Vice-Captain of the 1st Division
Reiatsu Color: Red, changes to flame red-orange when in shikai
Personality
Calm, collected and disciplined, Kiyoshi takes his job very seriously. Has a sense of humor, but never shows it when on duty. He believes in the importance of both strength, training often to keep his edge, and versatility, balancing his training between swordplay, shunpo, and both paths of kidou (his skills in hand-to-hand combat lag behind, as he considers it a secondary skill). Kiyoshi frequently encourages his squadmates to hone their own skills and will even personally train those that are having trouble. However, those that intentionally neglect their training risk getting a verbal smackdown (or, if their slacking continues, a physical one). He despises weakness, but rather then hating weak people Kiyoshi sees it as something like a disease that can cured with the proper degree of training and discipline. Thus, he remains supportive even of weak squad members as long as they're making an honest effort to improve their skills.
Kiyoshi approaches combat with calm analysis and surgical precision. He likes to open combat with a flurry of relatively weak attacks, carefully observing his opponent's reactions and counterattacks. Once he thinks he has a good handle on their reactions and fighting style, Kiyoshi will attempt to outmaneuver them and put them down with a single devastating attack. He is a firm believer in the "All is fair in love and war, and this ain't love" philosophy of combat and therefore has no qualms about taking cheap shots at his opponent. Kiyoshi doesn't like to talk in combat, but will if he thinks it will gain him some sort of tactical advantage, such as enraging or demoralizing his opponent.
Appearance
Kiyoshi appears to be in his late 20s, with jaw length light brown hair that he wears swept back, exposing a slight widow's peak and heavy-lidded gray eyes. He wears a standard shinigami uniform, with one exception. His strangest quirk is that he prefers sneakers from the human world over the traditional sandals.
Zanpaktou: Taiyou Shikon (Sun Fang)
Sealed Form
Standard katana, hilt is red with white diamonds, guard is an oval with acute triangles projecting from the longer sides.
Spirit Form
A massive, hulking creature constantly engulfed in flames. Taiyou Shikon is at least 8 feet tall, despite its hunch, and sports huge claws on its hands. Its form is difficult to make out through the fire, but it appears to be some sort of bipedal cross between a wolf and a bear. Its eyes are visible as balls of white fire in the red-orange flames surrounding its head.
Shikai, "Light the endless sky, Taiyou Shikon"
The entire sword glows red hot for an instant, then melts into a mass of molten metal that molds around Kiyoshi's hand and forearm (the heat does not harm or even discomfort him) and then cools to reveal a metal gauntlet encasing his hand and forearm. The gauntlet has a large, claw-like, double-edged blade curving forward from the back of Kiyoshi's hand. A large, red, multi-faceted gem is set into the top of the forearm section of the gauntlet and constantly glows with fiery reiatsu.
Solar Edge: Taiyou Shikon's edges glow yellow-white with the heat of the sun, melting through virtually any substance on contact. This allows Taiyou Shikon to cut through virtually anything with little or no resistance, including most hierros. This ability is usually active when Taiyou Shikon is in shikai.
Fang Shot: Kiyoshi swings Taiyou Shikon, firing a fast-moving soccer ball-sized fireball that explodes on impact.
Flare: Kiyoshi swings Taiyou Shikon in an arc, releasing a white-hot arc of fire that moves faster then the eye can see, burning through anything in its path. This ability is very fast and very powerful, but it uses up so much of Taiyou Shikon's reiatsu that all its abilities, including Solar Edge, are disabled for 30 seconds to 1 minute while it recharges. Due to the recharge time, Kiyoshi likes to immobilize his opponent with a Way of Binding spell before using it, in order to increase his chances of finishing them off.
Bankai
Not yet achieved, though Kiyoshi is well into his bankai training.
