Warning: Contains spoilers for Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War episode #16 and Can't Fear Your Own World.Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War has been telling an anime-exclusive story since the beginning of part 2, and it teases a dark, alternate finale for Ichigo. Several years after Bleach ended, Ryogo Narita published the Can’t Fear Your Own World novels, which expanded on the series lore and cleared up loose ends from the original series. A big part of that was expanding on Ichibe Hyosube’s intentions for Ichigo, as it’s revealed that he planned on Ichigo losing to Yhwach so he could make him the new Soul King, which would mean trapping Ichigo in a near-death state while his spiritual energy maintains the balance between the realms.

https://screenrant.com/bleach-dark-finale-ichigo-anime-exclusive-story/