Hisugaya-taichou walks up to the gates and his squad burst out into an excited response like a bunch of puppies jumping all over the master when he returns home. It seems excessive, but I'm impressed by how much they really love him. Well, Hitsugaya gives orders for Koga's non-existant remains to be buried, even though there isn't a body. Huh? Say, what? :twitch: And he looked so intelligent last episode.

All of our characters take shelter in 10th squad HQ as Hitsugaya's punishment for borrowing Claude. He should have known that you can't get rid of pests if you feed them. Even Inoue has shown up and is healing Ishida so that he can go and fight Kariya. After all, anyone who could barely beat a weakling like Yoshi (who barely beat de-powered Rukia) doesn't stand a chance against Kariya and Ishida wants to get his ass kicked take responsibility for being a stupidhead letting the bounto into Soul Society.

Meanwhile Nanao reports to Old Man Yama about Kyouraku and Ukitake digging in the Central Library archives for Ran'Tao's diary. So far they've even found out something intersting: It takes a full day for Joukaishou's power to build after activation. Then Yama once again demonstrates his awesome power of stating the obvious by saying, "So this is why Kariya said he would give us one more day" and that Kariya "is an enemy that we must not underestimate." And my favorite, "We must capture Kariya as soon as possible!" No duh, dude! I can see why they made you their leader. Finally he makes a tough decision, "It seems that we no longer have enough time to hold meetings with all the captains." Wow he's brilliant. Considering that these meetings have contained ZERO useful ideas and a lot of pointless recap that they could have learned by reading a memo, it is about time he gave up the meetings. I guess at his age, these meetings are his one joy in life. Well, he gives Captain Ukitake orders to continue searching the documents (just like Ukitake already decided on his own) since they still haven't settled the recent librarian's strike. Damn that librarian's union for insisting on better pay to do such research!

Well, now we know why Yamamoto Genryuusai is the leader of the Gotei 13. He's brilliant and insightful. Right? Am I the only one who is wondering why we see him every single episode lately?

Isane informs Hitsugaya that of the captains, Soi Fon and Kurotsuchi are recovering from their wounds, Kyouraku and Utitake are busy playing librarian together, and Komamura is busy guarding Yamamoto. Since we were already aware that Zaraki hasn't returned after beating the snot out of Ichinose, that doesn't leave anyone to deal with Kariya except for our main characters and Hitsugaya. We're really short on manpower thanks to that darn librarian strike. I hope we settle up with their union before Seireitei is destroyed by their selfish desire for a comprehensive health plan.

As amusing and pointless as all that was, it is now time to get on with our feature presentation. Kariya broods over the city as the sun rises. Suddenly Ran'Tao appears! Kariya recognizes her at once, but it seems Ran'Tao is only interested in violence and opens up with a kidou gun before he can say more than her name. Finally Kariya interrupts her barrage to talk, but Ran'Tao wants to settle matters with her own hands. At least she does until she sees the crest on Kariya's body. Then suddenly Ran'Tao wants to talk. She recapitulates the history of the bounto's creation and then tells us how she wanted to help the bounto. She struggled to find them safe places, but when she returned to Soul Society to get help, Central 46 was determined to bury the whole bounto situation since they might cause trouble some day. Central 46 said it was all good since they couldn't enter Soul Society to launch a direct attack on Seireitei. If the sages of Central 46 hadn't all previously been killed by Aizen, they'd be feeling really embarassed about that decision, eh?

Then Ran'Tao gets to the interesting part of her reminscence. She tells about how she saved a bounto boy and gave him the secret to unlocking the power of their dolls. Eventually that boy figured out how to teach the rest of the bounto this power. And she recognizes that boy as Kariya! He gained the crest on his body as a result of the item she gave him. She tells Kariya that she's "continued to live for the sole purpose of saving you!" (Sucks she was shooting him to "end it with her own hands," eh?) Kariya is unmoved. He is going to destroy the shinigami. Why? He's just played too many RPGs and learned that clones and artificial life forms always have to destroy their creators. Even when one of those creators saved them as a child. Maybe he's just a vindictive bastard? He launches a powerful attack on Ran'Tao and... "To Be Continued."

Preview: It seems that Ran'Tao isn't dead yet because her reminscence continues.

Shinigami's Cup: Rangiku cooks rice and anko dishes! Apparently they aren't very tasty though. Shuuhei helps her because he's bored. (It's easy to get bored in the middle of a bounto invasion.) And the punchline... huh? Was there a punchline? Lame. Even Shinigami's Cup is letting me down lately. Couldn't we at least have had a comment about Shuuhei helping Rangiku to get a look at her breasts? Yeah, that would have been lame also, but at least it is an honest attempt at humor.