Hitsugaya Scatters! The Broken Hyōrinmaru

'''Hitsugaya Scatters! The Broken Hyōrinmaru''' is the one-hundred-twentieth episode of the Bleach anime.

Statistics

 * Original Airdate: March 28, 2007
 * English Airdate: May 30, 2009
 * Opening Song: Rolling Star
 * Ending Song: Sakura Biyori
 * Manga Chapters: Chapter 207, Chapter 208, Chapter 209.
 * Kanji: 日番谷散る！砕けた氷輪丸
 * Romaji: "Hitsugaya chiru! Kudaketa Hyōrinmaru"
 * Arc: The Arrancar arc

Summary
Although Ikkaku’s fight has ended in victory, there are still several other battles going on across the city, and things don’t look so good for Hitsugaya, Renji, or Matsumoto. Hitsugaya and Renji in particular have both already initiated ban kai, but both still struggle with their Arrancar opponents. While these battles are going on, Ururu is having a hard time sleeping in Urahara’s shop and wakes up to see Renji fighting outside her window. Already watching the battle, Ririn and the other mod-souls decide to help and start by making Renji disappear from the Arrancar’s vision. Claude then disguises himself as Renji and starts attacking with Nova’s help. Unfortunately, the Arrancar powers up a bit and is able to disable all of them. Ururu meanwhile gets on top of Urahara’s rooftop where Jinta already is standing and then launches into the sky before he can stop her. She appears suddenly behind the Arrancar and kicks him in the face right as he turns around to face her. Ururu then starts choking him and utters some words about him being danger, danger being an enemy, and enemies being eliminated. After being repeatedly punched, the bloodied and extremely angry Arrancar gives himself some room by slashing at Ururu. He then releases his zanpaktou and transforms into a large bull-like creature, stabbing Ururu soon after the smoke clears. When he flings her now body away, Jinta comes to save her and tries to smack the Arrancar with his bat. It doesn’t hurt the Arrancar at all, and he rushes towards Jinta to skewer him too, but fortunately Renji comes to the rescue by allowing one of the skeletal links of his Hihiou Zabimaru to take the hit instead. Although this gives Jinta enough time to get away with Ururu, the Arrancar is able to break through the skeletal link and hit Renji. He then introduces himself as Arrancar No. 15, Ilfort Grantz.

Ilfort’s zanpaktou release is noticed by Shawlong, but the other Arrancar is busy fighting Hitsugaya. The captain attempts an attack that he follows up with his ice tail, but it only freezes Shawlong’s hand and zanpaktou, and Shawlong quickly breaks the ice off. He sees that Hitsugaya is steadily losing the ice flowers that are floating behind him and theorizes that Hitsugaya’s ban kai is still incomplete, so it will disappear when all the ice petals disappear. Hitsugaya only has three petals left, but Shawlong decides to respect him by destroying the captain with his full power. Shawlong’s released form grants him long claw fingers and a tail, and he immediately gets to work slicing Hitsugaya up. Having dealt some damage, Shawlong formally introduces himself as Arrancar No. 11. The two then charge each other again and Shawlong slices up Hitsugaya’s wings. The young captain is able to avoid any major damage and grows the wing back, but he then pauses to ask Shawlong a question. Hitsugaya wants to know if the No. 11 designation means that Shawlong is the 11th strongest Arrancar, but Shawlong reveals that the numbers are assigned according to order of birth. However, this does not apply to the Arrancar numbered 1 through 10 because those are ranked according to their slaughtering ability. These Espada as they are called have their numbers written on their bodies, and Shawlong reveals that there is actually an Espada here with them: the 6th Espada Grimmjow. At that moment, Grimmjow is engaged in a fight with Ichigo, but Grimmjow isn’t really trying very hard. He urges Ichigo to initiate ban kai, so Ichigo does.

It is around this time that Matsumoto finally gets a message from Soul Society telling her that she has permission to lift the limit. Because of this, she is able to stop her opponent from stepping on her and informs Hitsugaya and Renji of the good news. All three of them reveal black symbols on their chests that light up as they lift their power limitations and proceed to power up.