Chapter 695 Urahara Kisuke's Cuckolding

Seeing Darkness panting heavily, her face full of anticipation and practically drooling, Megumi, Asuna, and the others rolled their eyes in unison.

For this hopeless masochist, she came out ahead no matter what happened.

After three months of intensive training, the date arrived… October 1st.

This was a day of special significance for Makoto and all the players.

Masaki had finally achieved perfect control.

The war officially began.

"Matsumoto—!!!"

Deep within the 10th Division's barracks, accompanied by a young roar, several birds perched on the courtyard trees scattered in fright.

The 10th Division's members, upon hearing this voice, just exchanged helpless smiles and continued with their tasks.

This was nothing new to them.

Their Lieutenant had definitely slipped off somewhere to slack off again, leaving all the division paperwork for the Captain to handle alone.

In the Captain's office, Hitsugaya Toshiro, now Captain of the 10th Division, was miserably processing the mountain of documents piled almost to the ceiling on his desk.

His Lieutenant, Matsumoto Rangiku, had once again left nothing but a note reading "Gone to buy booze~" and vanished.

He cursed this woman for the hundred-and-eighth time in his mind. If he had known being a Captain was this much worse than being a Third Seat, he would have let Kanae have the position.

But just then, the pen in Toshiro's hand suddenly stopped. His face turned pale in an instant.

He sensed an extremely terrifying Reiatsu.

Then, the piercing alarm bells rang across the Seireitei, across the entire Soul Society.

The 12th Division's monitoring officers, with trembling voices, repeated the same words over the broadcast: "Enemy attack! Enemy attack! Large-scale Hollow Invasion! Repeat — large-scale Hollow Invasion!"

Toshiro could no longer care about the mountain of paperwork on his desk. He kicked open the window behind him and shot out like lightning.

He landed on the rooftop of the 10th Division's barracks and looked up in the direction the alarm had indicated.

Above the Seireitei, the sky was tearing like a torn cloth, a massive black crack slowly opening.

That was a Garganta, the only way Hollows traveled between the three worlds.

He had never seen a Garganta this huge.

The youngest Captain in Soul Society history leaped from the rooftop and shouted to the chaotic officers below, "All units prepare for battle!"

But compared to the agitated Toshiro, Yamamoto, standing on the balcony of the 1st Division's barracks, leaning on his cane and quietly watching the sky torn open by the Garganta, was much calmer.

"Finally here. Much later than I expected."

As the Garganta tore wider and wider, the Shinigami below, and even the Rukongai residents near the Seireitei, widened their eyes in shock.

Because what emerged first from the Garganta wasn't any Vasto Lorde, but a massive, suffocating abyssal maw.

A giant black-furred dog with a white bone mask covering its head was slowly crawling out of the dark crack.

Its six eyes gleamed coldly beneath the bone helmet. Each step it took in the Seireitei's sky made the air tremble violently.

"They're here... they're here!"

Renji, now Lieutenant of the 6th Division, was trembling as he gripped his Zanpakuto.

He had recognized it… it was the same guard dog he had seen at the gates of Las Noches thirteen years ago.

If even the guard dog had been sent out, it meant Las Noches was deploying all its forces.

Then, one by one, white-clad figures slowly emerged from the Garganta.

They wore identical pure white uniforms.

Rukia, Isane, Ikkaku, and others who had joined the Hueco Mundo Expedition Team thirteen years ago recognized those figures almost instantly.

They were all Arrancarized Vasto Lorde class or higher… Makoto's most elite forces.

But what truly dealt a devastating blow to their morale weren't the Vasto Lorde Arrancars, but the all-too-familiar figures that followed them out of the Garganta.

Kato Megumi, Kocho Kanae, Kocho Shinobu, Katsura Kotonoha, Yuuki Asuna, Darkness—

They all wore the same white uniforms as the Arrancars, standing at the center of Makoto's formation.

Rukia had felt a surge of joy upon seeing Kanae alive.

But when Rukia's gaze fell upon the pure white uniform on Kanae's body, identical to the Arrancars, that joy was extinguished in an instant.

Everyone was stunned.

"Ca-captain Kanae... why?"

Rukia, in her Shihakusho, looked up at the familiar yet unfamiliar figure in the sky, her voice trembling uncontrollably.

Thirteen years ago, after the traumatic Hueco Mundo Expedition, Rukia had always been grateful to Kanae.

Over the years, Rukia had practically come to see her as a second Kaien.

But now, she stood in the enemy's ranks.

What was going on?

"Kato? And... Yoruichi-sama."

Equally shocked was Sui-Feng, Captain of the 2nd Division.

This petite but fierce commander of the Onmitsukido, upon seeing Megumi and Yoruichi also in white Arrancar uniforms at the Garganta's exit, was speechless.

Kanae, Megumi, Yoruichi, and the others stood beside Makoto, their faces uniformly uneasy.

This was exactly what they had been most afraid of.

"We'll explain everything properly after the battle."

Yoruichi rubbed her brow and muttered under her breath.

Megumi and Kanae beside her nodded silently.

There was no point in explaining anything now. They would have to wait until this war was settled.

Hopefully, they would be willing to listen.

"Hm!?"

Just as Yoruichi finished muttering, she suddenly sensed an extremely familiar Reiatsu not far away.

She turned toward the source.

Beside the slowly ascending Yamamoto stood a figure shrouded in a black cloak, his face concealed.

"This Reiatsu is..." Yoruichi's voice unconsciously dropped.

Yamamoto narrowed his eyes and asked the cloaked figure beside him, "No signs of control detected on them?"

"No."

The cloaked figure replied briefly.

Hearing that voice, Yoruichi's lips trembled several times before she finally choked out a name: "I-is that you, Kisuke..."

Under her gaze, the cloaked figure slowly pulled back his hood.

It was that face that had been imprisoned in the Central Great Underground Prison for nearly a century… Urahara Kisuke.

His arms and chest were wrapped in black Reiatsu Restraints, those bandage-like black strips firmly suppressing his Reiatsu Output. Clearly, Yamamoto didn't fully trust him even upon his release.

Kisuke's gaze crossed the battlefield and met Yoruichi's in mid-air.

Nearly a century of separation, countless misunderstandings and guilt, crystallized into a heavy silence between them.

Yoruichi raised her hand, instinctively scratching the back of her head, unsure what expression to show in front of this friend she had 'abandoned' for nearly a century.

And just then, an all-too-familiar sensation came from her side waist.

With that familiar dominance,

Yoruichi's hair stood on end. She looked down and saw Makoto naturally wrapping his arm around her waist, pulling her half a step into his embrace.

"Hey, you—"

Before she could get the last word off her tongue, her chin was gently lifted by Makoto's other hand.

Then his face pressed down, silencing all her protests.

Yoruichi's brain short-circuited completely in that instant.

Her eardrums echoed with the massive sound of thousands of Shinigami on the Seireitei plaza below gasping in unison.

The entire battlefield fell into deathly silence.

Even Zaraki was stunned.

And high above, Kisuke's fingers suddenly clenched into a tight fist.

The Reiatsu fluctuation beneath those black restraints was so intense it nearly spilled over. His face showed no emotion, but that clenched fist betrayed everything.

After a long moment, Makoto finally released Yoruichi's slightly swollen lips.