What kind of place was Hell, exactly?
No one could give Kisuke Urahara an answer.
Even the souls of the first-generation captains temporarily summoned back from Hell were bound by certain rules, unable to describe that mysterious realm to Urahara.
As far as Urahara knew, in all of Soul Society there was currently only one shinigami who had successfully been to Hell—and returned.
And that shinigami's name was Higashino Shuuichi.
Urahara didn't expect to get the answers he wanted from Higashino Shuuichi.
Because even if Higashino Shuuichi were truly willing to talk, Urahara definitely couldn't afford the price.
But there was one thing Urahara could be certain of.
That was: the Hell of today—after accumulating souls for thousands, even tens of thousands of years—
Was nearly at its limit.
That should be a believable fact.
Because the source of that information was Kabuma Sayako—one of the Five Great Noble Houses back then, an existence specifically assigned to oversee Hell.
Kabuma Sayako's words were, by definition, trustworthy.
And Hell only accepted the souls of powerful, captain-class shinigami.
If he wanted Hell to reach its limit faster,
Then Kisuke Urahara had to accelerate the process by which it absorbed souls.
That was why Urahara's later string of moves existed in the first place.
Just as he had told Nemu before,
He and Higashino Shuuichi were fundamentally different in how they operated.
When Urahara had the first-generation captains attack Soul Society, his goal was merely to drill Soul Society's shinigami.
Forcing growth—nothing more.
Of course, in the process, a great many shinigami deaths were inevitable.
But Soul Society's shinigami also gained rapid strength through that process.
He needed more shinigami whose power could meet the threshold required to enter Hell.
So letting a powerful Quincy like Kabuno Takuya enter Soul Society and give those shinigami a bit of early "training" wasn't necessarily a bad thing either.
After all, in that Shadow Realm, even stronger Quincies were waiting for them in the future.
So Urahara agreed.
But that agreement was unexpected—and it didn't make sense, either.
Because Urahara hadn't made any demands of him, hadn't given him any instructions or arrangements at all.
Higashino Shuuichi felt that was unreasonable.
Even if his excuse sounded convincing,
He was Kisuke Urahara.
Did he really believe a Quincy would go alone to Soul Society for the sake of one shinigami?
Or did Urahara actually want to see him go to Soul Society and fight shinigami?
But that contradicted Urahara's earlier behavior.
At least in Higashino Shuuichi's eyes, Urahara had indeed been testing him before—but there had also been plenty of attempts to draw him in and gain his trust.
If it were anyone else, Higashino Shuuichi could've believed it was just a moment of stupidity.
But with Kisuke Urahara, Higashino Shuuichi was sure there had to be a reason driving him.
For example…
"Training?"
Back in his own room, that word suddenly popped into Higashino Shuuichi's head.
And in an instant, several questions that had been bothering him abruptly found their answers.
Could it be that Urahara's true aim was to raise the strength of Soul Society's shinigami?
Was it because he had gone ahead into the Shadow Realm's Wandenreich, learned about Yhwach, and only then formed this idea?
Higashino Shuuichi shook his head and rejected it.
No—because the timing didn't match.
By the time Urahara had already taken reishi constructs that housed first-generation captain-level power from Miyazaki Sakai Masato, and started consciously sending them to interfere in Soul Society…
Urahara hadn't even obtained the key yet.
At that time, it was impossible for him to know anything about the Wandenreich.
So why?
In the original plotline, Urahara didn't have this much "screen time" at all. It had to be the butterfly effect of Higashino Shuuichi's presence that pushed Urahara into thinking this way.
So what, exactly, had Higashino Shuuichi changed for Urahara?
Sitting on his bed, Higashino Shuuichi fell into deep thought.
He had a faint feeling that he was about to catch the crucial point—the key that had turned Kisuke Urahara into what he was now.
And if he had to name the biggest difference between this timeline—where Higashino Shuuichi existed—and the original plotline, it was probably this:
At one point, Urahara's group had included Higashino Shuuichi and his companions.
But whether it was Higashino Shuuichi himself, or Kisaragi Shūsuke, or Matsumoto Rangiku and the others… none of them were actually close to Urahara.
The influence they could have on him was almost negligible.
But there was one exception.
"Sayako…"
A figure surfaced in Higashino Shuuichi's mind.
The Kabuma clan head who, in the original plotline, should have died long ago—one of the Five Great Noble Houses that, in the original plotline, might have already been wiped out.
Their disappearance had left Soul Society with a gap—an absence of information about Hell itself.
But now—
Urahara could learn an enormous amount about Hell from Kabuma Sayako.
"And the minimum threshold to enter Hell is that your reiatsu must reach at least mid-captain level—if not higher.
Ordinary captain-class shinigami might not even qualify to enter Hell at all."
Higashino Shuuichi felt like he'd finally grasped the crux of it.
That alone could explain everything Urahara had done up to now.
With Urahara's personality, if this truly was his objective, it was entirely possible that he wouldn't care about the lives of individual shinigami.
To Urahara, those would simply be necessary sacrifices for the final goal.
In that sense… Urahara was very much like Higashino Shuuichi himself.
But that immediately raised another question:
Why would Urahara do this at all?
If this were Higashino Shuuichi before his transmigration, and someone told him Urahara had designs on Hell…
He would've pointed at them and cursed, asking if they'd lost their mind.
But now, for Higashino Shuuichi, this was very likely the blood-soaked reality.
And he had no choice but to consider that possibility.
Because so far, this was the answer that best explained every single one of Urahara's actions.
Time passed.
All the way until the next day—right before he was about to depart for Soul Society—Higashino Shuuichi arrived at an answer.
An answer that was a little absurd, yet might be closest to the truth.
It was a term that had haunted him ever since he came to know the shinigami world:
The Soul King's will.
He knew such a thing existed in this world, and many people had "received" that will.
But he himself had never seen it, never heard it, never felt it.
So what about Kisuke Urahara?
Members of the Zero Division could sense the Soul King's will because parts of their bodies had been replaced by the Ōken.
And Ichibē Hyōsube had once been something like a guard at the Soul King's side.
So it wasn't strange that they could sense the Soul King's will.
And Sōya Azashiro could sense the Soul King's will because what he was trying to do back then was already enough to threaten the structure of the Three Realms that the Soul King had painstakingly left behind.
So the Soul King's will had actively allowed Sōya Azashiro to perceive it.
Beyond that, in Higashino Shuuichi's memory, no other shinigami had been able to clearly sense the Soul King's will.
So why could Kisuke Urahara sense it?
And if he couldn't, then in the original plotline, how had he been able to "predict" things so perfectly—coordinate with Aizen at exactly the right moments, and even prepare a substitute candidate for the Soul King so early?
And in this timeline, how had he managed to appear so conveniently in situations that gave Higashino Shuuichi headaches—or caught him off guard?
These were all doubts. These were all clues.
And together, they pointed toward one conclusion:
There might be an unspoken connection between Kisuke Urahara and the Soul King's will itself.
Maybe Kisuke Urahara was the incarnation of that will.
Maybe he was another executor of the Soul King's will.
Or maybe—Kisuke Urahara was the safety strap the Soul King selected.
In short, even if Urahara couldn't directly represent the Soul King, to some extent, he likely represented the Soul King's will.
Put more plainly, Urahara's role in this world might be something like an overseer.
It was possible that Urahara himself didn't know.
But his actions had indeed always been patching and mending the world the Soul King left behind "after death."
In the original plotline, whether it was the chaos of Aizen's rebellion, or Yhwach leading the Wandenreich to attack Soul Society…
Urahara had always silently served as the supporting "green leaves" behind the scenes.
Until Tokinada Tsunayashiro's life ended, Urahara never truly displayed his full strength.
If the Zero Division existed to help the Soul King regulate the world on a grand, macro level—appearing at critical nodes to handle major events—
Then whether the world could continue advancing perfectly along the script the Soul King had designed… still required someone to manage the details.
Someone to help the Soul King deal with variables—like Sōya Azashiro in the past, and like Higashino Shuuichi later.
With someone as obedient as Sōya Azashiro, things were manageable.
But with someone like Higashino Shuuichi—someone who clearly couldn't be negotiated with—an intangible "will" alone obviously couldn't control everything.
So there had to be an existence like Kisuke Urahara—overwhelmingly strong, terrifyingly intelligent—to help the Soul King plug every possible leak.
And perhaps even go further, completing the great undertaking even the Soul King himself had never finished—
To completely unify and remodel this world, and pull Hell into the cycle as well!
"Hah…"
At that point, Higashino Shuuichi didn't dare think any further.
In the original plotline, what had the Soul King seen that made him decide to die at the hands of the Five Great Noble Houses? Higashino Shuuichi didn't know.
But in this timeline…
Had the Soul King already seen the fact that Higashino Shuuichi would transmigrate here?
A chill ran down Higashino Shuuichi's spine.
It wasn't impossible.
Because there was something that had happened to him—something that, at the time, had seemed exactly like a protagonist's "plot armor."
When Higashino Shuuichi first went to Hell—
In that place bristling with crisis, a place where even the current Higashino Shuuichi wouldn't dare claim he could definitely walk out intact—
He just so happened to run into Kenpachi Kuruyashiki.
And it wasn't some random Soul Society predecessor, either.
It was Kenpachi Kuruyashiki—the one famously kind to subordinates and juniors, and absurdly powerful.
A predecessor who, even after being personally killed by his own subordinate Sōya Azashiro, still stopped the other shinigami from seeking revenge in his final moments—personally passing on the title of Kenpachi and the position of 11th Division captain to that very man.
What if none of this had been coincidence?
What if that 10th Division captain, Maki Kurando—the one who planted the idea of going to Hell in Higashino Shuuichi's mind—hadn't just "unluckily" wandered into his sights?
What if that battle where the West Administration came to the East Administration to show off their strength hadn't "coincidentally" happened on the very day Higashino Shuuichi took Matsumoto Rangiku and the others out to the Human World for a picnic?
Higashino Shuuichi also thought of what he had told Aizen before—that he wanted to find, together with Aizen, a way in Hell to change the world as it was.
All of it—
Was there a giant hand behind the scenes, quietly pushing everything forward?
He had thought he was completely untouched by the Soul King's will.
But in truth, perhaps the Soul King had already used countless psychological nudges and event-driven pushes, guiding Higashino Shuuichi to work willingly toward the direction the Soul King desired.
And now that things had reached this point, Higashino Shuuichi realized—
He had no road back.
"I hope it isn't like that…"
This line of thought was too shocking, too conspiratorial.
And yet he was terrified that it was the truth.
He had struggled for centuries trying to become the player—
Only to end up being nothing more than the Soul King's pawn.
If that was the outcome, then everything he had done over these hundreds of years would look like a complete farce.
Still, Higashino Shuuichi believed that even if it was true, he wasn't without a chance to flip the board.
Hell—still that damned Hell.
It was the only place the Soul King could not touch.
And it was the only place where Higashino Shuuichi could truly hope to seize control of his own fate!
"I have to go there—and… take control of it!"
If, before, Higashino Shuuichi had merely regarded Hell as one of his options—
Then now, Hell had become the place he had to reach, no matter what.
But before that, he still had to "soothe" Aizen—and also eliminate Soul Society's worries at his back.
Because only Aizen was the best helper Higashino Shuuichi could have for analyzing and mastering the power of Hell.
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