User blog comment:TVthePunisher/Isshin and Masaki - Just a Theory/@comment-1405841-20100530001234

That is very true, considering the focus of the story right now is Aizen and the Hoguyku rather than his ultimate goal of getting into the Spirit King's realm. Maybe Kubo just left it up in the air for future stories? That's what I've thought for Grimmjow as of late, if you have a character that isn't necessarily confirmed dead...HE COULD be just saved in the back of Kubo's mind as a character for later on, or not.

Really at this point in the story anything more than what's going on with Aizen at this exact moment is speculation, there's nearly an infinite amount of directions the story could go from there (with either Aizen returning as the main villain or somebody else taking up the title). It may just have to take up until AFTER the end of this arc to be sure of what's going to be important from there, I'm expecting another rest-period like after the Soul Society arc before entering the Arrancar Arc.