Cloning Arrancar

Before shedding its Hollow shell, this creature calls to mind an armadillo, its back sheathed in brown fur while pale purple limbs taper into a darker band just above the feet. A featureless mask dominated by one wide mouth caps its head and runs the length of its spine, sprouting spikes at regular intervals. Ascension to Arrancar swells its frame considerably: the front limbs lengthen into clawed arms, and the mask splits open to expose a face lit by black-rimmed yellow eyes. Fresh growths jut from the sides of that mask, three orange tufts crown it, and a doubled Hollow hole, formed as though two openings had merged, sits at the middle of its chest.

The Arrancar surfaces in Karakura Town during Hitsugaya's guard detail, luring lost souls with the notes of an ocarina. Rangiku Matsumoto first crosses it while shielding a Plus named Shota Toyokawa, noting that its spiritual pressure reads closer to an Arrancar than a common Hollow. Ikkaku Madarame fells the first specimen with ease, yet identical duplicates keep appearing, and the enemy boasts that culling copies accomplishes nothing. The Research Institute uncovers the truth: these are not separate beings but fragments dispatched to harvest souls, steered by a hidden original. Its strength stems from consuming the highly spiritual soul of Shota's sister, Yui, whom it turns into a clone before absorbing the rest. Fixing on Shota as its true target, it retreats into a private dimension and floods the town with copies. The team finally pinpoints it through the transmitter buried in the ocarina's sound. Hitsugaya, his power throttled by a limiter seal, punches through the barrier and forces the Arrancar into the open, where it releases its blade and brags of iron skin surpassing an Espada. Rangiku and Shota take up her sword together and cut it down, and its death frees every soul it had swallowed.

Its defining gift is replication, spawning a seemingly endless swarm of Hollow-form doubles that gather souls at a distance and funnel that power back to the source; by its own claim, the rate of copying multiplies sixteenfold each day. The clones double as infiltrators, able to assume the exact shape of any soul they have eaten and mimic its memories and feelings while masking their Hollow nature, though a sufficiently strong spirit can briefly throw off their control. Feeding on nearly all of Karakura's souls leaves it with a large reserve of red spiritual energy, and it proves a competent enough swordsman to press Rangiku for a time. It can also bend souls through the ocarina's melody, marching Pluses into the jaws of its copies, and shelter its core inside a pocket dimension to hide its presence while the clones operate. Its sword, Dientes, Spanish for teeth, answers the command to crunch: in Resurreccion its arms become spiked, club-like masses and a serpentine form rises overhead to strike from range, while its already sturdy Hierro grows tough enough to shrug off a restricted Hitsugaya.