Kaname Tōsen

Dark-skinned with pale lavender, pupilless eyes, Tōsen has been sightless since birth and wears his dark-brown hair in braids. As a captain he rolled his shihakushō sleeves up to the shoulder beneath his haori, tied the uniform with a purple sash, and added an orange scarf, white boots, fingerless gloves, and clear goggles. After turning his back on Soul Society he let the braids fall loose and took on Arrancar-style dress: a white sleeveless coat, black hakama, a band-like visor, and an orange cord running across his chest.

Tōsen lives by a creed of choosing whichever road sheds the least blood, the very reason he attached himself to Aizen even knowing the King's Key would demand countless innocent lives. Yet beneath the pacifist front smolders a private hatred: robbed of the woman he cherished, he secretly gave himself to vengeance against the Soul Society that let her killer walk free, and he insists a peaceful life left unavenged would itself be evil. As former head of the 9th Division, which edits the Seireitei Communication, he acted as its chief editor and penned a column on justice that only grew popular once he began slipping cooking recipes into it. Late in life, when his Resurrección finally granted him sight, arrogance overtook him, and the gift ironically left him more blind than ever.

Tōsen's devotion to a bloodless road was born when a woman dear to him, whose own dream was to become a Shinigami and guard a peaceful world, was slain by her husband for scolding him over a needless killing. The Central 46 acquitted the murderer, and when Tōsen demanded to know why, he was dragged away; from then on he swore to fight for justice, entered the Academy, and joined the Gotei 13. There he met Sajin Komamura, who warmed to him precisely because Tōsen could not see the wolf's head he was ashamed of, and the pair grew into close friends.

A century before the main events, Tōsen was the 5th Seat of the 9th Division under Kensei Muguruma, and it was he who betrayed the unit on Aizen's orders, stabbing Kensei and cutting down his comrades so they could be used in Hollowfication experiments. Rising later to captain, he mentored his lieutenant Shūhei Hisagi, teaching that a soldier's most vital trait is a heart that knows its own fear. When the plot broke open, Tōsen departed with Aizen and Gin, telling a demanding Komamura only that he followed the path of least bloodshed.

His Zanpakutō Suzumushi robs foes of every sense but touch; its Bankai, Suzumushi Tsuishiki: Enma Kōrogi, raises a black dome of sensory darkness that Kenpachi Zaraki broke only by seizing the blade. In the false Karakura Town, Tōsen unveiled a Hollow mask and then his Resurrección, Suzumushi Hyakushiki: Grillar Grillo, becoming a cricket-like beast that could at last physically see. Undone in spirit by his obsession, he fell to a strike he once would have dodged, run through the head by Hisagi's Kazeshini. In his final moments Komamura begged him not to lose his heart to hatred; Tōsen wept his thanks, asked to glimpse Hisagi's face while he still could, and then his body underwent Soul Suicide and burst apart.