User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 586 - The Headless Star 5/@comment-8669536-20140625093018/@comment-5398287-20140628145854

I dunno, honestly. When Kensei got Kensei'd, it was 16 chapters before his opponent showed up and we were left without a conclusion to the battle. In this case, it was only 3 chapters before that happened, and there wasn't much of a fight going on. I doubt he's dead, but he might be occupied by surviving the lava flow at the moment, so who knows.