301. Nothing Like Equal

Amor's sun brand drives Byakuya Kuchiki's left hand toward his own throat, so he slashes the arm's tendons to lock it in place, then clears the ice off Rukia Kuchiki with a low Kidō spell and orders Hanatarō Yamada back. Zommari Rureaux marvels at the captain crippling his own limbs merely to deny them to a foe, judging it reckless to face an Espada with one arm and leg left. Byakuya retorts that even so, he has not sunk to Zommari's level.

Zommari then explains that each eye on his body governs a single target, and that he spent a second eye seizing Rukia; her marked body slashes Hanatarō and turns the blade against her own neck. Boasting that controlling the head controls the whole form, he demands Byakuya drop his sword. Byakuya lets go, but casts a binding spell on Rukia to freeze her, then flashes behind Zommari and unleashes his Bankai, Senbonzakura Kageyoshi. He points out that fifty eyes cannot hope to command a hundred million blade petals, and initiates Gōkei, sealing the palace inside an immense sphere of swirling blades.

Byakuya disables his own possessed arm and binds the mind-controlled Rukia with Kidō to neutralize Amor, then releases his Bankai. Recognizing Zommari's eyes cannot control the countless petals, he traps the Espada in the Gōkei sphere.

Part of the thirty-fourth volume, KING OF THE KILL, this chapter ran in Weekly Shonen Jump as Shut up & Die and was adapted in the episode Byakuya's Bankai, the Quiet Anger.