The Perfect Crimson

With Gerard's halves plummeting, Byakuya and Hitsugaya keep their distance from Kenpachi, wary of his beastlike state. Kenpachi springs back and roars as the two pieces of Gerard lift into the air, sketch a Quincy Zeichen in their own blood, and fuse together, the giant reappearing in his Vollstandig, Aschtonig, to loose a beam from the tip of Hoffnung. The blast rips through a wide stretch of the city, forcing Hitsugaya to freeze the falling rubble before it can crush the Seireitei below, only for Gerard to fire on the same spot again, declaring himself the noblest of God's knights, one who will keep swinging his sword even in the face of death.

As Kenpachi moves to renew the fight, his right arm suddenly bursts open, and Yachiru notes she unleashed more strength than his body could bear. Gerard slashes through the weakened captain and then destroys the building beneath Hitsugaya. Byakuya catches him with his scattered petals and urges him to release his Bankai, insisting he has hit his limit. Instead, Hitsugaya reveals that the vanishing of the last petals marks his Bankai reaching full maturity, and his body shifts into that of a grown man.

Gerard reassembles from his bisected halves into the Vollstandig Aschtonig and devastates Wahrwelt with light. Kenpachi's Bankai overtaxes his body, shattering his arm and leaving him open to Gerard's counter. Hitsugaya's Bankai completes its maturation, aging him into an adult at the height of the battle.

This Volume 73 chapter escalates Gerard past two prior defeats and pays off the seeded idea that Hitsugaya's Bankai grows over time. The cost of Kenpachi's raw new power surfaces here as his own body begins to give out. The adult Hitsugaya reveal is a major turn in the captains' coordinated assault on Gerard.