I AM THE EDGE (episode)

For the chapter of the same name, see I AM THE EDGE.

I AM THE EDGE is the twentieth episode of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War and the three hundred and eighty-sixth episode of the Bleach anime overall.

Gremmy Thoumeaux interrupts 11th Division Lieutenant Yachiru Kusajishi's battle against Guenael Lee before being confronted by her captain, Kenpachi Zaraki.

Summary
In the Fourth Division's temporary first-aid station, Lieutenant Isane Kotetsu rushes to the side of 11th Division Lieutenant Yachiru Kusajishi, who has just been struck in the face, and asks her if her nose is bleeding because she bumped into something, only for Yachiru to admit that she does not know. Behind them, Guenael Lee confirms that this is how it is supposed to be and introduces himself to them as Sternritter "V", but Yachiru punches him in the face before he can explain his power.

Suddenly, Guenael vanishes from Yachiru's fist, leaving her to fly through the empty air and express confusion since she thought that she hit something before her left shoulder is cut open, spraying a large amount of blood. With Isane running over to Yachiru in concern, Guenael internally details the three versions of Vanishing Point: the first which lets him become invisible, the second which makes him intangible, and the third which erases his existence from the minds of those around him, which he uses after noticing that Yachiru is attacking him faster as she punches through nearby boxes and withstands cuts from his Reishi Dagger.

With Yachiru and Isane left uncertain as to whether someone was even here, Guenael ceases his usage of Vanishing Point and greets them again, only for Yachiru to immediately throw a punch at his face, which Guenael narrowly evades by turning himself intangible. As Yachiru looks at her fist and insists that she hit him, Guenael stares at her from the side of the room in shock over her impulsively attacking him, and when Isane criticizes her for targeting him even though they do not know if he is an ally or enemy, Yachiru asserts that she is certain Guenael is an enemy because she felt a tingle when she saw him, leaving Guenael aghast at her operating on instinct.

While Guenael curses her as an animal for this, Yachiru runs over to a chest and pulls her Zanpakutō from it as she explains to Isane that she was taught by her captain, Kenpachi Zaraki, to trust tingles that make her cold, hot, or happy because the latter cannot help wanting to slay anyone who makes him feel like that, though she does not believe he will mind if she cuts up Guenael. When Guenael appears behind her and attempts to stab her, Yachiru whirls around the second the blade touches her and slashes at Guenael, who turns intangible and leaps back. However, Guenael finds himself cut on the bridge of his nose despite this.

Guenael refuses to believe this since he dodged Yachiru's slash, but Yachiru clarifies that her sword cuts her targets regardless of whether or not they dodge because it is a copycat with additional blades in front of and behind it, meaning that Guenael is more likely to midjudge and get hit by it the more he analyzes its swing and range. After Yachiru brings out the two beasts of Sanpo Kenjū, to Guenael's bewilderment, she delivers a powerful downward slash with them before initiating a dance, with the two of them mimicking her movements at each step. Watching this, Isane is left stunned by Sanpo Kenjū not changing the sword's form.

After ruminating that it is also not a Bankai despite manifesting separate beings, Isane admits that she did not know such a Shikai existed just before Guenael reappears in the nearby doorway, prompting Yachiru to note that she believed she had cut him in half. Suddenly, as he counters that it would be ridiculous if he could not evade Yachiru's power right after she explained it to him, Guenael finds a large chunk taken out of his left shoulder when he attempts to turn invisible and expresses disbelief at what is happening, which leads Gremmy Thoumeaux to confirm that it is while sitting inside the barrier next to Isane.

With Isane demanding to know how Gremmy got inside the barrier, Guenael asserts that he fought really well, and when Gremmy confirms that he did well for a product of Gremmy's imagination, Guenael insists that he can easily dispatch Yachiru and Isane with his powers, Gremmy praises his ability to erase himself from sight, mind, and memory as being so potent that he has vanished from Gremmy's own mind as well. In response, Guenael furiously attacks Gremmy, who apologetically informs the former that he can no longer imagine a future for him before obliterating Guenael, whose blood is showered across the room and barrier.

A mortified Isane turns to Gremmy and urgently requests that he step away from the barrier, only for Gremmy to reveal that she does not need to worry about 3rd Division Captain Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi and 9th Division Captain Kensei Muguruma within because he already killed them, to Isane's horror. When Yachiru attacks him in turn, Gremmy casually grabs and twists her right arm, rapidly breaking the bones within and forcing Yachiru to drop her Zanpakutō. As Yachiru looks down at her arm in confusion, Gremmy informs her that the bones in her arm are now made of cookies and predicts that her next thought will be that the rest of her bones are as well.

With Yachiru collapsing and realizing that her other arm has also crumpled, Gremmy asserts that imagination is the most powerful force in this world and reveals that everything he imagines becomes reality, leaving Yachiru terrified. Suddenly, the ceiling of the roof caves in while Zaraki expresses his confusion at finding a brat when he came looking for Yachiru due to her shaky Reiatsu. After Zaraki leaps down into the room, Isane attempts to ask him about the fate of her captain, Retsu Unohana, only for Zaraki to bluntly state that she is dead and he killed her, which means Isane can kill him for doing so if she wants.

Collapsing upon hearing this, a tearful Isane instead expresses relief at this because it means Zaraki has succeeded her title, which he confirms. Nearby, Gremmy infers Zaraki's identity and praises his strength being just as imagined before raising up the room and building with dozens of pillars, causing Kensei and Rose to fall off their beds toward the ground below and forcing Isane to leap after and catch them. Once the pillars settle and coalesce into a massive stone fort, Gremmy announces that he has set the stage for Zaraki since he wanted to welcome the latter and his legendary strength properly.

When Zaraki questions if this is some kind of spell, Gremmy denies it being that or an illusion because it is just reality and introduces himself as the real Sternritter "V" before asserting that it is lucky for Zaraki to fight him since he is the strongest Sternritter. In response, Zaraki rushes forward and brings his Zanpakutō down on Gremmy, only for the blade to stop at Gremmy's shoulder without piercing it. However, with Gremmy reminding Zaraki that he can turn fantasy into reality and explaining that he has envisioned his body being stronger than steel, Zaraki suddenly slashes Gremmy down the length of his body from his shoulder.

Gremmy falls to one knee and blood pools from his wound as Zaraki berates him for not mentioning his body's toughness earlier since Zaraki would have simply attacked with enough force to cut through steel from the start. Upon noticing Gremmy's expression, Zaraki infers that he did not believe he could be cut and declares that there is nothing Gremmy's imagination can produce which he cannot cut because he is the Kenpachi. On the ground below the fort, several members of the Eleventh Division rejoice upon sensing Zaraki's Reiatsu, prompting Zaraki to comment on how noisy they are being, though Gremmy assures him that it is fine.

After Gremmy claims that the Shinigami are free to imagine that Zaraki's presence means they can win the war, Zaraki notices that his body is completely unharmed and infers that Gremmy can heal himself, though Gremmy clarifies that he instead imagined that his body had already fully recovered from the sword wound, to Zaraki's surprise. Assuming that this power sounds like a bad joke to Zaraki because people like him cannot understand it until they lose, Gremmy beckons Zaraki to attack him and promises to not even use a single finger to defeat him before vowing to win using only what is inside his head while lava surges around him.

Though he calls Gremmy's powers ridiculous, Zaraki admits that he does not mind fighting against something beyond reason and slashes through the lava when it approaches him, sending it flying in thin streams that splash onto the ground around Yachiru. When Zaraki orders Yachiru to take cover, Gremmy tells him to not be so hard on her since every bone in her body is currently made of cookies, and when Zaraki expresses confusion at the term, Gremmy realizes that he should have used rakugan instead, which Zaraki recognizes prior to berating Gremmy for not mentioning this earlier and leaping into the air to attack him.

Suddenly, Zaraki finds himself floating within a cube of water suspended in the air above Gremmy, who comments on how absurd it is that the air Zaraki jumped up into was already underwater. After Zaraki watches Yachiru fall into a large crevice beneath him, Gremmy has the water cube slam down into the crevice as well before sealing the latter shut and telling Zaraki to die a painful death while trapped by water and earth, which should only take an hour at most no matter what kind of monster he is. However, Zaraki bursts out of the ground with Yachiru under his arm and slashes at Gremmy, who creates a thick metal bar in front of himself to block the blade.

Observing that Yachiru's bones have returned to normal, Zaraki theorizes that Gremmy was too focused on defeating him to maintain his alteration of Yachiru's body. With Zaraki's blade cutting through the bar and destroying a large chunk of the stone fort, Askin Nakk Le Vaar watches the battle from afar with a pair of binoculars and muses that while the world makes fun of people who cannot do anything more than imagine, seeing someone who can change the world with just his imagination makes him realize how peaceful it is that those people cannot do anything with theirs. Back at the battle, Zaraki notes that Isane is still nearby.

Once Zaraki tells her to go down and get her arm fixed, Yachiru happily complies with this and leaps off the side of the fort to speed toward the ground below, leaving Zaraki to ask Gremmy if he intends to fight here. When Gremmy expresses confusion at this, Zaraki brings up him calling himself the strongest Quincy and proposes that he should want to crush the strongest opponent if this is true, to Gremmy's shock, prior to inviting him to start the battle and claiming that he cannot call it a fight if he is distracted by someone other than his opponent. Zaraki rushes toward Gremmy, who projects horizontal pillars of stone toward him in turn.

While Zaraki crashes into and smashes through the dozens of pillars emerging from the ground, Gremmy ruminates on his words and mentally admits that he never considered this because no one ever tried to challenge him due to how obviously superior his power was, preventing him from ever wanting to crush anyone since there was no need to prove his power by killing someone. Despite this, Gremmy grins with malicious glee and realizes that he indeed wants to obliterate Zaraki prior to summoning dozens of assault rifles around himself and opening fire on Zaraki, who breaks off a square chunk of the stone fort with his foot to intercept the bullets.

With several missiles joining the bombardment and engulfing the top of the fort in explosions, the last of them is cut in half and explodes, forcing Gremmy to shield himself with his arms, before it can reach Zaraki, who stands with slight scuffs across his body and notes that Gremmy used his fingers after all. Calling Gremmy's joyful expression a good look, Zaraki states that his Zanpakutō is finally going to have some fun and leaps into the air once more as Gremmy wonders why he feels so good right. Though Gremmy creates a dome around himself comprised of triangular metal plates that sprout blades between them, Zaraki cuts through it with ease.

However, when Zaraki embeds his blade deep within Gremmy's body with the same slash and berates the latter for this since he can easily cut through steel, he finds himself unable to pull his Zanpakutō out of Gremmy just before a gigantic stone hand with its fingers splayed out slams down onto him palm-first. After Gremmy criticizes this since cutting him does not mean anything, Zaraki slashes through the stone hand and across a startled Gremmy's chest as he rises into the air, leaving Gremmy to realize that his momentary lapse of concentration will leave him open to Zaraki's next attack prior to Zaraki coming down and slashing him diagonally again.

Left heavily bleeding and in disbelief by this, Gremmy internally questions why he cannot stop Zaraki's blade and considers the possibility of losing to him, which he repeatedly and vehemently denies being possible. Upon noticing Gremmy's state, Zaraki stops his assault and asks Gremmy if he just envisioned himself losing, which causes Gremmy to realize what is happening and heal his wounds before thanking a confused Zaraki for helping him wipe away all thoughts of death and ensuring he can no longer die. Though Zaraki rejects the idea that he will regret this, Gremmy decides create a clone of himself, to Zaraki's surprise.

With Gremmy promising to show Zaraki his greatest power as a way of repaying him, Zaraki inquires about whether this is an illusion, but Gremmy clarifies that he can create life itself with his imagination, and when Zaraki attacks the original Gremmy, he blocks the slash with his arms without being harmed, gets up from the ground, and asserts that neither of him can be harmed or killed while the power of his imagination simply doubles as a massive meteor appears several miles above the city. In response to Zaraki's puzzlement, Gremmy reveals that this will obliterate both him and the Seireitei, leaving only Gremmy himself alive.

Despite this, Zaraki simply notes that he has never cut a meteor before and comments to Nozarashi on how exciting this is. As the meteor crashes through the Shakonmaku without stopping, the Shinigami on the ground below fall into despair and believe that they are going to die. Up on the roof of the fort, Gremmy brings up the hypothetical scenario of Zaraki killing him, which he specifically avoids imagining, and reveals that the meteor would not disappear even if this happened, meaning that the only outcome is himself being left alive after the meteor lands and kills everyone else, which he calls a hopeless situation.

However, Zaraki merely looks up at the meteor with unrestrained glee, counters that Gremmy is the one who cannot do anything about this, and launches himself into the air toward the meteor before releasing his Shikai, Nozarashi. Down on the ground, Yachiru watches this and recalls meeting Zaraki for the first time as an infant, where Zaraki realized that she had no name just like him. Up above, Zaraki cuts completely through the center of the meteor, splitting it in half and causing the two halves to explode outward into thousands of small chunks that rain down across the Seireitei, forcing Gremmy to shield himself.

In the air above Gremmy, Zaraki stands with Nozarashi, a massive war cleaver with a bandaged hilt and a large red tassel at the corner of the blade, resting on his shoulder. When a shaken Gremmy calls him a monster as the Shakonmaku closes up, Zaraki reminds Gremmy that there is simply nothing he cannot cut, but Gremmy merely smiles and admits that this is simple before creating several more clones of himself around Zaraki. Though Zaraki asserts that cloning himself will not even the odds, Gremmy and his clones proclaim that they will just have to kill Zaraki with something without form before creating a pocket of outer space around him.

Surrounded by space, Zaraki screams in agony while his blood boils and his bodily fluids evaporate from his eyes and mouth while one of Gremmy's clones details this and concludes that his bodily tissues will soon collapse, leaving him to die a painful death if he remains conscious until that point. Suddenly, the Gremmy clone finds Nozarashi nearly cutting him in half at the waist and sees Zaraki pulling himself out of the pocket of space by grabbing the edge with his hand as the latter observes that Gremmy forgot to harden his body. Suddenly, when Zaraki cuts him in half, the Gremmy clone's upper body sprouts a large bomb on its chest.

Gaining identical bombs on their own chests, the remaining clones grab onto Zaraki and detonate in unison, creating a massive explosion above the fort while Gremmy lands on it and pants heavily. However, Zaraki emerges from the cloud of smoke with only some burns on his chest, leading a stunned Gremmy to call him a true monster and proclaim that he will simply have to make himself more powerful than Zaraki is. Leaping into the air toward Zaraki, Gremmy begins increasing the muscle mass of his body and mentally insists that he wants to win for the first time in his life, which is why he will prove himself to Zaraki.

Before he can reach Zaraki, though, Gremmy's body begins fracturing and pulling itself apart from the strain, causing him to fall out of the air and away from Zaraki, who deduces that Gremmy envisioned him as too strong to ever overcome and killed himself trying to surpass a standard he considered impossible to overcome, which he calls foolish. In the aftermath, Gremmy lies on a chunk of rubble and wonders if he was killed by his own imagination, only to deny this as Zaraki lands on his pooling blood and assert that his imagination was correct because that he accurately envisioned Zaraki's power, which made it too correct.

Gremmy clarifies that he was killed because he failed to understand that only Zaraki's body can withstand his power rather than by his own imagination and begins to declare that his power of imagination did not lose to Zaraki, but realizes that this is an excuse and stops himself before admitting that he strongly wanted to win while a brain in a case bursts out of his body, which begins to disintegrate into Reishi, and lands nearby. With Zaraki bewildered by this, Gremmy reiterates his promise to kill Zaraki without raising a single finger and reveals that even his own body is one of his creations, meaning that he kept his promise.

After admitting that he is the one who died anyway, Gremmy observes that his imagination is at its limit and notes that it is going to be scary to envision the world where he can no longer imagine anything prior to completely disappearing, leaving only his brain and a somber Zaraki looking on.

Fights & Events

 * Yachiru Kusajishi vs. Guenael Lee (concluded)
 * Kenpachi Zaraki vs. Gremmy Thoumeaux

Powers and Techniques Used
Zanpakutō released:

Shikai:

Spirit Weapons:
 * Reishi Dagger

Schrifts:

Anime Notes
Removed Content= Added/Expanded Content= Censorship= Changes=
 * Isane Kotetsu identifying Guenael Lee as one of the Sternritter and him confirming this.
 * Guenael politely greeting Isane and Yachiru Kusajishi.
 * Guenael mentally detailing how Version 2 of Vanishing Point leaves an illusion of combatants striking him when he uses it in response to an attack and allows him to attack enemies while invisible once he reverts to Version 1.
 * Guenael noting that his ability to instantly switch back and forth between Version 1 and Version 2 of Vanishing Point makes battles a one-sided game in his favor because enemies cannot predict where he will be next.
 * Guenael praising Isane for her rational reaction to his appearances and promising to hear out Yachiru's reason for impulsively attacking him, only to be bewildered by her attributing it to instinct and deducing from her hair color and face that she is a wild animal.
 * Isane berating Yachiru for impulsively attacking people.
 * Isane wondering if Yachiru is describing getting chills up her spine.
 * Guenael internally asserting that Yachiru's instincts do not matter if she cannot hit him.
 * Guenael beginning to mock Yachiru after seemingly evading her slash.
 * Isane contrasting Sanpo Kenjū against Retsu Unohana's Minazuki and Tōshirō Hitsugaya's Daiguren Hyōrinmaru.
 * Guenael revealing that he used Vanishing Slider to narrowly evade Yachiru's vertical slash by focusing all of his Reiatsu into shifting slightly backward.
 * Isane questioning what Gremmy Thoumeaux means by calling Guenael a product of his imagination.
 * Isane rushing to Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi and Kensei Muguruma, whom she confirms are dead.
 * Gremmy claiming to have seen Yachiru's slash at him coming well in advance.
 * Yachiru realizing that her arm is broken.
 * One of the Shinigami realizing that Zaraki must have been present before the stone fort appeared and wondering how none of them sensed his Reiatsu until then.
 * Gremmy confirming that he has summoned lava and that it came from within his own head.
 * Gremmy noting that while Zaraki will not die from being crushed, everybody dies from being unable to breathe, which is why he is also enclosed in water.
 * Askin Nakk Le Vaar expressing surprise at Zaraki taking on Gremmy so evenly and responding to PePe Waccabrada calling him a monster by asserting that the latter is a monster as well and getting up to leave since he does not want to be caught up in the battle, prompting PePe to admit that they are not safe even at this distance.
 * Gremmy bringing up Zaraki noticing his concentration on Yachiru being interrupted, prompting Zaraki to affirm that there was no way Gremmy could maintain it.
 * A flashback to Jugram Haschwalth and the other Sternritter preparing to invade the Seireitei for the first time.
 * Zaraki observing that he is not feeling much resistance to his attacks anymore.
 * Bazz-B, the Soldat, PePe, Renji Abarai, and Askin reacting to the meteor's appearance as the Shinigami assure each other that it should be obliterated by the Shakonmaku, only to realize that it has too much mass to be destroyed as Jugram Haschwalth orders the Soldat to protect Yhwach.
 * Zaraki asking Yachiru if she is not afraid of his sword.
 * Gremmy realizing that Zaraki destroyed the meteor with a single swing of Nozarashi.
 * One of Gremmy's clones warning Zaraki that his lungs will collapse if he tries to breathe in outer space.
 * A shot of Yachiru's unsheathed Zanpakutō floating in the darkness.
 * The stage that Gremmy creates for his and Zaraki's fight being titled the Stone Fort.
 * Zaraki seeing Yachiru falling into the crevice in the stone fort.
 * Zaraki kicking up a chunk of the stone fort to shield himself from the rifle bullets.
 * Zaraki being depicted as a young boy while cutting through the meteor.
 * Zaraki is less burned in the aftermath of Gremmy's clones exploding.
 * Gremmy's body tearing itself apart is depicted as his fingers ripping off instead of his left shoulder pulling away from his neck and his ribcage growing through the left side of his chest.
 * In the manga, Askin muses on the nature of imagination in the world while walking away; here, he instead does so while lying down.
 * In the manga, the explosion produced by the bombs on Gremmy's clones occurs high in the air over the replaced Seireitei; here, it instead occurs directly above the stone fort.
 * In the manga, Gremmy's monologue about his own power killing him was mental; here, it is instead verbal.