The Undead 3 [Closing Frantica]

Perched above the battle, Yachiru Kusajishi refuses a courier's urgent dispatch, and when the messenger insists because it carries the signatures of the Captain-Commander and the Tenth Division captain, she scares him off with a cat-shaped burst of spiritual pressure rather than let anything interrupt her captain's fight. Below, Kenpachi's freed power spirals up around him in a column. Ichigo accuses him of hiding a trick in the covered eye, but the captain simply turns the eyepatch over to show the small mouths and eyes worked into it by the research institute, a device built to swallow his overflowing energy. With that seal gone, he lazily cuts a whole building in half to prove the gap between them.

Shutting his eyes, Ichigo hears the old spirit ask whether he can make out the scream of Kenpachi's blade. The spirit explains that warriors who fight together without trust lose their strength, and that those who rely on nothing but themselves can never grasp this. He asks for Ichigo's trust, and Ichigo gives it freely, offering his own strength in exchange for the spirit's. Their shared grip sends Ichigo's aura soaring, and he tells Kenpachi the surge comes from fighting as a team, vowing not to lose to a man who stands alone. Kenpachi scorns the idea, insisting a sword is only a weapon and anyone who leans on one has already lost the ability to fight for himself.

Warned that his bleeding can only be held back for one more strike, Ichigo pours out his power in a mask-shaped aura while Kenpachi's rises like a skull. The two collide with force enough to shear apart the surrounding towers. When the dust settles, Ichigo has buried his blade in Kenpachi's shoulder while the captain's sword has pierced clean through his belly. Apologizing to his friends, Ichigo topples sideways, and a grinning Kenpachi asks what he has to be sorry for when he has won, before collapsing beside him as his own blade cracks apart.

Yachiru turns away a signed emergency message so it cannot break Kenpachi's concentration. Kenpachi reveals the eyepatch is a Reiryoku-devouring tool and demonstrates his unleashed strength. Ichigo forms a true partnership with Zangetsu, sharing strength in both directions, and meets the captain in a single decisive clash. Both combatants are impaled, both fall, and Kenpachi's blade snaps, ending the duel with Ichigo the narrow victor.

Closing out the thirteenth volume's central battle, this chapter was adapted into the anime episode The Immortal Man. Viz Media rendered the subtitle as Closing Frantica in English. The clash caps a defining stretch of the Soul Society arc and marks the first defeat Kenpachi acknowledges.