Hakuda

**Hakuda** (*白打, Hand to Hand Combat*) is a shinigami fighting style which focuses on the use of the body and manipulating its interactions with **Reiryoku**.

## ***Overview***

Hakuda serves as the basis of Kido, Zanjutsu and Hoho being the mother discipline of all three and as such all 3 styles can be said to be descended from Hakuda at least in concept. Because of this fact Hakuda is treated as the simplest and most straight forward of the 4 styles of the Zankensoki, this simplicity is surprisingly its strength because it makes Hakuda able to be fused with the others seamlessly generating the 3 greater styles of Zankensoki: **Shunko**, **Jinjin Ittai** and **???**.

The fundamental core idea of Hakuda is that reiryoku is able to influence the body to grant it additional power and that this interaction can be controlled by the user with training and the correct motions. As such a large aspect of Hakuda is actually just muscle training, but not training which creates stronger muscles, rather muscles which are better suited to be interacted with reiryoku, this kind of training can be changed to generate larger muscle but doesn't necessarily need to be done in that way.

## ***Core Techniques***

### ***Basic Level***

* **Chushin** (*中心 Center/Focus*): The core and most fundamental technique of Hakuda, it involves in intentionally focusing on one's interaction with their reiryoku, and this reiryoku's interaction with the body to willingly and consciously force an increase in the interaction and grant them an overall statistical increase to their attributes so long as their focus is maintained.
* **Kanjiru** (*感じる, Feel/Sense*): A basic shinigami technique where a shinigami will focus and enhance their spiritual senses to detect their reiryoku, and thus with practice, the reiryoku of others. This technique is an Hakuda technique and is widely used by shinigami and even other races.
* **Bakuha** (*爆破, Explosion/Blast*): The technique which gave rise to Zanjutsu, Hoho and Kido, it is simply the manipulation of one's reiryoku so it generates reiatsu and then manipulating this reiatsu. For many centuries most new hakuda techniques descended from this one, until the branches became so filled with techniques that they became the other aspects of the Zankensoki and thus a clear divide was made. Bakuha is still classified as Hakuda because Hakuda is still the first part of the Zankensoki taught to academy students, and serves as the foundation for the rest.
	+ **Ryuo** (*流桜 Flowing Sakura*): The name of the original technique that was used to manipulate reiatsu, nowadays it's rarely used other than for a signal flare, or as a means for stronger shinigami to intimidate or incapacitate weaker opponents.

### ***Intermediate Level***

* **Henshin** (*変身, Transformation*): A slightly more advanced technique which builds upon Chushin and whose effect is to simply alter the exact kind of interaction reiryoku has with the body and direct it in a more fruitful "direction" by mildly shaping the reiryoku within the body. In other words Henshin allows one to control how exactly the statistical increase occurs by modifying 3 variables: Strenght, Speed and Resistance. Controlling the relative ratios of the increase and decrease of these variables conveys one's mastery since the farther the values deviate from the norm the harder it is to maintain. This technique is still an inflexible "set and forget" kind however, but it is what enables **Stances** to function.

The 3 variables are defined as changing this:
* **Strenght**: Is the kinetic power muscles can generate, an increase to this leads to higher power output and is essential for speed as well. A decrease in this will naturally produce less power but will not affect anything else about the muscles so it may provide an increase in accuracy.
* **Resistance**: Is resistance to damage and change in physical structure, it effectively hardens the body and makes it less reactive to the outside so when modulated to be weaker it makes a certain part softer, even the "detrimental" effect can be made by masters into an advantage.
* **Speed**: Is the body's ability to process and transmit info across itself, it's a boost to the nervous system and it provides the most speed and accuracy increase. Naturally when reversed it makes a body part less responsive to input and less able to take in information as well which can be useful in specific ways.

Notably there are people capable of changing other variables naturally or with training, but these tend to be secret techniques.
* **Shun** (*瞬, Blink*): A more forceful and active variation of **Chushin** that can be used in conjunction with it, it simply consists of explosively increasing the interaction to a much higher level for a moment. The difference between Chushin and Shun is akin to that of a jogging and sprinting.

### ***Advanced Level***

* **Norou** (*呪う, Curse/Hex*): An advanced technique of Hakuda where upon the user will abuse one's physical contact with the opponent to resonate their own reiryoku with the opponent's body and thus endow a change in statistical prowess in a negative manner unto the opponent. Effectively Norou is a technique that weakens the opponent by exploiting the reiryoku interaction and physical contact with an opponent.
* **Ihyo** (*意表, Surprise/Something Unexpected*): An advanced technique of Hakuda where the user will utilize Shu while utilizing Chushin or Henshin, but cause both increases to be different in nature, generating a surprising attack. This technique is actually incredibly hard, to do this kind of simultaneously distinct increases requires a large level of talent, skill and training.
* **Yubi** (*指, Finger*): An advanced technique where one will modulate and alter the statistical buff granted to specific body parts, instead of a more general buff to the entire body. It is essentially a more focused Henshin for individual parts of the body, such as an arm or a finger. This technique can be used simultaneously with henshin to create incredibly complex stances.

### **Master Level**

* **Kyuryu** (*急流, Rapids*): Rather than a technique it's really the culmination of mastering the entering of Henshin, and flowing between **Stances** with each movement to a new stance that most benefits that movement at that moment. Kyuryu is a technique with truly infinite skill ceiling and the most skill expression out of the Zankensoki. Because of this sole technique Hakuda can never truly vanish as a fighting style.

## ***Styles of Hakuda***

All styles of Hakuda are defined by a certain core set of **Stance** which are designed to be used and activated by using **Henshin** to achieve the correct statistical increases and to facilitate the movements of the martial art in question. While most styles have pretty general, and balanced increases other more exotic styles may forego attack power entirely for increases in speed or resistance, and the actual movements that are meant to be used with the stances can be nigh infinitely complex.