Onmitsukidō

The Onmitsukidō, whose name renders as Secret Tactics and which is also called the Stealth Force or Covert Ops, ranks as the second largest body that Shinigami enter and as one of Soul Society's three principal military branches. Where the Gotei 13 fights in plain view as an outer guard, this organization operates unseen as the realm's inner, hidden protection, patrolling hostile ground, gathering intelligence, and executing its most sensitive assignments. It answers, together with the other two forces, straight to the Central 46.

Although independent of the Gotei 13, the Onmitsukidō has long been steered by the noble Shihōin Clan, whose leaders held the post of Commander-in-Chief while also captaining a Gotei division; Yoruichi Shihōin, for one, ran the force while leading the 2nd Division, forging a bond so close that its five sub-units are now headed by that division's top officers. Command flows from the Commander-in-Chief, who directs every affair while deferring to the Central 46 and the Gotei's Captain-Commander, down to the Corps Commanders over each branch. Its five divisions descend in authority from the Executive Militia, an unarmed combat unit skilled in Hakuda that carries out assassination and the punishment of law-breaking Shinigami, through the Patrol Corps that gathers intelligence inside the Seireitei, the Detention Unit that runs the prisons and the secretive Nest of Maggots, the Reconnaissance Unit that tracks missing Shinigami and recovers the remains of the fallen, and finally the Inner Court Troop that relays secret messages and counts many Shunpo masters among its members.

The command has passed through notable hands. Yoruichi Shihōin served as Commander-in-Chief until roughly the turn of the twentieth century, overseeing the Inner Court Troop, before the post fell to the present leader Suì-Fēng, who commands the Executive Militia. The Ōmaeda family has furnished more than one Corps Commander of the Patrol Corps, first Marenoshin and later his son Marechiyo, and Kisuke Urahara once led the Detention Unit before his exile. Anime-original officers such as Eikichirō Saidō, Shūsuke Amagai, and Makoto Kibune have also served within the force. Its specialists rely on tools like the Tsūdentō, small twin-edged blades fitted with a built-in two-way radio for battlefield communication.