March of the StarCross

Having crushed the Tres Bestias, Sternritter Quilge Opie surrounds Ichigo, whom Yhwach's intelligence has flagged as a Special War Power to be eliminated first. Ichigo shrugs off a barrage of arrows, catches one bare-handed, and hurls it back, prompting Quilge to confirm the Wandenreich are Quincy. As their duel escalates, Quilge unleashes his Quincy: Vollständig, Piskiel, insisting it dwarfs the outdated Letzt Stil that Sōken Ishida clung to. When his Sklaverei begins devouring the surrounding Reishi, the Tres Bestias summon the monstrous Ayon, who pounds Quilge into the sand until the Sternritter absorbs him too, warping his own body.

In the Seireitei, Yamamoto orders the captains to prepare for battle at once rather than trust the enemy's five-day warning. At the Ishida archive, Uryū finds nothing on the Wandenreich, clashes with Ryūken, and later uncovers a journal bearing the enemy's crest that belonged to Sōken. Nearby, Hidetomo Kajōmaru teaches recruits Yuki and Shino why Shinigami and Quincy are enemies: by annihilating Hollows outright, Quincy stop those souls from re-entering the cycle and threaten to collapse both worlds. Yamamoto also summons Mayuri over his unauthorized purge of twenty-eight thousand Rukongai souls, which Mayuri defends as necessary to steady the imbalance.

Ichigo shatters Quilge's Heiligenschein with a black Getsuga Tenshō and pins him with his Bankai, Tensa Zangetsu, robbing him of his absorption power. Elsewhere the Sternritter gather at the Gate of the Sun, and towering pillars of blue Reishi flame erupt across the Seireitei. Bazz-B tears through Izuru's squad, maiming the lieutenant and slaying Rikū, Taketsuna, and Asuka, as Haschwalth proclaims that the Sternritter have come to purge the Shinigami.

Ichigo learns the Wandenreich are Quincy and that he is marked a Special War Power. Quilge activates his Quincy: Vollständig and absorbs Ayon with Sklaverei before Ichigo's Bankai breaks his halo. Uryū discovers Sōken's hidden journal in Ryūken's desk. Kajōmaru explains the soul-balance behind the Shinigami and Quincy conflict, and Mayuri justifies expunging the Rukongai villagers. The Wandenreich launch their invasion of the Seireitei, with Bazz-B gravely wounding Izuru.

Belonging to the Thousand-Year Blood War arc, this episode adapts chapters 488 through 494. Its opening is Scar and its ending is Saihate. Compared with the manga, the adaptation restores Ayon's creation to its original form and reworks several beats of the Kajōmaru lecture, including his simplified explanation of the soul cycle and Shino's calmer reaction to the recruits' questions.