Urahara Appears! Stop Aizen!

Kisuke Urahara reopens his old feud with Sousuke Aizen, whose body has been reshaped by the Hōgyoku. Aizen rejects the word fusion and insists he has instead subdued the artifact, boasting that the orb Urahara once failed to tame has found a worthier owner. A burst of speed lets Aizen skewer Urahara through the chest, only for the target to pop like a balloon: the shopkeeper had swapped in a portable Gigai decoy and now clamps the real Aizen from behind with Bakudō #61, stacking #63 and #79 on top to lock him in place.

Urahara recites an incantation and unleashes Hadō #91, Senju Kōten Taihō, a barrage so overwhelming that Ichigo gapes at its scale. Aizen reappears untouched, rakes open Urahara's shoulder, and gloats that his new strength makes dodging beneath him. Cuffs of spirit energy then snap onto Aizen's wrists as Urahara reveals a seal that redirects Aizen's own Reiatsu, swallowing him inside a column of light. Aizen emerges reborn in a fresh form and pulls the sealing bracelet apart, explaining that the flashy spell was only bait and that anyone but him would have been finished.

Isshin, Urahara, and Yoruichi strike together, stretching Aizen's limbs apart while Yoruichi, sheathed in reinforced armor, hammers him from overhead and levels a city block. The plating Urahara designed to blunt Hierro shatters far too easily, and Aizen invites the trio to keep spending their tricks. Off to the side, Gin needles Ichigo about his exposed back before loosing Butō and Butō Renjin, driving Ichigo to summon his Hollow mask, while a barely conscious Izuru Kira murmurs Gin's name and spots an injured Rangiku Matsumoto racing toward him.

Aizen destroys a portable Gigai decoy while Urahara binds the true Aizen with a chain of three escalating Bakudō spells. Hadō #91 fails to harm the transformed Aizen, who wounds Urahara instead. Urahara's Reiatsu seal, Fūsatsu Kakei, engulfs Aizen, yet Aizen surfaces in a wholly new body and tears the bracelet off. The combined assault of Isshin, Urahara, and Yoruichi shatters her anti-Hierro armor, and Gin's Butō Renjin forces Ichigo to don his mask as Rangiku approaches.

This installment belongs to the second stretch of the Fake Karakura Town conflict and adapts chapters 402 through 404. Its closing Shinigami Illustrated Picture Book segment shows Shunsui Kyōraku and Jūshirō Ukitake digging out an old photo album from their academy years and the Hollowfication era, only to realize neither can recall a time when Yamamoto did not already look like an old man.