Bleach/Fight to the Death! Ichigo vs. Ichigo

Fight to the Death! Ichigo vs. Ichigo
Season 1, Episode 6
Airdate	November 9, 2004
Production Number	06
Written by	—
Directed by	Noriyuki Abe
ADR Writer(s)	Carl Macek Liam O'Brien Mark Ryan Michael Sorich
ADR Director(s)	Michael Sorich
← 1x05 Beat the Invisible Enemy!	1x07 → Greetings from a Stuffed Toy
Bleach — Season One

Fight to the Death! Ichigo vs. Ichigo is the sixth episode of the first season of Bleach. Rukia purchases some soul candy from Urahara so that he can transform into a shinigami without Rukia's help, but both are unaware that the defective candy contains a mod soul.

Co-Stars: Jeannie Elias (Jinta Hanakari), Michael Sorich (Tessai Tsukabishi), Wendee Lee (Ururu Tsumugiya, Tatsuki Arisawa), Michael Lindsay (Kisuke Urahara), Jessica Straus (Chizuru Honsho)

Plot Overview

Rukia has disappeared from Ichigo's closet after considering the constantly weakening connection between her human body and the soul society from which she came. He passes off her disappearance as yet another pain that he'll have to deal with sometime later while she appears in a small shop owned by a man wearing a green striped hat across town. The shop appears to be a paranormal dealership which allows people to imbue themselves with the faked powers of soul reapers. He warns her that she can't over do her power synthesis and gives her a special order she made, marked as "new item."

She gets to school several hours late and forcefully drags Ichigo out of class to give him her new acquisition, a PEZ dispenser full of substitute soul pills which will pop his soul out of his body should he need to fight a hollow if Rukia isn't around. He makes fun of her choice in dispensers and she makes him try one. The new soul inhabits Ichigo's body and Rukia takes him away to an assignment, leaving the phony Ichigo to go to class. Meanwhile, back at the soul shop, the manager finds the box that Ururu thought was marked "new item;" It was actually marked "defective goods" and the substitute soul is not the flawless double that it was meant to be. Urahara realizes that they need to contain the mistake before the substitute causes too much damage. It's fine sentiment, but the double starts causing trouble almost immediately.

Ichigo defeats a Hollow across town and the two rush back to school just in time to see a desk get thrown through a window by Tatsuki, who was obviously offended by the substitute's overly flirtatious behavior. Ichigo and Rukia corner the soul in a class room, but Ichigo gets beaten senseless by his own body. The body escapes through a window and Rukia realizes that it was no ordinary soul candy that Ichigo ate, it was a mod soul. She explains that mod souls are manufactured modified souls that were placed into corpses to create soldiers against the hollows. The project, "Spearhead," was reprehensible and morally questionable, but it imbued the ordinary body with superhuman abilities. The project was rejected in the end and the mod souls were ordered for destruction. Obviously, not all of the souls were destroyed.

Although the mod soul is wrecking havoc in Ichigo's body, he finds the soul society's decision to destroy the souls for doing exactly what they created them for to be suspect. Ichigo broods while pursuing the soul, considering that it must be in agony having to constantly run from the soul reapers. But, in actuality, the soul is having a good time making a spectical of himself until he reaches some grade school kids playing a video game that mirrors his life. He tries to attack them, but Ichigo stops him just in time.