Return of the God

Darkness pours from Jushiro Ukitake's eyes and mouth, letting Mimihagi's aura climb into the sky. The tremors in the reconstructed city fade, and Yhwach watches in astonishment as the shadowy limb enfolds both halves of the Soul King and opens an eye upon its palm. Unable to perceive it with The Almighty, he concludes that Mimihagi must be a piece of the sovereign and demands that it answer him.

In the laboratory, Sui-Feng bluntly asks how long Ukitake can hold, reasoning that the stability lasts only as long as he lives. Urahara admits he has never before witnessed Kamikake and cannot say, but urges everyone to seize the reprieve and rescue the worlds while it lasts. Far below in Muken, Kyoraku stands over a row of keyholes and produces a slim case of twenty keys, each freeing a portion of Aizen's bindings, though he is permitted to turn only three, and he begins with the seal over Aizen's mouth.

Back above, the gate suddenly starts to fail, and Nanao Ise explains that it needed Ukitake, whose centuries of self-sustaining Reiatsu dwarfed any other captain's. As Lisa Yadomaru rallies a despairing Nanao, Mayuri Kurotsuchi appears on the roof with Nemu and unveils a Reiatsu Amplifier he claims should have been used all along, switching it on so its golden glow revives the collapsing gateway. In Muken, Kyoraku unseals Aizen's mouth, and Aizen calmly walks toward him through the remains of his restraints, asking whether the captain means to use his last two keys.

Ukitake's Kamikake stabilizes the split Soul King and halts the collapse of the worlds. Sui-Feng warns the stability will end when he dies. Kyoraku begins releasing Aizen's seals in Muken, and Mayuri's Reiatsu Amplifier restores Urahara's failing gate.

The chapter runs in the sixty-eighth volume, THE ORDINARY PEACE, and its scenes were adapted in the anime across episodes 395 and 398. It marks the return of Aizen to an active role in the war.