Hanza Nukui

His face is his most memorable feature, split by a long scar and half-hidden behind a mask that covers his nose and mouth, framed by pale purple hair. Red armor plates his left shoulder, and when he calls on his Bakkōtō, which has taken the place of his right arm, that armor spreads to sheathe his entire body.

Devoted to the Kasumiōji house, he believes the clan needs a firmer hand than the child Rurichiyo can offer, and he answers to Kumoi as his master. A warrior at heart with a strong code of honor, he is also keenly perceptive in a fight, reading and matching an opponent's strength through the powers of his blade.

Born to the Nukui, a line that had long served the Kasumiōji as their hidden blade of assassins, Hanza judged the orphaned young heiress Rurichiyo too frail to rule after her parents' deaths, so he sided with Kumoi and claimed a Bakkōtō. Ordered to kill the girl, he found her guarded by Ichigo and Kenpachi, and he pursued her into the human world, where he first crossed swords with Ichigo and trapped him in a mirror prison before Yoruichi's arrival drove him off.

He returned after merging with his weapon, Saiga, the Ego Breaker, a mirror-hilted sword that grows by feeding on its user's spirit energy and can blind foes with reflected light or snare them in nightmares drawn from their own memories. In their final clash Saiga plunged Ichigo into a vision of his dead mother Masaki, but Ichigo broke free and pressed the fight even after donning his Hollow mask. As the blade steadily ate away at him, Hanza raged on in denial, insisting a mere Bakkōtō could never conquer him, until Saiga swallowed him whole and burst apart.