Saiku Tsubame
From Inga no Kusari wiki
| Saiku Tsubame ♂ | |
|---|---|
 Unseated, 12th Division | |
| Date of Birth | 7th December, 1941 (70) |
| Place of Birth | 7th District, Rukongai |
| Zanpakutō | Geriraheika |
| Player | AquaAerios |
| Shinigami | |
Contents |
Appearance
Standing at a 3'8" (Talon to head) and a compact 74 lbs, he is an odd sight to behold. He isn't "human", and does not resemble a human in the slightest. In fact, Saiku is made of complete glass, and does not have facial features except his eyes, instead having prismatic "skin", or one that resembles a golem made from fragmented mirror.
As it stands, Saiku isn't human. His shape overall is that of a large bird, or more specifically, a sparrow, which is often mistaken for a eagle, with his size. The general structure being as such, his "wings" are also glass, and very sharp to boot. His orange glow has lost its luster, now appearing a dull white/silver. His eyes are instead, black. Of course, this is all glass. Think an ice sculpture, or a many-surfaced glass structure.
How does the bird keep hold of his zanpakutō? Luckily for him, his zanpakutō isn't a blade, but is rather a metal band that attaches to his tarsus.
Personality
The bird, despite its size, tends to display a rather meek behavior, hopping around and pecking around as a normal bird would. Since it can't reply in normal terms, such as talking, it tends to chirp frequently and show its mood in direct actions. For example, it will bow its head lightly in greeting or out of reverence, nod and chirp if happy, or brandish its talons and flap its wings if distressed or nervous.
In combat, Saiku does not distinguish between his allies; he values everyone with the same amount of respect and identity. For all his allies, be it lieutenants, seated officers, or captains, he provides an uncontested level of loyalty, going so far to defend them to buy time for their efforts. Against enemies, he has a strict sense of order, and will only retaliate under the harshest of circumstances, choosing to avoid fighting as much as possible. On first encounters with others, he chooses to retreat in fear until the right amount of friendliness has been shown.
While his rather meek demeanor and frequent spacing out's remain the same, a bolder side has been introduced, giving him a lift in interaction with other beings.
Saiku has gained the ability to talk like a human, a gift granted to him after he met the soul of his architect in the human world. With his death, he now retains a more serious composition, and his analyzing functions have also grown since his "seating test".
History
For weeks, Takasuju Kanshin had been sculpting and constructing a glass figurine of a sparrow. Being a sculptor as he was, he found it interesting to take cues from nature and build figurines like this. For one, the glass wouldn't be stiff, and wouldn't settle in one position. Takasuju found that to be a rather boring thing. In fact, a bit of experimental handiwork with glass fabrication combined with a tad reiatsu had produced a style that created a flexible type of glass; to be more specific, the glass wouldn't shatter, no matter how much you moved it around. This created a much more pleasant end result for both the community and for himself. No matter how much kids played around with it, unless they slammed it into the ground deliberately, it wouldn't break.
Of course, there was always the matter of HOW he got the reiatsu... that would create a bit of stir. As everything around Soul Society was formed from spirit particles, including glass, flesh, and blades, all it required for the glass to have a different make was just a bit of blood-fueled craft. The only difference was the result in hardiness of the material.
...and now, after nearly 6 weeks of trials and failures, the final product was nearly in his grasp. The only thing that remained was the last bit of chiseling and tinting the glass.
Hours later, it finally had a look of a product, with obvious coloring differentiations. Since this was just a figurine, a coloring combination of black eyes and a distinct, orange body wouldn't do anyone much harm. But for now, he was tired; after being awake for a good 20 hours, some sleep seemed to be in order. Taking one last look at the glass bird, Takasuju whispered, "Koppuhane", and prepared to go to sleep, blowing the candle out and retreating to his makeshift bed.
As the light went off, the eyes of Koppuhane still seemed to glow with life.
Sunrise, along with a distinct murmur around the district. It was noted that Takasuju was nowhere to be found, and while his bedsheets hadn't shifted in any way, the man was still gone.
That night, Koppuhane creaked to life for the first time, blinking as if it was flesh and cocking his head several times and looking around the dark room. He didn't even know he was emitting a reiatsu level above most of the residents in this area. As the bird hopped down from his pedestal, he chirped in slight indignation, as it would take a bit of movement to get his tarsus adjusted to his body weight. For now, something was calling him to move towards a particular direction.
Several days later, after a great deal of hopping around and avoiding people who had taken an interest in a moving, glass bird, he had reached the gates of Seireitei. Of course... there was still the issue of a gatekeeper that stood in front of him, towering over his own pitiful size with ease.
Out of fright, the bird hopped away, making the guard slightly curious, but dismissed the thought anyway. To the bird, the thought of crossing those white walls seemed impossible. For a long time, Koppuhane perched on several buildings directly in front of the gates, or at the very least, around the buildings of first division. He made frequent flights around the area, which raised many curious eyes to the air until he came back down to roost on the ledges. This repeated for several years.
This cycle would break soon enough.
It wasn't until July of the year 1991 that he'd get a glimpse of his first shinigami. An uncommon sight in Rukongai that a captain would be coming to visit.
Mekyo Arasugane passed through the gate, and after taking a brief glimpse of the stretch of buildings before her, her eyes fell upon a reflected glimmer upon a roof, which was, on all accounts, Koppuhane. The bird glanced back, cocking his head and taking in the woman in strange awe. She was the first shinigami he'd seen, and seeing that she emerged from the gate, he now had more of an urgent feeling to get past the gate. Though, he noticed that she seemed slightly different from the rest of the people he had seen up until now... though he couldn't quite figure it out.
Then a thought erupted in his head. He'd never tried flying over the wall. With a slight effort to relieve himself from the ledge with Arasugane's eyes on him, the bird flew.
...and hit an invisible wall...
He chirped indignantly, looking back down at the shinigami with a shameful glint in his eyes (how can we tell?) and flew back towards the ledge.
"Interesting..." Arasugane crossed her arms, convinced that the bird was definitely not one of ordinary origins. No simple bird had the amount of reiatsu that this one had tucked into it, even more startling was that the bird was made of glass. Surely this bird was meant to be a figurine... not a live, moving object. She wanted to run some tests on it, but if she approached it, would it fly off?
She decided to put her theory to the test. Glancing at the bird and seeing that it had its eyes focused on her, unwavering in every aspect. Before the bird could react, Arasugane had disappeared from sight. A brief shift of the roof so that it felt like the platform behind him was sinking made Koppuhane turn, only to black out. He still had consciousness, but couldn't see to save his life. He felt like he was being taken somewhere at the speed of lightning.
That was that.
After several months of running various tests on the specimen, the 12th division as a whole arrived to various complete answers and particular conclusions on matters related to the bird.
-The glass was enhanced with blood-related reiatsu, but the method of how to do this remained unknown. -The glass, as the bird could fly, was bendable, yet more durable than that of average glass. He could still break, but then be put back together quite easily; it was found that merely mending the broken parts together and holding them together for several days did wonders on recuperation. Of course, heavy injuries and fractures required a more thorough recovery, going as far as requiring healing reiatsu to great extents to "repair" the bird. -It was implied to be a male. -He ate things a bird would normally eat; despite having no organs, the bird converted reiatsu directly to his own energy at a fixed rate.
But he still had a life, and therefore could die. Things such as fire and extreme heat were all proven to be a threat to the bird.
Also, the bird obviously could only chirp; by no means was a lack of verbal speech intended on Koppuhane's part. But, under further scrutiny, some people noticed that the bird's chirps and tones were directly related to his behavior and the situation at hand, which led them to believe the bird had a unique thought pattern different from birds, but closely identifiable with humans.
This led to an adjustable tool being created just for the sparrow. A couple of months' labor, and the scientific division had finished a device shaped like a choker that was able to convert the chirps derived from his thought pattern into a rough translator. Over the years, minor adjustments were made to it to further the effectiveness of the translating. For now, there would still be problems and bugs that remain unfixed even now.
Another matter was that no one knew what Koppuhane's name was, not even himself. The creator had said it before the construct had awoke, which made things more complicated. Based on Arasugane's memory of how the bird tried to fly into Seireitei headfirst, a general consensus, and a vote was conceived on Saiku Tsubame; War Sparrow. It was unanimous.
The last barrier to break was what use Saiku would have. In combat, he would almost always be at a disadvantage aince he couldn't really wield a zanpakutō, let alone stand his ground in a toe-to-toe combat. Arasugane considered these disadvantages, but she saw the potential in the bird's role as a shinigami despite said disadvantages and his odd origins compared to the other, more human shinigami. A more thorough search gave the head scientist an idea. She'd give Saiku a chance to be a specialist in Kidō and Hohō based abilities. It would make his small, fleeting speed, and a mild supply of reiatsu complimentary with each other.
So with some persuasion from the head of the science branch, the other captains agreed having Saiku, in all his unusual glory, put into the shinigami academy.
As a zanpakutō-less entity, he would bypass combat class for now, only participating as the target to train him in evasiveness. However, he would be specialized in Kidō as well as Hohō to become a mobile caster. Surprisingly, within about eight months of training, he had the essential basics down to some degree of mastery, though he was really far from actual mastery.
Gradual progress allowed him to graduate with mild approval from one side and disapproval from the other. Even more, Saiku had a "zanpakutō" constructed, which is really a thin band that wraps around his tarsus. He is far from a shikai, having undergone no training in that area. Shortly after, Arasugane moved him to the 12th division for close supervision and periodic training.
A few years later, an odd event that he did not fully comprehend occurred. Mekyo Arasugane was removed from her position for a reason he didn't understand. In fact, another superior officer ended up taking her place; Hakkebana Jia Yin. A change of phase in Saiku's eyes that he would only understand much later.
Saiku's days as a shinigami after Arasugane's disappearance were painfully bland. His translator wasn't much help either, as it butchered most of the translations during conversations. He made few interactions with other shinigami, flying frequently around Seireitei and raising a few eyebrows.
There was a certain time where Saiku got lost, trying to fly a certain way but ended up going all the way to the wayward districts of the 79th district, eventually meeting a group of rebels and getting caught up in a minor brigand skirmish that lasted several days. The bird bore no feelings overall towards the skirmish, as he wasn't hurt, nor did the event benefit him any. Most of the rebels he "sided" himself with were killed in the end. Following the conflict, Saiku disappeared for several months, out of Seireitei altogether.
A good 9 months later, Saiku found his way back to Seireitei from his migratory travels, and was subsequently met with a couple of interesting events to start him off. His meeting with Tategawa Shinji picqued an interest from the lieutenant who had multiple ideas in store for the bird, and a meeting with Sanpuu Kikkai would get the bird instructed in the art of kidō, an area of expertise that Kikkai could teach quite well.
All this, and Saiku's soul would undergo a moderate maturation, the crystal bird's distinction triggering an interest from the spirit from the zanpakutō on his tarsus. The brazen raptor spirit would make an appearance in Saiku's mind.
With the enhancement from Tategawa Shinji, Saiku was able to speak like a regular human, though his current mental abilities still left some flaws in his speech. It was understood, or a given, that the more control Saiku had over his reiatsu, the more his sentience would improve. That take quite a while.
His role in the twelfth division was practically non-existent. After all, the former Captain of the Division, Arasugane, only had him put in her division for the purpose of supervision. There was nothing in that mindset that included fulfilling a niche in the division.
That would soon change. Close training from Captain Sanpuu Kikkai from the Fifth division on matters of Kidō made Saiku a formidable opponent, slowly but surely. Not only that, but he was "training" himself for Hohō daily; flying around more and more gave him a kind of a training one would not expect to boost Hohō. His speed increased over time, just like his Kidō set. Slowly but surely. It was truly a deceptive evolution.
An offbeat day came when Saiku had his first encounter with an arrancar. Not even knowing that he was of the race that he was at odds with, the bird accepted him, to a degree. The conversation with Baocao brought on something of an enlightening to the bird, though at the same time, posing many questions such as the mystery of "God" and "Arrancar". Without even knowing the threat of standing around the rival race, the bird retreated to his own realm, leaving a delusional Baocao chasing a hell butterfly.
An aptitude test was to be carried out for Saiku Tsubame at this point, which seemed to be a bit of a mix-up, if one took into consideration exactly why the bird was in the division in the first place. After some quizzical interactions between the bird, Ayako Kyuugou, and later, Sasha Miguel, said avian would undergo a different aptitude test after a seating transfer occurred.
Though the latest development would be an urgent mission to the human realm; Saiku's first mission. Things would be much different with his set squad of Ginshokkou Izanami, Chizu Love, and Yuu Kohaku for the purpose of exterminating a certain hollow. Little did Saiku know that this would bring about unexpected changes, both in himself and in Geriraheika.
Fade-out Recluse, Return from Dead
The hollow that they were sent to dispatch did not appear automatically, rather, the group of four had to undergo quite an ordeal first. Partway along the mission, Saiku had felt Takasuju's presence. Though it wasn't really the same person, the soul was exactly the same, and after suffering a blow to his wing, a strange yet mutual interaction went on between the two souls. It wasn't nearly enough to muster Saiku to get back into action, and he was at the sidelines for much of the battle. Only Chizu and Izanami had passed.
The return to Seireitei encompassed a period of solitude for the bird, the disappointment of not bumped further up causing him to revert into a more inarticulate form in terms of thinking. By the same token, the previous bonding of souls between the creator and the created would turn a new leaf. For now, though, Saiku disappeared again, embarking on another "migratory" journey, like last time.
It had taken two months' time spent in the Rukon wilderness for Saiku to recalibrate his sound mind. In that process, the soul underwent a sort of a primordial burst, causing the mind to grow as a human would. giving him attributes similar to that of his creator. Once again, blood bonds were at work that could be traced back to the day before he came to life.
All was truly well and good. Saiku felt more freedom than ever before, as well as a stronger force of life. When the arrancar arrived, they felt his reiatsu, but couldn't quite place it together with a glass bird. This allowed Saiku to fly over the Rukon district, barely noticed as he flew towards Seireitei. He could feel something bad was about to happen, and therefore would go back to where he was needed.
Combat
Strengths
Ability to fly freely, though this doesn't quite go under shunpo-related skills or air-walking. Speed is generally limited in comparison to the more skilled shinigami. Due to his small size, he is very agile and hard to strike unless he's subdued.
His studies in Kidō have effectively boosted his combat strength by quite a large amount. However, this is only in theory, as he still does not retain proper reiatsu control. A more intelligent bird, his knowledge of kidou are all retained now, incantation and all, without the need of Geriraheika's help.
His reiatsu level has taken quite a large increase as well.
Weaknesses
Even though he is made of glass, he's not above being sliced. As zanpakutōs are made of steel, they can easily hurt Saiku. He can be subdued relatively easily if caught off guard, as most other fighters are above his size and weight. Also, anything that can "melt" or "break" glass to severe degrees give him a hard time in terms of withstanding the blow.
The lack of reiatsu control will more often than not end up siphoning Saiku's reiatsu output by more than neccesary. Survivality will be difficult for him without a decent supply of reiatsu.
Sometimes his speed gets the better of him, and if he hits something with the resistance of a steel wall, he will pay the price for it. While his body has a moderately tougher durability value now, cutting glass with a steel blade is easy. Any other destructive force is also able to knock him out quite easily.
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