Up until the very last panel, this chapter wasn’t anything special. Starrk shows off his wolves, they do some damage to Love and Rose (nice to see Love without his glasses for once), and Starrk gets ready to finish them off. But then we see him getting stabbed from behind, and with no clear indication of who the blade belongs to, things get a lot more interesting. My immediate thought was that, because no perpetrator was shown, the blade belonged to someone on his own side, but it’s hard to build a case for taking out the Primera Espada unless it was Harribel deciding that it was time to move up in the ranks or her doing something related to her aspect of death, sacrifice. It would be great if it were Aizen, Ichimaru, or Tousen, but that wouldn’t make any sense at this current stage unless Aizen was suddenly feeling bored or something. If it was a Shinigami, then it probably would have to be someone who struck without Starrk noticing them or their blade getting closer, and the only Shinigami present who are powerful enough to do that are Yamamoto and maybe Kyouraku or Ukitake. Good guys usually don’t attack from behind in this fashion though.
Regardless of who it is, I doubt this kind of wound will prove fatal to Starrk. In a series like Bleach, getting stabbed like this makes for a nice cliffhanger, but the actual injury equates to little more than a flesh wound. Plus, it’s too early for Starrk to croak since he has yet to show why he deserved to be the Primera Espada. So far, those wolves haven’t been more impressive than Barragan’s miasma.
Bonus points if you can identify what the title of this post is referring to.
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