Bleach: No cheat codes, he joined Aizen's side.

Chapter 39. Twenty years later, the winds of change rise again.

Time flies like an arrow.

In the blink of an eye, another twenty years have passed.

Having already demonstrated his true spiritual pressure to Retsu Unohana and the Captain-Commander, Shuichi Higashino no longer needed to conceal his strength as he had in the past twenty years.

Furthermore, given Unohana Retsu's powerful spiritual pressure, which is different from that of ordinary captains.

Over the past twenty years, as Kaname Tosen successfully graduated from the Shinigami Academy and joined the Ninth Division at Aizen's request, Aizen gradually shifted the main executor of the mission from Shuichi Higashino to Kaname Tosen.

However, Higashino Shuichi did not have a moment of rest because of this.

Because following closely behind Higashino Shuichi was Kumoi Yosuke from the Kasumioji family.

As the main maker of the Mo Yao sword, Yun Jing Yao Jue had his own ambitions.

His stated purpose was to help the Kasumi clan create a Baku-no-Tō (a type of sword) that could rival a Zanpakutō (a type of sword), thereby enabling the Kasumi clan to claim the honor of being the sixth most powerful noble family.

His true purpose was to use the characteristics of the Baku-yōdō to control a group of Shinigami who only obeyed him, and then take over the family's territory, turning the Kasumi family into the Kumoi family.

However, the latter has always been limited by the imperfection of the Mo Yao Blade itself, and the survival rate of the Death Gods who participated in the experiment was less than 10%, so it has always been just a castle in the air.

Previously, it was already a blessing that an expeditionary force captain named Sengoku Ryu could perfectly control the lightning and fire. Unfortunately, Sengoku Ryu hadn't provided much data to Yun Jing Yao Jue before he was killed by Higashino Shuichi and Stark.

Therefore, during these twenty years, Yun Jingyao used his status as a high-ranking nobleman to have Higashino Shuichi capture him at will. For various reasons that could not be explained, he was identified as a rebellious Shinigami, or a Shinigami who posed a significant threat to the Soul Society.

They kept setting traps for Higashino, hoping he would voluntarily give up his Zanpakuto and replace it with the Baku-yōtō.

Fortunately, Higashino Shuichi was cautious enough, and the Baku sword couldn't simply be touched to arbitrarily strip away the original Zanpakuto's status; the Shinigami himself had to be willing to give it up.

Otherwise, Higashino Hideichi might accidentally become a slave to that Baku-yō-dō one day.

"But when you compare them like this, I feel like Aizen is actually quite kind-hearted?"

Higashino Shuichi touched his nose and thought to himself.

In just the last twenty years, the number of Shinigami that Higashino Shuichi hunted down under the instructions of Kumoi Yojutsu was more than double the number he had killed in the decades when he worked for Aizen.

It's fortunate that he now has the Kasumi family's backing; otherwise, with the Grim Reaper's blood stained on Higashino Shuichi's hands, he would have been stabbed hundreds of times at Sogyoku Hill.

In comparison, Aizen was relatively restrained in the past.

Of course, after changing his research direction, this restraint disappeared completely.

Facing those Rukongai civilians who weren't even Shinigami, and with Kaname Tōsen, a member of the Ninth Division, acting as an inside man, Aizen had killed quite a few people over the years.

In order to reduce trouble for Soul Society and prevent them from worrying too much about civilian casualties in Rukongai, Aizen even thoughtfully dealt with a group of weak Adjuchas-class Menos Grande every month in the Great Menos Forest.

May they make their greatest contribution to the research of Szayelaporro.

Under such intensive research, Aizen's unfinished Hogyoku was completed more than a decade earlier than originally planned.

The reason he was able to achieve such remarkable results and complete the Hogyoku so far ahead of schedule is actually thanks to Shuichi Higashino. It was Higashino who obtained the qualification for the Great Spiritual Library from the Kasumioji family, which allowed him to successfully learn about the members of the Tsuna Yayoi family who were in charge of managing the Great Spiritual Library.

What happened next was obvious: Aizen set a trap to find this person, using a holographic illusion and hypnosis.

In the end, the Great Spirit Book Corridor became Aizen's backyard.

However, because Aizen also needs to return to the Fifth Division from time to time to "check in," he hasn't been able to spend too much time in the Great Spirit Book Corridor in the past twenty years.

But this was enough for Aizen to find all the information about the Soul King and Kisuke Urahara's successful creation of the other half of the Hogyoku.

Originally, Higashino Shuichi thought that since Aizen knew about these things so much earlier than in the original story, he would still plan a major event similar to the captain's Hollowfication incident in the original story, in order to try to take away the half of the unfinished Hogyoku from Urahara Kisuke.

As a result, Shuichi Higashino realized that he had underestimated Aizen's ambition.

Or rather, after learning many secrets of Soul Society from the Great Spiritual Library, and realizing that his past self was merely a frog in a well, Aizen developed a higher ambition for his future.

He wanted to see the true face of the Zero Division and the Spirit King Palace.

As for the half of the Hogyoku on Urahara Kisuke's side
No rush. Anyway, according to the records in the Great Spirit Book Corridor, Kisuke Urahara sealed it away because he believed that the thing could only be used to make Shinigami Hollowfied.

Since Aizen hasn't figured out how to remove the seal on the half of the Hogyoku he has, he doesn't really need Urahara Kisuke's half. He'll just leave it with Urahara Kisuke temporarily.

However, Aizen was not without a worst-case scenario in mind: in the extreme case that he was unable to obtain the other half of the Hogyoku from Kisuke Urahara. Therefore, Aizen did not stop harvesting the souls of ordinary people with Shinigami potential just because the Hogyoku was made.

Ultimately, everyone has a tendency to take chances, and Aizen was no exception.

What if we could repeat the process to create a second semi-finished Hogyoku?

The reason Aizen had this consideration was that Kisuke Urahara seemed to know about the existence of the Great Spiritual Scripture Corridor and the danger of the half of the Hogyoku he had created. Therefore, Kisuke Urahara somehow managed to deceive the records of the Great Spiritual Scripture Corridor, so that the hidden location of the half of the Hogyoku was not recorded in the Great Spiritual Scripture Corridor.

Aizen wasn't surprised by the existence of this method, since the Kasumi clan had all said that the original five noble families had left a backdoor for themselves.

All of the above has now come together to form the message that Aizen sent to Higashino Shuichi today.

In short, the message tells Higashino Shuichi to find a way to force the Kasumioji family to rebel.

Aizen's goal was simple: to spy on the Soul King's palace.

There are only two ways to achieve this: one is to be promoted to the Zero Division, but this method is only for those who have made special contributions to Soul Society and are not even qualified to be selected.

The second method involves using his Zanpakuto ability to hypnotize a member of the Zero Division, who then takes him to the Soul King Palace.

The first one is obviously fraught with difficulties, because even in the Great Spirit Book Corridor, there is no record of the specific selection criteria for the Zero Division.

The second one is much simpler; the only difficulty is getting the members of the Zero Division to descend into Soul Society.

Therefore, Aizen's choice was to launch an unprecedented rebellion!

Regarding the setting of the Great Spiritual Book Corridor, the original book was so buggy that it seriously disrupted the balance. Therefore, this book specifically added loopholes; otherwise, this thing would be a black hole in the setting.

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(End of this chapter)