Bleach Vol. 18 — Manga Raw / Buy Official

The execution weapon, the Sokyoku, is unleashed, and atop the scaffold Rukia quietly prepares to accept her fate. In the instant the colossal blade of flame moves to pierce her, a shadow cuts across the hopeless distance and blocks it. After three days of hellish training, Ichigo has attained bankai and reached the execution grounds at last. With Rukia's relieved, astonished face at his back, he turns toward a reckoning with Byakuya. But his intrusion bursts open the rivalries the Gotei 13 had kept suppressed, and full-scale combat between the Soul Reapers erupts.