The Knuckle Debate

With the giant Arrancar crushed beneath Komamura's released form, the gathered captains and lieutenants react in their own ways. Suì-Fēng approves of the total absence of mercy, while Matsumoto worries that the wreckage might push the Seventh Division into the red for the accounting period. Hitsugaya notes that certain captains cover such destruction from their own funds rather than billing their squad, and warns Matsumoto that anything she smashes will simply be docked from her wages. Hisagi and Kira quietly count themselves lucky for arriving too late to join the pillar's defense.

Once the released form is sealed away, Ikkaku marvels at it, only for Iba to point out how far his own unfinished Bankai sits below their captain's. Startled that his secret is known, Ikkaku listens as Iba promises to keep it, then delivers a blunt scolding: concealing his true power is exactly why the pillar he was ordered to hold came down. Iba insists that anyone serving in the Gotei 13 must bury his pride and follow orders, and drives the point home with a fist to Ikkaku's face.

Iba accuses Ikkaku of shrugging off defeat because he assumes replacements can always step in for him. Ikkaku swings his shattered Shikai in anger; Iba catches the blade and argues that a fighter who cannot win head-on should win by any means, since only the result counts. When Ikkaku rejects that logic, Iba urges him to stop holding back his genuine strength. Komamura steps up behind the pair but assures Iba he overheard none of it. Elsewhere, Baraggan seethes over the fall of his so-called Dragons, and his surviving Fracción Ggio Vega swears to wipe out the Shinigami. Suì-Fēng cuts in to claim him for herself, and the reshuffled combatants square off against new opponents.

This installment closes out the thirty-eighth volume, FEAR FOR FIGHT, during the struggle over the false Karakura Town. Its contents were adapted into episodes 220 and 221 of the anime.