The Despicable Shinigami

Hiding in a Seireitei warehouse, Orihime Inoue nurses the injured Tsubaki with Sōten Kisshun, learning from her Shun Shun Rikka that any doubt in her heart weakens their power and that she must learn to call her techniques instantly by name alone. She and Uryū Ishida later slip out, only to be stopped by the drunken Makizō Aramaki, who notices the Twelfth Division crest on their disguises.

A group of Shinigami intervene and offer to escort them, but Uryū realizes the offer is a trap moments before Captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi detonates his own men with hidden bombs. Orihime shields the pair and Aramaki with Santen Kesshun, and Mayuri, intrigued by her rare technique, proposes making her a research subject. Uryū orders Aramaki to flee with Orihime and turns to face the captain alone.

Mayuri introduces himself as head of the Shinigami Research and Development Institute and displays his casual monstrousness, blowing off and regenerating his own arm with Hojiku-Zai and revealing that his lieutenant, Nemu, is an artificial being he created. When Nemu grabs Uryū, Mayuri slashes through both of them and then stomps on his own daughter, treating her as a disposable object. His Shikai, Ashisogi Jizō, immobilizes anyone it cuts while leaving them fully able to feel pain.

Mayuri boasts of experimenting on the last of the captured Quincy and tosses Uryū a photograph of the corpse. The bloodied head belongs to Sōken Ishida, Uryū's grandfather and teacher. Enraged, Uryū forces himself upright using Ransōtengai, his Reiatsu cratering the ground, and swears on his Quincy pride to kill Mayuri.

The episode adapts Chapter 120 through Chapter 123 within the Soul Society: The Rescue arc, and marks the debut of Ashisogi Jizō and Uryū's grief over Sōken's fate. Much of the manga's gore is censored, and the anime adds new flashbacks of Uryū's childhood with Sōken. The next-episode preview jokes that Ichigo will sit the following episode out while Uryū fights alone.