Karakura Town.
It is, by nearly all accounts, a completely and entirely ordinary town. One just like any other.
It is a town of towering buildings and sprawling streets, just like any other. A town with parks and greenery - more so than the average town, even - but that might just be in part due to the single river that runs through its heart, splitting the town in twain. And just like any other town, it has its schools where children spend their days learning, and office buildings where the adults spend their hours toiling away at work.
It has little mom and pop shops that have been passed down from one generation to the next, and it has big businesses run from afar by uncaring corporate suits that only know the town as a single line of text in a document. It even has an old mall, a little worn down by the passage of years, but inside is a still thriving arcade where ordinary teenagers like to while away their afternoons.
Just like any other town.
And just like any other town, it has its hospital, its clinics, its candy shops. It has an industrial district by the waters with old warehouses filled and emptied by ships delivering goods along the river.
Karakura town is a town. It might sound obvious to say, but it is the way things are. It isn't a sprawling metro where people could spend the whole of their lives, day by day, without ever encountering the same strangers twice. Nor is it a little village where every person knows each other from the day that they are born till the day they meet their ends.
It is a town, small enough to start to recognize the people you pass by each day, but not so small as to have an insight into their secrets and lives.
It is just like any other town.
Ordinary.
Safe.
Normal.
That is at least, by most accounts.
The accounts of fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters who go about their lives in small, ordinary ways. But those aren't the only accounts of Karakura town. There are other accounts as well.
Surprisingly, even those accounts that see a different side of the city turn out to be rather normal once you pull back the curtains that hide the rot that inevitably builds up in cities and towns over time across the whole of the world.
Exhausted city workers wage a seemingly ceaseless war of soap, water, and paints against an endless tide of graffiti that continues to pop up day after day - Something made bearable only because the three different kinds of graffiti seem to be warring with each other as much as they are with the city infrastructure itself. Day in and day out the stylized signatures of taggers find themselves writing over and being overwritten by gang signs marking their territory. The constant struggle between the two is only occasionally interrupted by the strange murals that appear here and there overnight.
Murals that depict strange monsters, lanky and warped figures of shadow and shading with only a bone white mask to give their images definition.
Regardless of which coat of paint has covered the walls - Murals or tags or gang signs - the civil servants of the city come through with wash and water to wipe away the graffiti, or with fresh paint to cover that which can't be removed.
Elsewhere in the city, an aging Yakuza boss lives his own life, complaining to his men about the stupidity of his third wife, moaning over just how much of a wimp his only son is, or splurging on the finest sake. All the while he keeps his men in live, and he watches the ships and the deliveries that run through the town's modest little dock.
The boss gets a cut of the profits, and the docks aren't burned down. A simple exchange, a traditional exchange.
It was the exchange that the Boss's father had with the port of Karakura, and the exchange that his father's father had with the port. It should have been the exchange that he passed down to his son, and yet instead the deal feels more and more precarious with each passing day.
The Yakuza are not what they once were. They do not command the respect that they used to. Particularly not here in Karakura. The next generation do not fear the Yakuza the way that the boss is used to. These children aren't nearly as cowed as their parents still are.
Without that fear, the grip of the Yakuza continues to weaken, little by little. A fall only hastened by the rise of this new generation of street gangs that have started to appear. Some of these gangs are trouble - The ones calling themselves eXecution have all but pushed the Yakuza out of the blocks around their little clubhouse, for instance. Some of the gangs are barely worth noting - The Squatters living out of the old haunted warehouse for instance barely interact with the Yakuza at all, other than refusing to pay any kind of 'rent' whatsoever, but since the blonde brat that seems to be their pointman has kicked the ass of anyone sent to collect from them, it seems that bothering them is more trouble than it's worth.
The other street gangs aren't nearly as much trouble for the Yakuza - They are just miscreants and delinquents, thugs and assholes. They stalk the backstreets of Karakura like they own the place, but they know better than to stick their noses into the business of actual criminals. Which is probably for the best, because despite their arrogance they are still so young. Young enough that the cops aren't quite as willing to turn a blind eye to any roughing up that happens as they would be if it was a disagreement between Yakuza families.
Then there are the accounts of those newly forming street gangs. As a general rule, their lives are not brilliant, shining things. Few criminals are, after all. Most of them are still teenagers, high schoolers even. They join these gangs searching for something that they can't find elsewhere. Be it a sense of belonging, a sense of community, or just a desire to have somewhere to belong.
Some are there because their home lives are places of pain and suffering. Sake bottles thrown by alcoholic parents; derisive insults hurled by verbally abusive parents; worse thrown by those who can't even be called parents.
Others are there because their homes are all but empty - Parents too busy with their jobs to be there for children that need them; Parents so consumed by themselves that they barely seem to know that they have children of their own; Homes that are empty because there simply isn't anyone to fill them anymore.
…
...
...
That isn't to say that everyone who joins up with one of these gangs did so for an understandable reason. There are those who decided to become criminals because they were just assholes. People who realized that they could get the things that they wanted out of life without putting in the work to get it themselves just by pushing around smaller, less dangerous people.
Because at the end of the day, that is the truth of the street gangs. They don't care who anyone is. They don't care where their recruits come from, or the reasons why they joined.
So long as a new member is willing to fight, willing to hurt people, willing to do what they are told, then the gangs welcome those recruits with open arms.
Mostly. There is still nuance and difference in the way that the gangs handle themselves, from one group to the next.
All of this is a part of Karakura town, because a town isn't just the buildings and roads, it isn't just the river and the parks, the schools and the offices.
Karakura town is a place where people live - The good, the bad, the ordinary and the extraordinary. Each life is a single thread of a pattern that spans through the years, weaving together as they join with one another, then eventually part ways. And like any place where people live together, the comings and goings of those many lives create stories unique to those places. Urban legends, little myths born from the random happenings of the town itself.
Across the many schools in the city, children whisper to each other during their recesses and breaks. Little urban legends about monsters hiding in the darkness beyond the world they know. Terrifying screams sometimes heard in the depths of night, echoing out through the city.
Screams that their parents can't hear.
Parents sharing a glass of wine and spreading rumors as they keep an eye on their children playing together. There have been stories of strange teenagers, dressed all in black, and with swords at their sides darting through the city late at night.
They need to make sure that their own children don't grow into such delinquents.
Teenagers hanging at the arcades, talking to each other in hushed voices in between bouts of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat - Some people say that something strange happened in the construction site on the far side of the mall. The site was vandalized, and the damage severe enough that the new wing might not be ready until the end of the year, if not longer. There were chunks of the floor ripped up in the shape of massive clawed footprints, and there were weird furrows in the walls and floor that looked like massive claw marks.
No one knows who did it, nor how it was done, but the teens know that the construction workers have to be pissed.
In the late hours of the evenings, construction workers gather at bars, sharing a beer while trading barbs. Hidden in among the playful mocking and the pointed jests there are quiet mutters of frustration and disappointment. Of course, all such things are said on the down and the low - No one is willing to say anything, but despite that all the workers have heard about how the old Yakuza Boss's idiot brat has been sneaking out from under the watchful eye of his keepers again.
Which means that the Yakuza are causing problems for everyone else again. Not that there is really anything that they can do about it. What is even less said, and yet still known… rumor has it that whoever it is that the Yakuza princeling has been running off to see can somehow make fire appear from his bare hands. That's nonsense, of course. Probably just a bit of sleight of hand. Taking in the rich kid with stage magic. Still annoying in that it is causing problems for others, but the kid is a dumb kid of dumb people, so the construction workers aren't too upset at the kid himself.
More rumors spread through the seedy illegal whore houses and drug dens that the Yakuza run - Some of the men have been keeping an eye on these new street gangs, watching and waiting for their chance to finally remind these children who really are in charge. In a way that won't bring the cops down on their heads, of course, but… A few of the Yakuza have noticed that some of these brats have started sporting weird bruises on their arms and legs. Bruises in the shape of grasping hands.
Here and there a few of the braver Yakuza have wondered out loud if those brats have been trying to get one over on that weirdo who dresses right out of the warring states period. The guy who owns the Candy shop not that far from Karakura high.
And in the depths of the backstreets of Karakura town, there is an entirely different kind of rumor being spread. Member to member, and even gang to gang a warning spreads.
Don't go making trouble south of the train station and to the west of the river. There's a dangerous guy around those parts. Tall and lanky, but stronger than you might expect. Friends with that dark skinned gaijin. Orange hair.
Willing and wanting to kick anyone's ass who causes problems where he can see them.
They say that Lil' Yama is going to need some kind of surgery to fix his nose after what that jerk did to him. Sure, he and his little group of hoodlums barely even count as street gangsters, just a bunch of skater boys willing to throw hands at the slightest of provocations, but that's not the point.
They knocked over a memorial for some girl that died, and that orange haired delinquent kicked all their asses so hard that some of them said they could see the girl that died.
You aren't a delinquent, but you are the subject of those final rumors. You are Ichigo Kurosaki, age fifteen.
And as the last shadowed gasps of night burn away at the featherlight touch of the sun's light, you pull yourself upright in bed. You groan softly as you rub a hand across your face, fighting the urge to roll back over and return to your dreams.
You know that trying that would be useless - both because you've woken up now, and can't get back to sleep once you do, but also because it won't be long before your father comes launching himself through that door to try and wake you up.
You hate the early hours of the morning… Everything feels… bad. It's hard to try and put the feelings into words…
You feel thin, like a strip of gauze pulled to the point of ripping.
You feel swollen, like a balloon filled to the point of popping.
With an ease that could only be born from long practice, you ignore the subtle sense of disorientation as you pull yourself up to your feet. It feels like this every morning - this sense that your body is further away from you than it should be. This sense that the world is smaller than it really is.
There's no point in dwelling on any of that. The feelings are strange and distracting, but they are familiar. You know how to handle them. You just have to ignore them until you are up and moving. Eventually, they'll settle into the depths of your mind again, where you can forget about them until you start drifting off to sleep this evening.
Same thing that you do every day
Grunting in annoyance, you rub a hand across your face a second time before grabbing your school uniform and heading for the bathroom for a shower. You don't wake up this early very often, but you appreciate it every time you do, and not just because it means that you get to have the first shower.
It also means that you're going to be able to get the drop on your dad when he comes in to try and wake you up in a bit.
Waking up this early means that you get to have the first shower of the morning, and in turn that means that the shower is quite a bit hotter than you expected it to be. The heat and the pressure is enough to wipe the detritus and the debris of your dreams away as you are pulled fully into the waking world.
But… What kind of dream did you have?
You… Can't entirely remember. It's foggy, but a few things do stand out -
[ ] THE HUNT
- You dream of White sands and black starless skies. Of moving - Fast, faster, yet faster! The crunch of bone and the taste of sweet heat spilling down your gullet.
[ ] THE RAIN
- There are no words needed for this dream. The rain, pouring down on the riverbank. A girl you thought you saw. Mom.
[ ] THE RHYME
- A deeper dream, an older dream. The warmth of the crackling flame, and an old lullaby that your mother used to sing, echoing through the night.
[ ] THE MAT
- You dream of days gone by. Long gone by. You remember when you used to spar with your best friend every day. The days when you would hit the mat, and get up, and hit the mat, and get up, and hit the mat, and get up, and hit the mat. Over and over and over again. Trying to get as good as that girl was.
[ ] THE BUTTERFLY
- You dream that you are a black butterfly… Or do you wake, and the human was the dream? Either way, you dance upon the winds, free of the weight that binds you down. Free of the names and the roles and assumptions made about you. Free to be yourself, who that might be.
[ ] THE OMELET
- You dream of a person, tall and lanky with orange hair and brown eyes. He walks from place to place, playing with the ghost of a child, helping the ghost of an old lady finally pass on, righting the wrongs done against the dead. Yet… He can't see you. Or maybe just won't. He won't help you. He won't let you free. You want out. You want out! LET ME BE ME!
You are Ichigo Kurosaki.
Age: 15
Occupation: High School Student / Amateur Medium
Special Skill: Spirit Interaction
You may not know it yet, but soon enough - Less than 48 hours from now - your life is going to change forever.
You are going to learn things about yourself that you never knew.
Things about the world that you never could have conceived… Without outside assistance at least.
But that is then, and this is now.
Once you get out of the shower, you spare a glance for the foggy mirror, wiping away the condensation and taking a look at yourself again. The first thing that catches your eye-
[ ] The set of your face
- You look more and more like your father with every passing day… Is that a hair on your cheek? Ugh. You don't want to grow a beard. Oh, wait. While that is a hair, you think that is one of Yuzu's. Must have been stuck to the towel.
[ ] Your mother's eyes
- For a moment, when you first wiped at the mirror, all you could see were eyes reflected back at you. Mom never furrowed her brow that way. Mom always smiled… You wish you could be more like she was.
[ ] The figure in the mirror?
- For a moment, right before you wiped at the mirror, you could have sworn that there was something else there. Someone else there. Someone who didn't look like you. You wanted to see who they were.
You most certainly don't realize it, but the weight of your future is bearing down on you. Even if it were not for the danger creeping closer even now - snuffling through the streets of Karakura town, hunting for the delicious scent of your particular reiryoku - It would be mere days, a week at most, before your abilities would begin to seep through.
The RED of Instinct, of action, of rage and hunger. It is the influence of the White Hollow trapped inside of you.
The BLUE of Thought, of choices, planning and skill. It is the influence of your mother's Quincy Blood.
The GOLD of Emotion, of your heart, your love, and your kindness. You are by birth a Shinigami, but this isn't the influence of the God of Death upon you, but of your influence on your blood.
Increasing these scores will make it easier for you to develop new skills and abilities connected to their natures. That isn't to say that they are distinctly Hollow/Quincy/Shinigami - There are Shinigami abilities that are born of Instinct, there are Quincy powers derived from Emotion, there are Hollow powers crafted by thought.
In addition -
You have 56 Points to spend on your attributes -
No Attribute may be below 5, and no attribute may be above 13 at this time.
[ ][Plan] Plan name go here
- [ ] Diplomacy X
- [ ] Stewardship X
- [ ] Martial X
- [ ] Intrigue X
- [ ] Learning X
- [ ] Prowess X
