Quincy - Makana Masashi - MidL/A

[Wicked]

Name: Masashi Makana
Age: 31
Gender: Female
Personality:

On the hotheaded side, Makana is one to rush right into a fight before thinking about it. She cares little for consequences, until they come back to bite her in the butt. Makana's temperament is seemingly calm, though she can shift from calm to angered in an instant and then right back again. Despite her behavior, Makana is intelligent. She just doesn't hold strategy as a top priority.

Makana's favorite thing in the world is history. She loves the subject more than anything, and, in fact, even teaches the subject at Karakura High. Her pet peeves are students who don't listen in class, and anyone who calls history boring, useless, or stupid. She absolutely hates when people refer to her area of expertise as boring or dumb. In fact, she has assaulted people in the past for such acts. During classes, Makana has been known to use her pointer to knock the notes right out of students' hands. She appears to have eyes in the back of her head the way she always manages to catch such acts.

Nothing pleases Makana more than a good book and a dead hollow. Not necessarily in that order. Because she dislikes the possibility of hollows attacking her school, therefore destroying her workplace and putting her out of a job and possibly onto the streets, she tends to attempt to kill them without really thinking about it. Makana holds no grudge for hollows, not specifically, as she knows that each individual hollow is not the one from her past, but she holds an intense dislike for shinigami. She refuses to explain why she doesn't like shinigami, although some people just say she's being irrational, as she does have a habit of being such. In reality, her hatred of shinigami is irrational, as she has never made contact with one, but she has speculated on such meetings based on her father's experiences.

Having a tendancy to go off on tangents, often changing subjects to suit her own interests, Makana is not the most pleasant person to have a conversation with. Especially a serious conversation. She often changes the subject to historical battles that have nothing to do with whatever subject, making it seem as though she has a metaphor when she really doesn't. She chooses to lack interest in much else besides history. Because of this, she isn't always up-to-date on current events, let alone the troubles of shinigami, other quincy, and arrancar.

While Makana knows how to be serious, most people do not ever see a serious side of her. She enjoys making history fun, and people who have had her (and didn't get on her bad side) as a teacher usually enjoyed her class. Her lectures are more like stand-up comedy than a class. Even when fighting, Makana is more than happy to whip out a joke or two. The only time that Makana gets serious is when shefs taken a dangerous blow, for instance, if a hollow managed a good hit on her abdomen. When that happens, she tends to pay more attention to her enemies movements, not wanting to risk taking a blow that could cause her to die.

Unlike quite a few people in the Bleach-i-verse, Makana is afraid of dying. She worries about the mark that will be made if she does die, what sort of things people would say about her when gone. She worries about what kinds of things would happen with her students (well, the good students anyways), what kind of effect it would have on her relatives, and so on and so forth. She couldn't possibly imagine what kind of effect it would have on her, considering she knows therefs no such thing as heaven, just Soul Society. To Makana, Soul Society is more like hell. After all, all the shinigami come from there!

Now for trivial information!
Favorite Food: Mochi
Favorite Book: The Da Vinci Code {she finds it just fascinating}
Favorite Song: Lily of da Valley, Dragon Ash

Appearance:

On the short end of the spectrum, Makana is only five foot two. Her body is, however, developed and curvy. While she weighs in at one hundred thirty five pounds... Actually, there is no excuse. She's a bit overweight. She won't admit it, however, as she likes her body the way it is. She has a pair of C cup breasts, which she is perfectly content with, as they don't get in her way when fighting. Despite being overweight, Makana is quite graceful, or at least she thinks she is. She has a habit of skipping on the balls of her feet.

Makana's hair is short, cut so that it is very boyish, just an inch and a half off of her head. Instead of having bangs, her hair just sticks straight up. While her natural hair color is black, she dyes her hair. The color varies from month to month (more like two months to two months), and she occasionally adds highlights to it. Most recently, her hair has been dyed cherry-red with black highlights around where her bangs should be, on the far left side of her head.

Makana's eyes are dark brown, round, and large. She does not have the best vision in the world. In fact, she would be blind as a bat without glasses, or, luckily for her, contact lenses. Occasionally, she wears contacts that change the color of her eyes, enjoying the looks on peoplefs faces when they see her with green or violet eyes. In the rare scenario that Makana does wear glasses, they are rectangular in structure and have a very thick dark, black, rim, thick and larger than most. The frame is squared all the way around, and towards her ears it bends from a triangle into a curve to fit her head.

Her attire has no specific style, aside from refraining from wearing skirts. Most people have gathered that she is something of a tomboy from her taste in attire and hairstyle. Makana's favorite color is blue, and as such she can be seen wearing blue more often than some other colors. However, she never wears only one color; she always has to wear something else. After all, one color is too boring.

Makana can often be seen wearing headphones, however, she prefers the kinds that completely cover her ears, as they are more practical in case she has to fight a hollow, and she can simply slide them down to her neck in case she needs to be able to hear someone speaking. She carries, when in the school facilities, a wooden pointer stick, roughly three feet long and made of a light pine wood. At the thickest point, it is no thicker than an inch, and at the thinnest point, half an inch. Considering the abuse Makana has put it through, it is a miracle it is still in tact.

Finally, Makana carries her equipment and her lunch (it has to go somewhere) in a backpack. The backpack is very simple, meant to be slung over one arm and shoulder, and it is black all the way around. It only has two pockets, but this doesn't stop Makana from reaching in to grab a seele schneider and picking out a sandwich instead.

Quincy Abilities:

DNA is the best way to describe the origin of Makana's powers, as her father was a quincy as well. However, Makana was not born spiritually aware. She was able to feel chills, but could not see spirits nor hear them. Makana was the exact opposite of her two brothers in this respect, having literally no talent as a Quincy. Her brothers would tell her about shooting arrows, which made Makana green and envious.

Because Makana was unable to see spirits, she sunk into quite a depression. She had no means of seeing what her brothers saw, nor feeling the rush of fighting like they did. The envy tore away at Makana, entirely and completely. However, on her tenth birthday, she awoke to a massive jaw right in front of her head; a lupine hollow glaring down at her.

For lack of a better word, Makana screamed. She had never seen a hollow before in her life; she couldn't be expected to know what this was. Before she could react beyond screaming, the hollow tried to silence her by ripping her throat out, but was promptly shot in the head before he could do so by a very angry Quincy: Makana's eldest brother, Yoshi.

After that morning, the unaminous decision that Makana would get herself killed without the proper training was made by her brothers, Yoshi and Keita, and her father, Chouko. The three decided that they would take shifts, as, well, none of them particuarly wanted to train Makana from scratch. As expected, Makana was completely lacking in talent, spending several months training to make an entire bow. Despite her powers being far from perfect, her brothers were content with her being able to form a bow and told her she was on her own from there. Anything else, Makana had to learn on her own.

---

Quincy Cross: Makana’s cross is more like a flower than a cross, starting with a plus-shaped section on top, navy blue in hue, each point extending a centimeter. Behind it is a star-like structure, silver in hue. It is composed of eight sticks used to create a four-pointed star, each point extending through the gaps in the higher section of the cross. There are gaps between the sticks, leaving triangles of air behind. The cross is tied around her left wrist, as she is right handed.

---

Quincy Bow - Makana's bow is a dark blue, much like her reiatsu. Her bow is the same length as her body, two smaller bits sticking out from where her hand is placed, each roughly one foot long. The energy used to create Makanafs bow surges, and it almost looks as if her bow is made of blue fire.
Focus - Makana's bow is focused on power and not speed; henceforth she cannot fire arrows in rapid succession, having to fire one at a time. Her arrows explode after sinking into a target, or, rather, disperse in a quick an spherical manner. This is like adding insult to injury, or injury to injury if you want to get technical. If they do not sink in, they explode on the outside and cause less damage. The explosion is rather contained, keeping to a small, four-inch diameter of damage.
Limitation - Makana only fires one arrow at a time (per post or per three seconds {for one-post/NPC battles}). Damage is done based on repsective tiers, of course. Someone of a higher tier would have less damage done than someone of her level and someone with a lower tier would be harmed more than someone her level.

Seele Schneider - Makana is capable of firing seele schneider as arrows, however, she adds her own personal twist by twirling it on her finger at point blank to create a windmill effect. She knows very well this is not the intended purpose of such artifacts and doesn't care in the least.
Down Side {Wamp Wamp moments} - The way that Makana uses Seele Schneider is dangerous to herself as well, for if she loses control she may end up cutting herself by mistake. She only carries about three or four at any given moment.

Ginto Tubes - Makana is capable of using a variaty of ginto spells, however, she only carries five max on her at any given moment. Some days she carries five, some days she carries one, some days she just doesn't bother. As a note, she cannot use sprenger, or, at the very least, never carries enough to use such a technique.

Skill Level: Marksmanship: Advanced
Skill Level: Swordsmanship: Advanced
Skill Level: Agility and Speed: Beginner
Skill Level: Hand-to-hand: Beginner
History/Background:

Born in the outskirts of eastern Tokyo, Makana seemed to be doomed to an ordinary life. Except for one problem. First of all, she wasn't born in any hospital; her parents decided a home birth was healthier, as they were a little strange at the time.

"Oh! She's so cute," the mother whispered, holding Makana close to her chest, as if the tiny form would slip from her grasp without the extra support.

"She's not breathing," Chouko observed with wide brown eyes.

So, born unbreathing and on the brink of death, the woried parents, Shia and Chouko, rushed their dying child to the hospital. Her brothers, Yoshi, six years old, and Keita, three years old, were mostly ignored for the entire time, despite the fact that they spent the majority of their time getting into fights in the hospital and causing general disturbances. Meanwhile, Makana was engaged in a battle for life; this was very easily the most difficult battle she would ever face and it was with her own delayed learning. It took several hours after being born for Makana to take her first breath. Because of the fact that she almost died, her parents decided to name her 'Makana', having the meaning 'Gift'. Interestingly enough, the name was not of Japanese origin, but instead Swahili.

Years after this incident, when Makana was three years old, her parents had yet another child. While some might see this as a strange pattern, having children every three years, it was the last one. During this time, her parents actually left to a hospital, leaving their children at home with an elderly neighbor. Were Makana's parents responsible? Probably not. During this time period, Yoshi began to speak to Makana about hollows and souls, asking if she had ever seen them.

"Oi! Makana," Yoshi called, "Ever seen a hollow?"

"A what?" Makana asked, looking up from her game of cards to see her eldest brother, standing above her. Her brother was at least twice her height by this point, which was irritating to the girl. She was the runt of the family. Everything about her was tiny; her hands were tiny, her hair was cut to her jaw, and her feet were tiny... Her eyes were the only thing with any mass to them.

"C'mon, y'know, like, the monsters with masks?" The dark-haired boy tried, running a hand through his hair. "And the sharp pointy teeth and stuff?"

Makana simply stared, tilting her head.

"Got any twos?"

"Gold fish."

Keita sighed, shaking his head. "Go fish, Makana, not gold fish."

"Hey Keita, you've seen 'em, right?"

"Course."

"Seen who?" Makana asked, shifting in her place.

Keita turned his head to Yoshi with a wild grin. Yoshi's own expression became arrogant as he answered, "Only the reason Keita and me have to be Quincy."

When her parents finally returned, later that night, Makana had not slept. She had stayed up, pestering her brothers and recieving no answers as to what they were seeing. The two had acted as though they had found the greatest toy in the world and were keeping it just out of the three-year-old's grasp. She had immediately asked her father what a Quincy was, upon his return, seemingly ignoring her baby brother, Hiko, and he told her to go to sleep. Of course, Makana found out several months later.

Life in the Masashi household was hectic, as there were three boys and one tomboy, nothing was ever in order. Even if one was an infant, it only made things worse. Keita and Yoshi often got into fights with eachother, pulling punches and wrestling. While, when teasing Makana, they got along like life-long friends, they usually spent their time bickering and fighting. Makana felt very out of place in her household, being the only one, besides Hiko, who couldn't see ghosts.

Several times, her brothers repeated incidents of the night Hiko was born, asking Makana if she had seen any hollows or any souls. Makana could only ever answer no. While her brothers were able to matirialize bows and fire arrows, Keita being a genius and Yoshi being an excellent shot, Makana could only feel the chills her brothers' reiatsu gave her. This frustrated Makana to no end, despite the fact that she was only four years old at the time.

Years passed, much of the same bickering and arguments persisted throughout Makana's childhood. She was still unable to see spirits, but she wanted to be able to, desperately. Having just started school, Makana was a wild child unable to fit in. She had no friends in her first few years of school, quite literally. She absolutely despised school, claiming that she could teach herself better than the teachers could.

Nevertheless, very little in Makana's life changed. Her brothers bickered, never outgrowing the habit, she remained the runt of the litter as her younger brother began to grow and learned to walk. And this was the hilarious thing: Hiko could see spirits and Makana could not. This caused her brothers to tease her endlessly.

To find time out of the house, an eight-year-old Makana took up sports hobbies. She tried soccer, but she had the worst aim; every ball she kicked went out of bounds or to the opposing team. She tried swimming, except she couldn't swim well enough to do much. She even tried track, of course, she was plump back then too, had short legs, and running wasn't her thing. However, she took up baseball, much to the discontent of the team, and fell in love with it. Makana, despite being a slow runner, was an astounding batter and pitcher. It didn't matter if she was a slow runner if people were terrified of the balls she sent flying over the field.

Makana, however, disliked playing in a girls-only league, and tried to get a co-ed league going. Needless to say this was an absolute failure. The boys in her age group wanted to play well, and the girls in her age group... Well, she didn't know. The next time that Makana got her hair cut, she had her head shaved so she would look more like a boy, hoping they would let her play with them. Makana was, of course, a tomboy. She didn't want to be treated like every other girl her age.

"Just lemme try," Makana beseeched the coach, clasping her hands together. "I'm a really good hitter; just watch me!"

"No," The coach answered.

Makana felt her insides drop to her feet, her heart going with them, but she persisted. "Please?"

"No."

"Give me a chance. If I'm not better than all the others then I'll stop asking," Makana tried, one final time.

Letting out a sigh, the coach looked at the girl. She was small, she was plump, she had shaved most of her hair off in an attempt to blend in. And she was so hell-bent on this that she continued to ask, despite being told no multiple times. "If you're not better than them, then you cannot ask again."

"So it's a yes?!"

"Regretfully."

Makana, of course, was better than a majority of the team, but not better than all of them. Because of this, Makana held true to her word, despite the coach telling her it was ok. Makana had made a promise, and she was going to stick to it, despite the fact that she was crying.

More time passed, and Makana had scarcely grown an inch, being a three foot tall nine-year-old girl. She had long since given up on baseball, playing only for fun. For some reason, she kept her hair in a short buzzcut, despite her parents trying to convince her to change her hair. She claimed to like it better in such a fashion. In actuality, it was a remnant of her baseball career, cut short because she thought she was better than she actually was. However, now that she had gotten older, she had to start getting tougher; her brothers were done excluding her from their fights.

However, the three knew they were friends and weren't about to forget it. Despite the bickering, despite the punches thrown, despite the sticks broken across the face of one another, the three still had fraternal and sororal bonds. This was further proven on Makana's tenth birthday.

The crisp air filled the dark-haired girl's nostrils. She was slowly ebbing away from sleep, slowly resurfacing into the world once more. Today was supposed to be a normal day; filled with absolutely nothing of interest, perhaps a trip to the library where she could pick out some books that interested her. Perhaps her brothers would tackle her and wrestle her down again, and perhaps they wouldn't. You'd think that Yoshi would have outgrown this habit of attacking Makana, but he hadn't.

Her eyes opened slowly, sleep still trying to pull them back together. The absense of light in her room was peculiar, but it wasn't coming from a lack of sun, but from a creature hovering over her.

It was a lupine beast, eyes slits behind the mask, no pupils to speak of. It's mask was the purest white Makana had ever seen, it's skin a sickly gray. It had claws on each paw, on each toe. Each claw was razor sharp; everything about this wolf was razor sharp. Makana's eyes widened; she didn't know what this was and she didn't want to. She saw, from the corner of her eye, shattered glass on the floor. This hollow had leaped in through the window and now was ready to devour her.

"AIIIIIIE!" She screeched, throwing her hands up as if to stop the monster. It raised a clawed paw, swiping it down towards the girl, catching onto the sleeve of her shirt and tearing through the gray fabric. She felt it catch on her skin, she felt blood trickle down her arm, she felt the claw come down towards her throat and then stop. Her eyes had long since been squeezed shut, and she had just cracked her lids apart, staring up. The hollow had a cyan blue arrow lodged in its cranium, and soon disinegrated.

Peeking up, she saw the form of her eldest brother, Yoshi. He was panting, his arm was still extended; the fury burned in his eyes. "Onii-chan?"

"You ok?"

Makana nodded, but that look of hysterical confusion still encompassed her. What had she seen? Why now? Was that what her brother had called a hollow, seven years ago?

Yoshi, Keita, and Chouko discussed with Makana the possibility of training her to become a quincy. Makana's decision, of course, came without really thinking. Of course she said yes! After all, these years of not knowing what her brothers had been up to was finally revealing itself to her. She wanted to know. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision for the young Makana, and she didn't realize just how lacking in talent she really was.

As her training began, so did Hiko's. The two were trained by Yoshi and by Chouko, depending on their time. Of course, Hiko was far more talented than Makana--and that doesn't say much. Makana was constantly struggling; she was unable to even mantain a bow long enough to fire arrows for three months. Meanwhile, Hiko was shooting arrows and working on his aim.

"Onee-chan," Hiko chirped, looking at his sister with his round brown eyes. "Want me to show you how to fire an arrow?"

"Oh screw you, Hiko."

Hiko gasped, taking a step back and then smiling. "Makana-chan said a bad word."

"So what?"

Hiko giggled, enough to cause a vein to throb on Makana's forehead. She extended her hand and picked a long, thin stick off of the ground. Pulling her arm back, she threw the stick forward at an astounding, comedic speed, causing the stick to shatter when it struck her brother.

"ITAI!"

As... implied above, Makana and Hiko did not have a very friendly relationship with one another. Jealousy and envy were the reason for this. Makana wished she could be more like her brothers, who were geniuses. She was nothing in comparison. Even when she learned to mantain her bow, her fingers began to bleed after very few arrows. Nonetheless, she did have one strong spot: her arrows weren't fast, but they were powerful.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked upon her target: a small paper sign pinned to a tree. She was going to do this; she was going to do this right.

"You're not gonna do it," Keita sighed boredly. "Your arms are too tense."

"SHUT UP! BAKA!" Makana yelled, her bow forming slowly and surging.

"Your reiatsu's not controlled," observed the dark-haired elder. "Your arrow's gonna be either really weak or really slow. Or it'll explode in your face."

Makana frowned, reaching forward to pull and arrow anyways. She didn't want to be lectured; she was going to do this this time. Even if Keita said she couldn't, she would do it. She would prove him wrong, she decided. "Ichi."

One arrow was fired, missing the target completely and striking the tree instead. The arrow, as Keita promised, was weak, dispersing on contact.

"Told ya so."

She ignored him, she reached forward and pulled yet another arrow. "Ni."

This one hit the target, but scarcely left a dent in the paper.

"Focus your reiatsu closer together."

She nodded, forming another arrow, trying with all her might to condense the reiatsu. She succeeded, or so it seemed. "San."

This time, the arrow lodged itself within the tree, sticking out for a moment before disinegrating. "Better?"

"Lemme check," Keita answered with a grin, stepping over to pull the target off the tree. "Makana, what the hell?"

"What?" She asked, peeking forward.

"This didn't even leave a ma-" And that was when the bark fell off the tree, the singed wood falling to pieces. He could see; it didn't pierce very deep, but it did some major exploding action on the inside. "That's not s'posed to happen," he added with a grin to his sister.

For much of Makana's school life, no one would expect her to ever go into teaching; she got into fights constantly. Several times she was suspended from school for getting into bouts with people who 'pissed her off', to which she would always reply 'they had it coming' or something along those lines.

During this point in her life, she had begun to dye her hair every few months. Girls often made fun of her for this, but she didn't care--or at least she didn't after the first time she beat someone up for insulting her hair. Despite the miracle that she was not expelled from school (more than once, anyways), she got in trouble more frequently than most people could manage in a lifetime. Nevertheless, academics were easy for Makana--assuming she aquired the drive to get her work done. In history, she strived; this was the only class that she got good grades in, ending each year with an A.

High school was where Makana found love. At least, that's what she thought it was. Despite failing nearly every class, save for history, Makana didn't fail in just one category: meeting a boy with a demeanor that matched her own. The boy was named Ichirou.

Of course, the very first time that Makana and Ichirou met, Ichirou got his ass handed to him by Makana. Of course, at the time, that was exceedingly embarassing for Ichirou. Soon after the fight, Ichirou confronted Makana.

"Oi! Masashi!"

"Hm?" Makana chirped, turning her head to see the dark-haired boy walking after her. She moved her soda down slightly and lifted a hand to push her glasses up from the bottom of the frame. A goofy grin came over her features. "Konichiwa, loser."

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

Makana snorted. "Who the hell do you think you are? You insulted my friend."

Ichirou glared at Makana, anger encompassing him. "You're kdding, right?"

"Not a chance!" Makana chirped with a smile. "You pissed me off; it's only fair, right?"

Ah, young love(?). It was a complete fluke that the two found love between one another; there was no reason for such events to occur. One of Ichirou's friends simply asked Makana, for Ichirou, to go out. Makana's friend answered for her and agreed, causing a very angry Makana to show up, fuming, to the appointed time and place.

Strangely enough, away from the pressures of school, the two got along swimmingly. The first date turned into a second, the second into a third, and the third into a full-on relationship. The two were terrors, to be sure, and it was so strange to see them so commited to eachother.

Unfortunately, when tragedy struck the Masashi household, Makana was unprepared. She came home from school one day to find her father grieving.

"Otou-san?!" called Makana, dropping her bag to the floor. "What's going on here?!"

"Yoshi..." the man murmured.

"Otou-san, I can't hear you," Makana whispered worridly. She rushed beside her father, noticing that her father was gripping a picture of her brother and himself. The two were smiling; both of their heads were shaved--Makana had ripped out Yoshi's hair when he tackled her and her father had shaved his head to match Yoshi.

Chouko was crying; his eyes were watery, red, bloodshot. "Yoshi... died."

Makana was dumbstruck. Her twenty-two-year-old brother had been killed by a hollow. It didn't seem possible to Makana; he had been so adept with his bow. He had always seemed so strong to Makana, and yet he had been vanquished. Nay, it was not one but three hollows that destroyed him. He had been fighting the one; two more were attracted. While he may have killed the one, he wasn't safe from the beast that ripped him in half. Masashi Yoshi died, and his corpse was found. Makana was furious at this; she ran away from home.

She left everything behind; Keita, Chouko, her friends, her family, and Ichirou. She took nothing with her; she just ran and didn't stop. She found a train; she took it half way across the country before she eventually returned home. Makana had been gone for two months before she returned, convinced she knew what she would do with her life. But when she returned, all she found was her brother.

"Hiko?" She murmured, entering the house. "Hiko, where's Keita? Where's Otou-san? Oka-chan?"

The boy shook his head; he was unable to answer any of her questions. Otou-san was a happy memory, as were Keita and Oka-chan. What was he supposed to say to his sister? That she had left her father in a depression so deep that he let a hollow consume him? That that hollow devoured Keita? That Keita slayed their mother and he was forced to demolish their own blood?

"I see..."

Hiko frowned, clenching his jaw. "I'm sorry, Makana."

"Baka," murmured the girl. "It's my fault, not yours."

With her family, save for Hiko, gone, Makana returned to school with a disposition so sad that no one dared to speak to her. Her days were lived out in silence; she sunk into a depression that she could not share with anyone. Even Ichirou was shut out and left in the dust while she began to focus in school. Her teachers were completely shocked at the transformation Makana had made; they had every right to be.

Nothing much happened during Makana's college years, but, somewhere along the way she decided she wanted to become a teacher. She had toyed with the idea of several things: becoming an engineer, going into psychology, medicine, but teaching ended up catching and hooking her.

Very little unusual happened during those years; she had to work through college to be able to afford to pay off her debt. She spent some time moving around from place to place, and eventually she ended up in Karakura town. Hiko had long-since moved out of the country to go to school overseas, even finding work overseas. Makana has not seen him since she visited him before he left for school.

Makana has taken a job as the history teacher at Karakura High, not seeming to be affected by her past. Her heart remains in tact; her smile is everpresent--until you diss history. Then you're going down with that stick of hers.

RP Sample:

"Alright class, if you're not in a seat you're getting a detention! That means you, Sato!" Makana chirped happily, entering the classroom. Her left hand held her trusty pointer, her right hand held a book. "If ya didn't do your homework you're out of here! Did anyone forget?"

One kid, sitting in the far back, raised his hand. The brown-eyed boy shivered as Makana approached him and tapped on his desk. "C'mon, what's the excuse? Dog ate it? Fish ate it? Monster in a mask ate it?"

The entire class, save for the one boy, laughed, but they had no idea what Makana was talking about. She was referring to hollows, of course. She didn't expect the kid to know what she was talking about, but it was always fun to pull out a sarcastic joke once in a while.

"I uh..." The boy scratched the back of his head. "M-monster?"

"What, are ya gonna say it ate your backpack?" joked Makana.

"What if it did?"

The class giggled, but Makana just smiled. "Alright, what was your name again?"

"Akio," the boy said timidly. He had just transferred into Makana's class; which was why she didn't know his name very well. It was also why he was so timid around her, Makana assumed.

Makana smiled warmly. "See me after school, kay?"

The disruption over, Makana returned to her desk, tapping on the wooden table with her pointer as she searched for her chalk. "Ah, there it is!"

She began to scribble on the board, drawing a picture of a stick man holding a rifle. "Can anyone tell me what this is?"

"A bad doodle?" One of the girls in the front called out. Giggles lined the classroom.

"Exactly! Now what's it a bad doodle of?" Makana asked, depsite the vein throbbing on her forehead. "C'mon now, there are no wrong answers."

"My dad after he catches me with a guy?"

"Wrong!" Makana chirped gleefully. "This is a soldier from the second world war!"

One boy scoffed at the goofy teacher. "How are we supposed to get this from a picture like that?"

Makana took no nonsense, waited not a single second. She flung her hand forward and swatted at the wrist of the boy; missing by millimeters. "Want to say that again?"

"G-g-gomen... nasai..."

"That's what I thought." Makana smiled as she turned toward the window. She saw a hollow, stalking just outside the school. "Open your books to page three-hundred-whatever, I'll be right back. Try not to blow up the school, kay kids?"

[Shinigami Kyra]

Approved, Mid-Level, Average