Izuru Kira

Izuru has blue eyes and light-blond hair falling to his shoulders, styled into three points with a long fringe swept across his left eye. Over the standard black Shinigami robes he wears the 3rd Division lieutenant's armband. His look shifted over the years: shorter and shaggier in his academy days, and later, after Bazz-B tore open his side, patched back together by Mayuri Kurotsuchi with thick rods bracing a gaping hole in his chest and a prosthetic right arm, his uniform reworked to expose the reconstruction.

Gloomy and inward-looking, Izuru struggles to connect with others and rarely projects the swagger expected of a lieutenant, which leads many to underestimate him. Yet his loyalty to comrades and orders runs absolute, even when it forced him to raise his blade against his close friend Momo Hinamori, an act that left him branding himself a monster afterward. He holds that war is steeped in despair rather than glory, a conviction embodied by his division's marigold emblem, and he loathes fighting unless commanded to, though in combat he turns coldly resolute. Away from the fray he pens haiku and a serial column for the Seireitei Communication, favors agar-agar over the dried persimmon his old captain loved, and even dabbles in cat's cradle.

As a lieutenant, Izuru commands a high reserve of spiritual power and fights as an expert swordsman, weaving his blade's odd shape into his strikes. He is a gifted Kido user, firing off mid- and high-level spells without incantation, and his stint in the 4th Division left him versed in healing Kaido, able to read a patient's wounds at a glance. Keenly aware of his own limits, he plots around them like a seasoned tactician.

His Zanpakuto, Wabisuke, or "The Wretched One," seals as a plain katana bearing an omega design. At the command "Raise Your Head," the blade straightens and squares into a hooked form whose edge doubles the weight of whatever it strikes, and the effect stacks with each blow, so a handful of strikes can crush an opponent to their knees under their own weapon. The hook then serves as a grim reverse guillotine, and Izuru can even weight his own limbs to smash heavy foes. Its reach is short, the added weight fades once the Shikai is sealed, and he has never attained Bankai.