Nightmare Fuel / Bleach

As this is a Nightmare Fuel page, all spoilers will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

It got EVEN WORSE!

Bleach has always been quite extreme for a series ostensibly aimed at the Shonen age bracket. Hell, even when the anime censored the gorier parts, it didn't keep them from making it bloodier, and they've occasionally made certain scenes even creepier than in the manga.

Notably, once the anime ended its run, the manga immediately went Darker and Edgier, as well as Bloodier and Gorier, to the point where you could honestly mistake it for a Seinen.

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Soul Society Arc

• Rukia in Ganju's flashback when she returned with Kaien's body to the Shiba residence. The look in her eye is just...terrifying.
• Orihime's Hollowfied brother Sora tried to kill Ichigo (and Tatsuki, though less so) for taking his place in Orihime's heart. He then says he'll kill Orihime just so no one else can have her.
• Mayuri Kurotsuchi from Squad 12. He turns his own men into living bombs with the skin bubbling shown very clearly in the manga. He has no ears or lips either, and has a sickle attached to a fleshy cord in it that he can retract and detach at will. Finally his bankai Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo is a giant caterpillar with a baby's head that exhales poison and sprouts swords from its neck. Oh. And don't forget about how he planted those bacteria inside Ishida to track him? Imagine someone like Mayuri watching your every move, through millions of microscopic cameras hidden inside your own body, to collect intel on how he can eventually kill you, or anyone you meet.
• Kurotsuchi showing Uryu a picture of his grandfather's soul after Kurotsuchi had finished experimenting on it. Mild compared to the worst of the examples on this page, but still horrifying in retrospect. It's bad enough to be shown the mangled corpse of a stranger who might be a distant relative, but if that corpse happens to belong to your much-beloved grandfather, you'd probably be having nightmares for a while afterwards.
  • Not that bad? It's kind of hard to see right off the bat, but if you spend some time to look at him, you can see the picture pretty clearly in the reflection on Uryu's glasses. His grandfather didn't have a body anymore. Even worse: he hadn't been beheaded. Based of Mayuri's comments, Old Grandpop's body had been ground up, dissolved, crushed into pulp, burned away, or any other horrible thing you can imagine. Also, he was definitely alive for the start of the process. At least the start.
• Hollows. Super strong and super durable The Heartless who grow to the size of skyscrapers and turn into a myriad of Body Horror, Eldritch Abomination, and Humanoid Abomination afterward. Oh yeah, and they're invisible. Have fun sleeping.
• Hollow Ichigo. Imagine having a psychotic, demonic Blood Knight rammed within your psyche. You hear its Evil Laugh every time you start to crack under stress, threatening to swallow you up. As a human, you can't do shit to stop it. As a Visored, you have to fight this inner demon while your real body is transformed into a hideous Hollow-like creature, complete with a mask and hole. If you fail, you're doomed to stay a Hollow forever.
• Kenpachi's reiatsu-retaining eye patch is a tiny monster with a mouthful of tiny fangs. Right over his eye.
  • The real Nightmare Fuel kicks in when you stop and realize that Kenpachi thought up the basic concept of the eye patch himself. Made even worse when you realize he wears it by choice and is constantly staring it in the teeth all day every day
• Hollowification. If the victim stays for too long or grows too resentful, their "chain of fate" (a fairly long chain with tiny mouths gnashing out) starts to nibble at itself until it reaches the chest where it's attached. The illustrations show the transformation, where the former "Plus" dissipates and reforms as a Hollow as white stuff spills out their mouth and covers their face into a mask, to be quite painful.
  • Also, when a Hollow's hunger becomes so strong that the souls of humans is no longer enough for it, it begins to eat OTHER HOLLOWS. This often leads to the creation of the mindless giant Gillian-class Menos, but may sometimes lead to Adjuchas, the level that hollows like Grimmjow were in before becoming arrancars.
  • It's mentioned that a Gillian is a mass of several Hollows. The Gillians that can evolve have a stronger personality that dominates all others, and that stays in command as the Gillian becomes an Adjuchas and later, a Vasto Lorde. Think about it. All the Espadas are comprised of several Hollow souls, stuck together and dominated by the main personality until the Hollow dies.
• Gin Ichimaru's damn smile, which he always has, even during the thick of battle or when he's committing some heinous act. You know that a character is terrifying when he scares even the other characters. Gin scares the shit out of Rukia. When she was in Soul Society awaiting her execution, she stated that even if he wasn't talking to her she'd get this ominous feeling like "snakes were curling themselves around her" and she could feel "every bead of sweat" on her body whenever he was in her presence. And there's the fact that Gin was a total asshole and told her that he would save her from being executed before crushing her hopes flat. Rukia's scream is the worst part.
• Metastacia. It's kinda hard to use words to describe this thing, so just use this picture.◊ If anybody touches the tentacles on his back, their zanpakuto is broken, leaving them at his mercy. Poor Kaien.◊ And in the manga it was worse; there were tentacles sprouting out of his empty eye sockets. Not mentioning his habit of turning friend against friend. Imagine having to fight your friend, but it's not really your friend, even though you know it actually is.
• There was that scene when Muramasa invaded Ichigo's mind to control Zangetsu, and during the 'probing', Ichigo awoke on the ground of his inner world, then suddenly went to his inner hollows' version of that world, except that he was on the 'roof', with Muramasa standing a few feet in front of him. Without warning, a hole opens up on Ichigo's chest and dozens of arms forcibly erupt out from his very torso, wrapping around his entire body like a cocoon.
  • And the part when, after being rejected and broken by Kouga, Muramasa underwent a horrific transformation into a Hollow himself, where his entire body, from head to toe, was literally and repeatedly enlarging from the inside-out, shrinking back in proportion immediately thereafter and enlarging once again after that, simultaneously boiling the skin at each time.
• Aizen's shikai. From the moment you see it, you can never again fully trust any of your senses. That's a pretty goddamn frightening thought right there. Then there's how he uses it; in particular, tricking both Kyoraku and Hitsugaya into backstabbing poor Hinamori. Even worse, his abilities even affect the reader.

Winter War Arc

• Anything Szayelaporro Granz pulled qualifies, too. From chomping into his little minion and devouring him whole, leaving a skinny arm dangling from his mouth to forcibly impregnating Nemu, making her stomach grow to an unnatural proportion, and spew out of her mouth (in the manga, he burst out of her instead) as a liquid blob thing, leaving Nemu extremely wrinkled, dried out, and nearly dead.
  • His death at the hands of Mayuri Kurotsuchi is just as jarring: he is very, very, very slowly stabbed through the hand and chest. But that's not what makes it nightmare fuel. What makes it nightmare fuel is that Szayelaporro unintentionally absorbed one of many special drugs placed in Nemu's body while he was being reborn in her. Mayuri explains that the drug he just absorbed heightens his senses to superhuman levels, slowing his sense of time to the point that through his perspective, one second will feel like one century to him. By the end of it, he is begging Mayuri to hurry up and kill him.
• Ayon, the monster summoned by Harribel's fraccion, and the damage it causes. Matsumoto gets a piece ripped out of her. And if you thought that was bad, just wait till you actually see it's face.
• Hooleer, the big tumorlike humanoid that Wonderweiss has just brought into the fake Karakura — a vast white veiny thing with no head◊, which vomits up a bloodlike stream of Gillians◊. Ew.
• Ichigo having a giant bloody hole blasted through his chest. The fact that he then runs around with that gaping hole in his chest somehow makes it worse. In an earlier fight, he was almost cut in half.
  • Even more nightmarish is what happens after Ichigo has a hole blasted him and even more so why Orihime sees' that Ulquiorra has effectively killed Ichigo and tries to heal him, while Uryu tries to hold Him off, but it doesn't work so she cries out for help, and it works! Ichigo is back in the fight, all good yeah? Wrong! Ichigo has turned full hollow, sporting a wicked new form that the fandom had taken to calling "Vasto Lorde Ichigo" and the next few pages/scenes show why, he brutally and absolutly decimates Ulquiorra in his most powerful form, a form that can throw projectiles many times stronger than nuke, and Ichigo tears him apart and goes to butcher Ulquiorras broken body, Uryu tries to stop him, Ichigo proceeds to throw Zangestsu through Uryus' stomach! Then just when we think Ichigo has simply Devolved into a mindless destructive beast, he starts speaking, the worst part about his transformation, he simply repeats a Madness Mantra over and over "I...Must.. I Must..I Must Protect...Her" (thats what it said on the translations i read), Imagine the horror, the Orihime must feel at that moment, he hasn't became a brutal monster out of a 11th-Hour Superpower effect, he became a brutal monster because of her and his Chronic Hero Syndrome Massively Backfiring.
• Barragan Luisenbarn. The spitting image of Death itself in his released form, he is a nightmarish ghoul enshrouded in darkness with a crowned skull for a head, who rots the ground he walks upon. And that's only in regards to the ground. Anything that ages and decays with time (even if it would regularly take thousands, no, millions of years), will be reduced to nothing in a short time.
• All of the Espadas except for Starrk have their moments.
  • Aaroniero's released form.
  • Everything that has anything to do with Szayel.
  • Zommari twisting his neck like that to transform.
  • Grimmjow's brutal beatdown of Ichigo, as well as blasting half of Menoly's body off and ripping Loly's leg off her with his bare hands, and choking Orihime when she questions him.
  • Nnoitra's brutal beatdown of Ichigo and the way he acts toward Orihime.
  • Ulquiorra's brutal beatdown of Ichigo, his psychological torture of Orihime and his mix of physical torture and mutilation of Ishida.
  • Harribel's mask.
  • Baraggan's Battle Aura of death by aging.
  • Yammy's released kaiju form.
• Ulquiorra's psychological torture of Orihime was quite unsettling, especially the part where he threatened to force feed her and then strap her down to a table and give her intravenous therapy when she refused to eat after he ordered her to.
• Zommari releasing Brujería. Heads should not turn that way◊ — especially without moving the neck!
• When Tousen had a jaw sprout out of his otherwise-blank Hollow mask. Look at what happened to his arm...
• The first fight between Ichigo and Grimmjow, mostly because Ichigo being utterly owned by Grimmjow is made worse by the fact that most arrancar's Hierro makes their skin literally tough and hard as iron, which means all those punches are effectively sledgehammers to the face. Ichigo is damn lucky his skull didn't cave in. Then there's the occasional tinkling sound...Was that his chain on his Bankai...or was it teeth falling out?
• Oh cool, we're finally learning Tousen's motivations and he's going crazy. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!
  • Just look at the distance between his eyes. And the worst is, despite having turned into an insect-like abomination, there's still a part of his freaking human face left! With ragged teeth, of course. And the fact that he still talks (having gone batshit insane, but not significantly more than a few seconds ago before his transformation), yet is unable to recognize his old friend.
  • Grillar Grillo in the anime, his eyes making a squishing noise as he opens them, and his voice suddenly going from deep and warped to psychotically high-pitched as he starts screaming his new Madness Mantra was just really unnerving.
• Kensei's first Hollowfication, which not only makes him go berserk, but makes pillars start to grow out of his back.
• The scene in which Hiyori nearly gets strangled to death by a insane Hollowfied Ichigo with a huge Slasher Smile on his face. The English dub of that particular scene takes this up a notch. Holy crap, Johnny Yong Bosch! (start around 3:48) That crazy bone-chilling laughter...
  • What makes said scene actually even more nightmarish is Hiyori's reaction, remember that all of them had to go through a similar kind of process to Ichigo, so she has Seen It All Before, even her reaction to her fight with him is boredom, then Hollow Ichigo surfaces and her face goes from bored to scared, after the other subdue Ichigo, she is in the corner with a terrified look on her face, jesus...
• Nnoitra's Hollow hole and mask fragments. It was revealed with him getting STABBED IN THE HEAD by Kenpachi.
• When we finally get to see it, the release of Wonderweiss looks like a level 4 Akuma. Much like Tousen, he still has a bit of a humanoid chin. The worst part of it is by far those goddamn arms◊ erupting out of his over-sized shoulders.
• Menos Grandes, and the the other Adjuchas in Grimmjow's gang (before becoming Arrancars) have some very horrific physical forms and faces.
• Ninth Espada, Aaroniero Arruruerie definitely has the look of an ugly-ass Eldritch Abomination. His real "face" is a large, glass cylindrical capsule filled with blood-red liquid and two small, floating Hollow heads, that tend to talk at the same time when revealed, almost as if there's two people speaking to you. The upper head has a menacingly deep voice, while the other is more high-pitched and child-like, like that of a living doll or chipmunk. His zanpakuto is a deformed arm-like appendage with dozens of sprouting tentacles, concealed in his left hand under his glove. One of his powers is to absorb you into himself, gaining all your memories and abilities, which he can perfectly mimic to any one else he comes into contact with, including peoples' faces. He shape-shifts by forcing one of his heads through the glass, making it bubble into a coating of skin, which he then stretches to force the rest of the cylinder under. Finally, his released form is a MASSIVE, two-eyed, grinning octopus◊. For reference, that little yellow thing standing right in front of Aaroniero is Rukia.
• In the manga, Grimmjow kicking Loly in the stomach so hard that it causes her to vomit, and ripping off her leg. The look of absolute terror in her eye says it all. Also look at how badly Loly disfigured Orihime's face. All of this was understandably softened in the anime (Grimmjow just swats Loly aside with his arm, psyches her out with a "Boo!" rather than rip her leg off, and Grimmjow's arrival interrupted Loly before she got the chance to badly disfigure Orihime.
• Think about this from poor Orihime's POV. You just got emotionally blackmailed by Ulquiorra into being a captive. Two awful people you've never even met bust into your cell and start to beat and abuse you over someone you don't even like, let alone love, and then the guy you just healed busts in, kills them, and you're so pacifistic and gentle that you decide to heal them anyway, and to add more salt to poor Orihime's wounds, Grimmjow only wanted her to heal Ichigo just so he could injure and kill him. Let that sink in.
• Ulquiorra ripping out and crushing his eye. To say nothing of how he brutalized two Red Shirts by shooting gigantic holes through their chests with a Cero.
  • The eye thing is mitigated somewhat by the fact it was more or less crystallized at the time, so it wasn't like he was crushing it into a gooey mess.
• Yammy's released forms, this dinosaur-esque creature◊ and a giant ape thing◊..
• The Menos Forest was rather creepy. Just a gray floor with dark gray pillars jutting up into a black abyss that is pretty much everything around you. And the fact that there are massive, and also rather frightening Gillians everywhere in the darkness.
• Tesra vs. Ichigo. Tesra goes One-Winged Angel on Ichigo immediately, and then proceeds to break every bone in his body. You can hear Ichigo's arm being snapped like a twig! Tesra apparently thought it was necessary to slam him into the ground from 15 feet up 3 times in a row and then attempt to break his spine on two different occasions. Thankfully, Zaraki pulled a Big Damn Heroes and then took Tesra out in one shot. Now for all to enjoy!
• Worth mentioning from Turn Back the Pendulum, the whole Visored incident. Imagine being out in the night to investigate something that apparently wiped out captain-class Shinigami. The place is away enough no one can reach for Soul Society for extra help — you and your friends are on your own. Then two of your friends show up, wearing a Hollow mask, having become mindless monsters bent on killing you. When you manage to defeat those friends, one of the unaffected people starts exhibiting symptoms too. Soon, all of you are becoming monsters and there's nothing you can do about it. Also, because of it, the military organization you've been treating as home wants nothing more to do with you, and in fact has sentenced you to death as Hollows. All of the Visored still seem quite traumatized by the event one hundred years later.
  • Shinji has the addendum of seeing all his fears about Aizen proven to be true, to realize he's actually been acting as his vice-captain's pawn all along, and to realize he's partly responsible for the Hollowfication of his friends. His breakdown as Aizen is about to kill him is downright chilling.
• Minor in comparison to the rest of this page, but seeing Hitsugaya in the anime viciously, determinedly stabbing his sword through Aizen's chest right up to the hilt for how deliberate it was. Not even taking into account what happened next...
• Chapter 403 gives us Aizen's new form. As Ichigo himself states in the chapter: "What...the fuck...is that..."
  • Following up on Chrysalis-Aizen, this is what happens after he's hit with a big-ass Getsuga. Special note is that, when injured, he doesn't bleed, his skin cracks instead, with no reaction at all from the guy, implying that he can't feel anything anymore.
• Chapter 409: Upon reaching the real Karakura Town, Aizen began randomly slaughtering passerbys. Keep in mind, most of which can't even see him. And he isn't even doing so with intent; his Battle Aura is so strong, anything made of reishi (spirit particles), which includes peoples' souls, that isn't used to such a strong aura, gets splattered. Only those that actually have something to resist can try to survive. That means Aizen is now currently so powerful that his mere presence is enough to kill the entire human population. Oh. He also goes after Ichigo's friends, intending to kill them in the hopes that it'll provoke Ichigo into becoming more powerful.
• Chapter 415 What Aizen's cronies did to Matsumoto. She was one of the people they beat up and took a piece of her soul to power up Aizen's Hougyoku. Made worse by the fact that the state they left her in makes it look like she was raped.
• 416. Up until now, Aizen has cleanly cut his enemies down. Then he slashed them across the chest, then ripped off an arm, stabbed through the chest, and finally throwing the already dying victim through a building. With that perfectly calm smile. And Aizen's doing this to Gin, who had just then betrayed him and was the last subordinate he had. And here the good guys at least had the hope of going down without too much pain...
• Chapter 419. Aizen's transformation and his final form, now animated at Neon Genesis Evangelion levels of scary:Sweet dreams!◊

Lost Agent Arc

• In Chapter 450, Ginjou slashes Ichigo's eyes. And in Chapter 451, he deals him a huge No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Tsukishima manages to be an even more frightening and threatening villain than Aizen could ever hope to be; with his Fullbring, he can rewrite the past of anyone and anything he cuts, and uses it to turn all of Ichigo's friends against him. The mindgames he plays on people are simply terrifying.
• Ginjo was already hit with "Book of the End", and being hit twice TURNED HIM BACK TO NORMAL: The actual villain of the arc. He and Tsukishima effectively took the very concept of True Companions that gives strength to so many Shōnen Genre protagonists, defeated it, and virtually made it their bitches.
• Chapter 462: Tsukishima mindraping Orihime and Chad when they start breaking off from his control. He seems to be enjoying it too.
  • This also happens to be the first time we're seeing things ''from the perspective of somebody affected by him. Even Ginjo dislikes Tsukishima's usage of his Fullbring as it can completely destroy the victim's MIND and make them Empty Shells with overuse. His reaction is Lack of Empathy.
• Kutsuzawa looks creepy with this unsettling transformation◊.
• [The monsters that Yukio summoned into his fullbring and that he was almost killed by them.
• Relatively minor, but Ikkaku fixing his broken shoulder in the anime is grotesque. It almost looks like there's something alive under his skin as his muscles move to heal his arm.
• The backgrounds of some of the Fullbringers: Jackie returning home with her dead brother in her arms to find her family slaughtered. Or Kutsuzawa killing his own wife on a whim. Riruka kidnapping a guy she liked and locking him in a dollhouse... And what exactly happened to Yukio's parents?

Thousand Year Blood War Arc

• Due to Hollows having slipped far, far down in the Villain Pedigree they were resorted to being comedic in filler, it can be easy to forgot just how horrifying they can be. Chapter 480 was more than happy to remind us. Two pages earlier.
• Ebern's Nightmare Face as he's about to attempt to steal Ichigo's Bankai. The anime version of this scene is even more terrifying, especially because they decided to make it a straight-up Jump Scare on top of making it deliberately Off-Model. There are 2 frames of animation before the panel is recreated, each one not showing him smiling, then all of a sudden...BAM! Instant Slasher Smile right in the viewer's face. Pleasant dreams!
• The anime adaptation adds in a minor scene which shows the exact moment when Harribel was beaten, and as she looks up, all she sees are the countless silhouettes of the Wandenreich soldiers marching in formation towards her as Yhwach just floats above them, his sheer power alone creating a massive thunderstorm behind the army. Even if "Letzte Bataillon" was playing in the background, it wouldn't quite do the shot justice.
• Chapter 488. If you thought Mayuri's freakishly-painted face was scary, you may want to skip this (very spoileriffic) panel.
  • Also, Yamamoto is pissed. SCARINGLY pissed.
• Chapter 492: Ayon's rampage is an in-universe moment, but the biggest one is after the rampage: Kirge is still alive after having his neck snapped like a twig, and just puts it back in place.
  • For worse, how did we learn about it? When Apacci approaches him to boast... and all of a sudden, she gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice. Oh shi--.
• Chapter 493: We get to see the pleasant sight of people's flesh being disintegrated from their bones. Up to and including seeing seeing Ayon being reduced to a skeleton, in a way somehow much more gruesome than the similar fate of those affected by Baraggan's ability.
  • Which leads to this humanoid abomination of a one-winged angel.
• Chapter 494: Interesting that they introduced several officers at once with zanpakutous to boot at once. That means that they'll probably be cannon fodder to the Vandenreich while — DID ONE OF THEM BLAST KIRA'S RIGHT SIDE OFF?! 1,000+ deaths in 7 minutes? Aizen, can you be our Big Bad again?
  • Even more so, does poor Kira's horrifying injury look familiar? Yes, it's disturbingly similar to what happened to Rangiku in the FKT arc. Only that, instead of having his right side merely torn by a Giant Mook's hand, the upper half of his body was blasted off. Auuuugh.
  • It can't be overstated just how jarringly horrifying the rest of the invasion from this moment onward is for fans of the Shinigami. The ones who seemed to always be protected by Plot Armor, always came out on top overall in every conflict and at most sustained healable injuries, are now being cut down, mutilated, and massacred left and right for two volumes and five episodes straight. This is something you'd expect to see in a seinen story, but clearly Kubo felt unshackled by no longer needing to tone things down for the anime...
• Originally we thought that there were only 7 Stern Ritter, 7 Stern Ritter than completely annihilated 1/3 of the Seireitei, then in Chapter 495 we find out that they're ranked by letter and Rose comes face to face with Nanana Najahkoop who is Stern Ritter U...U being the 21st letter of the alphabet...that means there is a strong chance there are 26 Stern Ritter...look at how much destruction those 7 caused, and it turns out that there are literary THREE TIMES MORE OF THEM.
  • They're probably all there; eleven pillars of light can be seen on panel, and probably more off, when they first touch down, and some didn't appear until the next chapter, Nanana included. Not that this helps much...
    • The scary thing is there may be 30 of them because the German alphabet has 30 letters and this arc has a German theme.
• Äs Nödt screams this. Pitch black eyes, check. An instant-kill-attack, check, doesn't seem to speak, check. To top this off, even the Shinigami started running from the character.
  • The shinigami killed by Nodt keep on screaming even after they die.
  • Made worse by the fact (s?)he stole a bankai, specifically Byakuya's.
    • And has now used Senbonzakura Kageyoshi to turn Byakuya into a fountain of blood. Äs Nödt is the living embodiment of Nightmares.
• Because of a miscalculation, four captains have now had their bankai stolen before they get the chance to set them off. So much that it gives resident stoic Byakuya a legendary Oh, Crap! face, too shocked to even hide it.
  • For worse, what follows this already scary moment? Nodt giving a seriously creepy not-smile.
• Well, keep in mind that the above were only the mid-tier captains, surely the senior captains will — and Shunsui's lost an eye...oh shit.
  • The effects of the bankai thievery sound part Tear Jerker and part this when Toshiro was breaking down because he couldn't communicate with Hyorinmaru. It sounds like not only it was just a stolen ability, but his partner was outright ripped out and imprisoned, and likely may not be able to use his shikai either.
• Straight from the 500th chapter, we have Ichigo trapped in the Garganta, he can hear everything from the battle... If you can call it a battle, but can't be heard by anyone. Also, the members of the Science and Development team alongside Jidanbo are forced to attack each other during this.
  • In regards to the last one: Not everyone is Brainwashed and Crazy. Jidanbo seems to be, but Rin is clearly not since he's crying Tears of Fear as he stabs Hiyosu during his Go Through Me.
• Chapter 501... ALL OF IT. How so?
  • Ichigo is still trapped. And still hearing everyone... everyone but the True Companions. Even with Kirge slain, it's still nerve-and-heartbreaking.
  • Äs Nödt vs Byakuya. As succeeds where Tsukishima has failed... by mind raping Byakuya. Äs Nödt's explains that his/her ability is shooting arrows that augment fear at his enemies, causing them to literally be scared to death.
  • Byakuya fights it well and reminds himself that he fights for Rukia... but he soon succumbs to it. And this image◊ of Rukia disintegrating and becoming a zombie does not help! Tite Kubo can be insanely good at Psychological Horror, and it shows. And just in case someone thought it wouldn't get any worse, there's the anime version of this scene◊ (formerly this page's image), which cranks the horror factor up to eleven by basically turning it into a Jump Scare. One moment Byakuya is thinking of Rukia, the next her image flash-forwards into a decomposed, rotting state.
  • Äs Nödt then proceeds to give Byakuya a "The Reason You Suck" Speech on the true nature of fear, and as it's happening we are treated to a horrifying view of thousands of insects crawling all over Byakuya. By the time said speech is finished, the hallucinated insects have crept up to Byakuya's face and even begun crawling inside his mouth right before he completely loses his composure and screams as he futilely tries to attack his opponent. You know things are seriously screwed when Byakuya Kuchiki, one of the most stone-faced characters in the series, is driven to the point where he can no longer maintain his intense emotional balance and just breaks.
  • And at the end, Byakuka is attacked by his own Bankai, blood jettisoning from his body.
  • This chapter really makes it clear that the shinigamis are going through their worst nightmare:
    • Their first line of defense is the Shakonmaku, which stops and disintegrates anything unauthorized that tries to get into the seiretei. Too bad the Quincies are able to get inside with no trouble, allowing them to casually reach and attack even the soldiers in the rear.
    • The Gotei 13's strength relies mainly on their 13 captains. Except even captains are struggling and getting overpowered. Foot soldiers die in droves and even vice-captains get one-shotted.
    • It should be ok though, because captains have their trusted trump card: the bankai. The ultimate technique of a shinigami, so exceptional and rare that any shinigami who can use it leaves a trace in soul society's history. Nope! The quincies can not only nullify this (easily even), they can outright steal bankais and use it to increase their own offensive power.
    • At least, Ichigo, the one who saved them from Aizen and a shinigami whose bankai can't be stolen is on his way. Try again! Soul society can't reach Ichigo anymore, and they have no idea why. Even their mission control is falling.
    • In the end, even Kuchiki Byakuya, head of one of the four noble families, the most famous of the 13 captains and a role model for every Shinigami, is completely helpless and falls to Äs Nödt.
• Chapter 502 gives us Äs Nödt repeatedly using Senbonzakura to turn Byakuya into a mangled bloody mess.
  • Also, Byakuya's bloody body lying in a huge crater in the wall. It is not pretty.
  • Neither is the scene in which his left arm is severed. O U C H.
• Chapter 503: Ichigo seems to be starting to suffer a mental breakdown from not being able to break out of the cage.
• Chapter 504: Yamamoto oneshotting Driscoll Berci by actually melting him. Admittedly overlaps with Moment of Awesome by virtue of the recipient.
  • It should also be mentioned that Driscoll's skeletal structure could be seen in the fire. Prior to this, nobody got scorched that badly by Yamamoto, which shows how personally he took it. Yeah, do not piss him off.
• Chapter 505: Kenpachi lost to the Emperor. How do we know he got his ass handed effortlessly? Yhwach is holding him up by a few fingers impaled in his face, the eyes are blank (no eyepatch!), and Kenpachi isn't displaying any sign he enjoyed the battle. It is chilling to watch, especially how the few panels prior was Yamamoto's rage riling up the Soul Society.
• Chapter 507: Zanka No Tachi's power and heat is so intense that it is causing all of the moisture in Soul Society to vanish. Unohana even tells Yamamoto to finish the fight quickly before Zanka no Tachi destroys Soul Society.
• Chapter 508: Zanka No Tachi, Minami: Kaka Juuman Okushi Daisoujin. Just try imagining Yamamoto raising 100,000 skeletons of the people he's killed to fight against you. Said skeletons are charred and at least a few of the people he killed were Stern Ritter. Yamamoto pissed off is Nightmare Fuel. The Hellfire imagery, The Sheer Beastial/Demonic faces. If you came into this chapter blind, YOU THINK YAMAMOTO IS A VILLAIN from the bowels of hell!
• Chapter 509: Continuing from the above. Yamamoto purposefully attacks Yhwach with the Quincy he's killed so he'd have fight his way past them.
  • Yamamoto's rampage has been truly terrifying except when the final lines of the chapter are spoken...you just realize how screwed he is.
• Episode 7 of this arc's anime adaptation begins with a scene shown for the first time: Yhwach leading the Lichtreich army to the Soul Society only to be met by the very first Captains of the Gotei 13. Said Captains proceed to not drive off, not defeat, but massacre the Quincies with expressions ranging from stoicism to serenity to even delight. Meanwhile, a younger Yamamoto marches across the body-covered battlefield with his blazing sword, callously striding across corpses without hesitation towards Yhwach. Certainly an impressive moment, but it also punctuates Yhwach's claim that the original Gotei 13 had been nothing more than a pack of violent killers.
• Chapter 511, Yamamoto dies. Not only is he cut in half, his hand gets cut off, and his entire body gets completely disintegrated. Even if Orihime can get to Soul Society, he almost certainly can't be brought back. Also, the Vandenreich has brought in their army to destroy all of Soul Society, and are now in the process of massacring the few Shinigami left.
• Chapter 512: The sheer look of rage on Ichigo's face, you can hardly blame him though, he was essentially trapped in a cage, helpless and forced to listen to his friends die.
  • The anime expands on this by showing us what Ichigo is seeing: he can feel everyone who's fighting as countless lights, and they're being rapidly extinguished one by one as he screams at them not to disappear.
• The death glare on the final page of Chapter 520. Combine that with who it's from: the normally cheerful, but nonetheless universally feared Unohana. Oh, and by the way, it turns out her real name is Yachiru Unohana, and she's the original Kenpachi.
  • It's particularly effectively done, because of how her face usually looks. Her neat hairstyle and calm expression normally adds to her 'motherly' image. Here Unohana is shown partly in shadow; her hair frames her face in a way that make it looks like a mask and her expression is less 'calm' than it is blank and deathly.
  • Also, the manner in which Tenjirou's Healing springs work may be very beneficial, but it sounds horribly... uncomfortable. To get healed, you have to be totally submerged in one of them, which sucks out the damage to your body and reiatsu and drains it into another pool. There, said damaged blood/reiatsu are sucked into a skeleton bone and replenished in the pool... which instead of water, is made of blood. And you get tossed into that blood pond to continue the process. Later, rinse, repeat, until your health is fully restored. Also, if you're healthy... you have to get out ASAP before the healing springs work against you, making your body explode. (Hence why Tenjirou's assistants must wear protection). Yeah, it does work wonders on Ichigo and Renji and ultimately saves Rukia and Byakuya too, but still. Ewwwww.
• Even more nightmare-worthy facial expressions from Unohana in Chapter 523. She's like a completely different person now, complete with Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl style hair...
  • The things that Ichigo and Renji are fighting are no better. They appear to have mouths where their eyes are supposed to be. It doesn't help they are filled with anger either.
    • And that one page where it looks like they're crying...or maybe drooling?
• Unohana's training regimen for Kenpachi in Chapter 524. In a series that typically involves characters calling out their attacks and explaining their abilities, she quickly and brutally takes down Kenpachi, culminating in a killing slice to his neck...and then she heals it. She intends to heal every fatal blow she lands, just so Kenpachi can survive long enough to learn from the training. That alone demonstrates just how deadly Unohana really is.
  • Also, Kenpachi's reaction when he realizes that he's unable to kill Unohana, and that she's about to kill him. That's probably the only time in the series in which Kenpachi looks scared.
• Kenpachi Zaraki has never had any formal training as a Soul Reaper. Central 46 had to pass a law forbidding his formal instruction just to make sure he wouldn't get so strong they couldn't control him. Now picture Kenpachi Zaraki, with formal training as a Soul Reaper, with all of his spiritual energy, and proper fighting techniques, and, against the law of his squad, KIDO. Him just swinging his sword with both hands was enough to one shot Nnoitra. Now imagine that kind of power coming after you.
  • Chapter 525 not only re-affirms this but takes it up to eleven. When Zaraki and Unohana first fought each other, Zaraki was only a child, but he was stronger than Unohana. He even had his Zanpakuto back then, and it was still the same, chipped, constant-release nameless Zanpakuto that it is today. Zangetsu once said the disunity between Zaraki and his Zanpakuto and not knowing its name weakened both Zaraki and the Zanpakuto. To top it all off, the reason why Zaraki is weaker than what he used to be is because he was afraid of losing the one person who made him enjoy a fight, so he subconsciously limited his power. Take away the subconscious limiter, have him use proper swordsmanship and learn the name of his Zanpakuto. With every last thing that is limiting Zaraki's true potential rectified, imagine how powerful he can become...
• Unohana's bankai... WTF?
  • Yes, it would seem Unohana's Nausea Fuel Bankai dissolves everything. In an extremely disgusting manner. And even more disturbingly, she seems to be the one that is intentionally keeping Zaraki alive, no matter how much he is dissolved. Because she cares. It would also seem that Unohana is fully capable of killing Zaraki whenever she damn well pleases, but cedes her own life because she deems him worthy of the title of Kenpachi. He may not be as skilled as her, but she clearly respects his raw power and future potential.
• Zaraki Kenpachi is about to learn his Zanpakuto's name. This is a moment fandom has been anticipating for a long time and now, having regained his former power that surpasses the second-strongest Shinigami in Soul Society, he is about to finally learn the name of and to start working together with his Zanpakuto. When Ichigo began working together with Zangetsu in his fight with Zaraki, Ichigo went from being beaten on the ground to overwhelming Zaraki and eventually beating him. One can only imagine what heights Zaraki will achieve...it seems Godpachi might become reality.
  • Also the test Ichigo and Renji had been subjected gives more nightmare fuel since it gives us a timeframe Unohana was killing and reviving Kenpachi for 3 straight days so yeah its confirmed if she wanted to Unohana won't let you die until she wanted you to die.
• One of the volume sketches in Vol 55 is the Vandenreich symbol with the word "Peace" written in blood. It's very ominous.
• In Chapter 530 a Shinigami's head is split in half horizontally in the blink of an eye. The look in his eyes shows he barely had time to realize that he was dead.
• In Chapter 534 Masaki suffers some after effects of letting that proto-arrancar bite her... and it causes her to gain what looks like a Hollow Hole and bulging veins it looks pretty horrible. Remember what happened to the Visored? It's the same thing. The one revealing it is none other than Urahara, and he's dead serious.
• In Chapter 535 poor Masaki finds herself floating helplessly naked into a massive hollow's mouth. Thank God Isshin saved her.
• Chapter 537: We learn the real reason why Masaki died. She had her powers stolen by the Vandereich leader, simply because he considered her "tainted" and/or "not strong enough". And this happened right when she was about to fight Grand Fisher, which she could have defeated easily if not for Yhwach's intervention.
  • For worse, she wasn't the only victim. All remaining Quincies who didn't fit Yhwach's standard of "purity" suffered the same fate. Including Uryuu's mother Kanae, who fell in a coma and died three months later.
    • And as of 544, we have confirmation that Uryuu's survival wasn't for lack of trying on Yhwach's part. He tried to kill an 8 year-old just for existing.
• Chapter 544 has Bambietta inviting a Quincy guy over to her room, apparently having sex with him and then slicing him in two out of frustration. You can see his body falling apart in front of the camera as she calmly, almost dully stares on. When the FemRitters appear, they don't necessarily disapprove of her brutality; they just don't like how she made a mess and killed a hunk before they could have their own fun with them. Granted, he did accept her offer at the beginning, and he was a Neo-Nazi by default, so yeah.
• Chapter 546: Imagine being a Soul Reaper who is either training or doing some chores or tasks and all of a sudden shadows envelope the Seireitei and in its place is the home base of the Vandenreich. All of a sudden, hundreds of Soul Reapers are shitting themselves with the fact they are now in a place they have no knowledge of, and the fact it is the base of the enemy. And considering 2/3 of the Soul Reaper count got decimated in their last encounter...
  • And what if this happens when not only you have any idea of what's going on, but your beloved and much younger little sister who is NOT a combatant ''is right next to you''? And then one of the most powerful enemies shows up and you have no time to send the little girl to safety]]? Whoa there, Kubo.
    • And this particular horror reaches CRITICAL MASS QUOTIENT in Chapter 549, since BG9 stabs Mareyo with a tentacle and holds her hostage with the threat of extracting it and letting her bleed to death. Shiiiiiiiit...
• Chapter 558 shines a really dark light on the relationships between the FemRitters. When Bambietta is defeated, she's surrounded by Giselle, Candice, Liltotto, and Meninas. Giselle claims that they don't want her to leave them, which would be fine if it wasn't for how she was Face Framed in Shadow as she said so, along with how Bambietta actually elects to plead for her not to help. There's something very ominous about it.
  • The reason behind Bambietta's desperate reaction was revealed in chapters 589-590. It's as bad as it looks.
• Chapter 562. Mask De Masculine, up until that point, was a rather flamboyant and hammy Stern Ritter of the bunch. All of his actions seemed to make him rather Laughably Evil than anything else. But when Renji demonstrates just how dangerous he is, the guy snaps. His eyes turn bloodshot, he's screaming and ranting on about how much of a "hero" he is and a "villain" his enemies are, and at one point, he starts attacking Renji repeatedly while repeatedly chanting the word "murder" over and over again. Another reminder of how depraved and insane the Stern Ritter are.
• Chapter 563 has a terrifying scene in which James' mouth, despite being detached from the rest of his face and his body after Renji shredded him, is given a close-up as it cheers for Mask De Masculine...And a smaller James comes out of it before more James come out of the shredded remains of his body. Renji is visibly horrified by the sight.
• Needless to say, the actions and behavior of the higher orders of the Stern Ritter are so terrifying and bizarre that they somehow manage to make Hollows, creatures consumed by Horror Hunger and violence, look like upstanding citizens in comparison. Yhwach acts less like a human and more like a Humanoid Abomination, whose tendency to indifferently dispose of his fanatically loyal minions regardless of whether they helped accomplish his goals or not is akin to that of an Eldritch Abomination and its cult.
  • This is not in the least helped the Sternritter or anybody else by the fact that Yhwach LITERALLY feeds on the death of his minions and those they kill. Since he thus needs endless bloodshed and war to survive, he has become a completely unfeeling abomination, caring more about the powers he has bestowed than the soldiers he has bestowed them upon.
  • Oh, if only it were that simple. The ability applies to anyone who has touched his soul, so even if a Shinigami were to die in unrelated combat, their power would still go to him. OH, and this means he already has Yamamoto's power, and he and Kenpachi have most certainly made contact. In other words, if Kenpachi dies after attaining Bankai, it's over for the entire universe.
  • Adding to the creepy, he's had this power since he was a baby. The text notes that everyone who was "healed" by touching his soul would die mere months later as Yhwach took back the soul fragments along with their memories and abilities. He's been killing people since birth.
• Chapter 566 features the return of Äs Nödt. Not only that, but as soon as he sees Rukia, the younger sister of the guy he almost killed, he starts going fucking CRAZY.
  • A more low-key one. His Emotion Bomb apparently cannot be blocked, which Rukia found out when his fear attack bypassed Sode No Shirayuki's ice.
    • Rukia's counter to him is also disturbing in its own right. Discovering her Sode No Shirayuki's true potential, she uses it to temporarily kill her own body by lowering her body temperature to force all the molecules in her body to a halt. Äs Nödt said that no living being could escape his powers of fear. Rukia agreed, so she essentially became a living corpse in order to fight him.
  • Äs Nödt remembers how Yhwach recruited him as he was hospitalized, contemplating if Heaven is easier to breathe in and Hell being more difficult. He breaks free from his icy prison and loses his eerily calm demeanor to a rabid demon as he transforms.
    Äs Nödt: The only thing I fear... IS BEING REBUKED BY HIS MAJESTY!!! COMPARED TO THAT, THERE IS NO OPPONENT, BATTLE, THAT CAN MAKE ME FEEL FEAR OR PAIN!!!
  • You think he's scary now? Wait till you see what he's hiding under that mask...
  • ...As well as his One-Winged Angel form. He looks like a cross between Aizen's monster-form and Ulquiorra's Segunda Etapa.
    • Said One-Winged Angel is the standout example of the series. There may be scarier sights in Bleach, but how many other characters have a form with the explicit purpose of terrorizing anyone who sees it into submission?
    • The anime only turns it up even further. Remember the lovely vision Äs Nödt gave Byakuya of seeing his sister Rukia rot like a zombie before his body gets swarmed by countless flies? When he finally manages to terrify Rukia using Tatar Foras, he proceeds to give her a vision much like the one he gave her elder brother, except even worse, providing this page with a lovely new image. Rukia sees the faces of Ichigo, Orihime, and Byakuya as they grotesquely rot before finally bursting apart into insects that cover her body, causing her to snap in fear just like Byakuya did.
  • If it was somehow possible, Äs Nödt continues to become even more horrifying in Chapter 569. He practically grows into a borderline Eldritch Abomination after Byakuya shows up and reveals how much stronger he's become. Not to mention how he threatened to place Byakuya and Rukia into an And I Must Scream situation.
  • The anime adaptation really ups the ante of how creepy Äs Nödt is, especially when you turn on the Japanese voice courtesy of Yoshitsugu Matsuoka. Imagine the heroic voice of Kirito or the rougher, but still heroic Inosuke Habashira. Matsuoka then manages to use those signature voices to create a very creepy, low-toned and screechy voice for Äs Nödt, which when combined with all of the scary shits he presents... it completely amps up the horrifying factors of Äs Nödt.
• Chapter 570: Now we get a Quincy whose powers are comparable to The Silence. Yachiru actually lands a hit but forgets instantly and gets sucker-punched as a result.
  • Not to mention, the Quincy who did that? He manages to pull one HECK of a Nightmare Face against both Yachiru and Isane. And for worse, all of this happened in a specially sealed place that was supposed to be a haven for the Shinigamis. Fuuuuuuu--
• Chapter 571: While it was indeed awesome, it also stands as a reminder that Yachiru is much more than the Cheerful Child we've seen her as. If her speech doesn't let you in that she's a bit...off, then look closely, and see how her eyes lose their light after she draws her sword, and gives her a mix of Dull Eyes of Unhappiness and The Unsmile. Her dialogue also reveals that the only reason she never got involved in fights before was because she didn't want to steal Zaraki's kills.
• Chapter 572: Another Sternritter appears and explains that Guenael is just a product of his imagination before vaporizing him. He claims he already killed Kensei and Rose, and Isane checks their bodies to confirm this. Yachiru tries to attack him, but he causes the bones in her arm to be made of cookies, thus breaking them.
  • And then later, once Kenpachi proves to be a true challenge, Gremmy learns to enjoy himself during the fight. The grin he shows is rather, uh, unsettling.
• 576: Gremmy nearly imagines himself dead when Kenpachi manages to overwhelm his defenses, which would have killed him. Another fine example of why Reality Warping Is Not a Toy.
  • Then, when he overcomes that, he copies himself and combines his powers with his duplicate in order to bring down a meteor!
• 577: The meteor causes an Oh, Crap! from practically everyone especially when it busts right through the Seireitei's shields!
• 578:
  • Gremmy sends Kenpachi to the vacuum of space, which nearly causes his eyes to burst out of his head and his lungs to collapse.
  • Gremmy tries to imagine himself stronger than Kenpachi, but the strain tears his body apart, killing him.
• 579: The battle won, Kenny calls out to Yachiru, and gets no response. Within the span of a single page, he goes from asking his squad members if they've seen her to screaming at them to look for her. If you've ever been responsible for someone else's child or your own and suddenly discovered they were nowhere to be found, you know at least a tiny bit of this feeling. Also keep in mind this is Kenpachi Zaraki we're talking about; he's just lost one of the only two people he ever admitted to caring about, and he's now in danger of losing the second.
• 580: Giselle Gewelle reveals her ability, "the Zombie". She lets her enemies cut her up as brutally as they like, leading to a sight of her mangled and split body that's unnerving by itself. But the true nightmare begins when her blood sprays over her attackers. Once that happens, they lose control of their bodies, doomed to exist for no other purpose than to obey Giselle's orders. If she commands them to kill themselves, they'll do so, fully aware of their actions... and there's nothing they can do to stop it.]] And while all that is happening, Giselle won't drop her smile even for a moment.
  • Not to mention, right before her ability kicks in, after letting the others cut her up almost in half, she just puts herself back together, as if it was nothing. OUCH.
  • Liltotto Lamperd's ability "The Glutton" is either really funny or really creepy. She is something straight out of Parasyte.
  • The sight of the Femritter nonchalantly discussing who gets to finish off their prey is especially disturbing since it's from their victim's point of view. Although this is kinda mitigated since one of 'em offers a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who gets the finishing blow.
• 582: Giselle reveals herself as the local Combat Medic... but her healing methods are pretty disturbing. Taking spare parts from dead corpses to re-make loss limbs? Sorry (only not), but ewwww.
  • Not to mention, there's the reason why she's using such skills. Candice got her arm severed by her own attack. Owwwww.
• 588: We get yet another reminder that the Thousand Year Blood War is Bloodier and Gorier, with the unpleasant image of a Soldat's face bursting apart in something that looks straight outta Barefoot Gen.
  • When Ikkaku and Yumichika confront Giselle, the latter summons a darker skinned Bambietta◊ to help kill every last Shinigami. The nightmare part? Bambietta's eyes are a deranged mixture of lifelessness, depression, and horror, most likely still begging Giselle not to kill her.
• 589: Yumichika and Ikkaku continue to fight the seemingly lifeless Bambietta, cutting off one of her arms and impaling her through the head, but to little effect. Giselle immediately confirms that she finished Bambietta off, explaining how her powers only affect Quincies post mortem. To make things worse, she admits that Bambietta's face upon dying gave her a generous orgasm. It makes you wonder what exactly she did to Bambietta's body... Pass the Brain Bleach.
  • Adding to that is Bambietta's behavior towards Giselle.... it appears she was not only turned into a zombie, but into a sex slave.
• 591: Giselle reveals another minion after the others are defeated: Hitsugaya, sporting the same darker skin as Bambietta and dressed up in a Vandenreich uniform.
• 592: How the zombified Hitsugaya makes his presence really known. He unleashes a wave of ice over the area, causing Ikkaku to lose his leg. He stabs Ikkaku a few times to take him down, then unleashes a brief yet brutal beatdown on Yumichika by nailing him in the gut with an ice-spike knee, headbutting him and cutting him down. After this, he strikes down Charlotte. Throughout all of it, he's carrying an out-of-place expression of calm on his face.
• 594: Kurotsuchi Mayuri, who claims to have his flesh stuck with decorum instead of skin, says its painful for him to use such a drug he's about to use on someone that can't resist, but it consoles his heart to see Hitsugaya resist with words by pleading him to stop. Then we get one page worth of Hitsugaya's screaming divided in two pages.
  • 596: The same thing happens with Kensei and Rose (and presumably to Matsumoto) as well. The drug itself is bad. It changes the very composition of the blood while the recipient is still conscious. So basically, Mayuri is pumping out the 'bad blood' and replacing it with new bloodlike stuff. No wonder everyone was screaming their heads off!
• 597: We're introduced to a new Stern Ritter: Nianzol Weizol, The Wind. Talk about a Nightmare Face...
  • Also on this chapter, we have Liltotto basically eating Pepe alive offscreen. As if Giselle's treatment to Bambietta wasn't gruesome enough...
• 600: Lille blows a hole through Senjumaru's skull and her body falls to the ground, bleeding profusely from the head. Valkyrie suggests Pernida cleans the mess up. The latter complies, brutally contorting and compressing the body until nothing remains but a small ball of bloody cloth. The worst part being that we don't even see what he did. The good news being that the body was a fake.
  • Pernida in general gives off some serious Humanoid Abomination vibes. He's always obscured by a hood with the only thing visible being glowing eyes, he never talks, and his powers seem, if anything, like they can force things to collapse in on themselves. Everything about him gives off the impression that there's something seriously wrong about him.
• 601: Askin's powers are a serious dose of this. His ability is to survive stuff that would kill almost anyone else; this means that, to make them kick in, he must be grievously wounded, ill, etc., which is proven by him surviving the same attacks that let Ouetsu curbstomp three Schutzstaffel Sterntitter Gerard, Lille, and Pernida. No wonder that he hates them.
• 602: Askin's other power is to control toxicity levels. He can even make your own blood lethal to you.
• 603: We see Auswählen in full effect. What does this exactly mean? Instead of fighting Nimaiya immediately... Yhwach performed The Purge of his own subjects again, to power himself and his Praetorian Guard up and fight at full strength, by creating pillars of light that either absorbs the targets whole or only leaves their bones behind. Liltotto and Giselle managed to escape for the moment... Accutrone, Nanana and Buzz-B were not as lucky. There's a very, VERY good reason why this chapter is named "What the HELL".
  • Even more terrifying is Yhwach himself. When a hurt Liltotto screams to Yhwach, demanding to know what they were to him, he responds with, "Comrades. We are comrades. We help each other." He truly seems to not see anything wrong with how he treats his subordinates, cementing himself as arguably the most terrifying and twisted character of all.
  • Special mention goes to the... weird deals between Zombie!Bambietta and Giselle. Giselle, who had been badly wounded by Zombie!Kensei, drags both of them into a dark cave and starts drinking Bambietta's blood to recover. Starts innocently enough, with Giselle simply sucking blood out of Bambietta's wounds, but then turns terrifying when she bites and tears into her flesh to drink more. When Bambietta states that she doesn't want to die, Giselle freaks out and responds by saying Bambietta is already dead, and smashes Bambietta's head into the pavement repeatedly, which splits her head open and knocks her out. The shot of a blank-faced Bambietta staring at the camera, with a puddle of blood underneath her head, is very disturbing. Giselle sees the now incapacitated Bambietta, and being the VERY weird person she is (to say it politely), decides to glomp her happily, and basically says she prefers Bambietta as a zombie. The image is complete with Giselle's version of Vollstandig: a pair of skeleton wings. Uuuuuuuhhhh...
• 605: Ichibei's face at the end of the chapter has him with completely blank eyes muttering: "I guess I'll kill you". For such a normally jovial man, that image makes him seem more like a demon than a Human.
  • Ukitake finally appears in the chapter, but his shadow is in the shape of a figure with an eye in the middle of its chest and a ring around it. It is something call "Kamikake". Do we want to know what that is...?
• 606: The facial expressions Ichibei makes as he gradually overwhelms Yhwach are jarring and shows that underneath his jovial behavior, a ruthless fighter hides.
  • Ichibei's true power is that by naming things, he defines their purpose as well. His brush weaponizes this power by 'cutting' the name of whatever it clashes with, effectively crippling the target completely by changing it into something with no designated functionality.
• 608: Ichimonji's ability. Anything that the ink from Ichimonji splashes onto loses its name, and thus it power. What is more, the source of Ichimonji's power is "blackness" i.e. the colour "black", and that all the "blackness" in the Universe is his to control - to the extent that Yhwach cannot take Ichibei's bankai because it just goes right back to him. All the while, Ichibei is still throwing around those demonic expressions as he negates everything Yhwach throws at him. While he is supposed to be a 'good guy', anyone going into the chapter blind would think Ichibei is the villain.
• 609: When Yhwach activates his Schrift power, "The Almighty", the irises and pupils of his eyes divide themselves into two, leaving Yhwach with two irises and two pupils in each eye.
  • Although that pales in comparison to what Ichibei does to force Yhwach to reveal his Schrift. The chapter makes the sheer powerlessness of having your name stolen horrifically obvious, with the Physical God Yhwach, previously the single most powerful and untouchable character in the entire series, totally shadowed in black ink, paralyzed standing up and barely able to speak in sentence fragments. Yet despite the Quincy King's list of great crimes, Ichibei still manages to seem like the villain by vindictively giving him a new name - 'ant', then literally crushing him like a bug.
• 610: Futen Daisatsu Ryou. Taking the darkness from one hundred nights in the Soul Society's future, Ichibei constructs a mausoleum made of pure blackness that takes the blackness from the targets, and uses that same blackness to crush them into nothing, ensuring even reincarnation will not occur. This is Ichimonji's ultimate technique, and transcends TIME to gather the darkness to execute it. Also, to crush someone down to nothingness to ensure even reincarnation will not occur? The Shinigami exterminated the Quincy because their arrows "destroyed" Hollow souls, yet Ichibei has a technique that does just that to any soul.
  • "The Almighty's" scope is clarified. Yhwach can see into the future, make use of any ability he sees, and the pupils and irises in his eyes further divide into a third set right before he vaporizes Ichibei's torso, pieces of his rib cages and organs flying away from the destruction. There is also a shot of Ichibei's spine... or, at least the vertebrae of his neck. So basically, Yhwach makes Aizen look like a complete scrub by comparison.
• 612: Ichibei implies that he knowingly sent Ichigo and co to their deaths against Yhwach.
• 613: Ichibei repeats what he said the last chapter, and states that is what "peace" is all about. And he says so while pulling what can be said to be his most disturbing Nightmare Face.
  • Can't Fear Your Own World expands on this. Had Ichigo died in his fight with Yhwach, he would have been made into the new Soul King.
• 614: Ichigo's own Quincy blood forces him to kill the Soul King once he grabs Yhwach's sword. Now, the destruction of Soul Society begins...
• 615: The living world is starting to fall apart as well as Soul Society and every other world. Yuzu and Karin are caught in an earthquake. Orihime tries to heal the Soul King, but nothing happens.
• 616: It seems that Ukitake has found a way to at least delay the destruction of Soul Society, by replacing the Soul King's right hand with himself. Problem is, this involves him basically trading what's left of his life and the deity that let him live (aka the Kamikake that was seen some chapters ago) in exchange for that. And the immediate consequences are NOT pleasant to the sight...
• 617: Kamikake is streaming out of Ukitake's mouth and eyes, and his body has gone completely limp while his life-force is used to temporarily substitute for the Soul King. It's very unsettling to see Ukitake in such a state. Also, Mimihagi's eye seemingly smiles in response to Yhwach's anger towards it, as the Soul King himself is apparently the one thing Yhwach cannot "see" with his eyes.
  • Aizen lets out quite the menacing grin at the very end of the chapter. It's enough to unnerve Kyoraku, who had the balls to go speak to him in the first place.
• 618: [Aizen shows he still has the power he had in "Deicide" when his reiatsu begins disintegrating the hands of a guard who tries to bind him in a restraint. He just got too close to [Aizen and his hands were obliterated.
• 619: After Uryu shows up at the battle in the Soul King Palace and shoots Yoruichi in the shoulder, causing the barrier around the Soul King and Mimihagi to shatter, Yhwach sets about ripping Mimihagi off the Soul King with a genuinely terrifying Slasher Smile on his face.
• 620: Yhwach breaks apart and absorbs Mimihagi, decides that he is going to take everything from the Soul King and uses the power he absorbed from [Mimihagi to fire down a black beam from the Soul King Palace down to the Seireitei. The image of the left side of his body covered with Kamikake's markings is suitably terrifying.
• 621: The Soul King's true power was released from the seals placed on him by the Shinigami, and there is so much of it overflowing that even Yhwach cannot absorb and contain all of it effectively. The form it takes? A mass of tiny one-eyed shadow abominations that proceed to swarm the Seireitei. Why? As Haschwalth states: "The Soul King's enemies are only/now the Shinigami."
• 626: Yhwach's new appearance after fully absorbing the Soul King. Even his elites were frightened.
  • Even if you aren't put off by his appearance, there's the fact that the old Soul King has, in Haschwalth's words, ceased to exist. Let's just say that even if Ichigo and the others defeat Yhwach, things won't necessarily be the same...
    • Yhwach and Mayuri have a competition to see which one needs their own Nightmare Fuel sub-page.
• 630: Bazz-B shooting a guy in the back of the head with a beam of fire straight through the guy's eye, melting it in the process.
• 637: The reveal of Pernida Parnkjas's true identity - it's a giant disembodied arm with a two-pupiled eye in its palm. Not only that, but it's also the left arm of the Soul King much like how the Mimihagi was the right. It raises many disturbing questions, the primary one being: "How did Yhwach get ahold of this thing?!"
  • Follow-up question: Why the hell is the Soul King's left arm serving its owner's most dangerous enemy?!
• 638: Mayuri's battle tactics are as disturbing as ever.
  • Mayuri decides to collect a 'sample' from Pernida by blasting one of its fingers off. The device he uses to do it looks like a snake with a human head that screams constantly.
  • When Pernida tries to use its nerve-invading power on Mayuri, Mayuri responds by tearing his hand apart and rearranging all its muscles, blood vessels and nerve endings.
  • Pernida is no slouch in this department either. When Mayuri blows off one of its fingers, an eye opens in the finger's knuckle.
  • And on top of all that, there's the volume's title page.
• 639: [Practically all of Chapter 639 but special mention goes to the reveal of Mayuri's modified Bankai. It is absolutely bone chilling seeing the big, black-eyed baby monster of a Bankai screaming bloody murder as Mayuri tells Pernida that just being alive causes the Bankai pain. Not only that, its skin peels off when it comes into contact with Pernida's nerves.
• 641: At this point, Mayuri and Pernida are exchanging Crowning Moments Of Nightmares.
• 643: Thought being blown into pieces would finish off Pernida? It doesn't, as eyes and fingers appear on each piece of the blown apart Pernida, riddle Nemu with the "Compulsory", and basically explode her entire body. Then Szayelaporro shows up as a hallucination in Mayuri's mind to savagely taunt him over Nemu's death...
• The idea that if Yhwach had waited another say 100 years: he could have gained Ichigo's power twice. And due to his ludicrously powerful abilities, that could very well have meant unlimited Final Getsuga Tenshou...
• 644-645: as one of the oldest and most powerful of the shinigami captains, Kyoraku has always carried a subtle-yet-potent degree of scariness behind his cheerful, goofy demeanor, but now it's becoming clear just how terrifying he is. Considering that his power is literally making children's games real, it only ups it more.
• 647: Bankai - Katen Kyokotsu: Kuromatsu Shinjuu, "Lovers' Suicide Beneath the Black Pine". Do we even want to know what this Bankai entails, given the name alone is derived from an adult theatre play?
  • You probably don't, but if you're curious: it operates in stages. First it inflicts all of its wielder's injuries on everyone else, then it gives them a nasty-looking disease before drowning both the enemy and the wielder in a black ocean that materialises out of nowhere.
  • There's more—if we remember a throwaway remark made by Ukitake during the Fake Karakura Town arc, along with something that Kyoraku says before unleashing his Bankai, then the possibility arises that Katen Kyokotsu: Kuromatsu Shinjuu doesn't just affect both Kyoraku and his enemy , but everyone within the Bankai's considerable area of effect—allies and noncombatants alike!
  Ukitake: "You shouldn't use your Bankai where others can see it."
  Kyoraku: "Nanao-chan... if you get caught up in this, I apologize. So it's come to this... I guess it's time to see what's waiting for me on the other side. Bankai."
• 650: Lille Barro shows off what it means to be the "Messenger of God" by regenerating his severed head and transforming into what can only be described as a giant owl with a long neck, deer-like legs, extremely long and lanky arms, the wings from his first form, and a halo above his head. He then proceeds to No-Sell Kyoraku's Bankai and starts blasting everything around him in an effort to kill Kyoraku, and nearly succeeded if it wasn't for Nanao showing up.
  Lille: "I am immortal... I am invincible... I am the one, the chosen one that will serve God... and erase all the sinners that dare go against God and his messenger!"
• 654: The reappearance of Izuru Kira, whom we assumed just another casualty. He finally gets a moment to really shine against an actually strong character as opposed to just mooks. What makes this nightmare fuel is his appearance. His entire body is covered in contrasting shadow, his zanpakuto already released, and that hole in his torso? It hasn't been healed. There's just three rods propping it together, and you can clearly see the crescent moon THROUGH the hole.
• 664: Askin's Vollstandig-induced Gift Ring^note Poison Ring grafting itself onto Urahara's eye and imploding it.
• 665: Kisuke's Bankai: It has the ability to 'restructure' by his own definition, and we see it very graphically in action. Askin's arm is almost surgically pried apart upon the Bankai's activation, Kisuke's face and down his neck have been visually stitched together to restore his eye sight, and his hand was rather graphically 'disassembled' and restructured during the fight.
• 666: Even having his heart ripped out and crushed by Grimmjow isn't enough to bring Askin down.
• 678: How staggeringly powerful God Yhwach is. Ichigo can barely do anything despite going Bankai in his new super form. Yhwach's easily one of the most formidable, nightmarish opponents that have ever existed, given how Ichigo's raw power couldn't even touch him.
  • To elaborate: the instant Ichigo uses Tensa Zangetsu in his new Hollow form, Yhwach uses "The Almighty" to pull a "possible future" where Tensa Zangetsu broke into the present, which causes Tensa Zangetsu to break instantly in the present. How do you beat a man who can not only see all possible futures, but can "change the future" by bringing a chosen future into the immediate present?
• 679: The horrified look on Ichigo and Orihime's faces as Yhwach explains "The Almighty" and how utterly screwed they are. To elaborate, Yhwach informs them that if they oppose him, he'll appear before thm at their moment of greatest happiness and then kill them, so any time they're happy, they'll be overcome with fear as to whether that's the happiest moment in question.
• 682: As Yhwach returns to Soul Society, he sees the very same Sosuke Aizen. When Aizen claims this Soul Society is his, Yhwach gives him his menacing grin, and completely frees him of his chair by completely destroying it, proving how terrifyingly powerful Yhwach is. Now, Aizen can do whatever he wants, and there are only a few who can stop him.
• 683: Yhwach continues to show how menacing he is when he starts curbstomping Aizen, Ichigo and Renji with his godlike powers. He breaks Renji's Bankai and lops off his arm, he destroys Aizen's Zanpakuto while shrugging off his attacks and then shatters Ichigo's new reformed Bankai before blowing a giant hole into Ichigo's abdomen.
  • Yhwach's look of genuine surprise when it turns out he was seeing an illusion all along by Aizen and ends up being stabbed by the real Ichigo and his body blown to bits by a point-blank Getsuga Tensho.
• 684: Yhwach actually demonstrates the final and most frightening bit of "The Almighty": If through some miracle, his opponent actually manages to kill him, he can rewrite the future to a point where he survives and is still alive!!
  • Aizen ends up being swallowed whole by Yhwach.
  • Yhwach decides to end the final battle by absorbing everything around him into a singular point. He's then shot by Uryu Ishida with an arrow laced with Still Silver, the same silver that ends up clotting his victims' hearts if they were unfortunate enough to get hit by Auswahlen. The look on his face as he's infected by his own weapon is terrifying. Even then, Yhwach is able to overcome even this trump card in a matter of seconds!!
  • Yhwach's horrifying realization that the nightmare he had on his throne room, shown to him by Haschwalth, was actually a warning about Ichigo slashing him in half with his old Zanpakuto. The brief opening of Ishida's arrow gave Ichigo all the time he needed to slash the evil Quincy monarch in two, this time Yhwach has no omniscient power at all to save him.
• 685: Akon reading a peculiarity on his computer screen: Yhwach's reiatsu appearing in Soul Society. Even after a decade of peace, the man will not stay dead.
• 686: It was only for a brief moment but Yhwach's reiatsu takes a brief life of its own and starts to attack nearby Shinigami. Thankfully, Kazui Kurosaki was able to wipe it out forever...somehow.
  • Aizen is revealed to have survived the final battle and ends up being imprisoned again in a reinforced chair. The man has to look forward to an eternity of jail time.

Howl From the Jaws of Hell Arc

• The opening narration about owning two goldfish, one of whom died. At first it sounds like the narrator is mourning the death of one, but then they note the second goldfish has started growing. The narrator then states that the death of the first goldfish was a good thing. It's an extraordinarily creepy note to open on.
• Kazui and Kon go on a late-night stroll to a hidden place. When Kazui shows Kon the ritual to open the door, things take a turn for the freaky. Disembodied eyeballs float in the air and the doorway appears out of thin air, its opening lined with teeth.
• Ichika spots Ichigo with Renji and the other lieutenants. To her shock, a huge skeletal...thing appears behind them without warning. They manage to dodge its attack, but Kiyone gets blindsided by another monster. Supposedly they're Hollows, except one of them gets its flesh and mask ripped off its bones and what we see of its skull does not look human.
• Szayelaporro returns, now upgraded from an Arrancar to some damned entity similar to the Togabito. His left arm burns with a black flame that's already seared away the flesh, his left eye is a dark pit and two wounds on the sides of his head can sprout horns - as in, forcefully push them out of his skull while pus oozes from the wounds. The worst part of all is that he's been watching over Renji ever since he ended up in Hell. Then he tries to kill Ichika.
  • Renji is already freaked out at seeing Szayelaporro again, seeing as how the last time he fought the Arrancar he had several of his bones, organs, muscles and tendons crushed and torn from his Release powers. The second that Szayelaporro sets his sights on his young daughter, Renji doesn't even try to attack. He just grabs his child and runs.
• The most chilling detail of all? Apparently Captain-level Soul Reapers, and similar individuals can't assimilate into Soul Society when they die, so instead they go straight to Hell. Szayelaporro implies that keeping Aizen and Yhwach alive is going to prove a very costly mistake for the Soul Reapers. This has been going on for generations and implies some pretty horrible Nightmare Fuel for any Captain-level Soul Reaper in the cast when it's time for them to die, which includes Rukia and many other known characters who are Captains or may be powerful enough to become Captain-level Soul Reapers.

Other

• Anime only, in the "New Captain" arc, where Ichigo gets locked in to his mind for a moment and tormented with the death of his mother, Masaki Kurosaki. She also starts choking him, intending to kill him while he is unable to harm her. The worst part is how her face was hidden in shadows/covered by her hair so you couldn't really see her expression.
  • The nucleus of a Bakkoto looks like an eyeball. Gyokaku kept them on his desk. Then, when Amagai kills Gyokaku, he takes them with him and then wears them like a sash, looking like he has four eyeballs growing across his chest.
• The scene in Fade To Black where Homura and Shizuku fusing with Rukia against her will, because they want to be with her and want nobody else getting in the way. Poor Rukia's tortured screams do NOT help. After this, Dark Rukia shows up and rams her scythe into a plant which spawns an Eldritch Abomination that's OVER 150 STORIES TALL with massive eyes EVERYWHERE, sprouting tentacle monsters that look made out of sperm. All the captains make a Big Damn Heroes, but it doesn't really help much, because the damn thing spawns the monsters non-stop.
• The fourth movie brings us Hell itself, from what appears to be gigantic prison city made up entirely of white marble blocks patrolled by giant skeletal gorillas with floating skulls instead of heads, that can pass through walls and chew on people, to a sea with stone lotuses, with a corpse of one such monster impaled on a giant sword inside each, to what appears to be a cavern, with ponds of corrosive yellow liquid and a dimly lit underground tunnel, leading to a desert made of the ground bones of the damned, with some sort of dark sacrificial altar in the middle, and a pool of lava that respawns anyone killed in hell so they can die again, and that's just the start.
• Ichigo's complete Hollowfication in Hell upon Kokuto revealing he's the one responsible for the events of the fourth film from the start, first. He turns towards the giant Kushanada corpse, only to get Kokuto's sword thrown into his chest as the Getsuga he launched Shuren away with finally explodes in the background. He collapses sideways as Kokuto steps closer and asks him how he is, before kneeling and taking the sword out with two sharp swoops, causing Ichigo to shout in pain, before being shushed by the white-haired Sinner. He then has to watch all of his friends who came with him to Hell taken, before being told Yuzu has converted into a prisoner of Hell. This makes Ichigo snap with anger and hatred as his spiritual pressure flares around him in black and red. The whole scene is terrifying, to find out just how much, watch this video.
• A bit of in-universe nightmare fuel, nobody except Uryu & Orihime have seen Ichigos Horned Hollow form, much less how powerful it is, Renji is there when Ichigo turns, and now one of his closest friends/rivals has turned into a beast powerful enough that it is said to dwarf even a Vasto Lorde in power, who then basically nearly annihilates Hell itself in rage, Renji must have wet himself at that point.
• From the light novel Bleach: Cannot Fear Your Own World, Hisagi's Bankai is rather gruesome to look at. It's basically a giant ball of chains hovering above him with a few of them wrapped around Hisagi's neck like a noose. It actually freaks out a few of Hisagi's allies from the sight of it.

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