076. Boarrider Comin'

Ichigo Kurosaki comes to beside the unconscious, bleeding Jidanbō Ikkanzaka, startling his companions when he bolts upright. Though rattled by his clash with the mysterious captain Gin Ichimaru, he is unhurt, having caught the strike on his blade, and Yoruichi reassures him that the sealed gate was a lost cause regardless. Wary Rukongai villagers emerge, and Yoruichi explains that unescorted trespassers like them are branded Ryoka and distrusted. The mood warms when Yūichi Shibata, the boy once bound inside a parakeet, pushes forward to greet Sado.

As locals wrestle Jidanbō's severed arm back toward its stump, Orihime works to reattach it with her healing shield. Hironari Horiuchi tells Sado how Rukongai souls arrive scattered by the timing of their deaths, so blood relatives seldom reunite and strangers form makeshift families instead, an arrangement Sado finds coldly bureaucratic. By nightfall Orihime is drained, and the villagers insist she rest. Indoors, Yoruichi lays out the impasse: the guarded main gate is now unreachable and the next lies a ten-day trek away, so the group must abandon the gates entirely. Her plan hinges on locating Kūkaku Shiba. The discussion breaks off when Ganju Shiba is hurled through the doorway by his boar, and on spotting Ichigo he furiously demands to know why a Shinigami is present.

Ichigo survives Gin's assault unscathed. The villagers and Orihime mend and reattach Jidanbō's arm. Sado learns how Rukongai society and its improvised families work. Yoruichi rules out every gate and pins their hopes on the fireworks expert Kūkaku Shiba. Ganju Shiba bursts in and confronts Ichigo.

This is the sixth chapter collected in the ninth volume, FOURTEEN DAYS FOR CONSPIRACY, whose cover features Kūkaku Shiba. Its events were adapted in the anime episode The Man who Hates Shinigami.