Imitated Gaiety

The quiet after the briefing turns personal when Hinamori steps into view behind Yamamoto on the screen, jolting Hitsugaya as Rangiku slips away to give them privacy. He notices the exhaustion still ringing her eyes even as she insists she has recovered. Hinamori apologizes for ever turning her blade on him, and he waves the guilt aside, telling her to rest and teasing that she needs far more sleep than he does before she could ever rival someone like Rangiku. The lightness breaks when she asks whether he means to fight Aizen and begs him not to kill the traitor, still grasping for excuses on Aizen's behalf.

Yamamoto ends her spiral by lulling her unconscious with Inemuri, letting Sasakibe catch her, and admits that allowing the conversation may have come too soon. Hitsugaya cuts the feed and quietly seethes at the wound Aizen left in her. Below the Urahara Shop, Chad hurls energy from his Brazo Derecha de Gigante at Renji's released blade, and a flashback lays out how the two came to spar. Urahara, feigning that he cannot even perform Bankai, needled a skeptical Renji into both training Chad and running errands for three months in return for one honest answer.

Watching the bout, Urahara privately frets that Chad's power belongs to neither Shinigami nor Quincy, an unknown quantity that troubles him. At the Visored hideout, Ichigo manages his mask for barely an instant before it cracks and earns a kick from Hiyori, while Orihime edges toward the warehouse above, sensing this is where Ichigo has hidden himself. This chapter was adapted into episode 126.