eyes of the unknown

The new term opens with Ichigo balancing homeroom against monster-hunting. His father Isshin knots a protective charm onto his uniform, and at school the familiar chaos resumes, Keigo tackled aside, Chizuru kicked off Orihime by Tatsuki, and Uryu sniping at Ichigo's hair. Trouble stirs when Tatsuki notices, and can somehow see, the Substitute Shinigami Badge poking from Ichigo's pocket.

As homeroom teacher Misato Ochi announces a new transfer student, the badge blares a Hollow warning that only Ichigo can hear, and he ducks out with a flimsy excuse, trailed by Orihime and Sado. Tatsuki, watching from the window, is stunned to glimpse him crossing the field in his Shinigami form. Ichigo cuts down the pig-masked Hollow with ease and remarks that he managed it alone, then asks after the absent Uryu. Orihime lets slip that Uryu has been unwell since before they left Soul Society and prefers to hide his troubles, so the group agrees to feign ignorance. Unseen overhead, a grinning Shinji Hirako hangs upside down in the air and marks Ichigo as the one he has been looking for.

The fifth chapter of the twenty-first volume returns the series to school-life comedy while planting the arc's key hooks: Tatsuki's budding spiritual awareness, Uryu's lost powers, and the arrival of Shinji Hirako. Its content was drawn on for anime episodes sixty-four and one hundred ten.