Tetsuzaemon Iba

Iba is instantly known by his angular haircut and dark sunglasses, worn with the standard shihakushō. A dedicated collector of shades, he buys them from the same Gin Tonbo shop that supplies Renji's goggles, smokes freely, and tucks his Zanpakutō as a stubby blade inside his robes. Across his back sprawls a tattoo of a flaming cat paired with the characters for inviting luck, and his blunt manner rounds out an unmistakably yakuza air. Some seventeen months after Aizen's fall he grows a fuller mustache, gains a scar over his left eye, and shaves three bare lines into his hair, while a decade past Yhwach's defeat he sports a crescent scar around his right eye and a pompadour.

Like the Eleventh Division brawlers he came up among, Iba relishes combat, but he sets his squad's welfare above that appetite and will pull back from a losing fight rather than throw his life away for pride. He preaches to Ikkaku Madarame that a charge ending in defeat is worthless and that victory must come whatever the cost. Fiercely loyal to Komamura, he keeps a standing rivalry with Ikkaku built on dueling, drinking, then dueling again, and he suffers recurring stomach trouble that he mentions with shame. As the macho figurehead atop the Shinigami Men's Association he makes members mimic his sunglasses-and-uniform look and forever clashes with the women's vice-president Nanao Ise. He speaks a proud Hiroshima dialect, once ran a failed class to spread it, pens a column promoting it, and insists his okonomiyaki be made Hiroshima-style.

Iba began in the Eleventh Division but crossed over to the Seventh, where climbing to lieutenant was far more attainable, a choice rumored to spring less from ambition than from a wish to make his mother, Chikane Iba, proud. His old squadmates look down on the move, yet he still haunts their headquarters and clearly savors a scrap. On the day set for Rukia Kuchiki's execution he slid into the room with his Bukkomi Dogeza to apologize for lateness, secretly buying Komamura time to weigh his doubts. Soon after, he and Shūhei Hisagi were pitted against Yumichika and Ikkaku, a bout that ended with him and Ikkaku sharing sake atop a hill.

In the fake Karakura Town, Iba set down rods to keep the real town from returning and stood behind Komamura as his captain's Bankai crushed a Fracción, then lectured Ikkaku for wrecking a pillar by hiding his true strength. A rash strike at the monster Ayon sent him flying, and after the captains cornered Aizen he and Izuru Kira were cut down when the hypnosis unraveled. During the war against the Wandenreich he watched Komamura's Bankai stolen rather than sealed, carried his fully bestialized captain from the field, and swore to avenge Yamamoto by killing Yhwach.

Once the conflict ended he was promoted to captain of the Seventh Division, and ten years on he still trained relentlessly, insisting he had yet to grow into the role. A capable swordsman, Hakuda and Kidō practitioner, and Shunpo user strong enough to hoist the massive Komamura, he carries a Zanpakutō whose sealed form resembles a tantō and whose Shikai lengthens into a broad, pick-tipped scimitar.