Kat's story

(this is kat's story line from his birth, trying to fix the rift cased by the system change that happened while I was gone. All my solo character development threads will go here.)

From the age of four Katrex had always shown remarkable hand to eye coordination, and as was custom in japan, any young child displaying talent was taken in by a master. Katrex however ended up in an extremely rough weapon school where you could be attacked by anyone at any time, come the age of seven he'd already developed his own style that made him able to fight against much stronger opponents, and at least get away. By the age of nine he was in the top five in the academy, and people often tried to surprise attack him to get his place. This all changed on his 17th birthday.
Kat had been teaching Kendo to a small class ranging from nine to fifteen years old. They were progressing well, they were all very capable learners. He had finnaly got his first payment of the month from their parents after having seen the results of only a month of training on their children. The children had all left by five thirty and kat sighed in anoyance that he wasn't able to cash in the check.

"THE DEADLINE IS UP" He heard screamed in the street "Say hi to your father in hell for us!". All Katrex saw was two holes appear in the wall before the third was lodged deep in to his brain.

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Katrex collapsed to his knees, exhausted and famished from lack of food. His head hurt slightly, he knew not why. The people here, when he told them he was hungry, all said he was delusional because he hadn't drank enough water. They were wrong.
His his hand slid along the dusty ground as he slipped with lack of strength on to his front unable to get back up. His head on his side; he simply looked down the road at the setting sun. He raised his hand weekly trying to grab the distant ball of fire, he quickly lost the energy for even that. He saw a silhouette against the light, the carried a sword, he wondered if they would help him, unlike everyone one else. All he could do is wait.

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From darkness to blurriness, katrex nearly choked as the arm that was cradling his head and the other arms hand tried to feed him some rice, as he regained his senses, he let the feminine fingers put food in to his mouth. It was not three mouthfuls later that he began feeling nauseous. He rejected the fourth bite, trying to thank the woman finding his voice was too strangled to speak. She released him from her and he fell gently to the pillows.

Katrex opened his eyes, this time however everything was clear, further more he was wearing the same uniform the doctor had been. He looked around, there were stars everywhere up and down, he was stood on a white sphere about a meter in diameter. Millions of white spheres spaced maybe every 20 meters in all directions, oh those things weren't stars after all.
Katrex saw a black angel, with raven like wings, covered in black robes face invisible under its hood, and angel of death he thought.

He awoke with a start, sitting up instantly, what a dream that was. He found himself in the hospital bed. "What a weird dream"


The doctors or as he found out later the fourth division weren't too surprised when they found him perfectly healthy, They simply sent him off to the academy.

Katrex had been pitted against many inexperienced sword users as soon as he arrived, With little effort he bested all of them, he wondered why he was with all these beginners anyway. A few oddities did happen however, Sometimes he found himself against someone unnaturally strong or fast but his skill let him disarm them with relative ease. It was after about an hour of this that someone quite important looking took him aside and asked him if he really wanted to know why he was here. He felt it was a misleading question but he answered in the affirmative. He was taken to a pit with two gates in it, one of them was open. He was then pushed off the edge and landed inside. He landed and rolled instinctively and looked back up glaring. A noise came from the gate that commanded his attention. He turned to face... It.
A green skinned humanoid with long claw like fingers wearing a bone mask and with a hole in its chest, menacingly approached him. Kat decided it was better to ask questions later and drew his sword. He took a defensive stance, still unsure what action the beast would take.
The beast charged, arm raised planning to use it's hand to pierce him, waited but a moment before rolling forward and across, surprising the beast and as he came to his knees brought his sword up to slice of the beasts attacking arm. The beast shrieked in agony before charging him again. It was slower this time. Katrex sidestepped twisting his body to face backwards and in the same movement kept twisting to do a 360 degrees spinning strike delivering the blade in the the beats left side and out the other cutting it in half. It disintegrated in to nothing.

"What the hell was that thing" He shouted up.

Katrex had so many questions, after seeing his first hollow, a rather rude introduction to the spirit world some would say. He bombarded the teacher with so many questions, but was pointedly ignored.
"Look" Said sensei, "I know you have a lot of questions, but hold it for a moment, I'm taking you to a lecture where you'll learn all the basics,. Just chill it"
Katrex still anxious to know found it very hard to resist persisting, but managed to make it to the class without another word, he turned up to the lecture about five minutes late. Not too bad. Kat took a seat and quickly tuned in, had he had pen and paper he would have taken notes, instead he simply listened.

"--use their zanpakuto to purify the hollows so that the can rejoin the cycle of rebirth. This is why most shinigami specialize in Kenjutsu first and not the other forms of attack as the others simply destroy the hollow soul.
This doesn't mean the others aren't worth learning however. The four arts of the Shinigami, Kenjutsu, Hakudo, Shunpo and kido are all valuable and you should seriously consider what is best suited to you."

Katrex already had a good idea, He knew he was skilled in swordsmanship, and he loved his sword, and he knew he wouldn't stop until he knew everything about it. So the decision to study what would only enhance his swordsmanship was a quick answer. This Shunpo that they talked about seemed extremely powerful if used with a good offense, and perhaps learning some hakudo after would enhance his offense, after all even when using a sword there was still useful moments to kick people for example. He continued to listen to the lecture, but the rest of it was all about the balance of souls, chain of command and such. He walked out at the end with his mind still on Shunpo, he wondered how on earth to do it.

(transition post) [Achieving rank 2 post and links]

Months passed, he learned shunpo was way beyond him, or at least for now it was. He was however excelling at the everything at the academy, except for kido, he had absolutely no ability for it. However his skill redeemed him, and so did his endurance, determination and discipline. He trained every day till he dropped It was weird being at the bottom of the pack again. It was no surprise he came first in the year with all this considered.

After he graduated he faced something of a limbo period, as an unseated shinigami with no squad, he was waiting for an invite from squad eleven, and in fact spent a lot of time in their barracks training in fighting competitions and helping instructors in the academy courses.

https://thebleachworld.darkbb.com/the-sparring-grounds-f32/solo-one-against-many-t1556.htm

https://thebleachworld.darkbb.com/the-sparring-grounds-f32/fresh-out-of-the-academy-and-ever-honing-ones-skillsopen-t1544.htm

https://thebleachworld.darkbb.com/the-sparring-grounds-f32/no-kido-no-shunpo-just-pure-skill-open-spar-t1566.htm

He even went on a mission with them.

https://thebleachworld.darkbb.com/rukongai-f33/the-rukongai-bandits-closed-mission-t1532.htm

[Achieving rank 2 post]

It was in this limbo period that he had one of the most amazing experiences of his second life. It was after a particularly nasty injury while fighting a tough training hollow, something was triggered in him and he became delerious, ran a high fever and was bedridden for a week.

Of course the was not what he experianced. He had retured to that place filled with spheres , he was stood on a white sphere about a meter in diameter. Millions of white spheres spaced maybe every 20 meters in all directions.

Katrex saw the black angel, the beautiful angel of death he thought.

It spoke, "The time has come Kat-chan" Katrex was surprised, The voice was feminine and eerily beautiful "The time has come for you to hold a real sword".
Kat looked at the being strangely and then down to it's feet, he had been about to argue saying he had used many real swords, but as he looked at the Double edged uncurved Katana all the other swords he had ever wielded seemed insubstantial. So instead the only words that came were, "How?"
"Sign the contract, Come to my sphere and take the sword." The figure dispersed leaving him alone though as an afterthought a voice came out of the darkness.

Katrex dispaired. How the hell was he meant to jump 20 meters to the sphere over there, he would miss and fall for eternity or until he hit a sphere far down maybe killing him. He sat down to ponder for a moment. He wanted that sword, he knew not why but he did. It called to him. He closed his eyes and put all his trust in the being and walked one step forward.

His feet hit solid ground, he opened his eyes and found himself on the other Sphere sword in front of him. He whispered thanks to the angel and grabbed the sword, and slowly unsheathed it, he looked upon it's beauty. Never had he seen so perfect a blade, let alone touched one. He sheathed it. Smiling.

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"That took a week!" he exclaimed totally shocked, and then collapsed to his knees. "So hungry!"

[Achieving rank 2 post - learning shunpo (edited old post, I don't expect this to really count towards rank 2.)]


Katrex stood in the the training ground, thinking for a long while, he looked at his sword and asked out loud,"Why can't you just tell me how to do this" All he received back was silence. Katrex sighed "Learn by doing I suppose", Katrex KNEW how to move quick, how to dodge and fight but moving faster than the eye can follow, being able to do that in one step, it seemed beyond comprehension.

Katrex tried to imagine, diving out of the way of something, but that wouldn't help really. Then he thought about running really fast, but he couldn't imagine doing it like that. It took about thirty minutes before he came up with an even considerable idea, If he could make his sword flash-step during an attack perhaps he could apply that too his legs. After all swords were what he was familiar with. This seemed promising.

Kat unsheathed his blade and held it in a classic kendo style. He tried swinging it really hard, but that just caused him to follow through too much and tumble as he lost his balance, He tried this for fifteen minutes before he figured this alone wouldn't do it. Then he heard a word "Charge" It came out of no where but the voice was feminine and he recognized it so he trusted it. He considered the meaning of the words, until it eventually hit him. Charge up his Reiatsu.

He focused inward and started channeling it in to his arms imagining his sword moving faster than see-able. He concentrated on using his Ki for a burst of energy to move and a burst of energy to stop. And then he did it, he released all the energy and his sword smashed in to the ground almost instantly, causing debris to fly everywhere.

"Thank god that wasn't me" He noticed once again his blade didn't even have a scratch. Next time he would remember to have half his the strength to stop the blade before it hit the ground.

He started practicing this, it took a long time before he got the timing right so that the blade would stop where he wanted it to, but he had managed it, his blade was flashing in and out of existence it seemed.

He then tried to apply the principle to his legs, applying his energy equally to both legs, using all the Reitsu in one to move and then using all the reitsu in the other to stop.
This didn't go well. First problem was with the sheer mass of body he had to move, he found he could only flash step while his feet were on the ground meaning he couldn't flash step more than one yard at a time.
The other problem was balance and stopping, he kept tripping over his own legs, and not having enough power left to stop him to tumbling forward and crashing in to the ground. It was exasperating.
Katrex finally having figured out the principle behind it decided to take a break and consider how he could move more than one step at a time and also perhaps how he could make it less tiring. This was going to be a long day.

Katrex sat meditating, attempting to finely balance the reiatsu in his body. The more evenly balanced it was the more efficiently he could do a flash step, or so that was what he was thinking. He followed through with the logic, "The more balanced the reiatsu, the harder I can kick off with one leg knowing I will have the energy to stop with the other. "Still" He added " Shouldn't it be more efficient that this." He sighed.

Out loud he said "One step at a time" as he got up, and subsequently chuckled at the unintentional pun.

Katrex now being in a state of calm concentration blanking his mind focused his Reiatsu in to his legs, keeping the energy as balanced as possible. He launched himself forward and a little up and his shunpoed for about ten yards before the air resistance had taken him to a near halt, then thinking on the spot his used the Reitsu in the next leg to kick forward again while trying to channel more in to the original leg, as he slowed down he tried to kick off with the original leg again but hadn't built enough charge and so tumbled to the floor.

"Riiiight" he said "Use the air resistance which is very large when moving that fast to stop you, and use ki to move, that makes much more sense. However that means my speed at the end is slow and can probably be seen. I need to think of a way to stop the air resistance. That should let me shunpo further too. But for now this will do." Through out the rest of his training he tried to get used to this half flash step technique as he thought of ways to make it a full flash step.

[ I believe this level of flash step is appropriate as a stepping stone to rank two were he can finish off the technique]