Character Info
Personality: If Kurosaki Karin was brash and proud at eleven, she's downright impetuous and haughty at fifteen. One might almost never even realize she and her twin sister Yuzu are sisters, let alone twins, as their personalities vary so much--where Yuzu is sweet and genteel, Karin is cynical and outspoken; where Yuzu is domestic and has a collection of stuffed toys, Karin can't cook to save her life, and prefers the company of soccer balls. Despite their differences, Karin adores her sister, however, and though she sometimes finds Yuzu's gentleness and tendency to cry easily a bit wearying, nobody picks on Kurosaki Karin's sister and gets away with it. She is fiercely devoted to her loved ones, and recklessly determined to be there for them, no matter the cost. Though her father drives her up the wall a lot of the time, she loves him dearly, and really just wishes he'd stop hiding things from her. She tends to lose patience with him easily, and is somewhat prone to violent outbursts of temper when she feels she's being lied to. This goes for Ichigo as well--though her love for her big brother knows no bounds, she knows there is more to his situation than he's letting on. Troubled by his absence and worried that there is a much bigger picture going on around her than the one she sees, Karin keeps waiting for someone to fill her in, and then gets inevitably flustered when no one does.
Though she may seem acerbic and rebellious at first glance, Karin is always thinking of her family; their safety and happiness means more to her than most things. When Masaki died, Karin vowed not to cry ever again, set on proving that she was strong enough not to burden her grieving family with more sadness. She has upheld this vow not to cry almost flawlessly, only faltering when she connected with Shibata, the soul of a young boy trapped within a parrot, tearfully begging Ichigo to save the boy and reunite him with his late mother so he wouldn't have to be alone anymore. This proves that despite her sharp tongue and rough and tumble exterior, Karin is a caring and thoughtful girl who really just wants people to be happy and together with their families. She misses her mother very much, but knows that crying for her won't change what happened; Masaki wouldn't want that anyway. Instead, Karin chooses to celebrate the family that remains with her...often in the form of punching, yelling, shoving, and kicking. All fondly, of course. At least for the most part.
Of course, family isn't everything. While her father and siblings have always been a big part of Karin's life, she also spends a great deal of time on school and things related. Competitive to a fault, she strives to outdo Ichigo's high marks in school, and has done well keeping up. She has a flair for language (and wants to practice Spanish with Ichigo's friend Sado, but never manages to catch him to ask), and excels at sports. She and Yuzu started high school this past April, and Karin had no trouble getting herself appointed to the school soccer team, where she is their star striker. She wishes more than anything that Ichigo could come to one of her games, but she knows that whatever he's up to (she knows there's more to it than university in Hokkaido like dad says), it must be pretty important. (That doesn't mean that his missing her first goal as a high school player didn't sting.)
Outside of school and soccer, Karin is a bright and fiercely independent teenager. She hates to be told what to do, and this often escalates into arguments with her father (though she inevitably does as she's told in the end. Usually). She retains her sporty and tomboyish nature, but since getting into high school, Karin has started paying a bit more attention to her appearance. She has let her dark hair grow out a bit, and has even been caught wearing lip gloss once or twice (though this she shrilly denies). She's not terribly interested in boys (though Nomura from class 2-A is a bit cute), however most of her nearer and dearer friends are male. She's still close with the four boys she always played soccer with in the park--Pinta, Donny, Usaka, and Ryouhei--and tends to spend more time on the field practicing with them than a lot of her female teammates.
Karin can of course still see spirits. If anything, she's been working on honing that skill since she confronted Ichigo that day three years ago and watched him dart out the window in a black kendo uniform with a great wrapped blade upon his back, leaving a strangely boneless shell of his body behind, crumpled on his bed. It's an image that haunted her for a long time after, though she never discussed this discovery with neither her father nor Yuzu, uncertain if either of them would be prepared for such news. It was in the middle of her fourteenth year that Ichigo actually came clean and explained what was going on--to an extent--and swore her to secrecy, for Yuzu would likely be upset by the news that her big brother was a Shinigami and was getting himself into trouble on a more regular basis than usual. There are still many things she wants to ask Ichigo, but their reunions have been too few and far between for her to do so. And so she waits. While she lacks some of the natural talent her brother always had for martial arts, Karin has taken some sporadic lessons, determined to be strong enough to help Ichigo in fighting...whatever it is he's fighting...should he ever need her to. While she may not understand everything that's going on, she knows there's something far greater than her scope of the world at work here, and when the time comes to face it, Karin will be certain she's ready.
Background: After the mysterious disappearance of all life from Karakura town, Karin moved to the neighboring town with her family, though she didn't believe for an instant it was A FREAK TSUNAMI (they hadn't lived that close to the ocean) or AN INVISIBLE EARTHQUAKE (then where was all the rubble?) or A SILENT PLAGUE (well, Isshin was a doctor, wasn't he?) or whatever other ridiculous story her father came up with to explain the move. After watching Ichigo dash out the window in a mysterious uniform with a great sword on his back, Karin threw away all illusions that anything was normal anymore. Isshin insisted that Ichigo was going to college in Hokkaido since graduating from high school, but she's not convinced that's all there is to it.
Frustrated and irritable with the lack of information to be had, Karin spent the first year of their life in the new town getting back in touch with the other survivors of the incident. She is thankful the families of her four old stomping ground buddies were away when the ALIEN INVASION happened, and were thus spared whatever ill fate the rest of Karakura's denizens met. The fact that no one dared go near the old ghost town had her suspicious--there hadn't even been a cleanup! The story had been on the news briefly that a strange an inexplicable event had occurred, and Karakura was deemed a quarantine area, and though no stanchions or walls had been erected to keep people out, they seemed unnecessary. Only the bravest of ghosthunters dared venture to Karakura...and some of them never returned.
And so the town faded into an urban legend at best, a shuddering memory at worst, and a point of fluster for Kurosaki Karin, who knew that someone had to know what had happened...and that someone was her big brother. She cornered him on a few occasions, begging for some enlightenment, and was left disappointed and exasperated by his evasiveness, until one day in her fourteenth year, he decided maybe she was old enough to understand.
She didn't get the whole story, but Ichigo confessed he'd been visiting a place called Soul Society, on a different plane of existence, where souls go after passing. He was working with the Shinigami there to try and bring down a tyrant who had corrupted the system of government and threatened the lives of his friends. She learned that there was family she hadn't even known about in this place called Soul Society, and that the occasional friends he had visit were also Shinigami, and as unbelievable as the story might have seemed, Karin found it infinitely less absurd than the tales of A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS. On one hand, her father's desire to keep her and Yuzu from unpleasant information were laudable, but Karin didn't want to be sheltered--she wanted the truth, and she wanted to help. Ichigo swore her to secrecy, making her vow not to tell Yuzu, for it would only frighten her, or Isshin, because he hadn't wanted them to know anyway. She swore, of course, but only after Ichigo promised in return that he would let her help if there was anything she could do.
But Karin knew her brother well, and knew that while he swore, he would likely never call on her. She knew it was because he wanted to protect her, but she was through being treated like a child. When she turned fifteen, she set her mind on truly growing stronger, so that she could help Ichigo in his efforts. After all, he'd been fifteen when he'd become a Shinigami...so he had no right to deny her the same opportunity. It has been a while since Ichigo has come home, and Karin thinks about him often, and she awaits the day she has the power and resources to aid him in his fight.