The Closing Chapter Part One

Blue pillars burst across the Seireitei, throwing the divisions into confusion. Rukia declares she is heading for their base, reasoning the enemy leaders lie there, while Yamamoto leaves his office in Genshiro Okikiba's charge.

Near the Third Division, Izuru waits as a technician struggles to analyze the dense Reishi, until the man detects a 93 percent Quincy match inside a pillar. Sternritter H, Bazz-B, answers Izuru's attack order with a beam of fire that punches through his torso and severs his arm. Riku Togakushi, Taketsuna Gori, and Asuka Katakura release their Shikai, but Bazz-B crushes them all in moments.

Lowering his hood, Bazz-B admits they are under orders to kill everyone, as fellow Sternritter including Bambietta Basterbine, Askin Nakk Le Vaar, Driscoll Berci, and As Nodt step from their own pillars. Haschwalth tells the Gotei 13 to tremble before the coming purge.

Inside the Research Institute, Akon learns Shinigami Reiatsu is vanishing where no invaders were even detected, their accompanying technicians killed first. Told the Gotei 13 has already lost over a thousand in seven minutes, he despairs of winning as Ichigo fights on in Hueco Mundo.

The Sternritter's Reishi pillars erupt throughout the Seireitei, and the invaders emerge to begin a massacre. Bazz-B maims Izuru and wipes out his seated officers. Haschwalth signals the purge, and Akon reports over 1,000 Shinigami dead in the first seven minutes.

The chapter appears in volume 56, MARCH OF THE STARCROSS, within the Thousand-Year Blood War, and was adapted across Episodes 369 and 370, titled March of the StarCross and Kill The Shadow. It introduces several Sternritter and marks the true start of the Wandenreich's assault on the Seireitei.