Walking With Watchers

Pressed for an explanation, Uryu Ishida asks why the crown was set on his head. Yhwach seems pleased that his successor does not simply nod along, then points to the obvious answer: of every mixed-blood Quincy culled by the Auswahlen nine years earlier, only Uryu drew breath afterward. That lone survival, the emperor reasons, marks a strength beyond his own, and he tells the young man to stop doubting and follow him.

In her quarters, Bambietta Basterbine lures a Soldat named Marcel inside and cuts him apart once her mood sours. Her fellow female Sternritter, Candice, Meninas, Liltotto, and Giselle, file in to scold the mess, and the bickering only ends when Bambietta punches a hole clean through several walls and admits she is anxious about where the Wandenreich is headed. High in the tower behind the cathedral, Haschwalth returns to his aide, who nudges him to advise Yhwach; instead he lays bare the plan, that the deliberately divisive announcement pins every suspicious eye on Uryu and leaves him no room to move against his master.

Far off in Hueco Mundo, a hooded Orihime finally reaches the Negal Ruins, gnawing a bland tuber and trailed by Pero, the little winged spy Urahara rigged with a camera. Sado climbs the stairs to meet her, and her relief curdles into shock at the pair of figures looming behind him, one of them Grimmjow, as he announces that the group is complete. Elsewhere, Urahara studies Quilge Opie's crackling Medallion and notes his work is far from finished.

Yhwach reveals that Uryu alone endured the Auswahlen that wiped out the Gemischt Quincy, the reason he was chosen as successor. Bambietta murders a Wandenreich soldier and confesses her worry over the group's future. Haschwalth privately decodes Yhwach's true intent behind the appointment. In Hueco Mundo, Orihime rejoins Sado and meets the allies gathered for the coming war, while Urahara continues probing a captured Medallion.

Walking With Watchers is the fourth chapter of the sixty-first volume, THE LAST 9DAYS, part of the Thousand-Year Blood War storyline. Its events were folded into the anime as Episode 380, also titled THE LAST 9DAYS.