Peace from Shadows

In the royal realm, a bare-chested Ichigo lifts the twin blades of his reborn Shikai from their pedestal. Below, the Schatten Bereich finishes overwriting the Seireitei with Wandenreich architecture. Shunsui and his lieutenant Nanao watch their carefully laid traps become useless, while out in the Rukongai, Sentaro and Kiyone cry out to a shirtless Ukitake seated in a strange shrine.

Yhwach explains to Uryu how the Quincy, driven from the living world after losing their war a millennium ago, wove a secret Reishi city into the Seireitei's own shadows, a place the Gotei 13 never thought to search. Askin notes how richly Soul Society's Reishi fed their strength over the centuries. Haschwalth appears in Shunsui's office to reveal that they simply materialized within the Shakonmaku rather than breaking it, then names himself the Sternritter Grandmaster; the two commanders trade courtesies over an inevitable clash.

Back at the wrecked institute, Mayuri emerges through a glowing doorway with Nemu, both clad in light-emitting garments, having deduced the enemy's reliance on shadow and rebuilt his laboratory to cast none. He leaves an irritated Askin to prove his worth. Near the Tenth Division, Bazz-B torches a line of Shinigami only to find them shielded by ice, as Hitsugaya and Rangiku step forward to note that his flames never got through.

The Wandenreich reappear inside the Shakonmaku, reprising their first invasion. Yhwach recounts the Quincy's thousand-year concealment within the Seireitei's shadows. Mayuri unveils a laboratory rebuilt to cast no shadow. Hitsugaya and Rangiku confront Bazz-B as the second assault begins in earnest.

Peace from Shadows is the seventh chapter of the sixty-first volume, THE LAST 9DAYS, within the Thousand-Year Blood War. It was adapted as Episode 381, which shares the chapter's title.