Sachiko has been my main muse since 2011, and is one of if not my very first real original character. Originally created for the Bleach roleplaying forum SoulxSociety, she has since taken on a life of her own. I've brought her into multiple other universes for roleplaying, and she is now one of the two protagonists of my original novel, Wolfskin. Her most fleshed-out iteration is still the original Bleach storyline.
She's absolutely everything to me. She's bisexual. She's an alcoholic. She has chronic pain. She engages in illegal street racing. She cannot differentiate between platonic and romantic love.
If you like characters who are weapons, characters who are chained dogs, characters who don't know their rage is grief, characters who are so loyal it destroys them, this is the ghost for you!
Sachiko is defined in every story by devotion, and how to reconcile that devotion with her own wellbeing. A good weapon never asks questions. She is a little rough around the edges, but she has a good heart. She is unerringly loyal to those she has sworn herself to, and always trusts that they know something she doesn’t that makes it all make sense. She believes that those in power have an obligation to improve the lives of those beneath them, and takes her own position (depending on which canon this is) as a solemn responsibility. She is loyal not to organizations or to ideologies, but to people.
In the Bleach universe, Safiya was a powerful African rootworker (or time appropriate equivalent) who ended up in Japan in the 16th century. She met and fell in love with Kobayashi Koshirou. The Kobayashi family was a powerful family both in influence and spiritual power. Several generations ago, they discovered the phenomenon of Fullbring, and began to purposefully invoke this power by forcing all members of the family to fight a Hollow one-on-one as a rite of passage. Children born into the Kobayashi family with the Fullbring abilities are born with one blue eye. Koshirou was no exception to this rule, and to the delight of his family, both of the couple’s twins were born with one blue eye and powerful spiritual pressure.
For a brief time, the family was happy. Tragedy struck, however, and the then twelve-year-old Sachiko died. She was so attached to her family that she lingered for much longer than she should have, and if not for the extremely fortuitous arrival of a Shinigami, she would have become a Hollow. Instead, she was sent to the other side, alone and confused.
She grew up the same way many children did in the Rukongai: fighting and stealing for the food they needed to survive. The area she had arrived in was so cold that even in her adult life Sachiko remembered being unable to even cry, for the tears would freeze onto her face.
As a young adult, Sachiko married a man named Tatsuki. It was briefly a happy marriage, as they both sought fleeting joy and contentment in each other. Unfortunately, it went sour rather quickly, with both of them spiraling into depression, alcoholism, and infidelity. They divorced after thirty-one years of marriage, having had no children despite both of them wanting it.
When she became an adult, Sachiko had decided to become a Shinigami. It took her five tries to enter the Soul Academy, and once she did, it was no easy feat. She had not learned to read well, nor had she ever had to apply herself in an academic setting before. She struggled greatly, and made few friends. She was accepted into the Eleventh Division immediately after graduation, and eventually rose to 6th seat.
The two friends she had made in the Academy, Chouta and Juri, were a married couple who took Sachiko into the fold of their relationship. The entire trio was in the Eleventh together, and were the definition of a power throuple. They all matched and enabled each other's freak to a dangerous degree.
Once again, happiness was not to last. A little over 10 years later, tragedy came for Sachiko once again. Sachiko, Chouta, and Juri were all part of a team that was sent after a supposedly mid-level Hollow. Upon arriving, however, they found a powerful Hollow with acid that ate their zanpakuto. Sachiko witnessed the massacre of the entirety of the twelve-man team. She was barely able to take the Hollow down with her Shikai, but was horrifically injured as a result. She barely survived, and to this day is physically disabled and suffers from chronic nerve damage from the acid.
Sachiko put in her resignation while recovering, intending to return to the winter of her youth to die. However, she received an invitation instead to join the Thirteenth Division, a decision that saved her life.
In the Inuyasha universe, Sachiko is a hanyō whose daiyōkai father was once the lord of a mountain wolf demon clan. Her mother was a rootworker who was brought to Japan aboard a trading ship. Sachiko as a hanyō has enhanced speed, stamina, strength, and senses. She suppresses her yōkai blood with a charm made by her parents which allows her to hide her fangs, claws, and yōki. She is still stronger and faster than humans, but not to a degree that she is in any danger of being discovered. She studies the naginata, and is extremely skilled with it. She is married to a human lord, who loves her fiercely despite the scars she bears from a yōkai attack.
Is Sachiko a monster? Is she a bad person? This is a question she could never answer. There is blood on her hands, on her soul, underneath her fingernails and between her teeth. She would go to depraved lengths to prove her loyalty, cut bits of her flesh off just to prove her worth. Is that goodness? Or is she simply desperate to fill the pit in her soul?
I haven't found them yet, but whoever loves Sachiko fully will unlock her Final Form. Which is just her regular form, but she doesn't hide her scars as much, and also embraces her fucked up life-stealing powers, and also is all around a lot more chill about things. She's not, like, fully chill. But she is a lot more chill.
Sachiko doesn’t lie. She speaks her mind bluntly, though in recent years she’s learned to wait to do so until a quiet moment. She is bad with words, and knows it, and tries to get her point across physically, whether that’s with physical affection or physical violence. She is reserved with her affection, but once it’s earned, it’s for life.
The eye that got destroyed is blue, and is the source of the mysterious power that saved her life. She doesn't know it yet, but just because the eye is gone doesn't mean the power is. The remaining eye is still unnervingly bright, but holds no special power.
In the Bleach universe, Sachiko was a Fullbring who died as a child in the 1600s, and is now a Shinigami who currently holds a Sixth Seat position in the Thirteenth Division. Her Zanpakutō is Hakai Ōkami Kōtei (破壊狼皇帝, Wolf Emperor of Destruction). His spirit form is a white lycanthrope with black human hands wearing an emperor’s robes. In its unreleased form, it takes the form of a nodachi over five feet in length, undecorated but covered in a myriad of cracks as if it is on the verge of breaking. When she speaks her zanpakutō's release word, “Hunt," its dimensions switch and it becomes a naginata. When she stabs an opponent whose spiritual pressure is greater than her own, part of the blade breaks off and embeds itself in her opponent’s flesh. Each time Sachiko hits them, the fragment moves closer to their heart. After ten strikes, they are completely destroyed and Sachiko gains a small fraction of their power. While the fragment is in her target, Sachiko is able to track them by following the "scent" of the blade. The blade has no special effect on enemies of equal or lesser strength.
In the Inuyasha 'verse, or in a Bleach 'verse where she activates her Fullbring, Sachiko has a power called Death's Eye in her blue right eye. She cannot control it, as it affects everything and everyone she can see. With her Eye active, she can see how everything in her sight will eventually die. If it is still in her sight after 10 seconds, that fate comes instantly. If she looks at something that is already dead, she will return it to life as if it had never died, undoing whatever injury, illness, or other ability caused it to die. When Sachiko uses the Death's Eye, she gains as many years of life as the lives she took, or loses as many as have passed since the affected's death. Her power does not work through reflections like windows or mirrors, through digital screens like cameras or video feeds, or on anything that isn't real such as an illusion or hallucination. Trying to use her power in this way will cause a migraine and she will be unable to use the Eye for at least a week.
Sachiko's greatest pleasure is breaking things. The more living the things are when she starts, the better. How she longs to throw her weapon aside and get flesh beneath her claws.
When long, cold fingers lightly gripped her jaw, Sachiko thought she knew what to expect. Gin had given her sour things before disguised as sweets, and spicy things also disguised as sweets. Instead of foul-tasting food, something cold touched her lips, something soft and grinning. When nothing sour or spicy bit her tongue, she relaxed ever so slightly, and Gin kissed her deeper. ~ Excerpt from Ouroboros
Sachiko has undiagnosed autism, because I have undiagnosed autism. Her special interest is motorcycles, in a universe where motorcycles exist, and it's architecture in a universe where they don't. How much of her grief, her rage, her depression, her devotion, is poorly handled autism? How much is unprocessed grief? How much is the confusion and pain of social ostracization? The delightful thing about the human soul is we will never know the answer.
Drink to numb the pain
Sachiko's favorite color is green, but do not buy her anything plant-themed. Any reminder of her horrible allergies is sure to ruin her mood.
