Masaki Kurosaki

is the mother of Ichigo Kurosaki who was killed trying to protect her son from Grand Fisher.

Appearance
Masaki is a woman of average height. She had fair skin and long, light, wavy brown hair down to her back, which she usually had tied in a knot in the back and bangs down to her chin in the front. She typically wore plain dresses and wore lipstick on occasion. She has brown eyes.

Personality
Though not much was seen of her personality, her family has described her as being a very loving mother and wife. She also found men who smoke to be attractive. Her view of "caring about herself" is to do everything she can daily. If she lets people die because of a custom her family upholds, she would never allow herself to live it down.

When she was a teenager, she was shown to put out a strong, confident front around others, though she was nervous around her adoptive mother and cried when she was alone. She also had a sassy personality, as shown with her interactions with Ryūken Ishida.

History
When Masaki was a teenage girl, she was the last of the Kurosaki family. She was taken in by Ryūken Ishida's mother so that she would be protected as one of the last Quincy, and so that one day she would marry Ryūken and keep the Quincy Bloodline of the Ishida family pure, due to the Quincy being an endangered race. She was scolded by her aunt at least once because of her slow progress in training.

Sensing two powerful sources of Reiatsu drawing near, Masaki, running into the hallway, was stopped by Ryūken, who asked her where she was going. When Ryūken told her she should care more about herself and how the pure-blooded Quincy should not fight for just any reason, Masaki, sensing the explosion created by the Hollow creature fighting a Cero, started running again. When told by Ryūken to stop, she told him even though she liked how he thought of everyone else before taking action, if someone died because she was forced to follow a custom, she could not live with herself.

Masaki eventually came to the injured Isshin Shiba's rescue firing at the "Black Hollow" he was facing attracting its attention. When she realized that the creature was too fast for her to accurately aim at, she allowed it to get in close and bite her so that she could shoot it from point-blank range.

This defeats the Hollow, but before she can react, the Hollow self-destructs, with her emerging unscathed due to Isshin taking the blast in her place. After saving him from a Hollow, she introduces herself and also says that she is a Quincy, when he asked her how she could possibly have defeated him. After this encounter, she realizes the Shinigami are not what she thought them to be. She spends the night and the next day thinking about Isshin. As she was walking and talking with friends, she suddenly feels faint as she unknowingly walks by Kisuke Urahara. When she recovers, she says that she's fine.

Later that evening, she is confronted by her aunt, who begins scolding her for going against Quincy traditions. However, during this, Masaki collapses in pain. Ryūken and his mother then notice what appears to be a Hollow hole forming on her chest. Seeing this, Ryūken immediately takes her and leaves the house. Her condition is eventually discovered by Isshin, who gets into an argument with Ryūken, and Urahara, who claims he has a solution.

At his shop, Urahara reveals that since his expulsion from the Soul Society, he has been studying Hollowfication and recognizes the symptoms in Masaki. He warns Isshin and Ryūken that the process was originally developed to strengthen Shinigami an while it failed, it was not developed for a Quincy, like Masaki and while he could help save her life, he could not return her to how she was before. Isshin agrees to save her life by giving up his life as a Shinigami, the opposite of a Qunicy and become a Human, the opposite of a Hollow, thus tethering her life to his own until the Hollow left her or she passes away. Meanwhile, Masaki imagines she is falling down a dark hole but is not alone. The Hollow spirit approaches her but vanishes when Isshin appears, catching her and declaring that he is going to protect her.

Grand Fisher, a Hollow, used the forms of Humans whom he had devoured (mostly women) to attract other Humans with high spiritual energy. Ichigo, who at the time could not distinguish between Souls and Humans, saw Grand Fisher's lure, in the form of a woman about to jump into a rushing river, and ran after it. Masaki, realizing the danger, went after Ichigo and protected him from Grand Fisher at the cost of her own life. According to Ichigo, Masaki was the center of the family and everything that went on with the family revolved around her. Due to this fact, Ichigo's family was greatly devastated by her death.

The Kurosaki family now visits her grave every year, and that is the only day in the year Isshin smokes. The reason he smokes in front of her grave was because when they had first started dating, Masaki complimented him about how cool he looked while smoking. He also added that was the first and last time she complimented him about his appearance. Isshin hung up a large poster of her in his home, displaying the phrase "Masaki Forever", and he frequently talks to it as if it were the real Masaki.

According to Tatsuki Arisawa, Ichigo stopped crying every time he saw his mother. She claimed Ichigo had the most beautiful mother ever, and he took it upon himself for her death. Isshin also thought it was his own fault his wife died. His reason was: he could not get there in time to protect her from Grand Fisher. When Ichigo asked him why nobody ever blamed him for his mother's death, Isshin explained to him that he was "the woman I fell in love with was a woman I fell in love with gave her life to save." He also added that when they meet each other again, if he had ever blamed Ichigo, Masaki would not be able to forgive him.

Agent of the Shinigami arc
When the Kurosaki family visited Masaki's grave, Grand Fisher returned as he could sense their high spiritual power. During the fight, when Ichigo began to lose, her memory upon being killed was released from Grand Fisher's lure, telling Ichigo her last thoughts before she died. All she could think about was how much fun they all had together, and for Ichigo to never stop smiling. Her spirit gave Ichigo the strength to nearly kill the Hollow, forcing him to retreat.

The New Captain Shūsuke Amagai arc (anime only)
Note: Events occurring in this arc are only in the anime and do not constitute canon material.

Spirit Weapon
Reishi Bow: Like most Quincy, Masaki used a bow as her primary weapon. She was also capable of generating a uniquely small bow similar in size to a hand gun that was capable of firing Heilig Pfeil with the same force and power as an average sized bow.


 * By further condensing reishi, Masaki is capable of forming spiritual arrows.

Quotes
(To Ryūken Ishida) "You know, the fact that before acting you think about aunt, Quincy, the future, and many other things is something that I really like about you. But I'm not you. To me, "caring about myself" means to do everything in my power, every day. If today I don't do what I can because of some custom and someone dies because of it, I won't be able to forgive myself tomorrow."

Navigation
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