The Thousand-Year Blood War

Deep inside the Shinigami Research and Development Institute, Captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi presses his third seat Akon for a reading on the Shutara Scale as the pair descend by elevator. Akon reports it has climbed to category four and admits the trouble is severe; because milder versions had always been manageable with small corrections, he had held off alerting Mayuri until now. In the monitoring room below, technicians race to steady wild readings while a researcher confirms that Hollows keep disappearing. Akon already grasps that the barrier separating the human world from Soul Society will begin to give way if this persists, and Mayuri agrees with his suspicion that only the Quincy could erase Hollows so completely.

In Karakura Town, the newly posted Ryunosuke Yuki is roused by an exasperated Zennosuke Kurumadani mid-briefing, having lost sleep to nerves. His partner Shino Madarame smacks him to get his attention and urges him to show some backbone. Yuki frets that the town's heavy Hollow activity and its powerful resident Substitute Shinigami make him wonder why he was even sent, prompting Shino to seize his collar and explain that the Gotei 13 doubled the guard here to lean less on that Substitute. A crack about her figure earns him a punch.

After nightfall a masked stranger scatters Hollow bait across a rooftop, then withdraws as Yuki and Shino step from a Senkaimon with Zennosuke, who accepts Yuki's excuse about his bruised face before leaving them with a plea to hunt Hollows rather than each other. Shino splits the patrol, taking the north while Yuki covers the south. Soon a crash sends Yuki fleeing from a hulking one-eyed, four-legged Hollow, only to find Shino bloodied and clutched by an ape-like Huge Hollow flanked by three more. He draws his sword but is battered aside and left bleeding badly, certain he may die before saving her.

A Getsuga Tensho then tears through both Hollows as Ichigo Kurosaki arrives, sizing Yuki up as Zennosuke's replacement and warning that he will be worthless if he proves as hapless as his predecessor. When Yuki asks his name, Ichigo identifies himself as the town's Substitute Shinigami, all while the masked figure observes from the shadows of an alley.

The Research Institute detects a mass erasure of Hollows and pins it on the Quincy, foreshadowing a collapse of the barrier between worlds. Rookie guards Yuki and Shino take up their Karakura posting and are ambushed by a pack of Huge Hollows lured out with bait planted by a masked infiltrator. Ichigo intervenes to save them, unaware that the stranger is watching him in particular.

The opening chapter of Volume 55, THE BLOOD WARFARE, it launches the series' concluding Thousand-Year Blood War arc and was adapted into Episode 367 of the anime, itself titled "THE BLOOD WARFARE." The installment first ran in Weekly Shonen Jump under the heading "Final Arc, The Thousand-Year Blood War," while its collected-volume title is styled "The Blood Warfare."