Clash! Kenpachi Zaraki vs. Maki Ichinose

In a forest clearing, Maki Ichinose bars Ichigo and his companions from reaching the Bount leader Jin Kariya. Hitsugaya sends the others ahead and moves to handle him, only for Ichinose to release his Shikai, Nijigasumi, a sword of light that warps the surrounding space into illusions and turns allies against one another. As the confusion spreads and Ichinose prepares to pick the group off individually, Kenpachi Zaraki appears and shatters the effect with a single burst of spiritual pressure.

Ichinose, still nursing his hatred over Kenpachi's killing of his former captain Kenpachi Kiganjō, abandons his mission to fight the man who wronged him. He turns his blade invisible, lands cuts from the shadows, and unleashes waves of unseen slashes, but Kenpachi deflects them all with raw pressure alone. Escalating to Saigyoku Nijigasumi, Ichinose traps him inside a swelling dome of light meant to compress and crush him.

Kenpachi tears free by removing his eyepatch and loosing his suppressed power, cracking the sphere apart. He berates Ichinose for chasing borrowed goals, arguing that relying on Kariya is not the same as loyalty and that a fighter without his own passion is hollow. Goaded into embracing his personal hatred, Ichinose commits to one final charge, and Kenpachi cuts clean through both his blade and his body.

Kenpachi's arrival dispels Nijigasumi's illusion and frees Ichigo's group to pursue Kariya into the Seireitei. The duel reveals the full scope of Ichinose's light-based abilities, culminating in the entrapping Saigyoku Nijigasumi. Kenpachi breaks out by unleashing suppressed spiritual pressure and challenges Ichinose to name a goal that is truly his own. Provoked into fighting for his own hatred rather than Kariya's vision, Ichinose makes a last stand and is struck down.

The episode is part of the anime-exclusive Bount Assault on Soul Society arc and adapts no manga chapter. Its core is a character study of Ichinose, contrasting his obsession with honor against Kenpachi's blunt honesty about motivation. A Shinigami Illustrated Picture Book segment follows, in which Hanatarō seeks approval to open a convenience store and Unohana asks only that it stock cosmetics.