Bleach 423

Ichigo wakes up.

The end of IchigoxRukia...?

Summary:
At Soul Society, the council sentences Aizen to 20,000 years in prison due to Aizen now being immortal. Meanwhile, Yamamoto has recovered (lost his left arm) and yells at Byakuya, Kenpachi and Kyoraku for losing their captain robes. Many of the other shinigami such as Renji and Hitsugaya have gone off to hone their skills. Rangiku is observing Hitsugaya in a cave and she also thinks about Gin (who is either dead or left without a trace).

Back in the real world, Ichigo wakes up in his room surrounded by friends. Rukia explains that Ichigo has been out for a month and it's due to him losing his shinigami powers. Because of the process, Ichigo has "grown" younger and has gone back to his look before training with Isshin. Ichigo decides to step outside to look around, and he realizes that he can't sense spiritual pressures anymore and even Rukia is starting to fade away. Ichigo and Rukia bid farewell to each other and Rukia disappears from Ichigo's sight.

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The battle against Aizen is officially over, and Ichigo is back to a normal human again without shinigami powers. I kind of wished Ichigo would do something out of the ordinary when he fell down at the end of last chapter (turn into a hollow etc.), but this was the expected conclusion. In the end, none of the "good" guys actually died in the battle (Yamamoto lost an arm), which is once again no surprise as "good" characters never die in Bleach. Even Aizen is alive and as defiant as ever.

Overall, the whole battle against Aizen and his forces in fake/real Karakura Town turned into a big mess once Aizen decided that his Espadas weren't worth a shit and started going nuts, and then the whole thing ended rather anticlimactically with the new and improved Ichigo pwning Aizen with one move, but at least that part is over now and we can move on. Normally, the conclusion of the big battle would be what the end of the series, but Bleach seems to be far from over. Ichigo will eventually get his powers back (probably via how Isshin got his powers back), but in the meantime someone else (likely Rukia) might get the spotlight.

No Bleach for 2 weeks. I guess Kubo and his staff need some time to prepare the next stage of the story.