Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck — Bleach

Nelliel was once the Tres Espada, ranked third among Sōsuke Aizen’s elite Arrancar. She opposed Nnoitra Gilga’s obsession with killing and challenged the idea that strength should be measured by gratuitous violence. Although she repeatedly defeated him in earlier clashes, she did not consider an already-defeated opponent someone to execute. This difference in values fed Nnoitra’s resentment.

Nnoitra and Szayelaporro Granz exploited Nelliel’s concern for her Fracción, Pesche Guatiche and Dondochakka Birstanne. After those two were injured and Nelliel was distracted by a deceptive projection, Nnoitra struck her from behind and cracked her Hollow mask. The damage caused her to regress into the childlike Nel Tu and lose her memories. The defeated group was cast out of Las Noches. Pesche and Dondochakka subsequently protected Nel and sustained her happier life with games rather than expose her to memories of the violence she had endured.

The child Nel Tu who later befriends Ichigo is Nelliel herself. Her shrunken body has short green hair, enormous eyes, a cracked skull-mask remnant, and a loose green outfit. Without memories of her former life, she plays elaborate games with Pesche and Dondochakka and becomes attached to Ichigo without knowing the history behind her injuries.

When Ichigo is outmatched by Nnoitra during the Hueco Mundo rescue, Nel’s distress triggers her return to her adult identity. She recognizes her past and protects Ichigo, revealing the former Espada marked with the number three. Her transformation is a disclosure of a history that Ichigo had not known when he befriended the child Nel.

Her restored appearance is that of a tall woman with long green hair, a more sharply horned Hollow-mask remnant, and the same conspicuous pink marking across her face. Her clothes after the transformation are the torn remains of Nel’s green outfit; flashbacks also depict her in white Arrancar attire.

Back in her adult body, Nelliel turns Nnoitra’s Cero against him with Cero Doble, strengthening the reflected blast with her own Cero; as child Nel, she could return a blast but did not combine it with her own power in this way. She then releases her Zanpakutō, Gamuza, becoming a centaur-like fighter and using the lance attack Lanzador Verde. Her regained adult form does not last. She abruptly regresses to child form during the encounter, leaving her and Ichigo in danger until Kenpachi Zaraki intervenes.

During the Thousand-Year Blood War, child Nel Tu and Pesche come to Ichigo in the World of the Living, asking for help after Quincy forces invade Hueco Mundo. Tier Halibel has also been captured. Later, Nelliel returns in her adult body; an armband created by Kisuke Urahara lets her switch at will between her adult and child forms, rather than relying on the unpredictable recovery seen during the Arrancar conflict.

Later in the Quincy war, Nelliel waits outside the dangerous zone created by Askin Nakk Le Vaar while Kisuke Urahara and Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez face him. She is positioned to retrieve them and other allies when Askin’s lethal Gift Ball Deluxe intensifies. Their precise escape remains off-panel in the original manga; later material confirms the group’s survival.

The licensed postwar Can’t Fear Your Own World tie-in places Nelliel back in Hueco Mundo after she brings the injured Tier Halibel home. She enjoys life alongside her friends, helps Halibel maintain peace in the realm, and is a calming influence on Grimmjow’s aggression. These later circumstances belong to the postwar supplemental continuity, not the original early Hueco Mundo encounters.