The Nightmare Arrancar! Team Hitsugaya Moves Out

Beneath the Visored warehouse, a masked Ichigo spars with Hiyori Sarugaki, whose Reiatsu-charged blade and point-blank Cero keep shattering his Hollow mask. Shinji reports that his endurance has grown by only half a second, leaving the group unimpressed but committed to continuing. In Karakura Town, Hitsugaya's stationed team learns that Renji is lodging with Kisuke Urahara to train Yasutora Sado, and the captain stresses that everyone must grow stronger to stand against the Arrancar. Rangiku slips away to shop, buying armfuls of clothes before picking up an ocarina-shaped stone necklace.

When she blows into it, a haunting melody answers, and the same tune reaches Hitsugaya, Ikkaku, and Yumichika across the city. Spiritual activity flares on her Denreishinki, so Rangiku leaves her Gigai in the care of her gikon Momone and rushes off. She finds Shōta Toyokawa, a Soul with an intact Chain of Fate, being pursued by a huge eyeless Hollow. The creature catches her blade in its teeth and unleashes a murky, powerful Reiatsu, leading her to realize it is actually an immature Arrancar rather than an ordinary Hollow.

Ikkaku drops in and finishes the Arrancar with his Shikai, Hōzukimaru, remarking that it was barely a warm-up. Hitsugaya concludes that Aizen sent it deliberately and contacts Soul Society, where Ukitake begins analyzing the report. The stubborn, insulting Shōta refuses to be sent on and reveals only that he is searching for someone he must meet. That night he tries to steal Rangiku's Zanpakutō and slip away; she catches him, forces an apology, and coaxes out his name. Just then the melody returns, and an Arrancar identical to the first appears atop a nearby building.

A strange whistling melody from an ocarina necklace signals the arrival of a new breed of foe. Rangiku encounters the wandering Soul Shōta Toyokawa and identifies his eyeless pursuer as an incomplete Arrancar with unusually murky Reiatsu, which Ikkaku destroys. Hitsugaya deduces Aizen is behind the incursion and reports it to Soul Society. Shōta refuses passage on, admits he is looking for someone, and by the episode's end a second, physically identical Arrancar materializes, confirming the enemy comes in copies. The Arrancar Encyclopedia segment has Gin explain that an Arrancar's Zanpakutō release restores its true form before Grimmjow interrupts him.

An anime-only entry in the Arrancar arc, this episode adapts no manga chapters. It premiered in Japan on June 6, 2007, and in English on June 27, 2009, using the opening Alones and the ending Tsumasaki. A trivia point observes that Hiyori's Cero here is light-blue and fired from her open palm with her mask partly off, whereas her first canonical Cero in episode 279 is deep red and fired from her mouth with the mask fully on.