Unfading Grudge! The Shinigami whom Kenpachi Killed

In the wrecked Bount mansion, Rukia tends to the battered Kurōdo and Noba while Ririn frets over them, only for Kurōdo to reveal he was faking unconsciousness and earn a slap. In the main hall, Ichigo squares off against Maki Ichinose as the Bounts look on. Ichinose releases his Shikai, Nijigasumi, unleashing dazzling blades of light that Ichigo can barely track, and outmaneuvers him with superior speed. When Ichinose blinds him with a whirl of light and slashes him repeatedly, Ichigo breaks free by driving his sword into the ground and firing a Getsuga Tenshō. Impressed but unwilling to let Ichinose continue, Kariya steps in, expressing interest in Ichigo's soul, and takes over the fight himself.

Extended flashbacks reveal Ichinose's past. He once served under Kenpachi Kiganjō, the Eleventh Division captain, until Kenpachi Zaraki challenged and killed Kiganjō to claim the captaincy, a death Ichinose could never accept. He later challenged Zaraki directly, but Zaraki wounded his wrist without effort and dismissed him as ivy that cannot live unless it clings to a tree, telling him to grow his own roots. Broken, Ichinose abandoned Soul Society and wandered a desert in the living world, ready to wither and die.

In that desert, Ichinose instinctively rushed to shield a boy from a Hollow despite his exhaustion. Overpowered and about to be killed, he was saved by Kariya, who froze the Hollow with a single finger, returned his Zanpakutō, and let him purify it himself. Kariya assured him that everyone carries weakness they cannot shed, and Ichinose, charmed in an instant, followed him. Back in the present, Kariya offers Ichigo the same union of souls, and when Ichigo refuses, Kariya effortlessly backhands him across the hall, restrains him with a finger to the forehead, and flicks him through a wall, declaring Ichigo will not color his world as richly as Uryu will.

As Ichinose moves to finish Ichigo, blasts from Ururu's cannon rock the mansion under Jinta's direction, and Yoruichi tears through it with Shunkō, forcing Ichinose to shield Kariya as part of the building explodes. Rukia's group frees Uryu, who insists on rescuing the weakened Bount Yoshino Sōma despite his allies' objections, and Noba opens a wormhole to teleport everyone out. Yoruichi carries the incapacitated Ichigo to safety, reuniting the group outside as the mansion burns. Kariya, unbothered, tells a shocked Ichinose to let them flee, certain both Yoshino and Uryu will return to him. The comedic closing segment shows Byakuya silencing Yachiru with a dumpling at a lieutenants' meeting. This is an anime-only episode.