Yoshino's Decision of Death

Morning finds the Urahara Shop calm, with Orihime and Rukia noting that Ichigo has trained through the night with Renji. Over breakfast, a baffled Renji tastes coffee for the first time and keeps piling in sugar cubes, while Tessai serves his odd bean-jam toast. Kurōdo and Noba privately worry that Yoshino has slipped away but decide to spare the cheerful group the bad news for now. At the ruined Bount Mansion, Jin Kariya repairs a grandfather clock and muses that time has always been frozen for the Bount, no matter how the gears are wound.

Determined to stop him, Uryū sneaks off with Ririn to track Yoshino's Reiatsu. Yoshino confronts Kariya and summons her Doll Goethe, who accepts that they may die together, but her fireballs cannot touch him. Kariya reveals that Goethe loves her rather than merely serving her, that her maternal power makes her uniquely able to birth new Dolls, and bares the crest fused onto his own chest. He then shatters the crest on Yoshino's finger claw, and rather than be consumed, she fuses her body with Goethe's fire to fight him hand to hand.

Nearby, Ichigo clashes again with Maki Ichinose while Renji is held off by Koga's Doll, Dalk. Yoshino trades blows with Kariya in midair, but he seizes her throat and drives his arm through her, mortally wounding her. Bursting into motes of green light, she thanks a sobbing Uryū, who is left clutching only her clothes. Kariya gathers her released power onto a crest-marked platform and, promising her life will be reborn, spawns hundreds of egg-like containers that hatch into the insectoid Bitto, which scatter into the sky.

Yoshino Sōma abandons the Urahara Shop to confront Kariya and stop his plan. Kariya reveals his crest is fused into his own chest and that Yoshino possesses a maternal power capable of creating new Dolls. He shatters her crest, and Yoshino fuses with her Doll Goethe to fight him personally before being fatally impaled. Kariya uses her sacrificed power to create the Bitto, a swarm of new insect-like Dolls.

An anime-original entry in the Bount arc with no manga source, this episode concludes the storyline of Yoshino's fall and introduces the Bitto. Its Shinigami Illustrated Picture Book closer finds Shunsui hurrying to a cliffside meeting Yamamoto himself requested, only to discover the Captain-Commander has fallen asleep, prompting Nanao to remark on his age.