THE CIGAR BLUES PART TWO

Standing over the duel in the Shinigami form he has kept hidden, Isshin Kurosaki gives Grand Fisher the name he keeps demanding, the charm meant for his son having already shielded Kon from the Hollow's reach. A short way off, Ichigo and Shinji Hirako feel the crushing pressure of the clash, and when Ichigo bolts toward it after flatly refusing to be counted among the Visored, Shinji shrugs off the setback and phones a furious Hiyori to promise patience. On the street below, Isshin picks up the fallen charm, flicks it back to Kon, and admits he realized long ago that the stuffed lion, not his son, was piloting Ichigo's body.

Grand Fisher works out that a Shinigami father explains both Ichigo's true blood and his own past defeat, yet he wants only to hunt the boy. Isshin claims he has no idea where his son wandered off to and steers the exchange back to the kill he came to make. Scoffing at the notion that he is any ordinary Hollow, Grand Fisher swells into a horned, less shaggy shape and cracks his mask apart, announcing himself an Arrancar, a Hollow that discards its mask to borrow Shinigami strength. He hefts a colossal blade and lectures that a Zanpakuto's size mirrors its wielder's power, but Isshin counters that captains deliberately keep their swords small, then splits the gloating Arrancar open from shoulder to hip with a single stroke.

Isshin battles entirely as a Shinigami and confirms to Kon that he saw through the body swap back at the graveyard. Ichigo turns down Shinji's recruitment outright, insisting that he is a Shinigami and no Visored. Grand Fisher throws off his Hollow mask to reveal an Arrancar body, the first appearance of the term in the story's present. Isshin ends the fight instantly, disproving the idea that a giant Zanpakuto guarantees strength.

The installment forms the second half of the confrontation begun in the prior chapter and closes out the twenty-first collected volume, BE MY FAMILY OR NOT. Its events reach the anime in Episode 111, Shock! The True Characters of the Fathers. Named appearances are limited to Grand Fisher, Kon, Isshin Kurosaki, Shinji Hirako, and Ichigo Kurosaki.