Kensei Muguruma

Tall and heavily built, Kensei has sharp features, cropped silver-gray hair, and brown eyes, with a bold 69 tattooed across his chest, the six nodding to the kanji in his surname and the nine to the division he commands. His everyday outfit pairs a dark purple sleeveless top trimmed in white with green cargo pants, black boots, and orange fingerless gloves, and he sports piercings over one eyebrow and along his left ear. In his captaincy a century ago he wore longer front bangs, an open sleeveless uniform, and a sleeveless haori, a look he mostly reclaims after the seventeen-month gap, now with a metallic belt and tousled hair.

Serious and quick to decide, Kensei is also short-fused and bristles at immaturity, most of all the childish antics of Mashiro Kuna, who he swears can grate on him even while sound asleep. His temper flares hardest in combat, where he openly admits he cannot rein himself in even against a child. Under the aggression, though, runs a genuinely caring streak, even if his kindness tends to come out barked like a drill sergeant, as when he tries to console a weeping young Hisagi.

Roughly 110 years ago Kensei captains the 9th Division with Mashiro as his lieutenant, and while investigating disappearances in the Rukongai his entire squad is slaughtered around him. He is run through and twisted into a rampaging Hollow, the handiwork of his own fifth seat Kaname Tōsen acting on Sōsuke Aizen's orders. Found as a monster attacking Hiyori, he is subdued by a squad of captains, and Urahara's Hōgyoku fails to undo the Hollowfication; condemned by Central 46, the victims are spirited to the Human World by Yoruichi Shihōin, where Kensei becomes a Visored.

In the wars that follow he battles at Fake Karakura Town and later clashes with the Sternritter Mask De Masculine during the Thousand-Year Blood War. He fights as a master of both swordsmanship and hand-to-hand combat, favoring brutal flurries like his Sandbag Beat, and his Zanpakutō Tachikaze commands wind so that the path of each slash detonates, unleashing cutting Air Blades and the concentrated Bakudantsuki blast. His Bankai, Tekken Tachikaze, reshapes the blade into knuckle weapons that drive explosive force into every punch, while his Hollow mask pushes his strength and speed higher still.