[Beriadan] Ogaru Katsu

Name
Ogura Katsu
Gender:
Female
Race:
Shinigami
Canon/OC:
OC

Physical Description:
Katsu is a girl of short stature and light build. Her skin is fair, her hair jet black, shoulder-length and rarely let loose outside of a tight bun. Katsu's eyes are dark, like pools of wet ink, a window into a determined void. She rarely shares her inner feelings after years of training and a strict upbringing, her face a mask of expressionless with nothing but a calm look upon it. Even when angered or happy, Katsu's face does not often betray what she is feeling inside.
Clothing/Misc. Items:
Katsu wears the typical shihakusho of the Gotei 13, though her hakama are shorter and only reach down to the middle of her thighs. She wears a black ribbon garter around one leg and two around the other and has a white ribbon sash around both shoulders. Katsu wears a simple bow around her hair bun and adorns her head with a pink lily.

Sexuality:
A strict upbringing in a noble family taught her that girls were not meant for anything but marriage and children. Her entire idea behind love and romance is between a man and a woman for the purposes of continuing on the family bloodline. She has never explored out of this, even when she left her family to join the Gotei 13.
Goals:
To forge her own path and honour her family name despite their history. After her father's murder at the hands of her own Captain, Katsu is working to become stronger in power and resilience and ultimately avenge her clan.
General Personality:
Katsu is a firm and determined individual. She is not one to give up and strives to always become better, never letting herself get complacent. Her upbringing in a strict family, and recent events involving Aizen, have crumbled Katsu's trust and she finds it hard to rely on other people without being suspicious of their true intentions, or what she perceives to be. However, she is loyal, not just to Seretei and the Gotei 13 but to anyone she deems a friend or ally.

Katsu is not one to back down from a confrontation and will fight to the death over a cause if needs be. She is fearless and strong, both a spear towards her enemies and a shield towards anyone she is defending, a stalwart warrior with pride in her heart and blade. Katsu fights now for the memory of her family and the name of her clan, aiming to bring respect and honour to her parents and siblings who lost their lives against Aizen.

Katsu comes across as a woman with a neutral personality, rarely showing any kind of emotion. She is a strict but fair leader and has certain tells in her expressions to let anyone that knows her what she is truly feeling. Katsu feels happiest when training with the sword as well as sitting and meditating with a cup of green tea. While she rarely laughs she does love a joke and funny stories. Katsu abhors gossip and rumours and won't participate with them.

She has shown herself to be a competent leader while looking after the fifth division in the wake of Aizen's betrayal and Hinamori's incarceration. Despite her own personal problems, Katsu made sure everyone in her division was emotionally supported. A lot of people were shaken by their Captain's actions, a man everyone had worked under and trusted for a long time. Some still didn't believe what happened. Katsu had felt it personally but never let that show to the seats beneath her, instead making sure they had someone to talk to, or train with, a supportive figurehead in a time of strife.

History:
Ogura Katsu was the third child and only daughter of a lesser noble house within Seretei. The Ogura clan was a well known yet minor house, having suffered dishonour by her grandfather's nefarious drinking which almost brought the house to ruin. Her father, Ogura Honjo, was a member of the Central 46, having brought back the house from the brink of disaster and ruin. He ran a strict household which Katsu's mother and siblings had to follow otherwise be met with a wave of furious anger.

Katsu was the third Ogura child and the only daughter. From a young age, she was told that her role was to marry a suitable husband and give him many strong children and bring honour to the Ogura name. Her father was ruthless; if he caught her playing with her brothers he would beat them, if he saw her swinging a stick around and practising swordplay he would tan her hide raw. A sword belongs to a man, he would shout until he was red with rage. Her job was to learn to make tea, to cook and clean and be a good housewife! Katsu was having none of this, however.

On her twentieth birthday, Katsu abandoned her family home and fled into Seretei. She knew already she had powers beyond being a housewife and child maker, knew that her life held more in store than that. She cut her hair, abandoned her fancy clothes in exchange for rags and spent several years in the slums of Seretei, beyond the clean streets and honourable people and among the scum and vagrants that had no wealth or fancy names. There she learned to fight and to survive, practising with sword and fist to hone her fighting skills. Many times she could have been killed but survived again and again.

Three years after she had fled, her father's guard found her. She was dragged back before him, a scrawny girl with scars and bruises covering her filthy body. Honjo looked down on his daughter in disgust at what she had become. If you wish to live this life then you will live it with honour, he shouted. You will join the Gotei and serve as a soldier, not roll in the dust like a mangy dog. Honjo used his position to enrol Katsu into the training program which, to him, was a punishment. To her, it was the best thing that happened in her life.

Katsu excelled in parts, failed in others, and came out of the exam with a better than average score beneath her belt. She joined the ninth division and never missed a day to train her sword techniques and with her shikai. Katsu was recognised by her superiors and gained a seat within the ninth division, albeit a low seat, but soon made her way up until she was transferred to the fifth division, under Captain Aizen and Vice-Captain Hinamori. Katsu continued to train, telling herself she would excel past her father and brothers and show them that a woman was not just a housewife but that they could be soldiers, powerful and wielding respect!

Her father hadn't spoken to her since she left for the Gotei and it was the news that the Central 46 had been exterminated by Aizen that broke Katsu down. A man she had trusted, cutting down both Honjo and her brothers who had been working as guards, as well as her mother who died from grief hours after hearing the news with a knife to her throat. Katsu was suddenly the last member of the Ogura clan. She spent several days in solitude, mourning the loss of her family and the betrayal of her Captain, before she came back to her duties. The fifth Division, after losing their Captain and nearly losing her vice-captain who had been placed under strict supervision for her own safety, needed someone to lead them. Katsu stepped up, taking control while they searched for a new Captain. She had a new lease on life and wore her family name with pride instead of shame. She would make the fifth division shine again and make the name Ogura one that would be remembered for centuries to come!
Faction:
Gotei 13
Rank:
5th Division, 3rd Seat

Physical Abilities/Power:
Katsu excels at Zanjutsu. She has mastered itto-ryu (one sword style) and nitoryu (two sword style) and can switch between the two seamlessly if needed. She is also adept with her zanpakuto's true form, the yari polearm, and has practised with several other kinds of weaponry and martial combat. Her Hakuda is strong and she can hold her own even without a weapon to hand.
Katsu has a high skill in shunpo and can combine this with her Zanjutsu, a skilled fast-footed sword expert.
Kido:
Where Katsu excels in blade techniques, her Kido skills lag behind. She only knows a handful of spells and rarely puts them to use due to her inexperience and dislike of the craft.
Hado #1, Sho
Hado #4, Byakurai
Hado #11, Tsuzuri Raiden
Bakudo #4, Hainawa
Bakudo #9, Geki



Zanpakuto:
Raina; "Echoes of Thunder"
Raina takes the form of two standard katanas with black hilt wraps. Katsu keeps them both in her obi with the blades facing downwards.
Shikai:
Osou; "Strike"



On release, Raina's two blades are pressed together, handle to handle, before glowing a vivid blue. They join together into one yari, a straight-headed spear with two curved blades at the bottom of the main tip. Raina is seven foot in length, the blade itself being two feet of steel while the rest is a length of solid dark wood. At the base of the shaft is a large round metal sphere.
Raina's blade is alive with electric currents which spark down the length of the shaft between the tip and the sphere at the end of the shaft. With each hit, Raina releases a deafening shockwave of sound reminiscent of thunder. Electricity is released like bolts of lightning around it, striking the ground and anyone nearby. This electricity can be collected in an orb of energy at the tip or the base of Raina and released in a stream of lightning towards a target or released as a shockwave which spreads out around her.
Bankai:
Katsu has worked towards her bankai for several years but is still far from achieving it.
RP Sample: