Who Is Yhwach In Bleach? His Powers Explained

In this article, we learn about one of the strongest and most dangerous villains in all of the shonen genre.

A being so strong, who lived thousands of years, and nearly destroyed the whole world of Bleach as it was known.

Who Is Yhwach?

The Father of the Quincy, Yhwach, is the ruthless emperor of the Wandenreich.

He is the progenitor of all Quincy, as he is the original wielder of this power.

When Yhwach was born, he could not see, hear, speak, or even move.

Usually, when one is born with such a fate, they don’t live long, and the life they live is miserable. But with Yhwach, it was different.

The people around him treated him with great reverence, as anyone who touched him would gradually gain what they had lacked.

This was because, Yhwach was born with the power to share a fragment of his soul, and these could heal the will that their own souls alone could not.

As the fragment of Yhwach’s soul healed others, various aspects of each person would get imprinted upon the fragment, which would return to Yhwach after their owner’s death.

Even though all who touched Yhwach did not live longer, people still flocked to him. As more people touched him and gained his soul’s fragments, he gained more fragments from others.

As he gained more fragments, his body started to function.

Later in his life, he learned a much more powerful and efficient way of distributing his power. This was done by engraving a letter directly onto another person’s soul. These alphabets signify abilities.

This method allowed him to share his soul more deeply and with greater power. The people whose souls were inscribed are called Sternritters, and their powers are called Schrift.

However, this is not the extent of his power.

Yhwach’s Scrift

As the leader of the Quincy Yhwach, he also had his own scrift. It was A, signifying his ability as “The Almighty”.

When he activates his scrift, his iris, and pupil split into two.

After getting sealed away, it took 900 years for his heart to start beating again, 90 years to regain awareness, and 9 years to regain his power.

If Yhwach opens his eye (activating The Alimgthy) before the final nine years have ended, then he may not have been able to control his powers.

He would have accidentally stolen the powers from his loyal sternritters. The Almighty provides the following effects:

Precognition

Yhwach is able to see everything that will take place in the very next second to the incidents that will take place in the far future.

The future he sees is not a linear one but all possible futures. Yhwach assesses all possible futures simultaneously, making any move against him futile.

Arguably, no character in the entire Shonen genre has shown this ability, making him the most dangerous villain in the genre.

However, we see that he was unable to predict the actions of Mimihagi, the right hand of the Soul King.

Future Distortion

According to Yhwach, the true power of The Almighty is the ability to change the future into whatever outcome he desires.

He is able to set traps at places where he knows the enemy will set foot and even preemptively attack them before they realize it.

Yhwach can outmaneuver any defense and countermeasure they use to protect themselves, and he can even change the future where he died.

Special Quincy Abilities

Being a Quincy, he possesses all the abilities that a Quincy has, and above them, he also possesses three special abilities.

Blut Vene Anhaben

In this technique, Yhwach extends his Blut Vene outside his body, creating a force field.

This force field can easily block moderately high-level Kido spells.

Using this technique, Yhwach blocks Bakudo 62 Hyapporankan from a member of Squad 0, aka the Royal Guard.

Auswahlen

In this technique, Yhwach can steal the powers of any Quincy he wants and restore them.

We saw the first use of it after he woke up after 900 years of being sealed away. In this, he stole the powers of all the Quincy he deemed impure, including mixed bloods, causing the death of Uryu’s mother.

This process is fatal to the victims, especially if they are already weak.

Upon activation, the victim is engulfed in a column of light, absorbing their pure energy. Even if a Quincy goes just near it, they will lose their Quincy powers.

The absorbed power is then distributed to other Quincy deemed worthy, which revitalizes them.

The power absorbed is not Reishi but pure energy, as Kirio Hikifune’s Cage of Life, which blocks all spiritual matter, was unable to prevent it.

Those whose powers are stolen, upon death, their hearts form a material called Still Silver. This still silver, when it comes in contact with Yhwach’s blood in his body, renders him powerless.

Another ability that Yhwach possesses is that, if there is an ability or power that he knows about or learns about, it will become his ally. The new allied ability is not capable of harming him in any way.

Soul Kings Powers

After absorbing the Soul King and his right hand, Yhwach becomes more powerful and gains a variety of powers.

Barrier

Simply by unleashing darkness from his fingertips, Yhwach is able to create an enormous barrier. The barrier is large enough to cover the entirety of Seireitei and can target an area hundreds of meters away.

However, the barrier can be broken using attacks of extreme power. Aizen was able to break it using Hado 99 Kureohitsugi.

Due to the sheer density of the barrier, if such an attack is targeted with Reiatsu, the barrier will simply collapse on itself.

Eyeball Creatures

After absorbing the Soul King, Yhwach is able to manifest small, black, single-eyed creatures that swarm him.

These creatures are hostile to Shinigami, as they are enemies of the Soul King and completely ignore anyone else. They do not have sentience, can easily be crushed by intense Reiatsu, and can be completely obliterated using high-level Kido spells.

World Assimilation

After absorbing the Soul King, Yhwach gained the ability to assimilate the human world, the Hueco Mundo, and the Soul society into one.

In this process, his powers sprout from the ground and envelop everything.

Matter Transmutation

Yhwach also gained the ability to transmute matter, using which he moved the Wanenreich City into the Royal Realm and turned it into the Wahrwelt.