Dark Ones

Once counted among Soul Society's houses under the name Ryōdoji, this clan of souls was driven into banishment roughly a millennium before the events of Bleach: Memories of Nobody, in which they appear. Six figures make up the group, with Ganryū standing as its leader. Each of them can bend the wandering Blanks to their will, and their shared aim is nothing short of the destruction of the realm that once cast them aside.

Operating out of the Dangai, the exiles set their sights on Senna, a girl tied to the Shinenju, using her to trigger the collapse of the Valley of Screams. Their vengeance drives the film's central conflict, pitting them against Ichigo Kurosaki and, before the end, the assembled captains and lieutenants of the Gotei 13.

The clan first surfaces in the living world, watching Senna battle the Blanks, then moves to seize her. Their opening attempt falls apart when Ichigo severs Jai's arm and frees her, prompting a retreat. A day later the exiles ambush the Gotei 13 as the Shinigami arrive to take Senna into custody, and amid the chaos Ganryū finally captures her, impaling Ichigo with a hidden spear so the group can slip away to the Valley of Screams.

There Ganryū begins turning Senna's power against the realm, setting the valley on course to collapse. Ichigo breaks in to rescue her, and the Dark Ones move to block him one by one, but the captains and lieutenants who follow separate the exiles from each other. Cut off and outnumbered, the six are picked apart in a series of duels, and their scheme dies with them.

Ganryū commands the clan and orchestrates the plot around Senna. Jai, a large, close-quarters brawler, wields homing chakram and can split both his blades and himself into copies before Byakuya Kuchiki's Bankai finishes off every duplicate. Riyan, coldly focused and loyal to Ganryū, fights with a fan-bladed sword and a Blank-fed rocket pack until Tōshirō Hitsugaya freezes him solid.

Benin, the group's lone woman, favors chained daggers, throwing knives, and a scoped crossbow, and dies to Suì-Fēng's two-strike killing technique. Mue carries a transforming sword whose detachable guard can be detonated through a tether, yet falls to Kenpachi Zaraki. Bau, a hulking figure hidden behind a veiled cap, swings twin explosive clubs before Renji Abarai's released Zabimaru devours him.