Six Hearts Will Beat As One

Menos Hollows keep surging up to block Ichigo's charge, and he cuts them down as Ulquiorra and Orihime carry on their exchange. Ulquiorra scorns her claim that the arrival of her friends leaves her unafraid, asking whether she truly means it. She insists that she does, then explains that learning they had come brought her only a little joy and mostly sorrow, since she had entered Las Noches precisely to keep everyone else safe. Feeling Rukia fall and watching Ichigo bleed, though, taught her that her original reasons no longer mattered; she simply did not want him harmed and wanted the rest protected, and she understood that they surely felt the same and would have crossed to Hueco Mundo just as she had.

Having cleared the Hollows in his way, Ichigo reaches the tower holding Orihime, only for Rudbornn and his Exequias to swarm him. Their numbers begin to overwhelm him until Renji, Sado, and Rukia arrive to break the tide. Overjoyed to find his friends whole, Ichigo is told by Rukia to save the reunion, and he presses on as Rudbornn rounds on her instead. Orihime, meanwhile, tells Ulquiorra that no one can ever feel exactly what another feels, but that cherishing friends and keeping them near is itself the meaning of hearts beating as one. Ulquiorra retorts that humans invoke the heart far too casually, as though it were something they could cradle in a palm, while his own eyes miss nothing; whatever they fail to see does not exist. He demands to know what a heart even is, wondering whether he would find one by tearing open her chest or splitting her skull, but before she can answer, Ichigo erupts through the floor.

Ichigo hacks through waves of Menos to reach the fifth tower. Renji, Sado, and Rukia intervene against Rudbornn's Exequias so Ichigo can keep advancing. Orihime frames unity as treasuring friends despite never feeling exactly alike, while Ulquiorra insists the unseen heart cannot be real. Ichigo bursts up through the floor to reach them.

The chapter sets the stage for the drawn-out duel between Ichigo and Ulquiorra and seeds the arc's recurring meditation on the heart. Its events were adapted in episode 215 of the anime, Defend Karakura Town! Entire Appearance of the Shinigami.