THE VILLAIN

Recovering atop the tower he was hurled into, Kensei Muguruma rolls his neck and dives back at Mask De Masculine, who is busy striking a pose. The Sternritter blinks away with Hirenkyaku, then drives a knee and a headbutt into the captain. Kensei answers by reshaping the right gauntlet of his Bankai, Tekken Tachikaze, into brass knuckles and hammering the guarding forearm, but a fresh cheer from James restores Mask, who seizes the fist, snaps Kensei's right arm with a chop, and slams him unconscious into the earth.

Rojuro Otoribashi, called Rose, tears James in two with his Shikai, Kinshara, refusing to waste the opening Kensei bought. Releasing his Bankai, Kinshara Butodan, he conjures a troupe of towering dancers, a bank of raised hands, and a conductor's baton, then drowns Mask beneath Sea Drift before scorching him with Prometheus. When the Quincy protests that a single blade should not wield both water and flame, Rose reveals the entire spectacle as an illusion spun from music, a melody that snares the heart and burns its listener alive.

On the verge of finishing Mask with Ein Heldenleben, Rose is undone by a gruesome countermove: Mask jabs his fingers into his own ears and ruptures his eardrums, deafening himself so the melody can no longer reach him. He then blasts a star-shaped hole through Rose's chest with Star Flash and gloats about the hero's beam felling the villain. A second Star Flash follows when Rose's hand twitches, only for the blast to be knocked aside by Zabimaru and buried in a building as Renji Abarai drops in, newly dressed, and cheerfully names himself the villain of the piece.

The chapter marks Renji's return to the second invasion of the Seireitei with an upgraded look and resolve, and belongs to the Thousand-Year Blood War storyline. Its events were adapted into episode 384 of the anime, Rages at Ringside. Characters appearing include Kensei Muguruma, Mask De Masculine, James, Rojuro Otoribashi, and Renji Abarai.