Fans spent all of Episode 1 watching Kisuke Urahara get outmatched by Askin Nakk Le Vaar, so nobody expected the killing blow to come from someone who wasn’t even part of that fight. Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War – The Calamity Episode 2, titled Son of Darkness, finally answers who takes Askin down, and it is not the person you’d guess.
Askin has spent this entire arc as the Sternritter nobody could touch. His Gift Ball Deluxe and his Death Dealing schrift let him control lethal doses of poison with total precision, and Episode 1 showed him toying with Urahara like the fight was already decided.
Urahara had not shown his Bankai during the entire war. That silence made this confrontation feel like the moment everything either pays off or falls apart.
Grimmjow Delivers The Killing Blow
The answer is Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. Urahara finally unveils his Bankai, Kannonbiraki Benihime Aratame, and uses its reconstruction ability to repair his own damaged eyes while Askin gets cocky watching him struggle. That confidence is exactly what gets exploited.
Urahara’s Bankai carves a path directly into the Gift Ball Deluxe itself, and Grimmjow slips inside from behind. He impales Askin through the chest with Pantera active and crushes his heart in front of him, all while Urahara calmly thanks him for the assist. It is a brutal, efficient kill, and Askin genuinely does not see it coming.
Why Askin’s Death Doesn’t End The Fight
Here is the twist that makes this scene more than just a cool reveal. Askin survives the first hit, visibly shocked that Grimmjow is even alive to attack him. Grimmjow stabs him again out of sheer irritation at Askin still talking, and that is when the real danger surfaces.
As Askin dies, he reveals that the poison and pressure inside the Gift Ball Deluxe are intensifying without him there to control it. His death does not neutralize his ability; it destabilizes it. Both Urahara and Grimmjow end up pinned and weakened inside the sphere, trapped by the very weapon that just killed its owner. It takes Nell spotting an opening from outside to give them any chance of getting out.
That is the real punch of this episode. Askin’s power was never really about winning fights while alive; it was about making sure he stayed dangerous even in death. Combined with Grimmjow’s unannounced return alongside Nell, and Ichigo and Orihime reaching Yhwach at the Wahrwelt doors in the same episode, Pierrot packed an enormous amount of momentum into a single half hour.
The fallout from Askin’s death and the fate of Urahara and Grimmjow trapped in the Gift Ball Deluxe carries directly into what comes next.
Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War – The Calamity Episode 3 airs August 8, 2026, on Crunchyroll.
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