Chōjirō Sasakibe

Sasakibe presents a dignified, faintly Western look: silver-gray hair kept short, a neat black handlebar mustache, lightly tanned skin, and eyes without visible pupils. He layers a white jinbaori of his own making over the standard shihakushō, paired with long white arm guards, a white turtleneck beneath, and his lieutenant's armband on the left arm. In his younger years his hair was lighter and his brows shorter, and he had yet to grow the mustache that later defined him.

Devotion to his captain defined him; he vowed to remain Yamamoto's second for as long as the old commander drew breath, and turned down every chance at a captaincy to keep that promise. Assignments in the Human World left him captivated by English society, and the fascination never faded. He brewed tea from leaves he grew himself, occasionally to catastrophic effect, favored Western food to the point of disliking Japanese cuisine, and even tailored his jinbaori to lend himself a more Western air, a set of tastes that set him apart from his more traditional captain.

Long before he wore the lieutenant's badge, Chōjirō sought Yamamoto out at the latter's school, stubbornly addressing him as "Eijisai" after a scar on his brow. He asked not to be taken on as a pupil, reasoning that he would only end up imitating his idol, and offered instead to become the man's right hand, covering whatever his master could not. Challenged to try and beat Yamamoto using his Bankai, he lost but carved a lasting scar into Yamamoto's face, and out of respect for the wound he had inflicted he refused ever to change how he addressed him.

Roughly a thousand years before his death, Sasakibe stood among the first generation of captains against Yhwach and his Quincy host. By feigning death within a heap of corpses, he slipped a blade into Yhwach's back and handed Yamamoto the opening he needed. Though he mastered his lightning Bankai ahead of Jūshirō Ukitake and Shunsui Kyōraku, he kept it hidden for the entire history of the Gotei 13, enduring whispers that he was weak. During the Soul Society upheaval he was among the officers sent after Renji Abarai, only for Ichigo Kurosaki to floor him with a single bare-handed strike to the jaw.

His end came in the second Wandenreich invasion. Driscoll Berci assaulted the First Division's gate, cutting down over a hundred of its members in barely three minutes and leaving Sasakibe fatally wounded. He drew his Bankai in true combat for the first and only time, and Driscoll stole it with a Medallion before running him through with an oversized arrow that pinned him to the wall of Yamamoto's office. With his last strength he warned his captain that the enemy could erase a Soul Reaper's power entirely, then succumbed; his comrades later honored him atop a great funeral pyre.