Nel's Secret, a Big-Breasted Beauty Joins the Battle!?

Nnoitra taunts Ichigo and Orihime, insisting the small Nel they trust was once an Espada who deceived them. Nel denies it, saying she only wanted to have fun at Ichigo's side, but Nnoitra keeps up his assault, boasting that he cracked her skull open and dumped her outside Las Noches long ago. Ichigo charges again and again in her defense despite being hopelessly outclassed, until Nnoitra hoists him up and snaps his wrist.

As Nel screams his name, an explosion swallows her. When the smoke lifts, she stands transformed into her adult body and uses Sonido to carry Ichigo clear of Nnoitra's reach. Thanking him for helping her recover her true shape, she tells him to wait and turns to fight, revealing the number three tattooed across her back.

Nel draws blood at once, weaving around Nnoitra's strikes with vastly greater speed. When he fires a Cero, she absorbs the blast and hurls it back doubled as her Cero Doble.

The counterattack throws Tesra aside and scorches Nnoitra, though he survives largely unhurt. He admits he had forgotten Nel's absorbing ability and warns her that the world has moved on. Whatever rank she once held, he tells her, the number on her back no longer carries any weight, because the Espada have grown far beyond what she remembers.

Nel holds firm and tells Ichigo it is now her turn to protect him. Elsewhere, Pesche and Dondochakka feel Nel's spiritual pressure shift and recognize it as her own, while a battling Renji and Uryu sense the enormous new presence and wonder who could possibly command such power.

The episode adapts chapters 290 through 292 during the second half of the Hueco Mundo arc and marks Nel's dramatic return to her original Espada form. A Shinigami Illustrated Picture Book segment finds Renji dragged into a calligraphy club with Byakuya, Ukitake, and Unohana, where a chocolate Wakame Ambassador scares Yachiru away.