What is Your Fear?

A flashback recalls Rukia and Renji plunging toward the Seireitei from the Soul King Palace, where she reminds him that landing deep in enemy ground will leave them exposed if they allow themselves to be surrounded. Knowing his flashy style draws attention, she urges Renji to conceal himself after every fight so no one can catch him off guard.

In the present, Renji wakes inside a building at daybreak, decides he has lain low long enough, checks that he is alone, and heads out. From behind the very pillar Renji slept against, NaNaNa Najahkoop marvels that the lieutenant truly was asleep the whole night; having come to learn who killed Mask, he had watched for a trap and grown unnerved by an enemy dozing in hostile territory. Grinning, he declares that no target he studies this long survives and writes Renji off as a doomed red monkey.

Elsewhere, Rukia glides through the air unable to feel any Gotei 13 Reiatsu, a sign of how badly the Shinigami are outnumbered, though the silence lets her locate Isane Kotetsu tending the wounded Rose and Kensei. When she pauses on a rooftop, a thin hand seems to close around her wrist, and As Nodt materializes behind her, asking whether she is frightened and demanding to know where his stolen Senbonzakura Kageyoshi has gone. He presses her about Byakuya's location, then fires a volley of Reishi Thorns that leave a dark fluid smeared across the surfaces behind her, the mark of his fear-inducing weapon. Rukia raises an ice wall with Sode no Shirayuki, but the liquid seeps through, freezes her arm, and forces her blade from her grip; even so, when As boasts that she is now tasting fear, she calmly wonders whether his real fear is that it has no hold on her.

The chapter opens Rukia's Thousand-Year Blood War duel with As Nodt and threatens Renji with a new opponent. It was adapted into episode 385, The White Haze. Featured are Renji Abarai, Rukia Kuchiki, NaNaNa Najahkoop, Isane Kotetsu, Rojuro Otoribashi, and As Nodt.