Kisuke Urahara was remarkably similar to Aizen.
Both possessed genius intellects, and both felt disillusioned after learning of the Soul King’s existence. In search of a way to resolve that disillusionment, they ultimately arrived at the same answer: the Hōgyoku.
Then why did the paths they followed diverge after creating the Hōgyoku?
Was it the goodness within them as human beings, or their capacity to care for others?
*
It was a quiet playground of the sort one might find in any Japanese city. An ordinary swing set and slide—the sort no playground could be without—stood out in the peaceful space.
But Ichigo saw something else there.
"No!!"
A Hollow. A monster born when a human soul fell into corruption and lost its heart.
When Ichigo saw the soul of a young child about to be attacked by the Hollow, he tried to charge forward.
"Don’t help him!!"
Rukia Kuchiki grabbed Ichigo and held him back.
"If you don’t intend to save everyone, then don’t bother saving whatever human happens to be in front of you."
"What the...?!"
"Once you decide to save someone, do it with the resolve to save everyone—even if you must go to the ends of the earth, even if you must sacrifice yourself! That is your duty as a Soul Reaper, Ichigo."
At Rukia’s cold words, two figures flashed through Ichigo’s mind.
Rukia, who had thrown herself in harm’s way to save him on the day his world changed—and a man who had collapsed helplessly beneath the falling rain.
"Is that so?"
With that casual reply, Ichigo swung his sword without hesitation, cutting down the Hollow and saving the child.
"...! Have you... resolved yourself?"
"Man, you’re really loud!"
Boom! As if to cut away all his distracting thoughts, Ichigo drove his sword into the dirt of the playground.
"I don’t know anything about resolve or whatever. I saved him because I wanted to save him! That’s all!"
"What...?"
"When you threw yourself at the enemy to save me, did you do it because you thought it was your duty? That’s not what sacrifice is about!!!"
"!!"
"At least, it isn’t for me!!"
After saying his piece, Ichigo brought his sword down on the Hollow as it lunged at him with the last of its life, finishing it off head-on.
"I can’t promise anything. Maybe it’ll get too hard, and I’ll run away halfway through. But... I’m not such a piece of trash that I’d forget what I owe you and keep acting tough. I’ll help—with your duties as a Soul Reaper."
The boy extended a hand to the person who had given him the power to protect his family.
*
"At long last, it is about to begin."
"Yes... the war against Kisuke Urahara."
They stood in a dark laboratory where only the glow of the monitors illuminated their faces.
As he stared at the screens and answered Tosen, Aizen wore a rare expression of anticipation.
"But why do you rate that fella so highly?"
Ichimaru seemed to find the sight quite fascinating.
"He created a completed Hōgyoku. That alone is reason enough to hold him in such high regard."
"...."
"But that isn’t all. I attempted to create the Hōgyoku before he did. I used the Soul King’s left foot, having determined that it offered the highest probability of success."
Aizen turned a strange smile toward Ichimaru.
"But I failed. The part of the Soul King I used shattered into pieces, and even the will dwelling within it vanished."
Ichimaru merely watched him with the corners of his lips raised in their usual smile.
"Later, I took a fingernail of the Soul King from a girl in Rukongai and fed it to my incomplete Hōgyoku. But even that failed to show me the path to completion."
"A fingernail... you say."
"Kisuke Urahara reached the Hōgyoku without using any part of the Soul King’s body. It appears that while he knew of the Soul King’s existence, he knew little about the details of his body."
After observing Ichimaru’s reaction, Aizen turned away as though he had lost interest.
"Yes. The path to godhood was not to be found in a god’s body. That is why I left the Soul King’s right foot untouched, even after discovering it in the World of the Living."
"You mean the man named Shukuro Tsukishima... the one with the power to rewrite the path already traveled."
"Precisely, Kaname. It is undoubtedly a fascinating power, but... if one constantly looks back, one will never move forward. Wouldn’t you agree?"
*
Rukia Kuchiki was found two months after disappearing in the World of the Living.
She was already in a position to face severe questioning merely for having vanished, but she was captured after committing the grave crime of transferring her Soul Reaper powers to a human.
"Hey, Ryunosuke!"
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
As though expressing his feelings through his footsteps, Renji came looking for me as he stormed down the corridor of the Thirteenth Division barracks.
"Renji...."
"This isn’t the time to sit around in a daze and take it easy anymore."
The ones who had captured Rukia were Renji himself and his direct superior, Captain Byakuya Kuchiki of the Sixth Division.
The only reason Renji had managed to remain calm until now, despite personally bringing back the Rukia he cherished so deeply, was his faith in Byakuya Kuchiki—Rukia’s older brother and a member of one of the Five Great Noble Clans.
But despite that faith, only fifteen days remained until Rukia’s execution.
Ten days had passed since her execution was decided. Unable to bear the anxiety any longer, Renji had come to the barracks of the Thirteenth Division, the unit to which Rukia belonged.
"Rukia told me something. She said her brother... would let her die."
Byakuya Kuchiki stood at the pinnacle of the nobility, a man who took pride in setting an example for every Soul Reaper.
He would never permit himself to violate the law in order to save a criminal who had broken it.
Rukia firmly believed that to be true, and she still found her older brother difficult to approach.
All she ever did was try and try again not to become a burden to him.
That was why Rukia had never spoken in detail about her brother—not to me or Kaien, and not even to Renji.
Only when the end drew near had Rukia finally confided her thoughts to Renji.
"I was just about to ask Captain Kaien for advice about that. Want to come with me?"
"...Of course! Captain Shiba belongs to one of the Five Great Noble Clans, just like Captain Kuchiki!"
Renji’s face brightened. He seemed so excited that he flung open the door to the captain’s office before I could.
But even after hearing Renji explain Rukia’s situation and the circumstances surrounding the Kuchiki Clan, Captain Kaien did not look particularly alarmed.
"Huh? You’re saying Byakuya would just let Rukia die?"
"Yes...! Rukia told me that herself. I’m not making it up!"
"Hey, Renji. Want me to tell you why Rukia hasn’t been appointed to even the lowest seated position despite having learned Shikai?"
"What does that have to do with...?"
That was when it happened.
["Emergency! An abnormal reaction has been detected in Fugai District, western Rukongai! Issue an alert for Sectors Three through Eight! I repeat! Western Rukongai...."]
Countless messengers began running around outside, shouting the warning.
"What?! What’s going on?"
"...You two should return to your posts."
As Renji and I turned to leave the captain’s office, Captain Kaien called us to a stop.
"Don’t worry so much. If, by any chance, Byakuya Kuchiki truly does nothing, then I’ll save Rukia no matter what it takes."
But even those words did not seem to reassure Renji.
He had never been the passive sort who would simply accept someone’s word with an obedient, ‘Yes, understood.’
"Damn it... I don’t have the slightest idea what’s happening...!"
"Well... don’t get too worked up, Renji. You’re not the only one who wants to save Rukia. I do too. Rukia’s surprisingly popular, you know."
"...I can’t accomplish anything if all I do is sit around and wait."
"I’m not telling you to wait. Do what you need to do. I’ll do what I can as well."
Ichigo’s group would soon encounter Ichimaru.
To sow the first seeds of chaos within Seireitei, Ichimaru would let Ichigo escape instead of killing him, and a meeting of the captains would be convened as a result.
...Come to think of it, Renji couldn’t possibly have drawn his Zanpakuto the instant he saw Rukia in the World of the Living this time, like he did in the original story, could he?
I still had no idea why he had done something that would have earned him a lifetime of nagging if the person involved had been anyone other than Rukia.
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