Edges

Kenpachi snaps awake in midair yet again, marveling that he has never lost himself so completely in a fight, save for the day he first met Retsu Unohana. In a memory from centuries past, she stands in the rain-soaked Rukongai while a subordinate deduces that her real aim in hunting local gangs was to find someone strong enough to satisfy her. Bored with her own sword, she is stunned when a young Kenpachi appears atop a mountain of corpses and overpowers her, driving his blade into her chest.

That unmatched joy of crossing swords with a mere child stayed with her, though she never anticipated that the boy would shackle himself because of their fight. Back in the present, Kenpachi lands a cut on her arm and realizes he can finally counter rather than merely react, feeling reborn with each revival. Unohana reveals he has unconsciously restrained his own strength ever since that first battle, pointing to how narrowly he lost to Ichigo Kurosaki and barely edged out Nnoitra Gilga as proof.

Her sin, she admits, was teaching him the ecstasy of fighting on the razor's edge, then proving too weak to be the rival he craved. Despairing at losing his only worthy opponent, the young Kenpachi had slowly sealed his power deep within his soul to sink to her level. Determined to undo this, Unohana vows to slay and resurrect him countless times until he surpasses her, and she carves open his chest, prompting him to recover unaided and answer with a tremendous downward slash.

Kenpachi recalls first meeting Unohana atop a pile of bodies in the Rukongai. Unohana explains that his despair at outmatching his only rival led him to unconsciously seal his power. She frames his narrow results against Ichigo and Nnoitra as evidence of that suppression. Vowing to kill and revive him repeatedly, she wounds his chest, and Kenpachi retaliates with growing strength.

The chapter delivers the backstory of Unohana and Kenpachi's original clash and explains the origin of his self-imposed limiter, a key revelation of the Thousand-Year Blood War arc. Its events were adapted in Episode 376, "The Battle."