Pledge My Pride To

Pinned to a wall with a deep gash across his chest, Uryū Ishida is sickened that Mayuri Kurotsuchi sacrificed his own lieutenant just to reach him. When Nemu Kurotsuchi collapses and begs for medicine to mend her ruptured lungs, Mayuri answers by stomping on her, then coldly reveals that she is his own creation, grown through his experiments with artificial bodies and soul pills, and that he counts her as his daughter. He dismisses Uryū's outrage as no business of his while slamming her head into the stone.

Struggling to rise, Uryū discovers his limbs will not obey, and Mayuri explains that his blade blocks only the nerve signals for movement, leaving every nerve for pain untouched, then drives it into Uryū's arm to prove it. Musing on the pride every Quincy clings to, Mayuri recounts the horrors he inflicted on the dying race, dissecting them, drilling into their skulls, forcing them to burn their own children. He tosses over a photograph of his final subject, an old man who died calling a name, and Uryū recognizes the ruined face of his grandfather and mentor, Sōken Ishida. Forcing his body upright with Ransōtengai, Uryū swears on his Quincy pride to destroy him.

Mayuri brutalizes Nemu and exposes her as an artificial being he built and calls his daughter. The Shikai's paralysis is explained as a drug that halts motion while preserving sensation. Mayuri confesses to torturing and vivisecting captured Quincy. Uryū learns that Mayuri killed his grandfather Sōken, and rises again through Ransōtengai to vow revenge.

The chapter closes the fourteenth volume, WHITE TOWER ROCKS, in the Soul Society arc, and was adapted into Episode 43, The Despicable Shinigami. It supplies the origin of Nemu Kurotsuchi and lays bare Mayuri's monstrous history with the Quincy, giving Uryū a deeply personal reason to fight on.