Isuzu Ise

Isuzu kept her dark hair gathered back, letting only a pair of bangs fall along her cheeks. Pin-wheel clips held the style together, and she paired oval spectacles with a pink kimono patterned in flowers.

Warm and gentle by nature, Isuzu nonetheless carried a deep dread of the misfortune said to haunt the House of Ise. Her belief in that curse ran so strong that she was willing to abandon the family and surrender its heirloom sword, hoping to sever the bloodline and spare those who came after her.

Isuzu wed Shunzan Kyoraku, the eldest son of the Kyoraku house. When he presented her with a pair of matching hairpins, she pressed one back into his hands, saying that carrying the same token would ease her worry while he hunted Hollows; his amusement turned to irritation once his younger brother Shunsui began teasing him about the gift. After Shunzan fell in the line of duty, custom returned Isuzu and young Nanao to the Ise household.

Fearing the family curse would fall on her daughter, Isuzu resolved to break it. She carried the clan's ceremonial sword, Shinken Hakkyoken, to Shunsui and begged him to hide it away, suspecting the weapon itself was the curse's root. He hesitated to accept such an heirloom, but she insisted she had no one else beyond her own kin to rely on, and he relented, concealing it within his own Zanpakuto. For letting the treasured relic slip from the clan's keeping, the Central 46 condemned Isuzu to death, and she was executed. Nanao would one day reclaim the blade of her own accord.