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einherjaristaSigne was born in Arendal, Norway in 1866. Her family ran a business, shipbuilding, of which Signe took over as their main bookkeeper and financier during her teenage years. She was a prodigal talent, and it was that talent and good sense that would keep the company afloat in 1886, during the Arendal Crash, when the local economy collapsed and most other businesses went under. However, things took a turn for the worse when Signe got terribly ill. The cost of her medicine drove her family and the company into debt, and Signe was too sick to help keep the company afloat, especially with those added costs. The company was lost, its workers laid off, and her family was left without money to live, let alone continue to buy Signe her medicine. Signe died in 1887, and most of her family would join shortly after.
Signe's soul was collected by the most beautiful woman Signe had ever seen, a woman in gleaming silver armor with a gleaming silver spear. Jarl Hel Byquist, the first Jarl under Soul King Olav Rask, and the leader of the Valkyrie. Signe was deemed to have died a warrior's death, fighting to the end for herself and her family, and had a soul worthy of becoming an Einherjar.
An Einherjar is the Norse equivalent of a Shinigami, operating out of Valhalla. They still track down wayward souls, known as a plus, to perform a Soul Burial, and also tracked down Hollows, monsters that were once pluses but had become corrupted by negative emotions, to purify those as well.
Signe didn't, unfortunately, become a Valkyrie under Jarl Byquist. Valhalla is divided into two huge city-sized castles, West and East. One city-castle controlled by the Soul King, Olav Rask, and the other by the Soul Queen, Frigga Rask. Each of the royalty had four Jarls working under them, those Jarls assigned rank and control of Einherjar judging by their strength. And each Jarl then chose their three strongest Einherjar to become Hersir, also assigned seats by their strength.
Signe became an Einherjar under Jarl Grethe Dalgaard, third Jarl of Castle Glasir, the eastern castle of the Soul Queen. Dalgaard was a harsh taskmaster, but Signe mostly flew under her notice. Signe became close-knit friends with a couple fellow Einherjar - Hakon Niequist, considered a genius among Einherjar for quickly mastering abilities that took other Einherjar decades of study; Guðfriðr, an enigmatic and androgynous Einherjar who acted like every move they made was a scene in a spy thriller, but nonetheless was considered extremely skilled; and Annbjørg Haugen, who kind of tagged along with them for no discernible reason. Hakon had a goal of becoming stronger and making his way up the ranks of Einherjar, and his friends, including Signe, put their own efforts into helping him.
Dying the way she did had left a lot of mental scars in Signe, though. As an Einherjar, she could check in on the living world from time to time, and saw the aftereffects of her illness and death on the family and those who worked for them. She saw that because of her, the business fell apart, her family was left in poverty, their workers as well, and many of them didn't survive that. She blamed herself. And she was going to make sure she was never in a position where people's lives would be under her care again.
But when a Jarl stepped down, Hakon seized the opportunity. By showing off his latest skill - Bankai, a second release of one's Verndari that only the very strongest could ever attain - he secured the open Jarl position for his own. And, despite knowing Signe's wishes, Hakon also knew the true strength of his friends. After becoming Jarl, he announced his Hersir. Third Hersir Guðfriðr. Second Hersir Annbjørg Haugen. First Hersir Signe Vågsnes.
Signe ran. From her best friend, Hakon. From her position. From responsibility, knowing that she would have dozens, hundreds of lives as her responsibility. By running, she was considered a deserter, and a traitor to Valhalla.
She set up shop in Arendal, her old home. Living a ghostly existence was strange and not very rewarding, but she made do. After a couple dozen years, her old friend Guðfriðr was able to track her down. They became her point of contact for Valhalla, and her supplier of goods for things she'd need to really make a living in the real world. She received an artificial body and the medicine to keep her soul attached to it, and a mod soul so she could leave it and take Einherjar form if needed. They also gave her information, usually on large movements within Valhalla, but also in how Hakon was doing. In exchange, Guðfriðr asked Signe to take care of powerful Hollows in or near Arendal.
It continued this way until about the year 2009. Signe had been hopping from job to job in order to partake in the capitalist human world society, and managed to get a job as a barista at the coffee shop on Arendal University campus. Café Scande. Despite being on college campus, it was independently owned and operated, and its current owner was French immigrant Colette Dubois. They were two souls drawn to each other in snarkiness, fondness for taking breaks, and in disregard for social norms and rules.
This continued until the tail end of 2016. Hollow activity began to pick up. And Signe met some... very interesting people. Humans, who gained weird powers. Kirk Havardsen and Gunbrand Eriksen, two college boys who gained the powers of an Einherjar without, presumably, doing the prerequisite dying. Elisabeth (Lise) Vinter, a girl who could somehow practice Hollow magic. And Karoline Pedersen, a Hul-Tygger, a human whose clan ate Hollows in order to gain their power. Through circumstance, they ended up working together to try and solve the string of recent Hollow activity, all while Signe herself gave them literally no answers as to what was going on, why, or what even they all were. She was trying to avoid taking responsibility for these college kids who she suddenly found herself working with.
That saga culminated in a fight against Chain Eater, a Hollow who had absorbed a huge number of other Hollows and grown in power. Chain Eater was attempting a ritual called La Siega, wherein he would simply draw in every human soul in Arendal to eat. The fight was intense, but with further developing powers, the group stopped him.
It was scarcely a couple weeks later when the next incident started, this time directly targeting Signe. Jarl Dalgaard arrived in Arendal, along with one of her Hersir. Signe tried to get everybody else to leave, but when they insisted on fighting, Dalgaard let her Hersir handle the other four while she fought Signe one on one, a punishment for being a traitor to Valhalla. Signe was beaten to within an inch of her (un)life without even being able to land a finger on Jarl Dalgaard. Dalgaard said she would spare Signe because of Jarl Niequist's request, but that she would only have a couple days reprieve anyway.
It ended up that Valhalla had a giant Soul Cannon pointed at Arendal. With everything going on in Arendal specifically, Valhalla was nervous. They didn't have any idea why Hollow activity was so strong there, but they would wipe it off the map and be rid of the problem all together.
Nora Nylund, a Café Scande regular, ended up being a Fullbringer, a human who gained spiritual power by imparting a large amount of spiritual energy into a treasured object. Her fullbring, Handmade Revolution, allowed her to control yarn. She was the one to tell the group about all of this, which she learned from, surprise, Guðfriðr. With Nora's help, and the help of Nora's girlfriend's weird potions, the group was able to undergo some intense training before heading to Valhalla.
In Valhalla, breaking into Castle Glasir was going great until they ran into Lief Ek, a Hersir with the power to control blood. He was able to separate the group, then inform the Jarls of their entrance. From there it was an increasing series of desperate battles, while Kirk and Signe fought on their own against Hersir, including her former friend Annbjørg Haugen, who revealed that the reason she was always with them was because she was in love with Signe. Awkward. And then they fought Jarl Lang, fourth Jarl of Castle Glasir. They won, debatably, with a triple-KO, after which they were rescued by Guðfriðr and Jarl Hakon Niequist, who thought this entire Spirit Cannon was BS, and asked for Signe's help in stopping it while he investigated. This culminated with a battle against Jarl Gunnar Skjeggestad, first Jarl of the East. That fight was, in turn, interrupted by Lief Ek, who revealed that he was behind it all, and aimed the cannon at the western castle. He was a lot stronger than even the other Jarls, but thanks to their training and the fighting done in Castle Glasir, the group was able to overcome him, the Einherjar among them (Signe included) even unlocking their own Bankai.
An unknown man arrived in the heart of Valhalla to take back Lief Ek, a man with an open wound reaching to his heart. He said that Lief's role was over, and absorbed Lief into his own body.
Despite any hiccups, the incident was over. Signe mostly repaired her ties with Valhalla, and returned to Arendal. Then, on another routine day at Café Scande, four human-looking Hollows with immense power appeared - Arrancar. They demanded Lise, and to prove how serious they were, one of them killed Colette, right there in front of Signe. After Signe fell into a rage, the Arrancer that killed Colette, Brunelesqua Vittoria, and their leader, Luzarches Fioravanti, took care of Signe, as well as the rest of the group who arrived. With a final warning and a time limit of one week, they left back to the home of Hollows, Hueco Mundo.
Signe sent Colette's soul on to the afterlife, and promised to get revenge on the Arrancar that murdered her. Some further training and an Arrancar attack later, and the group headed to Hueco Mundo (with the help of a third Fullbringer, D.J. "DJ DJ " DeJardin.) They fought their way through the various Arrancar, and Signe grew further into a vengeful state.
She had a talk with Kirk, who she had fostered a mentor-student relationship with during the events with Chain Eater and then working with him in Valhalla. She revealed her backstory, and how she felt responsible for not only the group, but also Colette, who hadn't even signed up for this level of danger. Her family was dead and there was nobody to enact revenge upon, nobody she could blame but herself, but with Colette, she might be able to find some closure. She also revealed that shortly after the fight, she had a vision that she would die fighting Brunelesqua, and asked Kirk to take care of the group when that came to pass.
When the destined fight came, the three Arrancar forced the group to split up. While Kirk and Karoline, and then Lise and Gunbrand all worked together, Signe faced Brunelesqua alone. Her vision came to pass, and Brunelesqua killed her. In the land of the dead, an Einherjar with a connection to the dead found herself unable to accept death. As the wheel of reincarnation turned, Signe took control of the wheel. Her tunic shifted to gold, and Signe, who had died, returned. With her newfound power, she was able to kill Brunelesqua.
From there, the team fought Luzarches, the Arrancar that Lise had apparently swindled power from some time ago. But that wasn't the end - the long absent Queen of Hueco Mundo, Renia Guirgola, returned. Despite having no quarrel, Renia was looking for a power that could surpass normal expectations like hers. She was a being that surpassed normal Arrancar by a wide margin. But, working together, using everything at their disposal, the group barely managed to claim victory.
It ended up that Renia had managed to claim a bud from Yggdrasil, the tree of spirits, and that's why her power was so insane. It also ended up that Signe, Kirk, Gunbrand, Lise, and Karoline had all absorbed some of Yggdrasil's power, being spiritually attuned in Arendal, Yggdrasil's home. That explained their own rapid growth.
But with Renia out of the picture, Yggdrasil regrew, violently. And when it did, the man with the open wound returned. Helkrydd's entire plan was to allow Yggdrasil to regrow, then absorb the entire tree into himself, gaining dominion over all human souls, and halting the cycle of death and rebirth forever.
Helkrydd was the first and last Jörðin-Tygger, a man who could absorb entire souls the way Karoline did with Hollows. He released his six strongest souls, the strongest examples of their power to have ever lived, in order to deal with Signe, Kirk, and the rest who had been chosen by Yggdrasil. Among those six was Guðfriðr, a Visored like Kirk, and the strongest one to ever live. He had been under Helkrydd's control the entire time.
A series of desperate battles ensued that even took the group to the western castle of Valhalla. They fought a Deva, a being clad in gold like Signe, and she discovered the extent of her new powers. From there, she left Guðfriðr to her student Kirk, and Signe took on Guarino Piermarini, the very first Jarl in all of Valhalla, who had since fallen and become an Arrancar. After the group took care of the six under Helkrydd, it came to fighting the man himself.
It was an intense battle, fought among the branches of Yggdrasil itself. Helkrydd could command the powers of any of the thousands of beings within himself, and did to great effect. But the powers of Yggdrasil and the will of four young adults and one perpetually-young adult were too much for him, and after thousands and thousands of years, Helkrydd finally died.
Yggdrasil couldn't handle the battle that took place on it and faded. It wouldn't return for centuries, at the least. The level of power that Signe and the rest had began to fade, no longer boosted by Yggdrasil.
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Signe's soul was collected by the most beautiful woman Signe had ever seen, a woman in gleaming silver armor with a gleaming silver spear. Jarl Hel Byquist, the first Jarl under Soul King Olav Rask, and the leader of the Valkyrie. Signe was deemed to have died a warrior's death, fighting to the end for herself and her family, and had a soul worthy of becoming an Einherjar.
An Einherjar is the Norse equivalent of a Shinigami, operating out of Valhalla. They still track down wayward souls, known as a plus, to perform a Soul Burial, and also tracked down Hollows, monsters that were once pluses but had become corrupted by negative emotions, to purify those as well.
Signe didn't, unfortunately, become a Valkyrie under Jarl Byquist. Valhalla is divided into two huge city-sized castles, West and East. One city-castle controlled by the Soul King, Olav Rask, and the other by the Soul Queen, Frigga Rask. Each of the royalty had four Jarls working under them, those Jarls assigned rank and control of Einherjar judging by their strength. And each Jarl then chose their three strongest Einherjar to become Hersir, also assigned seats by their strength.
Signe became an Einherjar under Jarl Grethe Dalgaard, third Jarl of Castle Glasir, the eastern castle of the Soul Queen. Dalgaard was a harsh taskmaster, but Signe mostly flew under her notice. Signe became close-knit friends with a couple fellow Einherjar - Hakon Niequist, considered a genius among Einherjar for quickly mastering abilities that took other Einherjar decades of study; Guðfriðr, an enigmatic and androgynous Einherjar who acted like every move they made was a scene in a spy thriller, but nonetheless was considered extremely skilled; and Annbjørg Haugen, who kind of tagged along with them for no discernible reason. Hakon had a goal of becoming stronger and making his way up the ranks of Einherjar, and his friends, including Signe, put their own efforts into helping him.
Dying the way she did had left a lot of mental scars in Signe, though. As an Einherjar, she could check in on the living world from time to time, and saw the aftereffects of her illness and death on the family and those who worked for them. She saw that because of her, the business fell apart, her family was left in poverty, their workers as well, and many of them didn't survive that. She blamed herself. And she was going to make sure she was never in a position where people's lives would be under her care again.
But when a Jarl stepped down, Hakon seized the opportunity. By showing off his latest skill - Bankai, a second release of one's Verndari that only the very strongest could ever attain - he secured the open Jarl position for his own. And, despite knowing Signe's wishes, Hakon also knew the true strength of his friends. After becoming Jarl, he announced his Hersir. Third Hersir Guðfriðr. Second Hersir Annbjørg Haugen. First Hersir Signe Vågsnes.
Signe ran. From her best friend, Hakon. From her position. From responsibility, knowing that she would have dozens, hundreds of lives as her responsibility. By running, she was considered a deserter, and a traitor to Valhalla.
She set up shop in Arendal, her old home. Living a ghostly existence was strange and not very rewarding, but she made do. After a couple dozen years, her old friend Guðfriðr was able to track her down. They became her point of contact for Valhalla, and her supplier of goods for things she'd need to really make a living in the real world. She received an artificial body and the medicine to keep her soul attached to it, and a mod soul so she could leave it and take Einherjar form if needed. They also gave her information, usually on large movements within Valhalla, but also in how Hakon was doing. In exchange, Guðfriðr asked Signe to take care of powerful Hollows in or near Arendal.
It continued this way until about the year 2009. Signe had been hopping from job to job in order to partake in the capitalist human world society, and managed to get a job as a barista at the coffee shop on Arendal University campus. Café Scande. Despite being on college campus, it was independently owned and operated, and its current owner was French immigrant Colette Dubois. They were two souls drawn to each other in snarkiness, fondness for taking breaks, and in disregard for social norms and rules.
This continued until the tail end of 2016. Hollow activity began to pick up. And Signe met some... very interesting people. Humans, who gained weird powers. Kirk Havardsen and Gunbrand Eriksen, two college boys who gained the powers of an Einherjar without, presumably, doing the prerequisite dying. Elisabeth (Lise) Vinter, a girl who could somehow practice Hollow magic. And Karoline Pedersen, a Hul-Tygger, a human whose clan ate Hollows in order to gain their power. Through circumstance, they ended up working together to try and solve the string of recent Hollow activity, all while Signe herself gave them literally no answers as to what was going on, why, or what even they all were. She was trying to avoid taking responsibility for these college kids who she suddenly found herself working with.
That saga culminated in a fight against Chain Eater, a Hollow who had absorbed a huge number of other Hollows and grown in power. Chain Eater was attempting a ritual called La Siega, wherein he would simply draw in every human soul in Arendal to eat. The fight was intense, but with further developing powers, the group stopped him.
It was scarcely a couple weeks later when the next incident started, this time directly targeting Signe. Jarl Dalgaard arrived in Arendal, along with one of her Hersir. Signe tried to get everybody else to leave, but when they insisted on fighting, Dalgaard let her Hersir handle the other four while she fought Signe one on one, a punishment for being a traitor to Valhalla. Signe was beaten to within an inch of her (un)life without even being able to land a finger on Jarl Dalgaard. Dalgaard said she would spare Signe because of Jarl Niequist's request, but that she would only have a couple days reprieve anyway.
It ended up that Valhalla had a giant Soul Cannon pointed at Arendal. With everything going on in Arendal specifically, Valhalla was nervous. They didn't have any idea why Hollow activity was so strong there, but they would wipe it off the map and be rid of the problem all together.
Nora Nylund, a Café Scande regular, ended up being a Fullbringer, a human who gained spiritual power by imparting a large amount of spiritual energy into a treasured object. Her fullbring, Handmade Revolution, allowed her to control yarn. She was the one to tell the group about all of this, which she learned from, surprise, Guðfriðr. With Nora's help, and the help of Nora's girlfriend's weird potions, the group was able to undergo some intense training before heading to Valhalla.
In Valhalla, breaking into Castle Glasir was going great until they ran into Lief Ek, a Hersir with the power to control blood. He was able to separate the group, then inform the Jarls of their entrance. From there it was an increasing series of desperate battles, while Kirk and Signe fought on their own against Hersir, including her former friend Annbjørg Haugen, who revealed that the reason she was always with them was because she was in love with Signe. Awkward. And then they fought Jarl Lang, fourth Jarl of Castle Glasir. They won, debatably, with a triple-KO, after which they were rescued by Guðfriðr and Jarl Hakon Niequist, who thought this entire Spirit Cannon was BS, and asked for Signe's help in stopping it while he investigated. This culminated with a battle against Jarl Gunnar Skjeggestad, first Jarl of the East. That fight was, in turn, interrupted by Lief Ek, who revealed that he was behind it all, and aimed the cannon at the western castle. He was a lot stronger than even the other Jarls, but thanks to their training and the fighting done in Castle Glasir, the group was able to overcome him, the Einherjar among them (Signe included) even unlocking their own Bankai.
An unknown man arrived in the heart of Valhalla to take back Lief Ek, a man with an open wound reaching to his heart. He said that Lief's role was over, and absorbed Lief into his own body.
Despite any hiccups, the incident was over. Signe mostly repaired her ties with Valhalla, and returned to Arendal. Then, on another routine day at Café Scande, four human-looking Hollows with immense power appeared - Arrancar. They demanded Lise, and to prove how serious they were, one of them killed Colette, right there in front of Signe. After Signe fell into a rage, the Arrancer that killed Colette, Brunelesqua Vittoria, and their leader, Luzarches Fioravanti, took care of Signe, as well as the rest of the group who arrived. With a final warning and a time limit of one week, they left back to the home of Hollows, Hueco Mundo.
Signe sent Colette's soul on to the afterlife, and promised to get revenge on the Arrancar that murdered her. Some further training and an Arrancar attack later, and the group headed to Hueco Mundo (with the help of a third Fullbringer, D.J. "DJ DJ " DeJardin.) They fought their way through the various Arrancar, and Signe grew further into a vengeful state.
She had a talk with Kirk, who she had fostered a mentor-student relationship with during the events with Chain Eater and then working with him in Valhalla. She revealed her backstory, and how she felt responsible for not only the group, but also Colette, who hadn't even signed up for this level of danger. Her family was dead and there was nobody to enact revenge upon, nobody she could blame but herself, but with Colette, she might be able to find some closure. She also revealed that shortly after the fight, she had a vision that she would die fighting Brunelesqua, and asked Kirk to take care of the group when that came to pass.
When the destined fight came, the three Arrancar forced the group to split up. While Kirk and Karoline, and then Lise and Gunbrand all worked together, Signe faced Brunelesqua alone. Her vision came to pass, and Brunelesqua killed her. In the land of the dead, an Einherjar with a connection to the dead found herself unable to accept death. As the wheel of reincarnation turned, Signe took control of the wheel. Her tunic shifted to gold, and Signe, who had died, returned. With her newfound power, she was able to kill Brunelesqua.
From there, the team fought Luzarches, the Arrancar that Lise had apparently swindled power from some time ago. But that wasn't the end - the long absent Queen of Hueco Mundo, Renia Guirgola, returned. Despite having no quarrel, Renia was looking for a power that could surpass normal expectations like hers. She was a being that surpassed normal Arrancar by a wide margin. But, working together, using everything at their disposal, the group barely managed to claim victory.
It ended up that Renia had managed to claim a bud from Yggdrasil, the tree of spirits, and that's why her power was so insane. It also ended up that Signe, Kirk, Gunbrand, Lise, and Karoline had all absorbed some of Yggdrasil's power, being spiritually attuned in Arendal, Yggdrasil's home. That explained their own rapid growth.
But with Renia out of the picture, Yggdrasil regrew, violently. And when it did, the man with the open wound returned. Helkrydd's entire plan was to allow Yggdrasil to regrow, then absorb the entire tree into himself, gaining dominion over all human souls, and halting the cycle of death and rebirth forever.
Helkrydd was the first and last Jörðin-Tygger, a man who could absorb entire souls the way Karoline did with Hollows. He released his six strongest souls, the strongest examples of their power to have ever lived, in order to deal with Signe, Kirk, and the rest who had been chosen by Yggdrasil. Among those six was Guðfriðr, a Visored like Kirk, and the strongest one to ever live. He had been under Helkrydd's control the entire time.
A series of desperate battles ensued that even took the group to the western castle of Valhalla. They fought a Deva, a being clad in gold like Signe, and she discovered the extent of her new powers. From there, she left Guðfriðr to her student Kirk, and Signe took on Guarino Piermarini, the very first Jarl in all of Valhalla, who had since fallen and become an Arrancar. After the group took care of the six under Helkrydd, it came to fighting the man himself.
It was an intense battle, fought among the branches of Yggdrasil itself. Helkrydd could command the powers of any of the thousands of beings within himself, and did to great effect. But the powers of Yggdrasil and the will of four young adults and one perpetually-young adult were too much for him, and after thousands and thousands of years, Helkrydd finally died.
Yggdrasil couldn't handle the battle that took place on it and faded. It wouldn't return for centuries, at the least. The level of power that Signe and the rest had began to fade, no longer boosted by Yggdrasil.
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