Her Name is Nel! The Appearance of the Strange Arrancar

A chaotic game of tag ends the moment Ichigo cracks his sheathed Zangetsu across Dondochakka's face while Chad and Uryu pile onto Pesche and Bawabawa from above. The small hooded figure they were chasing turns out to be Nel Tu, who tearfully begs the intruders to stop bullying her friends. Once the misunderstanding clears, Nel names herself an Arrancar and points to the fractured mask on her head, while Pesche and Dondochakka claim to be her older brothers and Bawabawa their pet.

Ichigo notes how little these three resemble the fighters he battled back home, and Nel explains that those were Números, elite Arrancar serving the Espada. When she finally registers that Ichigo is a Substitute Shinigami, Uryu a Quincy, and Chad a Human, the trio panics and brands them enemies. Rather than fight, Nel restarts her endless tag by snatching Zangetsu off Ichigo's back and bolting, dragging everyone into a frantic chase that ends when she trips and Ichigo yanks her clear of being crushed.

His kindness stuns her, but the reunion sours when Runuganga, guardian of the white sand, rises up to destroy the intruders and the Arrancar who helped them. Ichigo learns the hard way that slicing the creature does nothing, since it simply reforms from loose sand, and it soon buries the group in an antlion pit while conjuring sandstorms.

Cornered, Nel reveals that water is the guardian's one weakness, an impossible resource in the desert, until a wave of freezing air locks Runuganga in ice and shatters him. The rescuers are Rukia and Renji, newly arrived in Hueco Mundo in desert cloaks. Rukia greets Ichigo with a punch for leaving without her, then presses him about whether he still counts her and Renji as friends he can rely on, a question he quickly answers. The pair explain that Byakuya ordered them brought back but not stopped from returning, and that Urahara opened the Garganta for the trip. Nel, now trailing along to guide them to Las Noches, plants herself on Ichigo's lap and glares jealously at Rukia. The reunion is cut short when Runuganga, who survived the ice in this version, surges up out of the sand once more.

Part of the first half of the Hueco Mundo arc, the episode adapts chapter 246 and the opening pages of chapter 247. It runs the opening After Dark and the ending Tane wo Maku Hibi. The closing Arrancar Encyclopedia segment has Gin Ichimaru walk through Arrancar transformation, noting that only Vasto Lorde reliably take a fully human shape while most Adjuchas and Gillian cannot, before pointing to the completely humanoid Nel as a rare exception. The adaptation reworks several beats from the manga, most notably keeping Runuganga alive after the ice strike so he can menace the group again, whereas the original chapter has the same attack finish him for good.