Headscratchers / Bleach Thousand Year War

The final arc of Bleach is bound to raise some questions that will leave the reader stumped. Beware of unmarked spoilers:

• For BG-9 and Robert Accutrone, what DID the letters "K" and "N" really stand for?
• What is Shaz Domino's fate? And Epithet? Or is 13 Blades canon?
  • The event of 13 blades are mentioned in the warp up novel so yes 13 blades canon.
• What happened to all of Lille's (The X-Axis) "clones" in Soul Society? Did Kira just murder them all off-screen? (Since Soul Society is at peace for the next 10 years after war's end, this must be the case.) Where is Kira himself? Is he going to remain an emo-Zombie for the rest of his life?
  • They simply might have ended their fight, so they would not get caught in the destruction of the Seretei. I don't think Lille can be targetted anymore by the Auswahlen. Didn't he lose all his power thanks to the mirror sword? He lost everything except for his Schrift, which Yhwach can't take anyway. Kira's main focus is also not to kill Lille, but to keep him from doing damage. Kira actually sparred two birds and let those live. he just hit them with Wabisuke, so that they would be unable to fight and simply walked past them.
  • Possible either Kira or Yhwach using Aushwalen killed them.
  • Going by the novel, he was not killed; he caused trouble for some weeks after the war and was removed from the Seireitei whatever that mean.
• What happened to Komamura? Is he just living his life as a mindless dog now? Or did he manage to somehow turn back to normal?
  • Well he's definitely not back to normal as Iba is the new captain. He either; A) died, B)is stuck in wofl form and lives in the barracks or C)ran off to live in the wild now
  • By the novel, he is stuck in wolf form and lives with Iba.
• What happened to Sternritter Meninas of the epithet "P" (The Power)? Liltotto of the epithet "G" (The Glutton) mentioned she stopped her without killing her. Is Meninas now living life away from the Shinigami now? Was she captured and jailed? Was she executed off screen? What about Candice of the epithet "T" (The Thunderbolt)? She got her ass kicked alongside Robert and Nanana of the epithet "U" (The Underbelly) by Byakuya but the latter two were seen up and about several chapters later. Was she still alive? Or did she just die from blood loss later?
  • Possible they were killed by one of Yhwach's Aushwalens.
  • As explained by the novel, Meninas and Candice were captured by the 12th division while Liltotto and Giselle were saved by Haschwalth's aide (the woman in chapter 544) and the two of them are amassing force from the arrancar to save them.
• Did Nel successfully rescue Urahara, Grimmjow, Yoruichi and Yushiro from Askin's (The Deathdealing) poison? Or are all four/five dead? Did Nel and Grimmjow go back to Hueco Mundo? Was Tier Harribel ever set free? Did Harribel's fraccion go back for her? Are they in control of Hueco Mundo again?
  • By the novels, Nelliel saves them all. Harribel was emprisoned in the throne room of Yhwach, that's why she was not rescued sooner but she did go back to Hueco Mundo to rules it with Grimmjow and Nelliel.
• Will we ever know Yoruichi's Zanpakuto's Shikai and Bankai? Will we ever see the Bankai of every other named character who hasn't demonstrated it yet? (Practically nearly every Vice-Captain and some Captains/Visoreds. Looking at Shinji, Love, Hiyori, Lisa, and Mashiro.)
  • Series is over and no new Zan abilities. only chance now is a databook or if the anime decides to reveal it if it ever returns.
  • Tada! The TYBW anime gives us Shinji's bankai, so there might be some hope to see more.
• What happened to Chad and Ganju? Did they kick the asses of those Quincy statues? Did they demonstrate new hidden abilities off-screen? (What a wasted opportunity to show them shine, especially against a few of the Sternritter.) What was the point of showing Ginjo, Tsukishima and Giriko if they weren't going to contribute to the "war" at all? Of those three Fullbringers, only Tsukishima actually did something.
  • Chad returns to a normal life and 10 years later becomes a famous boxer.
  • Ganju and the Fullbringers live with Kukaku now.
• Why did Ichigo's new Bankai go back to its Shikai form after Yhwach shattered his sword for the umpteenth time? Will we ever know Ichigo's new abilities after training from the Soul King's palace besides demonstrating Getsuga Jujisho, a controlled hybrid Hollow Form and Gran Ray Cero?
• How did Giselle Gewelle kill Bambietta? How did Giselle die against Yhwach, her Quincy monarch, if she's immortal?
  • Bambietta was weakened after Komamura defeated her. Giselle is a captain-level fighter and according to Liltotto stronger than Candice and Meninas. By the time Bammbietta was defeated, Giselle also had access to the bodies of Hitsugaya and Matsumoto. It's not hard to imagine that she simply overpowered Bambietta and then killed her.
  • Also we don't really know if Yhwach actually killed Giselle. Giselle was able to trick Mayuri into thinking that she was dead. So she may be doing the same thing here. Yhwach probably wouldn't be fooled, but he may be too arrogant to care.
    • He did. hes the type to kill his subordinates, especially now that he has the Soul King powers. Giselle is fodder to him.
    • Except that he dealt a wound to Giselle that she could easily survive and the last scene of her was with her tongue in her blood. Which is btw how she usually regenerates. Giselle has an insanely powerful regeneration and Yhwach can't really cancel that. And Yhwach is arrogant. He left Orihime alive and did nothing to prevent Ichibee from regenerating. He also left that portal open. His main concern was to sleep as soon as possible. Whether he would kill Giselle or not is something he wouldn't care about as long as she doesn't interrupt his sleep.
    • You're forgetting that, as a Quincy, Giselle can have her strength completely drained by Yhwach at any time he chooses. He CAN cancel out her regen power by taking away everything that fuels it.
    • No he can't. Yhwach cannot take Giselle's abilities away. Giselle's regeneration are part of her Schrift. Yhwach's method of stealing power from Quincy is called the Auswahlen. And as we had already seen, the Auswhalen did jack to Giselle's Schrift. Yhwach can't take a Schrift away. Yhwach did already use the Auswahlen to her. He did already take everything he could. Everything that remained with Giselle is something that Yhwach could not take away and Giselle did demonstrate that her abilities still work fine.
    • Again, what is stopping him from draining Giselle POINT-BLANK and then straight-up killing her once her Schrift has absolutely no fuel to work with? Giselle only got away with some power before by avoiding the full brunt of the Auswhalen, same with the other surviving Sternritter. Do you honestly think he'd have a problem with accuracy in a direct confrontation? Because that's the situation we're actually talking about, not the long-range ray of light that partially missed the first time.
    • What are you talking about? Why would Giselle have no fuel for her Schrift or how would Yhwach even do that? Yhwach cannot take every power away. The Schrift of the Sternritter or Ichigo's Shinigami powers are two examples. Bazz-B was hit with the full-brunt of the Auswahlen that is supposed to take your power away, the same Auswahlen that killed Gerard. And in the end he still got to keep his Schrift, because Yhwach simply cannot take that away. Yhwach already took everything from the Sternritter he could. Everything else is what he could not take. Giselle and the other Sternritter kept their Schrift, because Yhwach cannot take that away. He cannot take Giselle's Schrift, which is why the Zombie should still work. You are under the false impression that Yhwach can take away a Schrift, when he in fact cannot.
    • The schrift requires energy to use it, Ywach steals energy. Thats how Giselle dies, assuming Ywach didnt just injure her enough to kill her.
    • The Schrift doesn't require energy. It just requires the Reishi in the environment and Reiatsu. This is how Quincy fight and use abilities and again Bazz-B who was hit with the full brunt of the Auswahlen was still able to use his Schrift to its full potential. Yhwach already took everything he could from the Sternritter and they were still able to use their Schrift. And Giselle was stabbed in the heart by Kensei and still survived. Whatever injury she had received against Yhwach certainly looked much less severe than that.
    • Reiatsu is just released energy, if Ywach's drained all the energy out of Giselle how would she release energy to heal.
    • 1.Reiatsu is not released energy. Reiatsu is spiritual Pressure. The Zombie still utilizes the Reishi in the environment in order to work. That is the big difference between Quincy and Shinigami. Quincy use the Reishi in their environment to fight and use their abilities. Wahrwelt is overfilled with Reishi. Giselle's and any other Quincy's abilities are at their most strongest in Wahrwelt. Yhwach would need to tear down the entire Wahrwelt in order for the Zombie to not work, because Giselle can always utilize the Reishi in the environment. 2. Yhwach already took everything he could from the Sternritter down below with the first Auswahlen. He cannot take anything anymore from Giselle or any of the lower ranks. 3. If he had drenched Giselle of all her energy, she would have ended up as a skeleton like Robert and Gerard, because she would have not been able to maintain her spiritual form anymore. 4. If he had done that to Giselle, he would also have done that to Liltotto, which obviously is not the case. 5. Bazz-B was hit with the full brunt of the Auswahlen. Yhwach took everything he could from him. And he still was able to utilize his Schrift to its full potential. Why would that be different for Giselle?
    • 1. Spiritual pressure is caused by the release of spiritual energy. 2. There's no reason Ywach couldn't drain them again, there's not much point to him doing it again since he could just wait for them to die and get their energy that way. 3. The skeleton thing only seems to happen if you get hit directly by the light, even if you were to lose most/all energy. 4. There's nothing to indicate that they didn't get killed offscreen, since Ywach is hardly limited to just draining energy to kill people and he's not the sort to leave himself open to attacks by leaving two enemies alive while he goes to sleep in front of them. 5. Giselle's schrift is basically worthless without corpses to use or regenerate from, meaning that Giselle would only survive one fatal wound since there's only Liltotto to use the schrift on, assuming Ywach didn't give them the Yamamoto treatment to prevent them from messing with him in his sleep.
  • Both Liltotto and Giselle are alive thanks to Haschwalth's aide.
• Why didn't Yhwach use Yamamoto's stolen Bankai against his opponents? How come Yhwach didn't have a Vollständig form of his own?
  • He probably lost it when Ichibei used his ink to erase Ywachs powers
  • He simply didn't use them like he didn't uses any of the Sternritter's abilities.
  • Realistically, the reason was because Kubo wasn't able to find time to do so once he had to pick up the pacing due to his health.
• If you're going to introduce concepts of the Soul King, like his Left Hand being Pernidas (The Compulsory), the Right Hand being Ukitake's sole reason for living (Mimihagi) and the Heart being Gerard (The Miracle), why not introduce other body parts? Where are his "Legs"? Or maybe his "Brain"? How is he the father of Yhwach? What did he do to Aizen that twisted the guy so much that he was willing to destroy all of reality just to take his place? When DID Aizen meet the Soul King?
• What happened to Aizen? Did Yhwach "eat" him whole until there was nothing left and then died along with Yhwach when Ichigo cut him in half, despite being "immortal"?
  • Turns out he ends up surviving and is imprisoned again.
• Why couldn't there be a flashback of the original Gotei 13 and see how "ruthless" they were according to Yhwach? Was Yamamoto as cold as Yhwach? If he was, what stopped him from murdering the guy all those years ago? What does Yachiru Unohana's Bankai actually do?
• Are Squad Zero okay after being defeated? Or did they all die and Ichibe is the only member left?
  • The novel "Can't Fear Your Own World" reveals that each of Squad Zero are spiritually bound to the Soul King's Palace itself. It's this that allowed Ichibei to be restored by having his name called; surprisingly, that little trick isn't exclusive to him (though he's probably the one who came up with the idea). Ichibei himself expressed relief that Yhwach was defeated and the Palace not completely obliterated, just reshaped. If it was, all the other members would've been outta luck.
• Was Yachiru always Kenpachi's Zanpakuto manifested? If so, then how did she have her own Zanpakuto against the fake Guenael (The Vanishing Point)? How powerful is Kenpachi if he shattered his own arm while in Bankai? Was he torn up over "losing" Yachiru since it turned out she wasn't "real"?
  • Zanpakuto being actual Asauchi forged by Ouetsu, and molded over years by contact with their wielder... It somewhat makes sense even as a zanpakuto that she would be given one, if Gotei 13 was not aware of her nature, and that she could imprint on it, especially if she herself was not aware of her true nature.
• How did Renji and Rukia have a kid if they're spirits? How did the kid end up aging at such a fast rate that she looks the same age as Ichigo and Orihime's kid?
  • I feel like Kubo kind of threw away the 'afterlife' idea of the manga a long time ago. He treats Soul Reaper, Hollow, Human and Quincy as just different types of being- for example, if he did stick with it, you think at least one of the Espada would have remembered what their human life was like.
    • Given how each of the Espada was an amalgamation of hundreds of thousands of souls, it's very unlikely that any of them would have coherent memories of their pre-Hollow lives. It would at best be a jumbled mess of contradictory memories.
  • Spirits being able to have children is nothing new. That's why the nobility of Soul Society exists; Rukia being adopted into a noble family was explicitly an unusual event. Byakuya's grandfather from the Turn Back the Pendulum arc really was his biological grandfather. Omaeda's younger siblings are biologically related to him, not adopted. Likewise for Yoruichi's little brother.
  • As for how Ichika is aging at a normal human rate and thus looking the same age as Kazui, well the aging of souls has never been consistent. Ukitake, Kyokaru and Sasakibe are all over a thousand years old, and despite Ukitake and Sasakibe having white hair they look like they're in their 40s. Yamamato is even older, by an unspecified amount, and looks like he's in his 70s or 80s. But Unohana is implied to be close to Yamamoto's age, yet she looks like she's in her 40s. And that's not even getting into the Royal Guard. Nimaiya has to be positively ancient, seeing as he invented the zanpakuto, and looks to be 30-something. Ichibei would be even older, since he's the original Soul Reaper, yet he looks much younger than Yamamoto. And looking past the characters with quadruple-digit ages, Byakuya has visibly aged in the 100 years since the Turn Back the Pendulum arc, but the other characters seen in that arc haven't. And Hitsugaya apparently aged more in the 2-year timeskip than he did during the previous few decades. Clearly there is no "X years for a human is equivalent to Y years for a Soul Reaper" conversion factor.
  • In CFYOW, Hisagi also makes a distinction between Soul Reapers like Hitsugaya who've "matured into a body that still had the appearance of a child's" versus souls who are still actually children. The way it seems to work is that younger souls will grow at a semi-normal rate, but their adult form could stop or slow down aging at any particular point.
• Why is Yachiru just no longer around after the time skip? It would've seemed more in-character for Kenpachi to not give a damn that she's a zanpakuto spirit and still kept her as his Vice-Captain.
  • Kenpachi tends to prefer the easiest solution and promoting Ikkaku to Vice Captain stops anyone from wanting to ask him questions about the spot or having to deal with people trying to impress him enough to get the spot.
    • My point was, why does Yachiru stop physically manifesting? It seems like she should still be able to fill the role of Vice-Captain, and her being a zanpakuto spirit rather than a "real" soul reaper would never have been a problem to Kenpachi.
    • It might've been a case of her not needing to anymore. Kenpachi's gotten good enough that he can hear her even when she's just chilling in his soul world now, so she doesn't need to come out in order to interact with him anymore. I doubt she ever really cared about being Vice Captain beyond it allowing her to be near Kenpachi at all times.
• With Yhwach having absorbed the Soul King and then being killed himself, who's holding reality together now?
  • The remnants of Yhwach's power may have acted as the Soul King for the last ten years. After that, maybe Kazui absorbed them. That would make him the new Soul King.
  • The next two novels, firstly "We Do Knot Always Love You", confirms that Yhwach's corpse is being used as the new lynchpin, though this is being kept strictly secret from the public. The next novel "Can't Fear Your Own World" further confirms that this was so viable because of Yhwach straight-up absorbing the Soul King; otherwise, Ichibei was planning to have Ichigo fill in that spot (assuming the world still existed and Yhwach defeated). Of course, one has to wonder how different this really is from the previous "Soul King".
• How was Yhwach defeated? Throughout the arc he was untouchable. The Almighty made him omniscient and alter the future as he wanted to the point of reality warping. Even autowin attacks where there was no defense such as Ichibē's abilities cannot hurt him because somehow Yhwach became immune. So how come Aizen's illusions were able to fool him and Ichigo able to defeat him? Did I miss something?
  • Yes. You missed how Yhwach was able to come back and swallow Aizen mere moments later. Yhwach was defeated through the efforts of Haschwalth, who confused his future sight, Uryuu, who disabled Yhwach's Almighty and Ichigo, who dealt the final blow.
    • I know all of that. What I do not understand is why Yhwach himself did not see it coming or alter reality to prevent his death from happening. The Almighty allowed him to prevent his death form autowin attacks before. Why did Yhwach not see Uryuu shooting the arrow at him? Why could he not use his powers to prevent the arrow from hitting him? Why did he not see the future where Ichigo cut him down? Why did Haschwalth confuse his future sight? How did he since he was already dead by that point. Why did Yhwach not see what was happening in the battle? I admit I may have missed something and that is what I am trying to figure out.
    • Yhwach did not see it coming because the Antithesis makes Uryuu and his actions immune to the Almighty. Whatever Uryuu does, Yhwach can't see it. Since Yhwach didn't know it would happen, there was no reason for him to use the Almighty to prevent it. By the time he realized it would happen. it was already too late and he lost his powers. And Yhwach did see the future where Ichigo cut him dowm. It is just that thanks to Haschwalth, Yhwach reinterpreted that as a dream. Haschwalth was still alive at that point. As for why he did it, either because he didn't know that this would happen, or because he isn't as loyal as he seems. There is a reason he is both an Enigmatic Minion and Unreliable Expositor. Also it is actually unknown if Haschwalth is really dead or just merely in a coma. There are so far two known outcomes to the Auswahlen. 1. You turn into a skeleton; 2. You are fine, but lose Vollständig. Haschwalth fits neither of those. But there is another case similar to him: Katagiri. She didn't turn into a skeleton and also wasn't fine. Instead she slipped into a coma. The same could have happened to Haschwalth.
  • As for how Aizen's abilities can work on Yhwach, you have to remember that The Almighty is based on sight. When Yhwach is seeing all possible futures, he's literally seeing them. Aizen's power is perfect hypnosis that fools all 5 senses. Thus, he was able to make Yhwach see fake futures instead of the real possible futures. Even if something didn't seem quite right to Yhwach, it never would've occurred to him that he was seeing an illusion, just like it never occurred to Unohana that she was examining an illusory corpse of Aizen back in the Soul Society arc, even after she saw that the internal anatomy wasn't quite right.
• So, from what I can gather, the Wandenreich fought the Soul Society, lost, and hid for 1000 years to await their return. This leads into a few questions: Where did they hide, and how did they hide, AN ENTIRE NATION FOR A MILLENNIUM?!?
  • It was hidden in the shadows of Soul Society for 1000 years, they somehow manipulated reishi to make a shadow dimension, after they lost in the living world, they somehow got into the Seireitei without anyone noticing and made their hiding place.
• What happens to Oomaeda's sister? Is she killed?
• If Yhwach's power is so incredibly strong, how did the Soul Society win the first time they fought him 1000 years ago?
  • He's had 1000 years to get much more powerful, and teach his followers to be more powerful, therefor making him more powerful when he reabsorbs them, it's possible that the quality of Quincy back then was much less formidable, Quilge even mentions that the Sanrei Glove that Uryu used during the Soul Society arc was extremely outdated by about 200 years.
  • Based on details from the Manga, Yhwach fought what was considered the strongest collection of Captains assembled in the history of Soul Society, with Yamamoto at his prime in terms of power. From what is provided, it seems Yhwach tried to fight in a straight head war and was easily defeated, and it was only because the next time he planned it out in advanced that it went so well.
• How could Quilge absorb Ayon, despite it being revealed later on that Hollow Reishi is actually poison to Quincy?
  • I'm fairly sure it's Hollow reiatsu (i.e. spiritual pressure) that poisons them. Reishi (spirit particles) is what makes up all spiritual bodies, and in its most basic form isn't aligned with any specific type of spirit. If Quilge's ability was dissolving Ayon into raw reishi, then that helps mitigate the issue. Even so the absoprtion wasn't perfect, which is mentioned as part of the proof-of-concept behind the Hollowfied Bankai solution in the first place.
• In the anime Shinji Hirako absorbs one of the Shineiyaku pills (bankai hollowificiation). Why would he need to do that he is already a Soul Reaper/Hollow Hybrid he should be immune to having his bankai stolen?
  • He may not need it, but it's explained both that the pills were sent to everyone with a bankai and that they "activate" automatically. Sort of like CC'ing a mailing list on an email chain - the Visoreds who had bankai got the pills because they technically met the criteria, and once received, the pills got absorbed as programmed even though not all recipients needed them.
• Why did Central 46 make such a big deal out of Kyoraku requesting to have two lieutenants, when Kensei also had two lieutenants in Hisagi and Mashiro ever since he was re-instated as captain?
  • Mashiro's armband is clearly homemade and she calls herself the "super lieutenant". I don't have the impression that Mashiro's "co-lieutenantship" is actually official, at least not in any way that Central 46 was made aware of - it seems like she just gave herself the title and Kensei + Squad 9 went along with it out of convenience. On paper she likely rejoined as just an unseated officer. She is, after all, stronger than all of them except Kensei at the time, regardless of her "real" rank. CFYOW supports this, as Mashiro is referred to as "self-proclaimed", while Squad 12's members call Hisagi the "actual assistant captain."

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