Hiding in the Dangai? Ichigo is Alone?!

Ichigo comes to at the Urahara Shop, carried there after collapsing in the rain as Kagerōza Inaba made off with Nozomi. Urahara tells him roughly half a day has passed and that the others are mending slowly thanks to Orihime, but confirms the grim news: Ichigo's Reiatsu is entirely gone, and whether he can help Nozomi is uncertain. Refusing to sit idle, Ichigo dresses and joins Urahara on a walk, reassuring Chad, Uryu, Orihime, and later Rukia and Renji that even without power he still has his resolve. In Soul Society, a badly wounded Inaba shoves aside a Reigai's offer of treatment and orders preparations for his fusion with Nozomi to begin at once.

Back at the shop, Uryu argues they should strike while Inaba is fixated on Nozomi, though the group cannot simply ignore Ichigo's absence, since Inaba fears his Hollow powers and could never make a Reigai copy of him. Urahara offers a gamble: the Cleaner, or Kōtotsu, absorbed Ichigo's Reishi, and by reversing Inaba's Reigai-creation method that energy could be rebuilt into fresh Reiryoku. Because only someone drained of Reiatsu can survive inside the Kōtotsu, Ichigo alone can retrieve it, and he agrees to the risk.

In the underground training room, Urahara separates Ichigo's soul from his body and equips him with a communicator and a device that tracks his lost Reishi. Kon, ashamed of his own helplessness, hands over Nozomi's good luck charm before Ichigo departs. Once inside the Dangai, the Kōtotsu swallows him, and though it soon tries to expel him and Urahara urges retreat, Ichigo pushes on, recovers his Reishi, and absorbs it into the device. On his way out he glimpses another version of himself and rescues it at the final moment. Safely returned, he hands the machine to Urahara, who deduces the second Ichigo was his past self from when the Cleaner first caught him. In Soul Society, Nozomi is sealed in a glass chamber flooded with pink fluid as Inaba announces that both space and time are aligned to begin.

This is an anime-original entry with no canonical manga source and no fights, set during the Gotei 13 Invading Army arc. It opens on BLUE and ends with Haruka Kanata. The lighter Shinigami Illustrated Picture Book segment shows Rukia and Renji arriving at the shop speaking in each other's voices, having swapped Gigai to trick Ichigo, until Orihime, Chad, and Uryu ask who is who and Ichigo angrily realizes those are not Gigai at all.