There Will Be Frost

Introducing himself as the Tenth Division's captain, Toshiro Hitsugaya is met by Gerard Valkyrie, who names himself a member of the "benevolent" Schutzstaffel, cracks the ice off his arm, and offers friendship in the same breath he flattens the ground where the captain stood. Hitsugaya slips aside, declines the offer, and calls up his Bankai, Daiguren Hyorinmaru, sheathing the upper half of the giant in ice as Momo Hinamori steadies a wounded Shinji Hirako nearby.

A memory surfaces of a young Uryu Ishida finding his father cutting into the corpse of his mother, Kanae Katagiri, and begging him to stop. Years afterward, when Ichigo Kurosaki asked whether a doctor's son should really attend an ordinary high school, Uryu confessed he no longer wished to become a doctor, unwilling to hold a profession that had required his father to dissect his own dead wife.

In the present, Jugram Haschwalth approaches Uryu, remarking that something weighs on him, and admits that his nightly borrowing of Yhwach's foresight reveals nothing but worry. He discloses that he has uncovered countless small chips Uryu scattered throughout Wahrwelt, ones resembling the component of the Leiden Hant carried by Soken Ishida. When Uryu denies knowing them, Haschwalth decides to test his suspicion of betrayal, draws his sword, and strikes, sending Uryu flying. As Uryu calls for him to wait, he finds Ichigo standing in his way.

Hitsugaya begins his fight against Gerard with Daiguren Hyorinmaru. Flashbacks explain why Uryu abandoned medicine, tied to his mother's death and his father Ryuken's grim work. Haschwalth exposes the hidden chips Uryu planted, attacks him as a suspected traitor, and the collision throws Uryu into an unexpected reunion with Ichigo.

This chapter braids the ice battle with Uryu's long-concealed scheme against the Wandenreich, setting up the confrontation that dominates the rest of Volume 72. Its scenes appear in episode 405, The Visible Answer, and episode 406, My Last Words. Haschwalth's power to trade abilities with Yhwach after dark is a recurring thread here.