Maki Ichinose

Lean and fair-skinned, Ichinose stands tall with brown eyes and severe eyebrows. His shaggy black hair frames his face, rising at each temple before falling into a heavy bang at the center of his brow. He still wears the shihakushō of his 11th Division days, though he has torn the sleeves away, layering a white hooded shirt beneath it.

Quiet and composed, Ichinose holds a firm conviction that the strong owe their power to protecting others, an ideal his captain Kenpachi Kiganjō planted in him. Kiganjō's death at Zaraki's hands during the captaincy duel shattered that belief; Ichinose could not accept a clash fought purely over strength, and after failing to land even a scratch on Zaraki in a duel of his own, he felt as though he had died that day and walked away from the Soul Reapers entirely.

Zaraki likens him to ivy that cannot stand without a tree to cling to, and indeed Ichinose only rediscovers purpose when Jin Kariya spares his life, after which he serves him with fanatical devotion and embraces Kariya's vision of purging the Soul Reapers to restore justice. For all his single-mindedness, traces of his old morality survive: he leaps to shield a helpless Plus from Hollows, tends the Bounts' wounds, treats them as kin, and pauses mid-battle to answer Rukia Kuchiki's questions. In the end his buried hatred wins out and he defies Kariya's final order to face Zaraki, only for the captain to expose how little of his stated purpose is truly his own. The realization steers him back toward his original wish to improve the Soul Society, and he ultimately turns on Kariya, begging him to rebuild rather than destroy.

Decades earlier, Ichinose served in the Eleventh Division under Kiganjō. Unable to stop Zaraki from challenging and killing his captain, and later humiliated in his own failed duel, he deserted the Gotei 13 and crossed into the Human World with no path back. Wandering a desert on the verge of giving up, he threw his last strength into saving a young Plus from Hollows, was overwhelmed, and was rescued when Kariya held the beast off with a single finger, an act that won his undying loyalty.

Through the anime-only Bount arc he acts as Kariya's enforcer: he cuts down Ryō Utagawa for trying to usurp his master, repeatedly clashes with Ichigo Kurosaki, and infiltrates the Seireitei unseen to sabotage the Soul Reapers. His katana Nijigasumi lets him generate endless light, which he shapes into invisibility, a disorienting field of shadow-slashes, illusions that turn enemies against one another, and blades of hard light. When Zaraki finally offers him the duel he craves, Ichinose traps him within the crushing sphere of Saigyoku Nijigasumi, only for Zaraki to shatter it by unleashing his full Reiatsu and strike him down. Ichinose survives long enough to reach Sōkyoku Hill, where he confronts an empowered Kariya, demands he restore the Seireitei instead of chasing vengeance, and is killed for the betrayal; his broken blade then deflects one last bolt of Kariya's lightning away from Ichigo before crumbling.