Tōba

Middle age shows on Tōba through a pair of scars, one slicing diagonally over his right eye and a jagged second mark near his right collarbone. His skin is light, his eyes brown, and his dark brown hair sweeps back to roughly neck length above heavy brows. For clothing he favors a pale blue kimono cinched with a deep blue sash and layered beneath a brown jacket, while a light brown scarf loops at his throat so both ends drape over his left shoulder, one of them dyed red.

For a man rooted in Kusajishi's underworld, Tōba comes across as level-headed and easygoing. When Jin Kariya offers to wager his own life at the tables, Tōba assumes the newcomer simply misjudges Soul Society and calmly points out that staking one's life means little in a place where the dead already dwell. He shares the district's bitterness toward the Seireitei, resenting that Rukongai has been left to rot rather than granted the equality every soul was promised, yet he hesitates to move against the Gotei 13, at least until Gō Koga reveals that the Bount can heal themselves and so make invincible allies. That display wins his full support, and he throws himself into gathering hundreds of fighters. Betrayal shatters him, though; when Kariya admits the villagers were only pawns, Tōba first takes it for a cruel joke, then, unwilling to surrender so near his goal, turns on Kariya in a fury.

The morning after the Bount slip into Soul Society, Kariya walks into Tōba's gambling hall and offers to stake his life in a card game. Amused, Tōba lets him play, only to watch in alarm as Kariya and his companions Gō Koga and Maki Ichinose cut down every thug in the room, after which Kariya vows to overturn Soul Society. Intrigued, Tōba houses the trio in a Kusajishi cottage and begins calling men to their cause. Once convinced the Bount can shrug off any wound, he spreads word across the district and raises an army that far outstrips his expectations. Under his direction the villagers fell trees and build siege engines overnight, hauling them to the Seireiheki with help from Sawatari's Doll. When the gates finally give way, Kariya reveals the villagers have served their purpose, and an enraged Tōba draws his knife and charges him, only to be cut down by a gust of wind from the Doll Messer.