Bleach: Is Nemu Dead or Alive? What Happened to Her? Will She Be Back?
As far as Bleach characters go, Mayuri Kurotsuchi’s “daughter” Nemu is definitely among the most intriguing ones. Although she often seemed like an automaton, Nemu Kurotsuchi was a very deep and layered character whose story is still one of the best in the series. She was “built” by Mayuri to be his daughter, guinea pig, punching bag, bodyguard, and Lieutenant, and Nemu was truly all of that from start to finish, being incredibly loyal to her “father” but never actually losing sight of what is right and what is wrong. Nemu’s story is incredibly sad and in this article, we are going to tell you what happened to her in Bleach.
Nemu Kurotsuchi died while fighting Pernida Parnkgjas, the Sternritter “C” – “The Compulsory,” as well as the left hand of the Soul King. With Maruyi coming up with a way to defeat Pernida, Nemu ultimately sacrifices herself to defeat the enemy and save Mayuri. She died in the explosion, and it doesn’t seem like Mayuri has any immediate plans of reconstructing her, which means that she probably won’t be back.
The remainder of this article will give you a detailed overview of Nemu Kurotsuchi’s fate in the Bleach series. You already know what happened and how it happened, so we are just going to bring you the details so you know the whole context. Be careful, though, as the article is going to contain a lot of spoilers, so if you don’t know all the details, be careful how you approach the text.
Nemu perished while protecting Mayuri from Pernida
Nemu is an artificial life form created by Mayuri Kurotsuchi, specifically a combination of a Gigai and Mayuri’s personal material samples. Therefore, he often refers to her as his daughter. Mayuri doesn’t seem to care much for her, although that changes with time. He also often hits and scolds her when she has not performed a task to his satisfaction. However, she remains very loyal to him and often worries about him. As her original name, Nanagō (“the seventh”), suggests, Mayuri only managed to create an artificial Shinigami on his 7th attempt.
While the three original attempts failed miserably, the fourth subject had a brain, the fifth reached the embryonic stage, and the sixth lived at least two years before dying. Akon reports that Mayuri was extremely pleased when Nemu exceeded the expected lifespan of two years. Mayuri also stopped calling her Nemuri Nanagō and shortened her name to Nemu. He describes artificially created shinigami souls as the dream of all shinigami, but Akon suspects that this is mostly Mayuri’s personal dream and that he is embarrassed to tell Nemu his true feelings.
She is later seen while Mayuri is fighting Ishida, saving Mayuri from dying, but also helping Ishida by giving him an antidote for Mayuri’s poison, and later when Mayuri is fighting against Szayelaporro Granz in Hueco Mundo, where her “death” was pivotal in Maruyi’s victory. She did not play a major role later until the fight against Pernida.
After Kenpachi recklessly fails to kill Penida, the Sternritter attacks Mayuri, who manages to block said attacks, so Mayuri continues to provoke Pernida by saying that he doesn’t mind having the excruciating pain of his exposed nerves and that he feels very excited to have a rival with said ability, and that he has many drugs to use against them. Following these words, Pernida begins to get angry. Finally, Pernida breaks the hood and shows his true form, leaving everyone present astonished since his true form turned out to be a huge hand with chains between the nails and a huge eye in the palm of the hand with two pupils.
Seeing this, Mayuri deduces that Pernida is the Soul King’s left arm, and finally, Pernida begins to increase his size of him. It is no longer just a hand; the forearm also appears, which scares Yumichika Ayasegawa and Ikkaku Madarame. Already in full form, Pernida begins his attack but is blocked by Captain Kurotsuchi. Pernida, seeing Mayuri’s emotion when facing him, gets upset, and his attack multiplies. When the Captain of the 12th Division says that Pernida is the King’s left arm, he contradicts him, says that he is not called that, and begins to mumble his name.
Mayuri tells him to stop babbling and say it correctly. Quincy repeats that it is called Pernida and not left arm, then Mayuri, understanding it, sarcastically says: “Since I was the one who made that discovery, the right of your name belongs to me,” leaving the Shinigami Madarame and Yumichika in amazement.
However, Pernida does not understand and thinks that they are A huge arm rising from the ground, mocking or offending Quincy, for which he gets angry and decides to attack, causing his nerves to expand throughout the terrain and a huge hand of the earth is formed leaving Kurotsuchi surprised since Pernida can also control inorganic things, but Mayuri manages to avoid it.
However, the nerves spread through the building again, forming a huge hand, and thus Mayuri falls and is crushed by both hands. Kurotsuchi manages to survive with some damage and uses the technique called Hirenkyaku to avoid touching the ground, to Pernida’s surprise. Meanwhile, Mayuri throws a being that wraps around Pernida’s little finger and explodes, dropping her finger.
Then Mayuri uses a substance to preserve his experiments, but a huge eye forms from the finger, and nerves come out, reaching Mayuri’s little finger. This prevents the nerves from spreading throughout his body and dominating him. Mayuri laments the situation since the last time that happened was in the battle against Uryū Ishida. However, Pernida decides to attack, and one of the fingers, now a hand, attacks him. Pernida decides to break another finger to attack Mayuri, so he is forced to use his Bankai.
However, Pernida’s nerves are expanded by Mayuri’s Bankai, but this doesn’t work, and Ashisogi Jizō devours him, causing Mayuri great joy. Instead, something happens, and sure enough, Pernida comes out of Mayuri’s Bankai, completely destroying it. Mayuri dodges at that moment a huge arrow that comes out of the interior of his Bankai. Pernida then very happily asks him how it was that his Ashisogi devoured him, and then he kills enemies with bows and arrows. As Pernida regenerates, Mayuri notices that Pernida’s way of speaking has drastically changed.
Pernida proceeds to attack Mayuri with several arrows, but he manages to dodge them. However, one of the arrows’ nerves hits Mayuri’s arm, causing an explosion and causing Mayuri to lose his arm. An arrow is directed at him again, but Nemu stops it and automatically cuts off his arm to prevent Pernida from controlling it.
After the brief conversation between Mayuri and Nemu, in which Mayuri manages to recover his arm, they both head to the battlefield to defeat Pernida. Mayuri uses Hirenkyaku again to avoid Pernida’s attacks and while Nemu goes to one of his arms to inject a powerful drug and kill Pernida. Quincy realizes what happened to the other arm, and when he sees that one of his fingers begins to change color, he cuts it off, leaving Kurotsuchi surprised.
Pernida uses a power called Matai Fukuin Shoutai Power, and Mayuri warns Nemu to back off. Nemu manages to avoid Pernida’s attack and heads toward him to face him, managing to destroy one of Pernida’s copies and save Mayuri. After leaving Captain Kurotsuchi on top of a building, Nemu decides to attack Pernida, with Konpaku hitting him directly in the eye, which is the center of his palm, disintegrating Pernida.
This one, however, manages to destroy Nemu in many parts and returns to what he was before, but is surrounded by many eyes around him and proceeds to absorb Nemu. After reconsidering, Mayuri enters a trance and manages to prevent Pernida from taking over Nemu’s brain. At that moment, Pernida’s body begins to suffer the effect of absorbing Nemu, a product of the pituitary gland and therefore accelerates the degradation of the cells, which causes her self-destruction. Thereupon, Pernida explodes and dies on the battlefield, killing Nemu as well. Although he scolded her even then, Maruyi actually shows some sadness when he realizes that Nemu is gone forever.
