Chapter Summaries

Haruto reported to the Gotei 13 that he had defeated Seigen Kyōshiba, while insisting he had not yet reached Captain-level strength. En Kusaka appeared at the meeting and accepted the examination results confirming Seigen’s death, then asked Haruto to answer some questions.

• Shinji Hirako worried that Haruto’s account of fighting Seigen would be difficult to explain, but Haruto said his Zanpakuto was a rule-type and hinted that a new trump card was nearly ready.
• Haruto asked Seigen Kyōshiba to fight him at full strength, then used Hiryū Gekizoku Shinten Raihō against Seigen’s Bankai, causing a thunderstorm in Karakura Town.
• Haruto reported the events to Captain-Commander Yamamoto and denied that he had attained Captain-level strength, noting that Seigen had been severely weakened.
• En Kusaka entered the meeting and agreed that the examined corpse was Seigen Kyōshiba’s, but asked Haruto to answer several questions.
• Yamamoto allowed En to question Haruto.

Haruto confronted En Kusaka over the Scorching Water Mirror, then used the exchange to expose En’s hidden Kyōshiba blood and deflect questions about Ika Kyōshiba. He left the meeting after blaming Quincy for the battle and his injuries.

• Haruto showed En the Scorching Water Mirror and argued that the mission orders gave him no obligation to hand over his spoils.
• Shigekuni Yamamoto ordered Haruto to give the mirror to En and promised compensation, but En discovered it was a fake and threw it down.
• Haruto baited En about his Kyōshiba blood before Shigekuni Yamamoto ended their argument and ordered them to leave.
• Haruto revealed that the Kuchiki Clan had told him En possessed Kyōshiba blood, which gave him potential control over the Scorching Water Mirror but weakened his control over the Mirror-Sheltering Jewel.
• En asked about Ika Kyōshiba, and Haruto said she was dead and claimed Quincy had caused his injuries.
• Haruto explained that he had arranged for Quincy Reiatsu to be used as a cover story and that Sōken Ishida had visited with Izumi and young Ryūken.

Haruto settled the Shusuha siblings in Karakura Town and met with Tessai Tsukabishi, who brought him to the Kidō Corps headquarters to repay an old debt by teaching him a number ninety-nine Kidō spell. The chapter left Haruto ready to receive Tessai’s instruction in Hadō #99: Goryū Tenmetsu.

• Haruto reflected that the Quincy threat was settled for now and that the Shusuha siblings were safe in Karakura Town.
• Tessai Tsukabishi met Haruto and offered to repay the favor Haruto had done the Kidō Corps during the Valley of Screams incident.
• Tessai explained that Haruto could learn either Bakudō #99: Kin or Hadō #99: Goryū Tenmetsu, though the Central 46 Chambers officially permitted access to only one.
• Tessai warned Haruto not to use both spells openly at an inappropriate time.
• Tessai gave Haruto the secret transmission for Hadō #99: Goryū Tenmetsu, and Haruto asked him to teach the spell.

Haruto learned the principles of Five Dragon Destruction from Tessai Tsukabishi and recognized how he could adapt his own Kidō into elemental dragons. Tessai then began teaching him the second part of Bakudō #99, Bankin.

• Tessai Tsukabishi asked Haruto to shape Hadō #88 into a stable lightning dragon, and Haruto did so with ease.
• Haruto proposed combining multiple elements for Five Dragon Destruction, and Tessai explained the risks and destructive power of creating each dragon.
• Haruto identified ice, lightning, gravity, space, and Ittō Kasō as possible foundations for his own version of the spell.
• Haruto formed two miniature dragons and told Tessai he could finish learning Five Dragon Destruction from the secret scroll.
• Tessai explained that the scroll's writing would disappear within twenty-four hours after Haruto left, then summoned a puppet to demonstrate Bankin, the second part of Bakudō #99.

Haruto copied Tessai Tsukabishi’s Bankin Taihō and asked whether he had stronger Kidō before suggesting he leave for Hueco Mundo. The Tsunayashiro Clan then plotted to block Haruto’s rise, and a week later Ayaka hurried to warn him during his vacation.

• Haruto restrained the puppet with Tessai Tsukabishi’s Bankin and demonstrated that he could cast Bankin Taihō before Tessai finished.
• Haruto analyzed Bankin’s three forms and asked Tessai whether he knew any stronger techniques; Tessai stayed silent about the forbidden spells.
• At a clan meeting, the Tsunayashiro Clan head decided to use Haruto’s conflict with the clan to undermine Shigekuni Yamamoto’s plans to promote him.
• A week later, Haruto enjoyed a vacation at the Ōmae Kagura Dessert Shop after being recalled from the World of the Living.
• Ayaka smacked Haruto with a rolled-up newspaper and scolded him for joking while she tried to warn him.

Haruto learned that the Tsunayashiro Clan had blocked his promotion to nobility by influencing the Noble Assembly, but he accepted the loss as less costly than what the clan had spent. He then asked Kaien how the Thirteenth Division had changed since Haruto joined, and Kaien credited him with helping it through difficult years.

• Ayaka complained about rumors targeting Haruto and urged him to care about his promotion, but Haruto said he was not ready to become a captain or noble.
• Kaien visited Haruto and confirmed that the Noble Assembly had rejected his promotion after the Tsunayashiro Clan worked against it.
• Haruto said the Tsunayashiro Clan had paid a heavy price to block the proposal, while he had lost only some reputation.
• Ayaka proposed that Haruto punish the Tsunayashiro Clan, but Haruto admitted he was not strong enough to challenge its Captain-level fighters.
• Haruto asked Kaien how the Thirteenth Division had changed since he joined, and Kaien said Haruto had helped Captain Ukitake and Miyako keep the division functioning and had reduced mission casualties.

Haruto decided to leave the Thirteenth Division and seek a place in the Second Division’s Stealth Force, hoping to confront the nobles who had bullied him. After the transfer received First Division approval, he arrived at the Second Division barracks, where Yoruichi was waiting.

• Haruto told Kaien he wanted to leave the Thirteenth Division and join the Second Division rather than return to the Sixth Division, and Kaien supported his decision.
• Haruto asked Shinichiraku Ōmaeda to contact Marechiyo, who could help arrange the transfer.
• Genshirō Okikiba approved Haruto’s transfer and gave him a sealed document, recognizing that Haruto was also avoiding a captain appointment and quietly protecting him from the Captain-Commander’s displeasure.
• Haruto and Ōmaeda went to the Second Division barracks, where Yoruichi presided over a meeting of the division’s Seated Officers.

Haruto argued that the Stealth Force should come under the Shihoin Clan’s control, and Yoruichi appointed him to lead its Patrol Corps and serve as deputy commander. He prepared to use his new authority to remove Tsunayashiro-aligned nobles from the force and purge troublesome members of its other branches.

• Haruto told Yoruichi that the Central 46 Chambers’ control of the Stealth Force showed disrespect for the Shihoin Clan, and offered to help restore the clan’s authority.
• Yoruichi made Haruto the Second Division’s lieutenant and captain’s aide, and appointed him captain of the Stealth Force’s Patrol Corps.
• Haruto planned to use a list supplied by the Kuchiki Clan to purge nobles allied with the Tsunayashiro Clan from the Punishment Force.
• Yoruichi appointed Haruto deputy commander of the Stealth Force, giving him authority over its other branches beneath her own.
• Yoruichi backed Haruto’s plan to clean out pests throughout the Stealth Force, and Haruto agreed.

Yoruichi offered Haruto the Shihoin surname, explaining that the clan could grant it without the Golden Seal Noble Assembly’s approval. Haruto agreed to meet her grandmother and was told that the journey to the family residence had also tested him.

• Yoruichi proposed that Haruto take the Shihoin Clan surname, and Haruto agreed after learning the clan had special legal authority to grant it without Assembly approval.
• Yoruichi invited Haruto to meet her grandmother, and Haruto followed her, planning to bring Isane a souvenir from the Shihoin Clan.
• Yoruichi and Haruto reached the Shihoin Clan’s main residence side hall at high speed.
• Yoruichi confirmed that the trip was the second test of Haruto, while the first had been a check of his skin color.

Yoruichi brought Haruto before Senya Shihoin, who agreed to add him to the clan’s external register if he passed an assessment. Senya then urged Haruto to pursue Yoruichi before sending him to the training ground for the test.

• Haruto agreed that taking the Shihoin name was unnecessary and said he did not care whether his future children could inherit it.
• Senya Shihoin agreed to add Haruto to the family’s external register if he passed an assessment, then sent Yoruichi and Haruto to prepare for it.
• Senya told Haruto to make an effort to win Yoruichi over and dismissed Kisuke Urahara as a poor romantic candidate.
• Haruto entered the Shihoin Clan’s back-courtyard training ground and noted the strength of its barrier and defenses.

Yoruichi tested Haruto’s Hakuda by requiring him to grasp Shunkō before she defeated him in a spar. After Yoruichi demonstrated the technique, Haruto immediately developed a water-based defensive Shunkō, leaving her to praise his talent.

• Yoruichi told Haruto that his Hakuda test was to learn the basic form of Shunkō during a spar before she defeated him.
• Yoruichi explained that she had invented Shunkō by combining her family’s Hakuda techniques with Kidō, then demonstrated her lightning-based form.
• Haruto understood how Shunkō circulated Reiatsu and adapted the technique without needing its opening stance.
• Haruto activated a water-based Shunkō that drove Yoruichi’s lightning back across the training ground.
• Yoruichi, bewildered that Haruto had mastered the technique before their spar began, praised his talent.

Yoruichi pushed herself to create and briefly maintain the Thunder God Battle Form, then watched Haruto reproduce Shunkō as a water-themed form using Quincy techniques. Haruto argued that Shunkō’s complete form would compress Reiatsu over the body, leaving Yoruichi to consider his idea.

• Yoruichi controlled her unstable Reiatsu and formed the Thunder God Battle Form, but it lasted only a few seconds before dissolving.
• Yoruichi admitted she could not yet maintain the new Shunkō in battle and went to find food.
• Haruto said he had understood Yoruichi’s form and combined Shunkō with Quincy: Letzt Stil to create the Water God Battle Form.
• Yoruichi laughed at Haruto’s feather-robe-like appearance, then asked what he meant when he said the form was incomplete.
• Haruto suggested that Shunkō’s complete form would compress Reiatsu and cover the body, and Yoruichi seriously considered his idea.

Haruto demonstrated Shunkō: Ultimate Hollow God Form, a powerful but short-lived transformation that fused Soul Reaper, Quincy, and Hollow powers. After discussing its extreme cost with Yoruichi, he rejected her apparent suggestion that he become head of the Shihoin Clan.

• Haruto combined his Reiatsu with the Reishi drawn in by Quincy: Letzt Stil and transformed into a humanoid Hollow-like form.
• Yoruichi confirmed that Haruto remained conscious and asked about his transformation, which he named Shunkō: Ultimate Hollow God Form.
• Haruto explained that the form gave him roughly a tenfold boost but consumed power at a hundred times his normal rate.
• Haruto said he could maintain the form for only fifteen seconds at full effort and would be bedridden for half a year afterward.
• Yoruichi began suggesting something, but Haruto refused before she finished, assuming she meant for him to become head of the Shihoin Clan.

Haruto accepted Yoruichi’s gift of the Shihoin Clan’s Cloud-Rending Silk Brocade and warned her that hidden betrayal threatened the clan. He then went to Naa Ichihara in East Rukongai to recruit a reliable helper for work in the Seireitei.

• Yoruichi told Haruto that mastering Shunkō completed the trials for receiving the Shihoin Clan name, then gave him the Cloud-Rending Silk Brocade.
• Yoruichi explained that the scarf could seal a Zanpakuto’s release and transport things through space, and Haruto decided not to announce his clan name yet.
• Haruto warned Yoruichi that nobles served their own interests and that unseen betrayal was the most dangerous.
• Haruto visited Naa Ichihara at Elegy and asked her to help him find someone reliable for work in the Seireitei.
• Naa Ichihara asked whether Haruto had transferred divisions after he said he was not suited to Second Division work.

Haruto recruited Naa Ichihara as adjutant of the Second Unit and arranged support for her gang in Rukongai. A month later, the nobles learned that a Shihoin retainer they had bribed had been executed, with Haruto connected to the punishment.

• Naa Ichihara accepted Haruto's offer to become adjutant of the Second Unit, the Patrol Corps.
• Naa asked about leaving Jōsuke in charge of her gang, and Haruto offered help through Kaien and the Shiba Clan.
• Haruto took Naa to the Eighth Division to consolidate intelligence before she joined the Stealth Force.
• Over the following month, the nobles grew frightened as insiders in the Stealth Force were killed and their past wrongdoings exposed.
• After the Noble Assembly, clan heads received news that the Fifth Seat of the Second Division and commander of the Executive Militia had been executed at Sōkyoku Hill on Central 46's decision.

After the nobles paid Haruto Shihoin substantial compensation, he prepared to leave for Hueco Mundo to reinforce the expeditionary force. He reached the Kidō Corps headquarters to meet Kirio Hikifune before departing.

• Yoruichi surveyed the nobles’ offerings and learned that most of the remaining wealth would fund the Second Division.
• Yoruichi suggested Haruto hide in Hueco Mundo after his actions stirred up trouble, and Haruto agreed to join the expeditionary force.
• Haruto planned to publicly pressure the Tsunayashiro Clan for leaving the expedition without support.
• At the Seireitei Research Institute, Hikifune Sae told Haruto that Kirio Hikifune was at the Kidō Corps headquarters and requested more five-color daifuku.
• Haruto gave Sae a new Ōmaekagura Clan product and went to the Kidō Corps headquarters, where he found Tessai Tsukabishi and Kirio Hikifune.

Haruto tested the Black Gate and arrived in Hueco Mundo, where more than twenty Gillian immediately surrounded him. After he destroyed them with Zanka no Tachi, he observed how Menos Grande died differently there.

• Haruto learned that Kirio Hikifune and Tessai Tsukabishi had built the experimental Black Gate and intended him to test it on his way to Hueco Mundo.
• Isane arrived to say goodbye and gave Haruto a handmade hairpin, while delivering a second hairpin from Byakuya.
• Haruto entered the Black Gate and reached Hueco Mundo in less than five minutes.
• More than twenty Gillian surrounded Haruto and began charging Cero.
• Haruto killed the Gillian with Zanka no Tachi and noticed that their remains became bizarre skeletons and gray-white powder.

Haruto found a slaughtered Soul Reaper detachment in the Forest of Menos, learned from the dying Genya Sakurai that Kanmuri Yasu was leading a breakout, and hurried after him. Kanmuri was trapped in the desert with only a handful of survivors, facing several Adjuchas.

• Haruto sensed a gathering of Gillians and found the remains of a Hueco Mundo Expeditionary Force detachment among them.
• Haruto burned the Gillians and examined the fallen Soul Reapers, then used his power to revive Genya Sakurai briefly.
• Genya told Haruto that Captain Kanmuri Yasu had led the survivors in a breakout, and Haruto cremated the dead before pursuing them.
• Kanmuri used Bankai to cut down one Adjuchas, but the remaining Adjuchas kept attacking as fewer than ten Soul Reapers survived around him.
• Kanmuri judged that he could kill at most one more Adjuchas before he and the remaining Soul Reapers were overwhelmed.

Haruto arrived in Hueco Mundo and rescued Kanmuri Yasu and the 11th Division expeditionary force from four winged Adjuchas. After learning the Adjuchas had been tasked with killing the Soul Reapers, Haruto fought them as they coordinated their attacks, and the battle continued with them diving at him past his Kidō barrier.

• Haruto killed one Adjuchas with a modified Kurohitsugi and used Bakudō #99: Bankin to release Kanmuri Yasu's Bankai and restore his Reiatsu.
• Haruto confronted the remaining four Adjuchas, who said they had been assigned to kill every Soul Reaper in the 11th Division.
• Haruto decided not to let the Adjuchas escape and clashed with their combined Ceros using Byakurai.
• The Adjuchas attacked Haruto from four directions with Lanza del Relámpago, and he blocked them with Bakudō #81, Eight-Direction Dankū.
• The Adjuchas climbed above the Kidō wall and plunged toward Haruto from overhead.

Haruto captured several Adjuchas with Kidō and began negotiating for information, but an unseen attacker killed them and the expedition members with a sudden beam attack. A powerful, humanoid Menos Grande appeared and regarded Haruto as potential experimental material.

• Haruto trapped and captured three Adjuchas with Bakudō, including Shiryū and Supernal Jail.
• Haruto offered to release the Adjuchas if their leader gave him truthful information, and the leader agreed to talk.
• A pinkish-purple beam killed the Adjuchas leader and scattered into attacks aimed at Haruto and those nearby.
• Haruto raised a combined Kidō barrier, but the attacks curved around it and destroyed the Adjuchas, Kanmuri Yasu, and the expedition members.
• A humanoid Menos Grande with a small bone-white mask fragment appeared before Haruto and called him good experimental material.