Kaien Shiba

Kaien keeps a youthful face on a reasonably tall build, with spiky jet-black hair and eyes of a bright aqua green. He dresses in the ordinary shihakushō, the lieutenant's badge fixed to his left arm, and bears the Shiba family crest inked onto his skin. The likeness between him and Ichigo Kurosaki runs strong enough that Byakuya Kuchiki himself remarks upon it.

Principled and plainspoken, Kaien won the devotion of the Thirteenth Division through a rough, grounded manner and a refusal to weigh anyone by rank or birth, which made him a favorite of nobles and commoners alike. He held a deep affection for the Shinigami and a firm sense of duty. His guiding belief centered on the heart: he thought it was born in the space between people whenever they connected or remembered one another, that it lived on in one's comrades after death, and so he insisted that no one should ever die alone. In quieter hours he was fond of ohagi and an afternoon nap.

Raised in Rukongai alongside his siblings Kūkaku and Ganju while the Shiba still ranked among the great noble houses, Kaien once nursed an injured piglet named Bonnie back to health. He entered the Shin'ō Academy and passed on his first attempt, hailed as a genius for finishing its six-year course in only two before joining the Thirteenth Division. Roughly a century before the Ryoka Invasion, Ukitake coaxed the reluctant young officer into the lieutenant's post, which he took up five years out of the academy, and he later mentored the newly arrived Rukia. His wife, third seat Miyako Shiba, was slain by the Hollow Metastacia, and Kaien insisted on hunting the creature himself rather than wait for a squad. At its lair his blade crumbled the instant he touched one of its tentacles, and the Hollow used its Spirit Body Fusion to commandeer his body. When the possessed Kaien lunged, Rukia ran him through; his mind surfaced long enough to thank both her and Ukitake before he faded. His corpse, Metastacia still inside it, later drifted to Hueco Mundo and was devoured, becoming part of the Espada Aaroniero Arruruerie. His Zanpakutō, Nejibana, answered the cry to rankle the seas and heavens by turning into a water-wielding trident.