Bleach/Gather Together! Group of the Strongest Shinigami!

Gather Together! Group of the Strongest Shinigami!
Season 3, Episode 21
Airdate	December 20, 2005
Production Number	62
Written by	Genki Yoshimura Masahiro Okubo Masashi Sogo Michiko Yokote Natsuko Takahashi Rika Nakase
Directed by	Noriyuki Abe
← 3x20 Aizen Stands! Horrible Ambitions	3x22 → Rukia's Resolution, Ichigo's Feelings
Bleach — Season Three

Gather Together! Group of the Strongest Shinigami! is the twenty-first episode of the third season of Bleach, and the sixty-second episode overall.

Co-Stars: Kyle Hebert (Sosuke Aizen), Beau Billingslea (Sajin Komamura), J.B. Blanc (Kaname Tosen), Kyle Hebert (Ganju Shiba), Doug Erholtz (Gin Ichimaru), Jessica Straus (Kūkaku Shiba), Cindy Robinson (Soi Fong), Wendee Lee (Yoruichi Shihouin), Megan Hollingshead (Rangiku Matsumoto), Steve Cassling (Tetsuzaemon Iba), Liam O'Brien (Jushiro Ukitake), Cam Clarke (Yasochika Iemura), Kate Higgins (Retsu Unohona)

Plot Overview

After his incredibly long speech detailing his plot to become more powerful than a soul reaper is meant to be, Aizen was attacked by Captain Komamura. Komamura can't believe that Aizen could have betrayed the order, and finds the fact that his friend Tousen was a pawn in Aizen's game. After a brief flashback showing how Komamura met Tosen and how the two grew as soul reapers under the eye of then Lieutenant Aizen. But, because Komamura has seen Aizen's bankai in the past, he's completely hypnotized and is taken down quickly with a level 90 spell.

Now that he has that distraction out of the way and is allowing Ichimaru to hold Ichigo's friends at bay by increasing his spiritual pressure, Aizen goes on with his explanation. He tells Rukia that he killed the Central Office 46 officers as soon as he heard that Rukia was spotted in the living world. He used his power on the administration and the three officers manipulated the remaining administrative personnel into believing that everything was fine. Moving out of the past, Aizen explains what he plans on doing to Rukia. Because her soul wasn't evaporated by the execution device, he must forcibly detach the hollow device from her soul using something he discovered in a spirit document written by Urahara. In that pile of research, he discovered a tool which would allow him to plunge his hand into her chest and remove the gem. Despite this process, Aizen's actions don't harm Rukia at all. Still, because she has no use to him now, he tells Ichimaru to kill her. Ichimaru uses his extending sword to attack her, but at the last moment, Byakuya appears and takes the hit for her instead.

Seeing as how Ichimaru couldn't kill Rukia, Aizen steps forward to do it himself, but he's suddenly attacked by Kukaku Shiba riding on the shoulders of Jidanbou. He's knocked back and both Soi Fong and Yoruichi take the chance to put Aizen on the defensive by threatening decapitation if he moves. While they hold off Aizen, Rangiku puts her own sword to Ichimaru's neck. Shortly after she appears, the remaining lieutenants and captains also take positions on the hill and block any method of escape.

Just as quickly as the captains seal off Aizen's escape routes, he creates a new one. A towering beam of light appears around Aizen and tears a hole in the sky, which is pulled apart by dozens of Menos Grandes. Two more beams of light, called Negacion, appear around Tousen and Ichimaru as well and the three are lifted into the air. They're all forced to let them go, because otherwise the Menos would retaliate. When the three accept their places in the Menos' hands, the hole in the sky closes abruptly and Aizen claims that he's ascending to his throne in heaven.

Much later, the fourth division tends to the wounds of the wounded on the execution hill. Two squad members hesitate when Iemura tells them to tend to Ichigo's wounds, but he makes them realize that Ichigo and his friends are the saviors of the soul society. Additionally, Orihime works with the squad to heal the wounded, especially Ichigo. Eventually Unohona arrives and tells everyone that Toshiro and Momo have survived, but their healing is dependent on their wills. She tends to Byakuya until he asks that she bring Rukia to him. He tells her a story about how he lost his wife 50 years ago, a woman who Rukia greatly resembles.

Rukia was told that she was adopted into the Kuchiki family because of this resemblance, but that isn't entirely true. Hisana was Rukia's older sister. She abandoned Rukia as a baby because she didn't know how to care for both of them and survive. Her condition worsened over the years, but she continued to search for Rukia until her death. Rukia was found the year following Hisana's death and she was brought into the fold immediately, despite the protests of his contemporaries who told him that he was breaking the rules for bringing a commoner into the family. To amend for this, he made an oath to his parents to never break the rules again. The two oaths that he made were put in opposition to each other until Ichigo made him realize that his oath to his former wife was more important than the law of the land. He apologizes to Rukia and looks into her eyes for the first time ever.