The misunderstanding that Aizen and Urahara had was resolved much more easily than I expected.
Since both are incredibly intelligent, I expected them to interpret my words in an unnecessarily complex way, searching for hidden meanings and overcomplicating the situation. Surprisingly, that didn't happen.
I say that because I've dealt with someone like that before. I wouldn't be saying this for no reason.
Who was it, you ask? Oh, he exists. Someone currently suffering and toiling away in the Royal Guard's Soul King Palace.
"So, how is that plan going to be carried out?"
"The plan? Well... before we talk about anything else, we have to pull the Wedge."
As soon as I answered Aizen, Urahara snapped his fan open, covering the lower half of his face.
"Does that mean killing the Soul King? Or perhaps, liberation?"
Ah, right. Urahara was on the side of liberating the Soul King, not killing him. To be honest, I want to choose the side of liberation just like Urahara does.
How could I not? He is the man who left an indelible footprint on my life over a million years. To me, who was merely existing without meaning, he was a friend and a mentor who gave my life a sense of direction.
Who would want to kill such a figure? Who could even bring themselves to do it?
Talk is cheap, but if I were told to kill him myself... well. Even with a hardened heart, I think it would be a difficult task.
—Protect them for me.
I only fought him back then because he made that request. If not for that, I probably wouldn't have stepped forward.
No, not that I wouldn't have—I probably couldn't have.
But... still, it must be done.
It has to be done.
"He must be killed."
The last time I saw the Soul King, his sanity was hanging by a thread.
He barely regained consciousness after losing himself and reaching the brink of death, so he's likely in a similar state even now.
Even if I released him for the sake of 'liberation,' he would either go on a rampage or die shortly after because his body is already broken beyond repair.
Instead of watching that happen, it would be better to end his life with my own hands.
At the very least, I should prevent the horrific tragedy of him killing the humans he wanted to protect with his own hands.
"It doesn't matter if you don't understand. I never asked for your understanding, and regardless, I won't be revising my plan."
"Is there a reason he must die? A reason why you must choose death over liberation?"
I thought about Urahara's question for a moment as I looked out the window.
Twilight was settling over the streets; night would be here soon.
It was almost time for Unohana to come home. If I started telling the story of what happened between me and the Soul King now, I would definitely be late.
'If I go home late, Unohana will be upset again.'
She'd understand if I told her I was late because of work, but we fought so much recently that we were using separate rooms. I didn't want to create another reason for conflict...
After a moment of deliberation, I stood up from my seat.
"It's about time for me to head back, so I can't go into detail. All I can say right now is that the Soul King and I were friends. I'll come back tomorrow and tell you the rest."
"Mmm... understood. I can't hold you here if it means interfering with a couple's quality time."
"..."
Urahara nodded as if he understood my request, but Aizen, who treated love as a triviality and prioritized grand causes and will above all else, seemed quite dissatisfied with my decision.
But what was I supposed to do? If you're so annoyed, go try and convince Unohana yourself.
Of course, before that, he'd probably get a blade through him with a 'Who do you think you are to keep my husband?' but it's not like I have to care about that.
If you don't have the confidence to go that far, then keep your head down.
When I left the shop to go home, Tessai, who was tidying up the store, handed me a few bags of cheap snacks.
Perhaps because the first thing I ate when I arrived was a senbei, the bags were filled with them.
To be honest, I didn't eat the senbei because it was delicious; I just ate it out of curiosity because it's a snack that appears often in manga. If you asked if I was munching on them because they tasted great... well, it's a bit of an ambiguous feeling.
Still, my conscience wouldn't let me refuse a gift given with such goodwill just because it wasn't my preference, so I accepted them.
Thinking that if I didn't eat them, I could just give them to Unohana.
"Well then, I'll visit at the same time tomorrow afternoon, so be ready."
"It's going to be a busy day tomorrow."
I looked at Urahara for a moment—who was masking his emotions with an airheaded 'Ahaha' laugh—and then turned my back.
Before reaching out to tear through the boundary, I paused and looked back at Urahara.
Urahara tilted his head as if wondering why I was staring at him. I looked down at his feet—more specifically, into the basement of the Urahara Shop, where I felt a familiar presence—and spoke.
"The Three Worlds maintain a balance by keeping each other in check. How do you think that's possible?"
He's a smart guy, so he'll figure it out soon enough.
With those final words, I tore through space and returned to Soul Society.
It was also near sunset in Soul Society. Since the sun hadn't completely set yet, there were probably about 20 minutes left until the workday ended.
As soon as we returned, Aizen gave a greeting about seeing me tomorrow and returned to the Squad 5 barracks, while I walked leisurely toward the Squad 4 barracks.
"Oh, honey?"
I picked up my pace a little and bumped into Unohana, who was just about to head home.
Good thing I timed it perfectly. I approached her with a broad smile.
"Good work today."
"You're the one who worked harder. I heard the stories. I heard you processed all the paperwork for the squads with vacant Captain seats?"
"Oh, it was only a few hundred pages. That's nothing."
Yeah... Considering thousands of people die every day, fall to Hell, and are judged, a few hundred pages is a cute amount.
I smiled awkwardly as the memory of the paperwork hell in the Nether King Palace flashed through my mind, then I took Unohana's hand.
Even though she hadn't held a sword in a long time, her hands were still firm and calloused. Unohana didn't particularly like these hands, but I loved them. They were the hands of a person who struggled to find her own answer—the hands of a human who walked a long path to correct her own mistakes.
"Ah, I got this as a gift after finishing the paperwork. Want some?"
It wasn't a lie. I just left out some of the truth.
They were just snacks I received as a gift after finishing the paperwork and then going to the World of the Living with Aizen to meet Urahara.
"Senbei? You never usually give cheap sweets a second look, so what brought this on?"
"You like salty things. They offered them as a gift, and I thought of you. Here, want one?"
With a broad smile, I pulled out a senbei and offered it. Unohana glanced around quickly before taking a bite of the cracker.
Crunch. The senbei shattered, and Unohana chewed and swallowed it.
"Mmm... it has an interesting texture."
"Huh? Isn't this how senbei usually feels?"
"Usually, it's a bit more crispy. A bit more... firm? Even the seasoning doesn't feel like anything I've tasted before... Was this senbei handmade by the person who gave it to you?"
I blinked as she pinpointed everything with uncanny accuracy.
She could figure all that out from just one bite of a senbei?
"Impressive. How do you know all that?"
"Well, I've been munching on them one by one while checking paperwork to keep from getting bored..."
Unohana's ears turned bright red with embarrassment as she spoke.
My wife really is too cute. Even after being married for centuries and having a daughter as cute as a rabbit, she's still adorable.
As I watched Unohana with a gratified smile, she wiped some senbei crumbs from her lip with her thumb. She pressed the crumbs between her thumb and forefinger, and as she watched the fragments crumble away, her eyes narrowed slightly.
Is this that thing where gourmets fall into deep thought after eating something?
I waited quietly until Unohana looked up at me.
"Did you go to see Urahara Kisuke?"
"...Huh?"
That's not the question I was expecting... How on earth did she figure that out?
Surely she didn't sense the lingering Spiritual Power in the senbei? No, that's completely absurd.
Spiritual Power in objects fluctuates and disperses easily. She recognized it from the trace of energy in food?
It would be easier to take a bite of a rice cracker and correctly guess which region the rice was harvested in and in what year.
"I've had a similar senbei before. It was a snack that Captain Urahara Kisuke of Squad 12 brought to a Captains' meeting once. Its texture and flavor were so unique that I remembered it vaguely but eventually forgot... After tasting it again, the memory came back."
"You recognized him just from that?"
"My memory was a bit fuzzy, so I wasn't certain, but at the very least, there isn't a single shop in Soul Society—in the Seireitei—that sells this kind of senbei. And when I think of someone who would make their own senbei... coincidentally, only one person comes to mind."
More than anything, she said, she realized it from my reaction.
"Are you planning something again?"
"'Again'? People will think I'm some kind of mastermind."
I tried to deflect it as a joke, but Unohana was already certain; she simply stared at me in silence.
After blinking for a few moments, I let out a long sigh and scratched my head.
"I'll tell you about it once we get home."
I thought it was top-secret, but I got caught in the most unexpected way.
...Wait, did that bastard Urahara give me those senbei specifically hoping for this?
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