Nozarashi

What Nozarashi genuinely looks like has never been shown to readers. On the single occasion she stepped into view for her wielder, she borrowed the small frame and cheerful face of Yachiru Kusajishi, Kenpachi's departed lieutenant. Notes from Tite Kubo add that her true spirit takes the shape of a grown woman, with the Yachiru guise serving as her Bankai manifestation, a pairing likened to the two aspects of Ichigo's own sword spirit.

Little of her temperament is on record. For a long stretch she is defined mainly by persistence, shouting her own name at an owner who refused to listen. When she at last assumed a body in front of Zaraki, she also adopted Yachiru's playful, teasing manner rather than presenting a character of her own.

Her presence is first noted during the clash between Zaraki and Ichigo Kurosaki in Soul Society, when Ichigo's own sword spirit remarks that he can hear Nozarashi crying out to a wielder deaf to her. Beaten by Ichigo, Kenpachi finally tries to listen for that voice but loses consciousness before he can.

Real contact comes much later, during the Thousand-Year Blood War. Once his duel with Retsu Unohana ends, Kenpachi turns toward a voice and grasps that it belongs to his blade. Later still, lying broken after trading blows with Gerard Valkyrie, he sees her manifest in Yachiru's form. She promises that, handled correctly, she can cut down anyone, then lays her hand on his and lets his Reiatsu pour out, naming that surge Bankai. He unleashes it against Gerard, but the strain tears his arm apart. Nozarashi admits she let far too much force loose in one burst and apologizes, since his body cannot yet withstand such force.