Sora Inoue

was Orihime Inoue's older brother.

Character Outline
While alive he is shown to have cared for his sister, whom he thought of as a daughter. He described their parents as such: "Our Mother was a whore, our Father a devil. When a child would cry they would hit it until it stopped. That's the kind of people they were." He raised Orihime until his death.

History
Sora Inoue and his sister Orihime Inoue were born 15 years apart. Their parents constantly abused them, causing Sora to take Orihime and flee once he was 18. One night three years before the storyline began, Orihime and Sora had an argument over the hairpins he had bought her. The next morning, Sora left for work, but did not speak to Orihime. That day, he died in the Kurosaki Clinic after being injured in a car accident.

Synopsis
Sora quickly enters the story as a Hollow,. In the anime, he is seen being dragged to Hueco Mundo to be turned into a Hollow at the behest of Grand Fisher. This is not shown or even suggested in the manga. One can assume that his feelings of being forgotten by Orihime prompted his transformation in this case. He proceeds to attack Ichigo Kurosaki in his room. After failing, he, like most hollows would, proceeds to attack the person closest to him when he was alive - Orihime. Upon his arrival at Orihime's apartment, he separates her soul from her body and attacks Tatsuki Arisawa, leaving her unconscious. When he attacks Orihime, Ichigo and Rukia arrive to stop him. During their battle, he begins to remember his past life, but it is only after Orihime jumps in between him and Ichigo that he is able to remember everthing. He begins having an internal battle between himself and his Hollow nature. In the anime, Rukia states that this was probably because he became a Hollow against his will. His human mind momentarily regains control, and shattering his Hollow mask, he grabs Ichigo's Zanpakutō and prepares to slay himself. Seeing this, his sister tells him that there was one thing that she should have said before he died: "Have a nice day, Sora". They say good-bye before Sora stabs the Zanpakutō into himself, killing himself as Hollow and moving on to Soul Society as a spirit.

Trivia

 * In the original official English-language manga translation, he was given the name Kakei as his real name had not been mentioned at that point, but he is still called Sora in the character popularity polls as well as in the collectors edition and all subsequent appearances.
 * Curiously, before being purified by Ichigo Kurosaki, Sora was able to remove his Hollow mask and recover his original personality. Sora remains in Hollow form, albeit with a human head. While this is the process in which a Hollow becomes an Arrancar he does not become one, presumably because of Sora resisting his Hollow self, rather than the Hollow itself removing the mask.