Battle on Guillotine Hill

In a forest clearing ringed around Sōkyoku Hill, Ikkaku Madarame mistakes a nearby flash of lightning for a threat, and Tetsuzaemon Iba corrects him, noting it was Kidō loosed at some other target. The pair pass a sake gourd back and forth and spar verbally over Ikkaku's refusal to study spells, with Iba arguing that a rounded skill set is the surest road to a lieutenancy while Ikkaku dismisses the ambition as something Iba's mother Chikane once pushed on her son. When the gourd runs dry, a round of janken decides who fetches more, and a distant blast of pressure interrupts them. Failing to place the unfamiliar Reiatsu battling Byakuya Kuchiki, Iba learns it belongs to the Ryoka Ichigo Kurosaki, and the two seated warriors take up their released blades to continue the brawl they left unfinished.

Atop the hill, Ichigo and Byakuya exchange furious strikes until the earth heaves beneath the captain from an overhead swing of Zangetsu. Byakuya remarks that his opponent has now mastered flash steps and moves to belittle the feat, but Ichigo cuts him off, branding the captain's detached analysis a pose and throwing his vow to slay both himself and Rukia back in his face. Demanding the captain stop stalling and reveal his Bankai, Ichigo swears to shatter every one of his powers over so twisted a promise. Byakuya answers that a thousand years would pass before he needed his highest release against such a foe and instead frees his Shikai, Senbonzakura, scattering his blade into a swirling storm of a thousand petals. Unmoved, Ichigo fires a single Getsuga Tenshō that rips clean through the entire technique, leaving the captain visibly shaken.

The chapter interleaves a comic aside between two seasoned fighters with the escalating duel on the summit, ending on Ichigo's stunning breach of Byakuya's Shikai. Set during the Soul Society arc and collected in the nineteenth volume, it was adapted into the fifty-seventh episode of the television series.