Äs Nödt

Long black hair frames As's pale-pupiled dark eyes, and a spiked mask hides the lower half of his face; when Rukia later tore it away, it exposed a lipless, decaying mouth. His version of the Sternritter uniform is an ankle-length, heavily buttoned coat over the order's hooded mantle and black boots, his fingernails darkened. He returns for the second invasion in an even more elaborate coat and spiked, fingerless gloves.

As draws a sharp line between rational fear, which he believes can be conquered, and instinctive terror, which he insists no one escapes, and his faith in his own power runs accordingly deep. He revels in frightening others, laughing cruelly and spinning long, unsettling monologues on the nature of dread. Arrogant enough to claim a stolen Bankai as his rightful property, he is also a religious man haunted by the thought of hell; the pain he suffered in life convinces him that damnation would be worse still. His single genuine dread is that Yhwach might scold him and strip away his very existence.

Summoned by Yhwach, As joined the Sternritter's assault on the Seireitei, slaughtering rank-and-file Shinigami who could not so much as wound him until Renji Abarai stepped in. He blocked the lieutenant's strikes bare-handed, and when Byakuya Kuchiki released Senbonzakura Kageyoshi, As stole the Bankai with his medallion. Turning the captain's own blades against him, he explained how his thorns seed not poison but fear, doubt, and visions of one's worst traumas, and left Byakuya broken amid a torrent of blood. An ambush on Captain-Commander Yamamoto alongside NaNaNa and Bazz-B ended in flames, yet As endured.

Present when Yhwach shocked the order by naming Uryu Ishida his successor, As returned for the second invasion and sought out Rukia Kuchiki, lonely for the Senbonzakura he had been forced to relinquish. His fear failed to take hold: Rukia had chilled her own body past the point of life with Sode no Shirayuki, and dread cannot grip the dead. Frozen and undeterred, she pressed him until he unleashed his Quincy: Vollstandig, Tatarforas, which spreads terror through sight alone and traps its victim within a dome of staring eyes.

Byakuya arrived to cut the technique apart, and As, enraged, warped into a towering, deformed monstrosity vowing to drown him in endless agony. Rukia ended it. With her Bankai, Hakka no Togame, she froze him solid at absolute zero, and as his final thoughts turned to hell and a plea for Yhwach's forgiveness, his brittle body shattered and fell to pieces.