Discussing Life from God's Perspective

Winded and slipping from the sky, Sui-Feng watches her Bankai fracture Hachi's barrier, and Omaeda catches her as she falls. She admits the weapon can normally only be loosed once every three days. When the smoke thins, Baraggan is still speaking, swearing he will never pardon her for the wound she dealt, now missing the upper left portion of his skull. He hurls another surge of Respira at the two, and Sui-Feng, astonished that he endured a point-blank Jakuho Raikoben, half wonders whether he really is a god.

Hachi throws up a fresh barrier and pulls on his mask, but Baraggan shatters the wall and lets his decay leak through to gnaw at the mask itself. The Espada expounds his creed: Shinigami, humans, Hollows, and Arrancar all have their quarrels and freedoms, as do the animals, plants, and even the sun and stars, yet only his power is absolute, everything else beneath notice.

As the Respira closes over Hachi, Baraggan declares that all of them belong under his heel, no better than insects in his sight. Then Hachi reveals a barrier where the lower half of his right arm used to be. If Baraggan's power alone is truly absolute, he reasons, then not even its wielder can withstand it. The severed arm, sealed within another barrier, is already lodged inside Baraggan's torso, the payoff of a wager Hachi is relieved to have won. There are no gods in Soul Society, he says, only Shinigami, as the Espada rots away from within.

A drained Sui-Feng falls into Omaeda's arms after firing her Bankai. Baraggan survives, missing part of his skull, and retaliates with more Respira. Hachi's mask and barrier are corroded as Baraggan preaches his absolute supremacy. Hachi reveals he sealed his own decaying arm inside Baraggan's body, using the Espada's own aging power to destroy him from the inside out.

Titled in Japanese as 神の視座にて 命を論ず, rendered by Viz as Discussing Life from God's Perspective and translated literally as Debating Life on the Throne of God. The third chapter of volume 43, Kingdom of Hollows, it was adapted into episodes 280 and 281. The chapter delivers the decisive defeat of Baraggan by turning his own decay against him.