User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 599 - Too Early To Win, Too Late To Know/@comment-4822693-20141004225027

Based off of what Askin said about "upper division" vs. "lower division" I think that there are two sets of 26 sternritters. It would actually make a huge amount of sense. It would explain why there are two A's and two Y's. Yawach is the upper division A. Royd Lloyd (the one who beat Kenpachi) was obviously far stronger than his brother, so he was probably the upper division Y. Haschwalth is also probably the upper division B, so that leaves B and N for the last two lower division sternritters. This theory would leave an appropriate number of very powerful opponents for everyone to fight in the last half of this arc. At this point we wouldn't see most of the bankais/shikais that haven't been revealed yet, unless there were a lot more quincies to fight. Also I thought that Kubo said that the number of sternritters would grow as the series progressed, so this would kind of fit what he said. I also bet that Kira and Harribel will have been assimilated as upper division soldiers. Sorry if other people have already said some of this.