What Happened to Tier Harribel & Will She Return in Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War?

Every anime fan knows that Tite Kubo’s Bleach has some of the most interesting characters in the world of manga and anime. And while we could talk about the Shinigami, the Quincies, the Fullbringers, we have decided to focus on an Arrancar in this article, or – to be more precise – on an Espada from the Arrancar Saga. Tier Harrbel was the Tres Espada and one of the most powerful characters in Hueco Mundo. During the Fake Karakura Town arc, she was seemingly killed by Aizen. In this article, we will tell you what happened to Tier Harribel and whether we will see her again in the Thousand-Year Blood War anime.

During the final moments of the battle of Fake Karakura Town, Tier Harribel was shockingly struck down by Aizen, falling down to the ground; this ended her fight with Captain Hitsugaya. And while it seemed that Harribel was dead, just like Coyote Starrk and Baraggan, she later emerged as the de facto ruler of Hueco Mundo, being the strongest surviving Arrancar.

The rest of the article will be dedicated solely to Tier Harribel and his fate in Bleach. You’re going to find out what happened to Tier Harribel, why everyone thought she had died, and when the events we are talking about took place. Tier Harribel is a character with a great story, so the events surrounding her fate certainly interest fans. Beware, this article is going to be full of spoilers.

What happened to Tier Harribel in Bleach?

In the 3rd Character Book, it is stated that Harribel died as a human during the birth of her child. This explains the whereabouts of her Hollow hole and further underscores her death aspect of sacrifice. Tier’s past was briefly covered in a filler episode. She herself was a Vasto Lorde in Hueco Mundo at the time but refused to eat other Hollows, i.e., sacrifice them to become stronger.

That’s why she teamed up with Apacci, Sung-Sun, and Mila Rose so that, as a group,, they were strong enough to no longer be easy prey for the male Hollows. Baraggan wanted Harribel for his army when he was still King of Hueco Mundo, but she refused. When Aizen had Baraggan dethroned and made his Arrancar army, one of Baraggan’s former subordinates came to Tier to get revenge on her for her insolence towards Baraggan at the time.

The Arrancar was stronger than Harribel and used to wear her down in battle. So Harribel’s comrades Sung-Sun, Mila Rose, and Apacci sacrificed themselves for her and attacked the Arrancar. However, they quickly lost to their opponent. Tier Harribel now sacrificed herself for her people and fought him despite the Arrancar’s superior strength. She lost the fight but was saved from death by Aizen.

He promised her that if she followed him, she would gain new strength and never have to sacrifice herself for her people again. Tier accepted Aizen’s offer and joined him. When Aizen and his followers showed up in the fake Karakura Town, the Shinigami were already waiting for them. As the fight begins, Tier Harribel has her Fracciónes fight Rangiku Matsumoto and Momo Hinamori while she herself takes on Tōshirō Hitsugaya.

Her Fracciónes pulls out all the stops in combat, and she uses her Chimera Parca technique, calling Allon. They managed to defeat Rangiku, Momo, Shūhei Hisagi, and Tetsuzaemon Iba with Allon, who Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto ultimately defeated. The three then attack the Captain-Commander together with a kind of suicide attack but are burned by him and thus killed.

Tier then decides to avenge them and take them seriously. She opens her jacket to reveal her mask and rank. Tōshirō Hitsugaya subsequently has great difficulty standing up to her and is surprised to find out that she is “just” number 3. When the Tres Espada then attacks, Tōshirō uses his Bankai Daiguren Hyōrinmaru. Despite this, he still has trouble dodging her attack Ola Azul.

After Tier Harribel then unleashes her Zanpakutō, she attacks and splits him. However, Tier only attacked an ice reflection from the 10th Division’s Captain. After that, it looks like neither of them can gain an advantage as Tier’s water-based attacks and Hitsugaya’s ice-based attacks were able to counter each other repeatedly.

However, after using his strongest technique, Hyōten Hyakkasō, and imprisoning Harribel in a mountain of hundreds of ice flowers, it looks like a Hitsugaya win at first. But when Wonderweiss appears with a gigantic Hollow Fura and lets out a scream, the icicles around Harribel break, and she is free again.

She appears completely unharmed as if Hitsugaya’s attack had been ineffective, but the Captain seems exhausted from his attack. So things are looking bad for the Shinigami now. To save Tōshirō, the Vzored joined the fight, and Tier now also has to deal with Lisa Yadōmaru and Hiyori Sarugaki as new opponents.

Although expecting a three-on-one fight, only Lisa attacks at first, as Tōshirō and Hiyori are still arguing at this point. Tier later faces off against all three, with Hiyori and Lisa continuing to fight her in the Shikai and Tōshirō in the Bankai. Harribel can keep her three opponents at bay for a long time, but in the meantime, Coyote Starrk and Baraggan Luisenbarn, the two higher-ranked Espada, have been defeated.

Because of this, Aizen then decides that he no longer needs Harribel and attacks her, cutting across her torso. This angers Harribel so much that she fights back and attacks him as well. But she doesn’t stand a chance and only attacks an illusion created by Kyōka Suigetsu. Aizen then stabs her from behind, and she falls to the ground.

Will Tier Harribel be back in Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War?

After Aizen was defeated, Tier Harribel was healed since Aizen also only betrayed and used her and her Fraccións. The four Arrancar women had no reason to fight the Shinigami anymore and went peacefully back to Las Noches. Since both Aizen, Starrk, and Baraggan were dead, Harribel assumed the leadership position in Hueco Mundo.

For the first time in a long time (approx. 1½ years), Tier Harribel was seen again trapped in the hiding place of the Wandenreich. There she was injured and chained unconscious to the ground. As is learned from Pesche, Harribel was quickly defeated by the leader of the Wandenreich.

Without a leader, the Arrancar could not help her, and many of them were also taken prisoner. This brief story reveals that Harribel will come back in Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, so expect to see her in the upcoming anime episodes, albeit in a cameo role.

How and why did Harribel survive?

And while we know that Tier Harribel was captured by Yhwach and kept in a special room in Slibern, where she was chained, her ultimate fate was never mentioned in the original manga; she was mentioned, but Kubo did not reveal what actually happened to her.

This is a direct result of the fact that the ending of the manga had to be rushed because of Kubo’s medical issues and the one-year deadline given to him by his editors. But luckily for you, thanks to the sequel light novel Can’t Fear Your Own World, we know exactly what happened to Tier Harribel, and we are about to answer you here.

Now, knowing how Yhwach and Quincy treated the Hollows, you might assume that Harribel was killed or tortured, but she wasn’t. Yhwach beat her and then enchained her, but it seemed like no one paid any more attention to her. Yhwach had more important things to take care of, and since Harribel wasn’t a threat anymore, she was left in that special room.

After the downfall of the Wandenreich, Grimmjow, and Nelliel came to Wahrwelt and located the room in which Harribel was imprisoned and freed her. She was in a horrible state as no one had healed her, but seeing how she survived the severe injuries inflicted on her by Aizen in Fake Karakura (albeit with Orihime’s help), she was able to survive these as well, as she was a true fighter and a very powerful Espada.

Before leaving back to Hueco Mundo, the three of them saw Ichibei and Kyoraku, as Ichibei was using what was left of Yhwach’s fusion with the original Soul King (his corpse, basically) to construct a new Soul King.

Harribel referred to it as a “thing” and asked Ichibei whether that was really the new Soul King, to which Ichibei replied positively, asking Harribel if such an entity disgusted her. She did not reply to that question but simply stated that she now understood Aizen’s wish to better destroy the Soul King. She was then taken back to Hueco Mundo by Nelliel and Grimmjow, where she was healed until she came back to full power.

The light novel sees Harribel restore at least some order back in Hueco Mundo, and we also see her, several months after the war, fighting some of the Sternritter who were hiding in Hueco Mundo while looking for surviving Soldaten to launch a surprise attack on Mayuri’s Division to take back the surviving Sternritter that Mayuri had taken to experiment on.

And that is what happened to Tier Harribel in Bleach, and, as you can see, this is how and why she actually survived the war and was reinstated as the ruler of Hueco Mundo.