ONMITSUKIDŌ, ishikawa sano

REIRYOKU | HIGH LEVEL
As a human Sano possessed a large reserve of spiritual energy. This trait stayed with him even in death, and his spiritual presence was great enough to slowly harm the civilians around him in Rukongai. In the Gotei 13 his spiritual energy level is considered on par with the standard Lieutenant at face value, setting him apart as above average amongst shinigami. His spiritual energy is alice blue in color, said to emphasize the nature of his reiatsu and zanpakutō's abilities. Those sensitive to spiritual presences feel a cold and morose aura from Sano, and will notice that his personality somewhat reflects this if they stick around him. He prefers to keep his spiritual energy suppressed to avoid harming weaker spiritual presences around him outside of combat, and to keep himself in-practice when it comes to stealth.

SPIRITUAL CONTROL | MASTER LEVEL
Most of Sano's early life had been solely dedicated to controlling his spiritual energy and pressure. At first it was out of necessity so that he didn't harm civilians with his presence. However, it eventually developed into a personal interest. After learning how to suppress it, he became interested in learning how to further manipulate it into an effective tool for combat. It was his bread and butter during the academy, alongside his zanpakutō, however he would neglect zanjutsu for spiritual control as his choice of specialization once he became a shinigami. Almost two centuries later he found himself under the tutelage of Kunpuu Izumi. Like many of her students before him, he was also taught of her purification breathing method. Even after spending ten hours a day meditating for about a century, Sano found himself unable to achieve her Exalted Spiritual Power. That is not to say that he took nothing from the experience. Two centuries later, he has made some considerable progress and his control has been regarded as almost perfect. He is capable of almost completely suppressing his spiritual presence and is extremely efficient in his usage of spiritual energy. He is even recognized by the Kidōshū as someone who could succeed in their ranks if he so desired, though he chose to concentrate his spiritual prowess into developing his hakuda and hohō instead of mastering kidō.

• MOROSE WIND | PASSIVE
  Sano's spiritual pressure is known to have a cold and dreadful feeling to it. This was to the point that, before he became a shinigami and learned how to control it, he would leak it constantly and accidentally cause civilians to suffer from either hypothermia, slight dementia, or both after prolonged experience. At first, learning to control it meant being able to walk around Rukongai without hurting civilians. Developing his spiritual control would eventually lead to a desire to harness his ability into something useful for the battlefield. Mastering his shikai managed to further amplify this sole ability. When Sano's reiatsu is allowed to run free, it produces a cold and dreary feeling. The closer someone is to Sano, the colder and more maddening the reiatsu feels. Through mastering his spiritual control, he has learned to confine the area to a small field around himself so that he does not afflict his combats in cooperative battles. The effects are not quite as intense as on beings with higher than a low spiritual presence. They work at a much slower rate, and even then the extent are minor shivers and slight confusion or paranoia after a considerable amount of exposure. 

PERCEPTION | EXPERT LEVEL
Centuries of combat and training have inadvertently honed Sano's senses. After so much emphasis on hakuda and hohō, he has found his reflexes to be at their peak with his analysis ability inside of combat slowly reaching the same level of development. While he cannot immediately discern the nature behind techniques and abilities in combat like those superior to him in perception are capable of, he is quite capable of coming to an understanding of an ability after experiencing it for a few moments or if he witnesses the same ability's use a multiple times. His natural affinity with spiritual energy has helped him in being able to sense and track other spiritual presences, though this is only over moderate ranges compared to those who can even detect hidden presences.

ZANJUTSU | NOVICE LEVEL
In his four centuries of existence, Sano has managed to avoid using his zanpakutō as a weapon in combat. One explanation for this is the nature of his zanpakutō's shikai. In its initial release it leaves Sano with no weapon. As a result, he focused on training his hakuda to make up for his lack of a weapon in shikai. Further explaining his abandonment of zanjutsu is the fact that Sano's career saw him going from the academy to an unseated position in the Second Division to the Onmitsukidō. The latter two specialize in hohō and hakuda, so he never felt any pressure to keep up in zanjutsu. In fact, he only used it during his days in the academy and on the off chance that he needed to improvise with it in the middle of combat. As a result, although he was at the top of his class for zanjutsu in the academy, his capabilities with swordsmanship have waned compared to those who even moderately stayed with it. When he actually does use zanjutsu, he fights with an iaidō based style.

HAKUDA | MASTER LEVEL
When it comes to hand-to-hand combat, Sano has mastered it to the point of being confident in taking on weapon users while barehanded. Upon becoming a member of the second division Sano soon discovered that excellence in hakuda would be expected of him. While he had focused on spiritual control up until that point, he decided to shift some emphasis from it to hakuda. As a result, his hakuda mastery is almost on par with his Spiritual Control, if not better. He has seen training in Tang Soo Do, Aikido, Muay Thai, Escrima, Boxing, Kickboxing, Capoeira, Taekwondo, Jujitsu, Ninjutsu, and Krav Maga. He has developed his own fighting style from various elements of these other styles in a Jeet Kune Do sort of fashion. That is, he observed them, tried them, and learned from their strengths and weaknesses. Through this, he has made his own improvisational fighting style that one could only describe as graceful and disciplined street fighting. This was the method of fighting he decided to stick with when entering the Detention Unit, and what he chose to develop during his training with Izumi. He normally says his training mantra is "speed kills, damage is king, style is everything." However, he only truly believes in the first statement, which lead to him advancing his hohō while training in hakuda. One of his firm beliefs is that, with strong foot work and a lot of agility, one can overwhelm their opponents and avoid taking severe damage. This is not to say he neglects neither style nor damage. His body is in peak conditioning for a shinigami as per standard Onmitsukidō training, and his strikes are surprisingly strong for someone of his stature; creating small craters with his strikes are a small feat to Sano. His high mastery in spiritual control has granted him a more powerful ability in hakuda than most, as he is able to enhance various physical abilities with his spiritual energy. He is well versed in many different hakuda techniques, capable of using: Tsukiyubi, Tesshō, Takigoi, Taketonbo, Kagamibiraki, Raiōken, Oni Dekopin, Ikkotsu, and Sōkotsu.

• MUGENKOUTAI; Sano's extensive skill in spiritual control, hakuda, and hohō made him pursue a successful way to combine the three. The result was his Mugenkoutai, "Infinite Regress," or Mugenken for short. The name of the ability comes from the fact that shinigami progress normally by first receiving an asauchi, discovering their shikai, and then mastering whatever weapon their released form takes. However, since his zanpakutō leaves him weaponless, Sano found himself "regressing" to hand-to-hand combat. In essence, this is his form of Shunkō, although it is based more on bakudō than hadō. Mugenkoutai surrounds the user's body in a thin layer of bakudō that functions similarly in fashion to Tenteikūra, Millón Escudo, and Seki. The simplest description of it would be to call it a transmitter. On the user's end of the aura, energy and forces are amplified. On the other side, these forces and energy become absorbed. As a result, while shunkō is capable of simply blocking attacks, Mugenkoutai has the capability of taking an incoming attack or impact and repel it upon the offender so long as the user supplies enough spiritual energy to the point(s) of contact. The user's hohō also become amplified, causing them to exceed their normal levels of speed and agility. Under the Mugenkoutai, a novice hohō user may keep up with a hohō practitioner and so on. However, the user's reaction speed is not boosted by this and neither is their equilibrium. That being said, extensive training in this form is needed to utilize its speed efficiently.
  
• KŌTE; Kōte, or God Hand, takes the form of a concentrated version of Mugenkoutai. Rather than their whole body, the user's point of focus is their hands. Once engulfed in their reiatsu, the hands seem to be surrounded by a white flame. The consumed hands are then able to literally catch a blade without sustaining damage, and the user may create such a powerful surge of destructive energy within their hand that the caught weapon is crushed under the user's might. Just like Mugenkoutai, this ability can redirect the forces of incoming assaults. This has allowed Sano to gain notoriety as one who can crush anything with his hands.