Äs Nödt

A dark mask covers the lower half of his face, its front lined by a row of five spikes; when it is torn off during his clash with Rukia Kuchiki, the jaw beneath has no lips at all, baring teeth and gums. Above it sit dark eyes with oddly pale pupils, framed by long black hair, and his fingernails are darkened. He wears the Sternritter white as a hooded cloak over a heavily buttoned, ankle-length coat and black boots. For the second push into Soul Society he switches to an even more button-laden coat and spiked fingerless gloves, and the mask drops to four spikes.

Fear is his gospel. He divides reasoned dread, which a strong mind can master, from instinctive terror, which he insists no one escapes, and that conviction fuels total faith in his gift. He savors frightening his foes, laughing cruelly and drifting into long, rambling sermons on the nature of dread while his eyes roll and his head lolls. His humor turns grotesque, as when he jokes that a gutted Byakuya Kuchiki looks trim. Deeply religious, he dreads dying and being cast into a hell worse than the suffering he knew alive, and he claims his one true fear is to be scolded by Yhwach and stripped of his very existence.

In life As lay bedridden and in ceaseless pain, sure that even breathing was agony and terrified of a hell crueler than his sickbed. Yhwach appeared at his deathbed offering power, and the reborn Quincy swore himself to the Wandenreich as a Sternritter. When the war on Soul Society opens, he butchers lower-ranking Shinigami until Renji Abarai and then Byakuya Kuchiki confront him. After Byakuya releases Senbonzakura Kageyoshi, As seizes it with his medallion and turns it on the captain, explaining that his real weapon is not the wound but the limitless terror it seeds; a mere touch of his Reishi thorns spreads that dread, so no cut is even needed.

He survives an ambush on Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto, whose flames nearly kill him, and later stands among the Sternritter as Uryu Ishida is named heir. In the second invasion he corners Rukia Kuchiki, whining about how hollow he feels without Senbonzakura and demanding her brother's location. His fear grips her at first, yet she proves immune, having dropped her own body below zero into a deathlike state, and she cuts him twice, the last stroke at absolute cold. Freezing solid, he unfolds his Quincy: Vollstandig, Tatarforas, which spreads terror through sight and traps her under a dome of watching eyes. Byakuya slices the technique apart, and after As swells into a huge, deformed monster still boasting of eternal torment, Rukia's Bankai, Hakka no Togame, freezes him through and shatters him as his final thoughts beg Yhwach's forgiveness.