User blog comment:Godisme/The Closing Chapter Part 1/@comment-893506-20120530181007

I enjoyed this chapter very much. Things are moving quickly, I agree, but given what we've seen of Kirge (yes, I'm sick of him; everybody is, but he is the example we have to go by), it was not hard to expect that some of the higher ranked Vandenreich members to be able to take out lieutenant and officer level Shinigami without much effort. Heck, Kirge took out the Tres Bestias BEFORE resulting to Vollstandig, and if he wasn't supposed to be one of the Vandenreich's strongest, then I didn't see a Shinigami lieutenant or officer having much better luck against someone close to Kirge's level or possibly stronger (too soon to tell right now). But given how only one of the Stern Ritter fatally wound Izuru and easily mop the floor with two seated officers shortly after, my money's on any Stern Ritter member being stronger than Kirge was (pre-Vollstandig).

As for Izuru... while I agree that he's not dead yet, I'm not optimistic about him. Hiyori got bifurcated and came out of that alive, yes, but thinking back on that situation, she was on the verge of dying, and she had assistance from Hachi to buy her some time before Unohana showed up. Izuru does not have that benefit right now, so things do look pretty grim to him. Overall, I look forward to the next chapter, regardless of where it shifts to... so as long as it focuses completely on that fight.