A Piggy Party

Plummeting toward the Gatonden landing platform, Ichigo Kurosaki and Renji Abarai bicker over who should cushion the crash, then flatten Kon, who had stowed away inside Ichigo's coat, once they finally touch down. Kirio Hikifune, currently in a heavyset form, greets the pair so exuberantly that she nearly knocks them off the ledge. Rather than the harsh regimen Ichigo expected, she seats them at a table buckling under mountains of food and insists her only duty is to fill their stomachs.

The two dig in, and Renji heaps bizarre praise on a fried, centipede-like dish while Ichigo grows uneasy about lounging and eating while the rest of the Seireitei trains for the coming war. Renji reasons that the bath mended their wounds and the meal rebuilds their strength, logic that eventually wins Ichigo over. Hikifune then slims into a slender figure, explaining that her cooking drains enormous Reiatsu, and clarifies that everything here is genuine preparation carried out on a Soul King scale.

Each member of the Royal Guard, she says, was recruited for creating something the Soul King judged vital to Soul Society's long history. Her own contribution was the Gikon and the means to house them in bodies, the same principle behind the Gikongan. The banquet was laced with that essence, pouring foreign Reiatsu into Ichigo and Renji and sharply raising their power. As they stare at their transformed bodies, she warns them that the next palace, the Hōōden, belongs to the wildly unpredictable Ōetsu Nimaiya, inventor of the Zanpakutō.

Ichigo and Renji reach the Gatonden and crush Kon on landing. Kirio Hikifune serves them a vast, Reiatsu-infused feast in place of physical training. She reveals herself as a member of the Royal Guard and the inventor of the Gikon and Gikongan. The food dramatically boosts both warriors' power, and she directs them onward to Ōetsu Nimaiya's palace.

The chapter opens the fifty-ninth collected volume, which carries Retsu Unohana on its cover, and brings back Kon as comic relief during the Royal Guard training stretch of the Thousand-Year Blood War arc. Its events were adapted in Episode 375, "THE DROP."