250. Five Ways To Three Figures

Racing through an arched corridor, Ichigo is caught off guard when Nel comes sobbing after him and rams into his stomach with Chōkasoku, flooring him despite his protests. She admits she abandoned Bawabawa outside, since the sandworm must keep eating sand to live, and only then notices that Pesche and Dondochakka are nowhere behind her, dissolving into tears at losing them. Ichigo, unable even to recall Dondochakka's name and confusing him with Don Kanonji, dryly points out that Nel is the one who is truly lost.

A noise from the arches overhead puts Ichigo on guard, and Dordoni Alessandro Del Socaccio makes a grand entrance that immediately collapses when he slips, tumbles to the floor, and chokes on his own dust cloud. Utterly unimpressed by the theatrics, Ichigo draws Zangetsu and flatly calls the stranger weak, which only enrages Dordoni, who boasts that Arrancar number 103 will crush him. Neither Ichigo nor Nel has ever heard of a three-digit Arrancar before.

In a hidden monitoring room, Gin Ichimaru finds Kaname Tōsen watching the intruders through cameras, the pale Wonderweiss Margela clinging nearby. As the two traitors trade barbs about who is more trustworthy, Dordoni flashes past Ichigo and opens a wound across his shoulder. Tōsen, realizing the newcomer Wonderweiss knows nothing of these fighters, explains that three-digit numbers brand former Espada who have been stripped of rank and renamed the Privaron Espada. To prove the point, Dordoni cleaves Ichigo's Getsuga Tenshō cleanly in two with Barón Puntapiés Alto and smugly warns him never to judge by appearances.

The chapter opens the fortress's gauntlet of demoted Arrancar by pitting Ichigo against his first Privaron Espada. It formally defines the Privaron Espada through Tōsen's explanation, that three-digit numbers mark warriors who once held Espada seats and were later demoted. Dordoni's effortless splitting of the Getsuga Tenshō establishes him as far stronger than his clownish arrival suggests, setting up a serious fight.

Part of the volume BARON'S LECTURE FULL-COURSE, this chapter was adapted into Episode 151. Dordoni serves as the volume's cover character. The scene also marks an early appearance for Wonderweiss Margela, the childlike Arrancar whose purpose remains a mystery even to Tōsen.