Ignited

Shinji Hirako fully releases Sakanade, and Aizen, unbothered, remarks on its curious shape. Shinji warns that the blade governs the senses and welcomes Aizen into an Inverted World where up trades with down and left with right. When Shinji attacks, Aizen deduces that forward and back must be flipped too and turns to parry, yet Shinji still cuts his arm, explaining that his very sight and the point where blows land are reversed as well. However hard Aizen reasons it out, Shinji insists, his body will keep answering by reflex, but as Shinji lunges again Aizen slips aside and slashes his back, dismissing the whole effect as an optical trick that poses no threat once understood.

Meanwhile Tōsen relives the day he learned his friend's killer would go unpunished, his pleas to Central 46, and the funeral that followed. He opens his eyes to find Komamura and Hisagi beside him. Komamura tells him to keep quiet, since his Hollow power alone sustains his torn throat, and asks about Tōsen's earlier certainty that they would one day cross blades. Komamura confesses he felt the same, and that Hisagi did too, marveling that their bond, however faint, still led them here. He begs Tōsen not to lose himself to hatred and revenge, admitting his own heart would be empty if he lost him. Moved to tears, Tōsen thanks him and asks Hisagi to draw near so he might remember his face, only to burst apart in a spray of blood and flesh. As Hisagi screams, Komamura wheels toward Aizen and roars his name, and behind Aizen the sky splinters as Ichigo Kurosaki drops in, poised to strike.

Shinji's Sakanade drags Aizen into its Inverted World and lands a cut, but Aizen shrugs it off as a trick. After a tearful reconciliation with Komamura, Tōsen abruptly explodes and dies, and as Komamura cries out Aizen's name, Ichigo finally arrives on the battlefield behind Aizen.

This chapter opens volume 45, THE BURNOUT INFERNO, and was adapted into episode 291, Desperate Struggle with Aizen! Hirako, Shikai! The title marks both the debut of Sakanade's disorienting power and the fiery escalation of the fight as Ichigo re-enters it.