BACK IN BLACK

As his inner world falls apart, Ichigo wrenches the zanpakuto out of its box. Above ground, his half-Hollowfied form strains against Tessai's binding until the embedded iron bursts loose. Deciding they can wait no longer, Tessai shifts to suppression, driving the spell to its second stage, wrapping Ichigo in bolt-studded cloth and crushing him beneath an enormous cube. White fluid erupts from the wrappings, a finished Hollow mask shows beneath, and a wave of spiritual pressure then tears out of the pit.

Something ricochets off the painted ceiling and slams down nearby. From the dust rises a figure in a Shinigami's robes wearing a Hollow mask, gripping a zanpakuto shorn of most of its blade. Rather than attack, it smashes the hilt into its own mask, cracking it away to reveal Ichigo with his soul intact. Urahara cheerfully congratulates him on clearing the second lesson, only for Ichigo to jab him in the eye and remind him of a vow to pound him if he survived.

Urahara channels that fury into lesson three, offering to pass Ichigo if he can knock the hat off his head, with no time limit. Ichigo lunges and nicks the brim, impressing Urahara despite the ruined blade. When Ichigo boasts he will finish it within five minutes, Urahara simply invites him to try and draws a hidden sword from his cane.

Tessai escalates his binding to suppression mode, intending to kill Ichigo before he fully turns. Ichigo bursts from the pit, shatters his own Hollow mask, and is restored as a Shinigami, repaying Urahara with a jab to the eye. Lesson three begins with the goal of knocking off Urahara's hat, and Urahara unsheathes the blade hidden in his cane.

The chapter is drawn into Episode 19, Ichigo Becomes a Hollow. Its title nods to the outcome of the trial, Ichigo restored to a Shinigami's black robes. It closes out the Shattered Shaft ordeal that dominates the first half of the eighth volume.