Rescuer In The Deep Dark

The messenger corps fans out to plant transmitter spikes beside the Gotei 13's officers, then withdraws, leaving Rin Tsubokura to broadcast directly from the institute. His announcement that Ichigo Kurosaki is en route with an unstealable Bankai lifts every listener, though Mayuri only grumbles at Akon overstepping. The relief curdles when Akon notices Ichigo's spiritual pressure has gone dark within the Garganta. Sealed inside a lattice of Reishi bars, Ichigo hammers their junction with Tensa Zangetsu and tries to tell Akon he is caught, slowly realizing his replies no longer reach the other end. Reasoning that something has gone wrong, Akon orders the passage investigated and a team sent to the gate into Hueco Mundo, only for a wall to burst inward.

A blank-eyed Jidanbō Ikkanzaka, seized by an enemy power, storms the institute and mauls the researchers as they beg him to stop. Hiyosu moves to shut the facility down with kido, trusting their data backups, and urges Akon to flee, but Rin abruptly drives a blade into Hiyosu's side and can only stare in confusion at his own hand while PePe Waccabrada watches the carnage from a distance and laughs. In the Garganta, the transmitter spikes carry the voices of those near them, so Ichigo begins hearing Rukia and Renji recognize the attack on the institute, then the screams of dozens of soldiers across the city. Rukia's insistence that they need only endure until he arrives drives him to batter the cage with a furious Getsuga Tenshō. Far away in Hueco Mundo, Quilge, certain his letter J and its Jail will hold Ichigo forever, turns to kill the fallen Orihime, Sado, and Nel, only to be cleaved down his left side by an unseen slash as a blade comes to rest at Urahara's throat.

This chapter opens the fifty-seventh volume, Out of Bloom, and was adapted within episode 371 of the anime. The giant's rampage stems from the puppetry of Sternritter PePe Waccabrada, whose control also turns Rin against Hiyosu, while the intruder who bisects Quilge in the final panels is later revealed to be Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. The installment marks Bleach's five-hundredth chapter overall.