Sexta Espada: Constantine Legorreta

Name: Constantine Legorreta

Alias(es): The Moontouched

Race: Adjuchas-Class Arrancar

Age: 530

Affiliation: Sexta Espada

Overview: The holy and devout Sexta Espada, Constantine Legorreta, is an Arrancar of tremendous power and sway within the culture of Las Noches. His entire existence is defined by his religious beliefs in the Cero Espada and God of Hueco Mundo Final, or the Moon--an entity he believes to have created Hollowkind. Ever since joining forces with the Arrancar King Shenn Lunng, Constantine has helped shape the culture from its foundation, using his own suffering to provide guidance, his own power to garner believers, and his own faith to help Shenn Lunng create the greatest kingdom to have ever existed in Hueco Mundo. Had none of these things not been so vibrant in Constantine’s soul, then it is likely that the Shinigami’s revolutionized methods of war would have obliterated any possibility of Hollow Civilization more than a hundred years ago. For these reasons, despite the suffering that he puts both his followers and the citizens of Las Noches through, he is seen as the most instrumental and important Espada.

Before Constantine was the holy man he is now, the Arrancar was a boy born in a faithless world more than three centuries ago. His parents were serfs to a nameless lord who gave little care to whether they lived or died. As a child, Constantine was forced to work as hard as the men who lived in their small straw huts, plowing fields and sowing crops for his lord to take. It was a life that did little to inspire devotion or love in the child, and as he grew older he found himself hating the lord more and more. When famine struck and both his parents died along with the woman who was to be his wife, Constantine was beside himself with sorrow. His entire life had been constant suffering, and that pain pushed him and pushed him until finally he broke. When the rest of the villagefolk learned that the lord had been feasting during the famine, Constantine began a rebellion. It was as successful as one could imagine, as long as is it known that Constantine and his men were using farm tools against castle-forged steel. They all died at the gates of the lord's castle and were left to rot on pikes for all to see.

Unfortunately, Constantine's soul never moved on. Upon death a chain tethered him to the castle walls, and he found that his brothers-in-arms as well as his family were all there with him. Unable to comprehend what had happened, Constantine decided to accept that this was heaven, and that his entire life had been lived until that point so that his suffering could climax with the discovery of solace. During this time, the Shinigami were waging one of their endless wars, and so none of the souls bound to their lord's castle ever passed on to the Seireitei. Instead their souls continued to rot and their chains festered until, a year later, the first of them became a Hollow. Constantine consumed the souls of his friends and family, thinking that by imparting onto them more suffering they could find happiness once more. After all, they could only remain bound to the castle for so long until they began to despair again. This twisted philosophy became into Constantine's impetus. He devoured thousands of hollows, all the while preaching that by being devoured by him they could find heaven through suffering. His constant hunger and broken mind led to battle after battle, and he eventually evolved into a powerful Adjuchas.

It was four hundred years ago when Constantine became one of the impossibly rare perfect Arrancar that roamed Hueco Mundo’s desert. To him, it was a moment of divinity. Standing in the middle of the white sands, looking up at the moon, Constantine preaches that a figure came down from Heaven and enlightened him. From this figure, he later wrote, he learned not only the secrets to becoming an Arrancar, but how to rise even higher until eventually any soul could stand with the Moon, which he then named Final, or the Ultimate. From this moment, Constantine removed his mask, created his Zanpakutou, and began to preach the importance of suffering to grow, and how only through wars, cannibalism, and leaders that were physical avatars of the greatest sufferings a soul can suffer that enlightenment was possible. Until the Shinigami began to shatter kingdoms, none of the Vasto Lordes listened to Constantine. Shenn Lunng was the first, and through Constantine’s teachings he removed his own mask and transformed into a devastatingly powerful Arrancar himself.

Since then, Constantine has stood at Shenn Lunng’s side, and with him has shaped the newfound kingdom at large. Laws were created, the Espada were formed, the religion was written down, and soon everything became concrete. In present day he serves as the Sexta Espada and Aspect of Suffering, and promises to lead the Arrancar race to heights no race has ever touched.

Appearance: When Constantine was turned into an arrancar, his features changed considerably. The man known as the Moontouched for his holiness and wisdom stands at a striking eight feet in height. He is as imposing as his faith, with skin the color of milk. Despite his liking for combat and his constant devouring of other hollow, there are no scars that blemish his body. Armored by his faith and gospel, Constantine's pale skin covers his incredibly muscular body without interruption. Imposed on his left pectoral is the black six marking his station, never touched and never changed. It is one of the two idols that Constantine worships, alongside the moon, for the numbers of the Espada represent the most divine arrancar in all of Hueco Mundo. Just below it is a hole, sitting in the location where a knight's spear ran him through and took his life. Constantine is as apt to show his hollow hole as he is to show his designation, as he believes that these things together are what make the Espada so holy. Without either, Constantine preaches, not a single one of them would be capable of leading the world to both its salvation and doom.

Once brown, the Sexta's Espada hair has taken on the same silvery color as the light of the moon. It is one of the reasons he is called the Moontouched--his mane, skin, and eyes are all pale, and Constantine appears to be made out of the same stuff as the celestial body he worships day in and day out. He wears his hair long, having never cut it once in all his life. It drapes over his shoulders freely, frames the side of his face, and touches the backs of his calves. Links of hollow bone are weaved through the hair, made of tooth and nail. These fragments are collected from Constantine's favorite kills. Resting underneath each eye are two black lines that fall like tears down his cheeks. Once they reach his lower jaw, they run along the outline and come together at his chin. Lastly, the sacred marker of the arrancar race, their mask fragments, rests just above his brow. It is a thick piece of bleached bone, cracked and old, that prevents bangs from obscuring his face. It is as hard as Constantine’s unbreaking hierro, and the cracks are merely cosmetic in appearance.

A symbol of the Sexta Espada to both his enemies and followers are his eyes, which are as intimidating as they are exotic. Ghost grey in color, they are so pale that they almost blend into the white of Constantine's eyes. They burrow into the souls and hearts of those the Moontouched looks too, and he knows how to manipulate his gaze to haunt the hearts of the unlucky few that draw his ire. Enemies against Constantine’s preachings in Las Noches often draw pictures and craft up propaganda with the Preacher's eyes gouged out. On the other side of the scale, those that fall in behind the Sexta Espada, especially those that serve as his arms and legs as Fraccion, find what they describe as salvation when Constantine looks at them. Lost in the whiteness of it all, they embrace the Moontouched and worship him in a way that he believes all Espada should be.

Like most of Shenn Lung's arrancar that are aligned with the kingdom of Las Noches, Constantine wears primarily white with highlights of black. Unlike many others, however, he has forgone the jacket and hakama of his race. Instead he wears a roughspun robe of white, with a black zipper that starts at the neck and goes all the way down to the bottom. The sleeves are massive and bellow in the wind when Constantine moves. It appears to consistently be multiple sizes too large. Constantine ignores this, however, and simply allows his own personal tailor to make his robes however he will. In the past the Preacher wore more fanciful robes, but their constant destruction and the likelihood of them to be bloodied and soiled has discouraged anyone from wanting to gift Constantine much of anything. Nothing else is worn. Gloves, boots, socks--all of that has been forgone.

Personality: What can a man say about Constantine, if they do not first acknowledge what made him who he is? If the layers of religion, zealotry, and violence are removed, what they will find is what the Sexta Espada truly is--the Aspect of Suffering. Like all Espada, Constantine embodies one of the causes of human death. As a human, the seeds of this were sown well when he was forced to endure the hatred of his lord, the deaths of his parents, the pains of famine and disease, and the loss of everything he once cared about. And when he finally died, what Constantine found was not the heaven that the holy men of his time preached, but a hell of wailing souls, rotting bodies, and never-ending heartache. That was when the Sexta Espada was born in true. The suffering through his life is what Constantine believes to be the key for a soul’s ascension, and the results he has created--such as the Espada--has proved him right in the eyes of many.

This defining characteristic has shaped every action and thought Constantine has made in the last five hundred years. To the Arrancar and Hollow population of Hueco Mundo, Constantine is an extremely tenacious man who believes strongly in the power of the moon. He is charismatic, and has a persuasive way with words that helps him convince others to see his side of things. Having suffered so much, he is also the wisest of the Espada. Constantine understands how others feel, and how a soul’s own suffering can push them to commit equally good and evil actions. This has blessed Constantine with the ability to empathise with others in a way that most of Hollowkind cannot fathom. To the Arrancar whom have regained their humanity, they see Constantine as a foundation that they can rely on. Even those that deny religion have come to respect and follow Constantine, if only because they see him as an essential piece of their survival.

Constantine, knowing this, uses the influence to manipulate the public. After reaching enlightenment, in his own words, the Sexta Espada wants nothing more than for his fellow souls to go even higher and to stand with Final in the heavens. Thus he has learned how to not only earn the trust of the Arrancar, but also how to create a piece between a species based on cannibalism and strife. This is the main reason that Shenn Lunng values Constantine so much. Because of him, the naturally violent Hollow live in a culture that resembles the harmony of unified nations. But this twisted tranquility is just that--twisted. To Constantine, a single turn of the moon without spilled blood is a bad omen in Hueco Mundo. He sponsors the blood pits where slaves and thralls fight for the enjoyment of Arrancar. He creates laws that he knows the lower classes of Arrancar and Hollow cannot obey, forcing fights in the streets of Las Noches. To the Sexta Espada, the suffering that Hollow can not only endure but also create for one another is the reason why he sees them as chosen by the Moon; they are the holiest of races, destined to destroy themselves for hundreds, if not thousands, of years all the while rising higher in the sky until they soar above the moon itself.

Poetic to a point, Constantine is a learned man, and has written a holy book of such metaphors in order to spread amongst Shenn Lunng’s kingdom. Every Arrancar in the elite caste is forced to own one of these books, written in a bastardized Spanish that has become the mother tongue of Las Noches. The Sexta Espada’s Fraccion also serve as teachers for the new initiates, with the Moontouched himself taking a personal look into each and every new soul that enters into Las Noches. It is because of this that exiled souls from other realms, such as escaped Togabito, enslaved Plus souls, and even the occasional wayward Shinigami has found their way into the Arrancar Kingdom. But all of them, the Sexta ensures, are kept below the perfectly evolved Arrancar. As mentioned earlier, to Constantine they are the perfect race, the peak of spiritual evolution just short of godhood and enlightenment. He has personally seen the powers of other races, and even their greatest warriors, such as Kenpachi Shishiku, have failed to impress upon him their might. When foreign races enter into Las Noches, not only does the Moontouched tell them this, he usually has them savagely beaten and thrown into the lower castes physically, serving as their first introduction into the tenants of suffering that he preaches.

As a member of the Espada, it is expected that Constantine fights as well. In his scriptures, the methods of battle are something he delves into deeply, and one he fills from his own library of experience. While his Fraccion and other followers can and will fight in his stead, the Sexta is not above giving a personal lesson to those who challenge him. While some Espada are quiet when killing and others may make jokes, Constantine choses to lecture his victims while he beats them into the ground. Rarely does he harbor true ill will for those who receive his scorn, as anger is something he believes himself to be incapable of, but disappointment, shame (in others), and disgust all color his emotions when he choses to give these lessons. But, true to his beliefs, Constantine does not often kill. He will torture, maim, and make a soul wish it was dead, all in the name of teaching it suffering, but only the truly lost and most heretical of spirits does he deem necessary of execution.


Equipment

Word of the Moon: Carried by Constantine everywhere he goes is the Word of the Moon, the holy scriptures he wrote after speaking to the Hollow God Final four hundred years ago. The book is incredibly thick, written on pages of dried Hollow flesh, covered in the leathery tongues and hides of an Adjuchas, bound by a thick plate of Hollow mask, and written in Constantine’s very own blood. Over a thousand pages in length, it details every tenant the Moontouched believes relevant to the enlightenment of Hollowkind, as well as the information that inspired the creation of the Espada and their Aspects of Death. At the behest of some of Shenn Lunng’s more magical servants, the tome has been made indestructible in terms of reiatsu, and could feasibly outlast Constantine himself by thousands of years. Acolytes of Constantine are required to write their own copies of the Word, as well as other copies for every soul in Las Noches, though theirs are notably less durable than the Sexta’s own.

Skull of Atmahn: The Skull of Atmahn is a legendary artifact in Constantine’s scriptures. It is shaped just like a human skull, though it lacks the lower jaw, and is, in actuality, a living being. It is the nucleus of the former Hollow King Atmahn himself, a monstrous Vasto Lorde that was said to be vanquished by the Kenpachi when he first landed in Hueco Mundo. Unable to retake his full form, Atmahn serves as not only a source of spiritual power for Constantine, but uses his own ability to manipulate the sands of Hueco Mundo to bring him information from outside the Black Mountain’s that host Las Noches so that the Espada may be informed of the ongoings of the world beyond. Bound to Constantine’s soul by Guatama, the Segunda Espada, he will continue to live until the skull is smashed or Constantine ceases to live. Because of this connection, the two can communicate telepathically with one another, and Constantine is always aware of the skull’s presence and location. It is rumored by the masses of Las Noches and the Sexta’s followers that the Skull of Atmahn has other supernatural powers as well, though only his most devout Fraccion know the truth of this matter.


Abilities

Captain-Class Spiritual Power: Fueled by a broken mind based around suffering, Constantine’s spiritual power is so ferocious that he seems to be a completely separate species then the Arrancar outside the caste. He is strong enough to stand with the titans of other realms, and even then, he is more powerful than a number of Captains, virtually any human soul, and all but the most evil and disfigured Togabito. When he so chooses, the Moontouched reveals that his aura is bone white, and as he grows closer to entering his Resurreccion, it begins to glitter as if silver and not bone. Those that experience this aura have their senses assaulted in various ways; lights become too bright, sounds too loud, their touch too sensitive. Behind all of these things is the overwhelming presence that is Constantine, whose confidence and beliefs make him out to be a force larger than life to many who stand up to him.

* Unmatched Hierro: Though Constantine is neither the strongest Espada physically or spiritually, his Hierro is nigh unbreakable save by those who stand above him in number. Powered by his faith, he has further enhanced it with the Skull of Atmahn, channeling the power of the fallen Vasto Lorde directly into his skin and bones. So strong is his Hierro that the Sexta Espada has never suffered an injury not of his own making in his history of Arrancarhood. This impressive feat is touted by the devout as proof that Constantine is holy, and has convinced many would be enemies to reconsider their challenges to his authority. It is also because of this Hierro that Constantine is so physically powerful. Though he does not equal the raw, olympian might that the Quatra Espada, Freya Sturm, can divine, his blows are strong enough to destroy the armored bodies of lesser Arrancar, invert the sides of buildings, and even catch the blades of Captain-Class foes in his hand. These are just a few of the reasons why he is able to stand as the sixth strongest soul in all of Shenn Lunng’s kingdom.

Hand-to-Hand Expert: Though Constantine has not mastered the elaborate martial arts some of his fellow Arrancar and Espada have, he is a man of undoubted physical prowess. He fights like a brawler, grappling foes to the ground so that he may literally punch them into submission. His stupidly thick Hierro allows him to charge at foes in ways that others would see as suicidal, surprising the unwary. Many a times he has even trade blows during a fight that his enemies believed to be fatal, only for him to come out unharmed while they in turn are brutalized in some way. Oddly enough, Constantine considers that headbutting a foe or biting into them during combat to be almost a requirement in the lessons in suffering he gives. This is because his forehead is armored by his mask fragments, which he considers divine, and because cannibalism is the sacred art of life for many Hollow. This has shown to those unlucky few who have been involved in the Sexta Espada’s trials by combat just how messy of a warrior he is. His hands and face are normally covered in so much blood that it seems they are made of the stuff. None of it is ever his own.

Swordsmen Practitioner: While many of the Espada rely on their Zanpakutou, the group’s namesake, for combat, Constantine oddly enough does not. He sees his sword as a tool only meant to execute the heretical, and even then only in it’s released form is it used for such. The Sexta Espada has training with weapons, however, and he has been known to use the swords of fallen Arrancar, or even his own opponent’s weapon, to assist him in educating the ignorant and unenlightened. Still, to experts and masters it is plain to see that Constantine does not value this method of combat higher than the use of his own holy divine body.

Sonido Expert: Neither the fastest nor the most agile Espada, Constantine is still skilled enough in the arts of Sonido and agility to stay ahead of most foes. He is light on his feet, dancing around weaker or slower opponents, all the while smashing them with his heavy-handed blows. He is known to twist and to turn, to flip and to contort, as need be, though the Sexta Espada is more infamous for being a direct fighter rather than an elaborate one. When it comes to Sonido, he typically uses the talent for travel purposes, though he has been known to simply tackle into enemies at high speeds in order to force their backs to the ground. When in his released state, Constantine has even been seen using all his power to aid his Sonido to produce enough strength to send create massive shockwaves upon impact. This type of charge is only viable because of his unmatched Hierro, allowing him to take virtually no shock damage from his own bullrushes.

Cero & Bala: Natural to all Arrancar is the ability of Cero and Bala, both of which Constantine is unmistakably skilled at producing. His Bala are used frequently to punish those who break the tenants of the Word of the Moon, and are blood red in color. They pack little more force than one of his punches, making them a lesson not soon forgotten by the unfaithful. During battle he oft uses them to throw off an opponent’s rhythm before tackling them to the ground and viciously beating them. His Cero are another matter. White, they are fired from his knuckles, and are unusually explosive in nature. Buildings as tall as skyscrapers may fall if hit in the right spots, and captain-class foes risk severe burns and blunt force damage when one of these doom blasts careens into them. It is rare for Constantine to use this outside of a truly high pitched battle, when a foe has proven multiple times over that they have a deathwish. Gran Rey Cero is even more uncanny; the twisting ball of dimension-cracking reiryoku is meant solely to kill a large number of foes at once, or to break down a castle-sized defense.

Pesquisa: Constantine’s Pesquisa is one honed by his own wisdom and natural cunning. He is a man always on the lookout for heretics and ignorant souls, and so his ability to read others spiritually has been enhanced to meet this need. He can evaluate the power of a soul after a moment’s glance, as well as locations of others around him, and threat levels as well. When in the violent throes of battle, his senses are focused on his surroundings well enough that the the Sexta could handle numerous opponents at once while retaining his natural rhythm. This is what allows him, in addition to his released abilities and Hierro, to remain such a highly numbered Espada, despite those below him being so incredibly skilled and lethal in combat.