散桜

Kneeling and spent, Byakuya Kuchiki hears Äs Nödt boast that a Shikai cannot overcome one's own Bankai, only for Renji Abarai to charge in, roaring that Senbonzakura Kageyoshi is not the Quincy's to wield. Äs turns aside Zabimaru with Blut Vene, and when Renji tries to snare him with its extending links, the stolen Bankai answers with a flood of blade petals that swallows the lieutenant whole. Redirecting the torrent, Äs shreds Byakuya across his entire body and, as the captain begins to fall, renews the assault to drive him into a wall hard enough to crater the stone.

Sensing the blast, Rukia rushes toward her brother but is cut down from behind by Meninas McAllon, who takes offense at the turned back. Renji struggles up to release his own Bankai, yet Mask De Masculine seizes Zabimaru by the blade and dropkicks him clear across the city through several buildings. When Mask casts away the severed length of the weapon, Äs scolds him for not waiting to steal a released Bankai, and the baffled Sternritter, who assumed only captains possessed one, is told to study Yhwach's writ again. Slumped in his own blood, Byakuya asks Rukia and Renji to forgive him as his shattered sword falls apart. Meanwhile, at the Blue Stream Gate, the leader in Yhwach's guise stands over heaps of the slain and calls the Sternritter's only weakness their want of cruelty, just before Kenpachi Zaraki appears with Berenice Gabrielli, Jerome Guizbatt, and Loyd Lloyd skewered over his shoulder and asks whether this man is their leader.

The third chapter of the fifty-seventh volume, Out of Bloom, this installment bears a Japanese title translated as Fallen Sakura, while the English edition names it after the volume itself. It was adapted within episode 371. Byakuya's apparent death and Kenpachi's sudden challenge set up the arc's next surge, and the Yhwach present here remains the impostor Royd Lloyd.