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Name: Helena Menelau
Apparent Age: Mid-20's
True Age: 2204
Sex: Female
Personality: Everything about Helena's actions is considered first for efficiency. The way she walks, the way she talks, the way she moves, and even the way she thinks. Stalking about the room with long strides and her head on a swivel, Helena looks and acts something like a caged tiger more than anything human. There is a tension to her walk, almost like a coiled spring ready to unleash its energy. Yet in spite of this, her movements are deliberate and careful with no overt action wasted on either nervousness or excessive energy. Her hands remain calmly at her sides, or clasped together in front of her. She turns her body only to address others directly, preferring to otherwise turn only her eyes when speaking casually.

Linguistically, she speaks with a neutral accent, more formal sounding than natural as if she spent many months or years practicing just so. When using Japanese, she prefers the aristocratic Tokyo-ben, but occasionally slides into Kansai-ben when she loses her manners or lets her guard down. She also speaks a very clean Oxford English bereft of the same 'faults' that her Japanese might betray. In addition to these languages, she also reads, writes, and speaks several dialects of Greek, and is conversationally fluent in all the Romance languages. When you're this old, you pick up a few things.

In light of how she carries herself the best way to describe the way this creature when under duress, or when needing to strike, would be fluid. Rather than simply unsheathing her sword and attacking there is an impeccable flow and balance to her motion which lends a sophistication well in excess of the actual savagery that underscores her actions. Like ocean waves, she can be calming, soothing, and steady. But never forget that those same waves are also relentless, unforgiving, and deceptively powerful.

When in conversation, Helena's warmth comes to the surface. She is congenial towards those she considers to be friends, or at least entertains as her social equals, often asking at length about how they are, how they have been, how their life is going, and all the other sorts of things that friends talk about. Sometimes, she almost asks too many questions as if she might be taking stock of the person she is talking to rather than asking from a genuine place. Regardless of the truth, she is well-practiced at making it appear to her benefit.

Although young and without children of her own, Helena has a natural matronly instinct that she is compelled to act upon. She cares for those in her charge and those she feels close to in a way that goes beyond wanting or needing to be their friends or companions--she wants the best for them in all the forms that takes. Sometimes she has to be stern and tell people what they need to hear rather than what they want to be comforted by. Sometimes she must show her 'family' that she is willing to do whatever it takes to protect them from threats, whether that be through simple intimidation or something more severe. Beneath her formality there is both a mother's love and a mother's wrath.

Perhaps cliche to say, Helena is a very strong-willed woman but this runs much deeper than simply refusing to give up in the face of adversity. She believes, not uncommonly, that the universe responds to the weight of a person's will. Reality is a consensus that cares for the strength of your voice, not for the equal counting of votes. Acting against this is simply not in her character. If there is an issue she cares about, or a problem where she believes her reality is invested in the outcome, she will not stand idly by and let the future be determined by her inaction. She must will her future to exist. No exceptions.

Due to her exceedingly venerable age and the amount of time she has spent roaming the world of the living, Helena reinvents herself consistently and frequently. She adopts new personas, lives new lives, moves around 'frequently' and has see much of the world and all that it might offer. To this end she is a bit jaded if not tired of the pettiness that can come from the short-sighted. There was a time when she fought to change the nature of the beast but that has long since passed. She is content to protect her own.

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Height: 5'10 or 178cm
Weight: 150lbs or 68kg
Physical Traits: Upon first glance, Helena's lustrous red hair can be very hard to ignore. It hangs to just below her shoulder blades, thick, voluminous, and just a bit curly, and it frames her face with a fire fit to contrast the gentle porcelain tone of her skin. Her eyes, amber and cold, often give the impression of a sullen woman who is weary beyond the years her physical appearance would suggest but the truth of the matter is that she just doesn't sleep very much. What little sleep she does get is often restless and fitful.

Tall by most people's standards at 5'10" / 178cm, Helena's build is more or less what you would expect from a born predator like an Arrancar. Light, feminine, and lithe, her physique is an almost stereotypical depiction of a naturally gifted swimmer with lean, powerful musculature, in a slim and graceful package.

A byproduct of her athletic lifestyle and generous height, Helena is always conscious of her posture and keeps to a rigid stance, particularly on her shoulders. A moderate bust is more than a little temptation but she actively fights against it and the way she ever-so-slightly inclines her head backward might also give the impression that she's looking down on you. Perhaps intentionally.

Despite the athletic appearance and cold distance of her eyes, Helena loves to present herself in warm and feminine ways. Often outfitted in dark colors she accentuates and punctuates her appearance with vibrant, colorful accents and accessories. Her style is consistent with what many Western cultures would expect of a 20-something woman, although she takes special care to wear versatile clothing that she could sprint in or perhaps even fight in if in a pinch.

Although she prefers consistency and a 'signature style' in her every day there is one trend in fashion she allows herself to make an exception for: chokers. Her favorite piece is a thin black band of silk clasped together around the silver outline of a heart. Her fingers and wrists are otherwise free from jewelry or adornment, but she does sport multiple modest ear piercings.

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General Fighting Style: Helena is a close-quarters master of combat as well as hanging onto a number of options that remain available at short-to-mid range. With the general utility of her Zanpakuto, she can do a tremendous amount of damage to an area or a large number of targets through simple collateral or indirect contact.  When her tolerance is tested, pushed to its limits, and she normally very composed edge sharpens she drops the civility and becomes a truly brutal beast that enthusiastically applies violence and rage wherever it is needed. She is the tiger in the brush, waiting for her chance to strike and taking it with full fury and abandon.

STRENGTHS
Reiryoku Reserves: Helena has a deep but modest pool of Reiryoku to draw from in order to power her myriad abilities. Thanks to the additional synergy with her Zanpakuto, she is able to replenish this pool quite literally and keep going well in excess of her basic limitations. She is able to outlast virtually anyone in terms of ability to keep slinging techniques.

Agility: Generally preferring to avoid techniques like Sonido, Helena is instead just plain old fast and must rely on this relentless speed to keep up her non-stop offense.

Strength: All that speed would be useful if there were nothing to back it up with. Many centuries ago when she dwelt in Hueco Mundo she was feared for her strength and, although largely forgotten, the truth of the matter remains unchanged.

Stamina: With age comes wisdom and Helena has mastered pacing herself. She knows precisely how hard she can push and for how long, as well as how much she has left in the tank at any time.


WEAKNESSES
Sensing: As a cost for remaining such a small and imperceptible target, Helena must avoid actively sensing for threats or interesting things beyond her immediate area. Strong enough sources overcome this drawback by virtue of being so obvious, however. Even when 'trying' to sense, the lack of practice limits her range.

Hand-to-Hand Combat: Naturally abhorring physical contact with strangers, this extends to combat. She feels much better with a sword's length between herself and the other party.

Hierro: Finding armor beyond the minimal to be bulky and limiting, her body inherently reflects this philosophy. She makes up for it with her regeneration which is good, because she's not much more difficult to cut than the average Shinigami would be for her 'strength'.

Ability Name: High-Speed Regeneration
Ability Description: Foregoing bulkier defenses like Hierro and a thicker frame, she instead is able to regenerate through tremendous amounts of damage, including the loss of limbs, at a high rate of speed.

Ability Name: Blade Kinesis
Ability Description: Helena's reiatsu is reflective of her killing intent and gropes for any and all nearby blades or instruments of death. Although aspects of this are passive she can also actively stoke her energy to grab these weapons and fling them at targets. This control is not precise enough so as to fight with multiple telekinetic weapons but it is enough to fling whatever sharp or bladed things may be nearby from unconventional angles. In places where no blades are available, such as the hot dry sands of Hueco Mundo, her reiatsu itself can even form a limited number of these blades although their insubstantial nature makes them easily swatted away by the quick-witted.

Yagyu Shinkage-ryu: Her preferred sword style, this is a descendant of Battojutsu and is mixed with elements of aikido. Collectively, this style emphasizes fluid movements, subtle techniques, and use of a long, thin blade in order to disarm or incapacitate an opponent (rather than outright killing them). While any true student would admit they have much to learn, Helena is exceptionally gifted in this regard, even if she sometimes abandons the finer points in the pursuit of cruelty.

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Sealed Appearance: A modest 32" ninjoto, Yatagarasu is quite simple in its design. A straight, slender blade is accentuated by a black, circular handguard and a simple, black grip. There are no interesting features or quirks of the blade itself aside from a shobu-hi (a type of blood groove) that runs the length of the blade. The saya, although principally black, is decorated with small white and pink cherry blossoms.
Zanpakuto Name: Yatagarasu (八咫烏, "eight-span crow")
Zanpakuto Call Out: "Exalt, Yatagarasu"
Cero: In addition to the standard Cero and Bala up to Gran Ray, Helena has developed Cero Nami which is fired by the sweep of as word, and which behaves like a wave rather than a ray or beam like traditional Cero. It is equivalent in strength to a standard Cero however it covers a much wider area effectively washing over a 'cone' until it has spent its energy or traveled too far.

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Appearance: Indicative of her the lengths she goes to stay away from people and connections, and literally fly away from her problems, Yatagarasu blooms from its sealed state most obviously by sprouting three massive sets of wings, each wider than the one below it. The mask fragment running along her hairline like a tiara expands and curls upward into a facsimile of a Valkyrie helmet, and other elements of her hollow bone mask take on the shape of elongated feathers as they cover her body in their makeshift armor. In this form, Helena is considerably taller at nearly 8 feet, her reach now also vastly improved. Although Yatagarasu is a single blade when sealed, it has now split into two matching longswords.

Ability Name: Arashi Karasu (嵐カラス 'Storm Crow')
Ability Description: Helena's reiatsu soars skyward and expands into billowing, thick, dark rain and storm clouds with immediate results. Within moments, a rumbling and roiling thunder herald a downpour of ice-cold oily rain centered on her. This rain powers many of her other abilities although on its own it is a complication to say the least. The water is cold. So cold that muscles freeze up and lock, clothing soaks becoming heavy and uncomfortable, and visibility drops to, at best, the immediate area. Thick sheets of rain simply do not stop unless Helena wills it to be. This is more of a storytelling effect than any sort of a penalty applied to her opponents but can certainly have a number of dramatic and narrative consequences. Mechanically, this rain assists Helena in gathering more reiryoku and reishi by precipitating it out of the very air, allowing her deep reserves to continue almost indefinitely.  This effect can continue into Segunda Etapa where it upgrades from simple rain to a deluge or downpour.

Ability Name: Akui no nami (悪意の波 'Malice Wave')
Ability Description: Calling upon the water accumulating around her and her opponent, Helena controls a large volume to rise up and strike a target. Because this involves a volume of water this effect is capable of covering an area many meters across, although the devastation drops off with distance from the center. This is equivalent to a Gran Ray Cero and has a 3 post cooldown.

Ability Name: Hikōsen (飛行船 "Shipbreaker")
Ability Description: A massive spear of water and raw spiritual energy pierces the heavens and shoots down onto a target. This is the equivalent to a Forbidden level Kido and can be fired by calling out its name. Five post cooldown. In addition to the 'damage' of this ability, it also floods the surrounding area in a tremendous amount of water. Depending on where this is used, the battlefield could become considerably more complicated.

Ability Name: Shōmetsu no Roku hōen (消滅の六方円 'Six-Point Ring Of Annihilation')
Ability Description: Helena deploys all six of her telekinetically controlled blades into a full offensive assault. The swords encircle the target and converge, striking from six different directions at once and bring along whatever other stray blades, spears, arrows, et cetera they happen to pass by on the way.

Ability Name: Ken-seki (剣関 'Sword Barrier')
Ability Description: Anywhere from 3 to 6 of the swords converge in order to block a spiritual attack up to 80th level Kido or equivalent. This has a three post cooldown.

Ability Name: Hyōmen o yaburu (表面を破る 'Breach the Surface')
Ability Description: Helena points one of her swords and fires a Bala from the tip. While this is a standard Bala it is fired with virtually no warning at all and no visible build-up of energy. It is difficult to see even by the standards of the most observant.

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Appearance: Growing taller still, Henela's limbs elongate and her features become more sharp, gnarled, and hawk-like reflecting the distant memory of her original hollow state. Her Valkyrie helmet crown sprouts two twisted, infernal horns. Her skin, previously fair and porcelain, lightens to a near-ghostly white. The hollow hole present in her lower abdomen widens and weeps a viscous black fluid, as do her eyes which are now glowing with an icy, iridescent blue. Although she previously had three sets of large wings, they have condensed and fused down into one enormous set nearly 30 feet long, with impossibly sharp feathers and blades. Her hands and fingers, stretched long and clawed, are blackened in a manner similar to her horns. Gone from her grip is Yatagarasu and instead are eight exalted, black blades float above and behind her.

Ability Name: Yae no kohai (八重の荒廃 eightfold devastation)
Ability Description: The full fury of all the blades at her command. This technique abandons all defense for the sole purpose of killing her enemy in the most intimate and brutal she can physically muster. This ability grants an x6 boost to strength and is on a three post cooldown.

Ability Name: Hyōmen o yaburu (表面を破る 'Breach the Surface')
Ability Description: This is the same ability as described in her Resurrection except, without a sword in her hand to shoot from, the Bala now comes eight at a time, one for each exalted blade behind her. These Bala may be thematically 'rapid fired' almost as if shot from a Gatling gun at the unfortunate target.

Ability Name: Shōhi-ha (消費波 'Consumption of the Waves')
Ability Description: Helena commands countless amorphous drops and blobs of water to hurl themselves toward the target, pelting and surrounding the unfortunate soul until they are caught up in a massive sphere of water, every inch of their body submerged within a growing, crushing mass of her hatred and malice. The constituent water, infused with her reiatsu, responds to her will and begins to press and crush tighter on anyone or anything caught inside. This is a 'binding' that holds a target in place, slowly choking the life out of them until she grows tired of them or their struggle ceases and they just another one of the drowned. This is equivalent to Bakudo #90 and has a 5 post cooldown.

Ability Name: Ushinawareta sen'in no kōshin (失われた船員の行進 'March of the Lost Mariner')
Ability Description: This is a thematic ability. Representative of Helena's truest fears and deepest regrets from a life so long ago lost, she calls upon the souls of all the faces lost to the water and beckons them to do her bidding. Bloated, water-logged corpses of those claimed by the sea and the waters of her Yatagarasu rise up out of the murk and converge on her target. For any combatant worthy of seeing this power be used, the dead do not present a challenge but rather the terror of the moment is more than enough to break the concentration of all but the most haughty and resilient. This effect takes 1 additional post to fully manifest and then lasts for 5 rounds or until the dead have been thematically dealt with. May be used once per thread barring narrative agreement.

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History: Helena died during the Punic Wars in approximately 200 BC. Unable to form lasting relationships in Hueco Mundo she returned to the World of the Living and has spent the majority of her long, long existence hiding in the Mediterranean among mortals. She has seen much, done much, and has much to tell.

Placeholder for thread tracking.  Additionally, I'd like to work with someone to see what needs to be done to get Helena and her kit down into the 1-1 to 1-3 range. If this is not possible you can let me know that too. I do not intend for her to be an Espada or contend for a spot as an Espada; she instead primarily resides on Earth paying for her perceived sins.

Ability Name: Akui no nami (悪意の波 'Malice Wave') - needs a power comparison and an appropriate CD (If any at all)

"This ability can be used once acting on an x6 boost to strength even after the enormous boost she gains from her Segunda Etapa." <-- Forum hardcap is 6x to any single stat. just pointing that out. The fluff makes it seem like you go beyond that.

Ability Name: Shōhi-ha (消費波 'Consumption of the Waves') - This needs a Bakudo equivalent and a CD.

Ability Name: Ushinawareta sen'in no kōshin (失われた船員の行進 'March of the Lost Mariner') - it may be a thematic ability but it still needs a Duration/CD.

once these are fixed the app is approvable.

Thanks for your feedback;

Akui no nami has been compared to gran ray and giving 3 CD

Extra fluff removed and just plain ol x6

Shoshi-ha has been given a 90+ equiv and 5 post CD

Thematic ability has been given a duration and CD

Approved at ze tier of 1-3 to give room for growth and stuff