The Nightmare Arrancar! Team Hitsugaya Moves Out

'''The Nightmare Arrancar! Team Hitsugaya Moves Out''' is the one-hundred-twenty-eighth episode of the Bleach anime.

Statistics

 * Original Airdate: June 6, 2007
 * English Airdate: June 27, 2009
 * Opening Song: Alones
 * Ending Song: Tsumasaki
 * Manga Chapters: None.
 * Kanji: 悪夢のアランカル！日番谷隊出撃
 * Romaji: "Akumu no arankaru! Hitsugayatai shutsugeki"
 * Arc: The Arrancar arc

Summary
Ichigo Kurosaki continues his training with Hiyori Sarugaki, but he has only increased the amount of time he can use the mask for by half a second. At the Kurosaki home, Yuzu is almost in tears over how Ichigo has not come home. Isshin Kurosaki suggests that it is just Ichigo rebelling from his surroundings. Isshin recalls a similar experience in his own adolescence and feels that Ichigo is currently out somewhere satisfying his heart’s desires. Karin is also confident that Ichigo is fine, so Yuzu calms down. Meanwhile Tōshirō Hitsugaya, Rangiku Matsumoto, Ikkaku Madarame, and Yumichika Ayasegawa are at the park discussing how they need to get stronger for the upcoming battle when Rangiku decides that it is time for her to go shopping. She ends up trying on and buying lots of outfits, and then checks out an accessories store after the clothing store. There, she finds a necklace with a flute-type object attached to it, but when she blows on it, she starts to hear another sound - one that reverberates through the city. Her cell phone informs her of a Hollow in town, and since she is closest to it out of all the Shinigami, she decides to go investigate.

The sound eventually stops when Rangiku arrives at the park, but the ground suddenly explodes in front of her. A boy is tossed from the smoke, and Rangiku quickly realizes that he is a soul. This boy seems to be trying to fight a large Hollow, so Rangiku attacks it to protect him. It manages to catch her Zanpakutō swing in its mouth. Rangiku realizes that she is actually fighting something similar to an Arrancar, except that its spiritual pressure is murky. The Arrancar does not seem to care about her as much as it wants the boy, so Rangiku decides to take the boy to safety. Ikkaku then arrives and quickly destroys the enemy. Yumichika and Hitsugaya also show up because of how the Hollow’s spiritual pressure pattern had suddenly changed. They figure out that Rangiku was fighting an incomplete Arrancar - but still an Arrancar - and Hitsugaya thinks that Sōsuke Aizen must have intentionally sent it. The boy manages to annoy each of the Shinigami by addressing them as old or bald (in Ikkaku’s case), and he refuses to go to Soul Society, claiminh he still has things to do.

Hitsugaya asks the boy about hearing the sound and if the Arrancar had said anything to him, but since they think that the boy can’t tell them anything and just happened to be in the right place, Hitsugaya decides to send the boy to Soul Society. The boy still refuses to go, so Rangiku suggests that he might be confused about what happened earlier and allows him to stay with them for the night. However, in the middle of the night, the boy sneaks out with Matsumoto’s Zanpakutō. He does not get very far before he is caught by her again. When she questions why he took her Zanpakutō, he tells her that it has nothing to do with them. She makes him realize that it does concern them and gets him to apologize. However, the boy still does not say anything when she asks him about his name, family, or why he was at that place. He finally admits that he is looking for someone and that his name is Shōta Toyokawa. Right after he says this, the sound starts up again. Across the city, the Arrancar is back, and Rangiku can sense his spiritual pressure.