina, tornadoes in the US and in Canada. It wasn't until his natural death that his soul attained peace, allowing him to ascend to the Soul Society.
Side Notes: Garuda sometimes talks to himself, but he is actually talking to Tatsumaki.
RP Sample:

Garuda sat in a hut, by himself, listening to the insects buzz and flit about in the stale air. He was on a tatami, a light fire burning, igniting the incense within a small bowl hanging over the light blaze. His eyes were closed, but his eyeballs were moving as if dreaming. His dark-coloured zanpakuto was rested against his shoulder, the scabbard unravelling and falling like dust upon the tatami to reveal the black blade underneath. It glowed faintly, vibrating in unison to Garuda's rapid eye movement, as if they were connected.

In fact they were; Garuda was walking through the fields within the world that his zanpakuto's spirit resided. The clouds billowed and swirled, a great wind whipped up around Garuda, his hair whipping back and forth as the light turned an eerie green. He knew that it wouldn't be long now.

"If you're just going to play hide and seek with me," Garuda said into the fiercely-blowing wind, "then why waste time causing such a ruckus?" He looked up to see an evil face, red eyes with a cruel smile. "Come down here, Tatsumaki," he said to the dark entity overhead. "Stop wasting my time." All of a sudden, a great rush of wind threw Garuda backwards, forcing him into the grass. He could not lift himself up either, as a dark funnel cloud descended into the lush lea. From it extended a hand that held Garuda down; the red eyes and red mouth returned.

"You cause such a fuss, little boy," the tornado roared. "Why play hide and seek when I could force you out of your little trance, or even kill you here so that you will never wake up?" Garuda did notice the difficulty in breathing, not just from the weight of the titan's hand, but also the absence of air around him. He just laid there, holding what little breath he could in his lungs as the giant hand was finally lifted; the grass around him was torn by little swirls. "You act like such a child sometimes," Garuda says quietly. Tatsumaki's arms withdraw into his sweeping body. "And you ACT like such an adult all the time," the tornado says in the midst of a boyish laugh. "You used to be such fun. Oh, the blood we used to spill, the messes we used to make; after you dropped out of the academy with me in tow, you've been acting the saint. A ronin is no saint. He should be a ruthless contract killer with nothing to lose and everything to gain."

Garuda's gaze burned into the eyes of the beast, his own eyes shining brighter than Tatsumaki's. "But what is there to gain except a bounty on your own head and money that will be spent, stolen or seized after capture?" was Garuda's rebuttal. "I would rather just keep myself away from the general public, especially with you in my hands. You either release yourself and go after some poor innocent, and then hide in the sword whenever I need you in a fight to get away from the authorities. It's bad enough I've been hiding away from the Gotei 13 for this long, JUST BECAUSE of you." Tatsumaki laughed, unimpeded by Garuda's attempt at sound logic. "You cower because you fear my abilities, I think," the funnel cloud roars back. "If you truly had a stomach, you would wield me properly without any fret or woe." Garuda smiles a little bit. "Then maybe if you had the stomach to allow me to wield you without malice or fear," he says. "If you wanted to be wielded, then you wouldn't be such a child and let me use you!" Garuda leaped at Tatsumaki and entered the vortex. With that, the meditation was ended. Garuda opened his eyes, feeling the grumbling frustration coming from his zanpakuto. "Oh you know I'm right," he says, the dust forming into a perfectly lacquered scabbard around the black blade. "I'm glad you finally agree."

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