goodbye, halcyon days.

In her Karakura apartment, Orihime finishes a page of household notes about laundry, trash, and meals so Hitsugaya and Rangiku will not leave a mess in her absence. She studies the bracelet on her wrist and remembers Ulquiorra's terms: the band wraps her in a membrane only Arrancar can perceive, lets her pass through solid matter, and must never come off. She has until midnight to make her preparations and one permission she means to use, a single goodbye to one person, given without ever letting them sense she is there. Rising from the table, she leaves the instructions behind, the words "good bye, halcyon days" penciled into a corner.

Across town, the Shinigami wait out the lull at the Urahara Shop while Rukia sits in Ichigo's room, unable to reach Soul Society through the static swallowing her communicator. A recollection fills in what happened: Hachigen, cradling the unconscious Ichigo, described the boy's power as something nearer a reversal of space than plain healing, warned that Ichigo's spiritual essence had tangled with Grimmjow's in the wound, and advised keeping him far from the Visored while he mended.

Late that night, with Karin and Yuzu asleep after eating dinner beside their brother's bed, Orihime drifts intangibly through the curtains and whispers an apology to the sleeping Ichigo. She had wanted to say farewell to so many, Tatsuki, Sado, Uryu, Rukia, but blushes when she realizes she is standing in his room for the first time and that it carries his scent. Taking his hand, she leans down to kiss him, then falters at the last moment and begins to cry, her tears falling on his face as she wonders aloud what she is even doing.

She confides all the futures she once imagined, becoming a teacher or an astronaut, running a bakery, ordering one of every kind at a donut shop or every flavor at an ice cream parlor, and wishes there could be five of her, each born in a different town, living a different life, and falling for Ichigo five separate times. She thanks him, and says goodbye.

The chapter lends its name to volume 27 and marks Orihime's departure at the close of the Karakura battles. The magazine version of the title ran as "Good bye, Halcyon Days" in Weekly Shonen Jump. It was adapted as episode 141 of the anime.