Allegorical Bleach

With that battle settled at least, Orihime suddenly realises that Neliel is missing. She is abruptly returned to Nnoitra and Tesra’s lives after Tesra senses her location and blasts her from her hiding place behind him. Immediately after, Nnoitra hits Ichigo in such a way that he lands near Neliel. Nnoitra recognises her immediately, and once again we see Ichigo’s reaction and Orihime’s reaction to one of Nnoitra’s statements. Tesra’s expression is not shown when Neliel reappears. All we see is some shadowed emotions. He is however distinctly facing forward instead of toward where Neliel landed after the blast, and the only person in front of Tesra would be Nnoitra.

This is a turning point in Nnoitra’s battle. Once Neliel has reappeared, his attention turns to her. He rapidly concludes that she isn’t worth his time, but as he moves to stomp out her existence in 290, Ichigo steps in to demands an explanation. We see Ichigo’s reaction and Orihime’s (but yet again, not Tesra’s) when Nnoitra announces that he is the one who cracked Neliel’s mask.

Ichigo’s response is predictable, and once again Nnoitra demonstrates the strength of his Hierro and taunts Ichigo about his inability to do any damage.

However, during the explanation of just why he cracked Neliel’s head, Nnoitra pauses to look at something or someone behind him with a soft and shadowed expression. This is expression is similar to the one Nnoitra had when Tesra initially appeared on the scene.

Ichigo is in front of him, and Neliel is dangling. The only people behind him, as we see from the preceding page, are Tesra and Orihime — and I highly doubt he’s looking at Orihime like that.

290 segues into 291 with Nnoitra’s battle triggering Neliel to resume her real form. Two sets of expressions greet her change of form. Orihime and Ichigo look shocked. Nnoitra and Tesra look displeased.

Neliel picks up Ichigo’s battle where he left off, eventually blasting Nnoitra with her special cero technique. As the chapter fades into 292, Nnoitra is apparently dead from the blast, and she expected this to have killed him. We are treated to panels of Orihime’s response, and Ichigo’s, but not Tesra’s initial reaction beyond him loosening his grip on Orihime. Then, he responds with outright panic.

This section is particularly interesting, not for what is shows, but for what’s not shown. We can imagine the pure horror of Tesra’s reaction based on his instinct to run to Nnoitra, but we aren’t shown this. We can also imagine the natural response, to hold Nnoitra and beg him not to die from this, but we aren’t shown this either. Perhaps it would have been too telling and ruined the plot?

Instead, the next panels we are shown is of Tesra being kicked away for forgetting his orders out of worry. It rather reminds me of “Broken Coda” when Rukia is deliberately cold to Ichigo so Byakuya and Renji will leave Ichigo alone. Nnoitra seems to have the same idea here, that if he acts cold and detached enough, Neliel won’t turn and attack Tesra instead of him.

The scene cuts away from Tesra as Nnoitra taunts Neliel about why he survived that cero: that the Espada have gotten stronger while she was gone. Her former rank is now worthless. Once again, the idea of Nnoitra being stronger than someone is emphasized, which continues once their battle resumes.

They briefly return to their battle for a time in 293. An abrupt halt perfectly sums up the state of their relationship. Nnoitra’s excuse for stopping there: he won’t hurt her because she won’t hurt him. Where he had always been below her before, now she is the one of lesser strength, and Nnoitra is sufficiently human to be merciful to those who are weaker.

Neither is willing to really harm the other, yet they don’t really know each other enough to have ever been friends or otherwise equals. How do we know this? Because Neliel is pointing her weapon directly at Nnoitra’s Hollow hole. She doesn’t know him well enough to know that her blade would pass right through. A close friend would have asked about the eyepatch at some point. Very telling about their previous encounters.

Please direct all comments to the main page here.