Marching Out The ZOMBIES 3

Perched on a nearby roof, the corpse of Tenth Division captain Toshiro Hitsugaya reappears with his spiritual pressure all but gone, stunning Ikkaku Madarame and Yumichika Ayasegawa, who had just felt it fade. When Yumichika reaches for a binding spell, Ikkaku shoves him clear with Hozukimaru, and the oncoming wall of ice only clips his own leg rather than both men. Brushing off the wound, Ikkaku is then run through the shoulder and cut across the back, while Yumichika's counter and his bid to call out his hidden release end with a knee, a headbutt, and a chest slash that leaves him bleeding on the ground.

Watching from the side, Mayuri Kurotsuchi observes that the dead captain moves without any drop in speed and reasons that Bambietta Basterbine's lingering awareness let Hitsugaya be raised while still alive. Giselle Gewelle drops in to confirm the guess, bragging that keeping a victim breathing preserves their cells, quickens them, and erases the will that makes them hard to steer, all of which suits her perfectly. Mayuri needling her over the appeal of ordering around the mindless earns only a shrug.

Charlotte Chuhlhourne then lands between them, thrilled at the idea of trading blows with so handsome an opponent, yet one sweep opens his chest and takes his hand before he can reach out. Mayuri throws up a mesh barrier to halt the finishing blow, scolds the crumpled Arrancar for misjudging the gap in strength, and refuses to see his specimen destroyed. Insisting that he never experiments on the unwilling, he cheerfully promises Hitsugaya a run of drug trials, all dressed up as service to the Seireitei.

Hitsugaya's revived body cuts down Ikkaku, Yumichika, and Charlotte in swift succession. Mayuri concludes the corpse was animated before death, and Giselle confirms the method leaves her thralls faster and easier to command. Mayuri shields the fallen Charlotte, lays claim to Hitsugaya as his subject, and readies his chemicals for testing.

The installment sits in the sixty-sixth collected volume, SORRY I AM STRONG, and its events were folded into episode 389, Marching Out the ZOMBIES 2. Bambietta Basterbine is cited as the earlier victim whom Hitsugaya felled before his own reanimation.