The Alliance (Bleach)

"So- the Soul King," Urahara brought his hands together in a loud clap. "He's god."

Ichigo stared at him, bemused. The past few days had been eventful, but the events were only tangentially connected.

It all started when Uryru Ishida revealed that he was aware of the after-life, and was part of a human sect that was fighting against the hollows. This would have been fine if it weren't for the fact that his sect- the Quincies- didn't get along with Soul Reapers. Consequently, he wasn't pleased with Rukia's presence.

Thursday and Friday had a series of back-and-forths between Rukia and Ishida. The latter challenged the former, but Rukia wasn't willing to engage with Ishida due to Ichigo forbidding it. This would have also been fine if Ishida hadn't decided to try to her hand.

He crushed 'hollow bait.' As the name implied, it served as bait for hollows, drawing enormous numbers of them Kurakara Town. This might have also been fine. Between Rukia and Ishida, they might have gotten the situation under control before things got out of hand.

Ichigo, however, had panicked and withdrawn Rukia.

The last time the hollows attacked, it had been him and his siblings they had targeted. Consequently, Ichigo prioritized the safety of his sisters over strangers and drew back to the hospital, taking Rukia with him as a protector.

Ishida was left to fight by himself and was quickly overwhelmed. The situation was teetering on the verge of disaster when Urhara intervened.

Ichigo had only caught glimpses of the fight, but what he saw told him that the man was magnitudes more powerful than Rukia. It also told him that if Urahara turned hostile, there was little that Rukia could do to protect him.

It was unsettling, but things still could have turned out alright. If Urahara ignored them and things returned to their pre-apocalypse state, Ichigo could move on.

Keeping with the theme of the last few days, things did not go fine. Urahara didn't ignore them.

Yesterday he had sent Ichigo a letter 'requesting' that Ichigo come by his shop for a 'talk.' Regardless to say, Ichigo didn't get much sleep last night. His mind had taken the quiet hours before morning to go over all the ways that this could go wrong, from the likely to the unlikely. The best-case scenario that Ichigo could imagine was Urahara grilling him on how he had gotten Rukia to pull back and why. The worst-case scenario was that he already knew that Ichigo had enslaved Rukia and was displeased.

Still, Ichigo didn't dare ignore the summons, so when morning came, he made his way over to Urahara's place. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach and his veins felt like ice but he entered the shop regardless. He didn't have a choice.

Now, Ichigo was starting to think he had freaked-out over nothing. Was a discussion of theology all Urahara intended?

Things seemed relaxed. They both had a cup of herbal tea before them. They were sitting on comfortable cushions, there was a wooden desk between them, and Urahara was languidly stroking a black cat that was sitting on his lap. This didn't seem like the prelude to accusations of serious crimes.

"There are many societies and plenty of pantheons that demand worship. The Ancients Greeks and Romans had the Hellenistic Pantheon, the Norse had their gods, the Jews, Christians, and Muslims have the Abrahamic god, and so on. Here, we have the Shinto Pantheon. Is there any reason I should take your god any more seriously than these other gods?"

"Other than the fact that I'm a Soul Reaper?" Urahara asked rhetorically. "Humans debate what lies in the afterlife. I was born in the afterlife. I think I'd know what's there."

Ichigo conceded that was a fair point.

"Moreover, I'm not asking you to worship the Soul King. He neither wants nor needs our worship. How about this- instead of the Soul King, let's talk about an unnamed deity. We'll give him some wants, and using his tools and powers, we'll try to determine what the deity we've created would logically do. What do you say? Are you up for a thought experiment?"

"I'll bite. What does this deity want?"

"His wants are fairly basic. More power. Power for power's sake." At Ichigo's surprised look, Urahara smiled. "The idea of God being good is a fairly recent one that came with the rise of the Abrahamic faiths. For most of human history, gods weren't paragons.

"Zeus, for instance, got Hera to marry him by pretending to be a wounded peacock. When Hera took pity on him and brought him into her home, Zeus turned back into a man and her. To hide her shame, Hera married him. Not something the epitome of justice would do.

“Unlike Zeus, the Soul King exists. Trying to view a deity that has been here since the universe began from the viewpoint of religions only a few millennia old seems misguided, no?"

"If you already have infinite power, why get more of it? And how would you even increase your power if you have infinite amounts of it?"

"The thing is, the Soul King doesn't have infinite power. His power is vast but finite. His power is spiritual energy."

"The thing Soul Reaper's use?"

"More than that. Spiritual Energy is to the afterlife what the atom is to life. It's the fundamental building block of that plane of existence. Everything is made of it: tables, chairs, sand, dirt, the sky, the pure souls, soul reapers, hollows- everything.

"And all of it, ultimately, belongs to the Soul King. The more of it there is, the stronger he is. The Soul King is willing to do anything to increase the amount of spiritual energy there is."

Ichigo thought back to physics class. "I thought energy couldn't be created or destroyed."

Urahara shrugged. "By that logic, spiritual energy isn't energy, but I'm not sure what else to call it. 'Spirit particles,' perhaps? Either way, it doesn't matter. What does matter is how it works. The system is built around the 'how,' not the 'why.'"

His hand tapped the wooden table in between him and Ichigo. When he lifted his finger, a blue wisp remained in place. "This is a silver of the Soul King's power. It's an investment he makes every time a new life is created here, in the living world."

Slowly, Urahara touches the wisp and starts to drag it along the surface. All the while, he narrated what was happening to the wisp. "The newborn human goes through its first birthday. It has learned so much about the world and has started to babble and crawl, exploring its surroundings." The wisp got larger.

"The human is five-years-old and has started to go to school. It's learning the alphabet now." The wisp gets bigger. "The human is fifteen. It's in high school and has gotten into its first romantic relationship." Bigger.

And so Urahara continues, narrating the life of this human. Every new experience, good or bad, resulted in the human learning and the soul changing slightly. Shifting, growing brighter or dimmer, but always growing larger and thicker. The lighting didn't affect its size. Only it's color.

For the second example, Urahara started a new life, this one peaceful and idyllic. The soul grew to a size comparable to the first one but was of a brighter color.

And for the third, Urahara used the life of someone who died in Auschwitz, the Holocaust camp. The soul was dim- bleak and depressing. And yet it was as large as the first two.

"The Soul King- does he care about the color of the souls?"

"Not in the least. Just the size."

That would explain a lot. Ichigo knew he ought to be outraged, but mostly he was confused. "Then why let hollows exist? Wouldn't their existence diminish his returns?"

"They would if they destroyed souls. They don't. Remember how hollows are made out of spiritual energy? Well, if they can get enough energy, they can grow more powerful. To that end, when they devour a pure soul, a soul reaper, or even another hollow, they don't destroy spiritual energy. They recycle it."

Ichigo knew where this was going. "All the spiritual energy belongs to the Soul King, so he benefits either way."

"Right," Urahara confirmed. "It doesn't matter to him who the temporary custodian of the energy is. As long as they are growing it, he's fine with it."

A pause and then- "You know, the only downside of this system is the initial investment. While the soul is still alive, the Soul King doesn't have access to their energy, and I imagine that he's not all that happy about it. Might be why he prefers births in the afterlife to ones in the living world."

Just when Ichigo thought he knew where things were going, Urahara decided to throw curveballs. Ichigo decided to be honest. "If you're going somewhere with this, then I'd ask you to hurry up. You've lost me."

"The backstory was necessary. If I hadn't given it, nothing I say now would make sense. If the living world is the Soul King's investment account, meant to grow his power, then the afterlife is his savings account, meant to preserve his power.

" I firmly believe that when the Soul King was first setting up the realms, that was all the afterlife was supposed to be. A place where dead souls would be preserved forever; fueling his might for eternity. Otherwise, nothing about his system makes any sense.

"I don't think the Soul King expected humans to make cities in the afterlife. I don't think he expected us to set up a government there. I don't think he expected us to build an army to defend ourselves against the hollows. And I don't think that he expected us to shack up in the afterlife. I'm sure he was as surprised as anyone when the first children started being born."

"But I thought the Soul King needed to create the souls of newborn babies?"

"Not in the afterlife- which is why he favors it. He doesn't have to invest any of his energy into the baby, but he still gets to benefit from the baby's spiritual energy. Moreover, he doesn't have to wait for the baby to die to benefit from it. It was born in the afterlife, so the Soul King can start to benefit immediately."

"This sounds too good to be true. If things in the afterlife are so great, then why is he still investing in the living world?" And more than ever too. The birth rate was at a record high and rising.

"The same thing in the afterlife that makes births great for the Soul King- the lack of initial investment- also makes births rare. Without the Soul King to provide the initial spark-" Urhara tapped the table again, reforming the first blue wisp, "-the parents have to do all the work. Creating an entirely new soul isn't easy, you know. It takes a decent amount of spiritual power on the part of both the father and the mother.

"It is here that the structure of the afterlife becomes important. Put simply: if you're not a soul reaper, the afterlife sucks. There is never any food, there aren't any centrally run organizations keeping the streets clean so trash piles up, and crime is rampant. Soul Reapers, on the other hand, live in relative luxury apart from the rabble in a place called 'The Court of Pure Souls.'

"If you have spiritual energy, you become a Soul Reaper and escape the districts. If you don't, you're fucked and can't do anything about it as a consequence of not having any spiritual energy."

Ichigo wasn't surprised. Everything about the afterlife sounded unfair, so why wouldn't this?

"This does raise a problem for the Soul King. For the most part, the people in the districts- the people who are fornicating- don't have the spiritual energy to reproduce. At the same time, the people who do have the spiritual energy to reproduce aren't fornicating."

"Why not?" Ichigo asked. "I would have thought that putting a bunch of fit warriors of opposite genders together would result in plenty of children."

"Then you're not thinking. Soul Reapers are soldiers and pregnant soldiers can't fight.

"Soul Reapers are divided into thirteen squads upon graduating from Shin'o Academy. Each squad is responsible for a particular task and has its own linear command structure. The captain is on top, who is followed by the vice-captain, who is followed by the second seat, who is followed by the third, and so on. This means that there is always someone to replace you one rank down."

Urahara peers at Ichigo. "If you're a female third seat that gets pregnant and can't fight anymore, what happens to your seat?"

"I'd like to say that you get a pregnancy leave and get to return after giving birth, but from context, I'm going to say that the fourth seat gets promoted."

Urahara nods. "After you give birth, you need time to recover and you need to take care of the child. Your career is either over or, at the very least going to suffer a huge setback. Put another way, you don't want to get pregnant."

"So the 'children born in the afterlife' thing turned out to be a waste. An interesting curiosity, but not rare enough to not be relevant, I'm assuming."

"That would be right if the Soul King cared about what the women wanted. He had discovered an exploit to make himself stronger, and he was going to use it. So he changed the rules of the game.

"I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Kisuke Urahara. I was the former captain of the Twelfth Division of the Thirteen Squads. This," he pointed to the cat, "is Yoruichi Shihoin, former captain of the Second Squad. Upon the Soul King's changes, I broke her the way same you did Rukia. And I have a proposition for you."

The statement was dense with information. It unraveled in waves. First was the realization that Urahara knew what he had done to Rukia. It was followed shortly by the fact that he wasn't mad, which in turn was followed by, "That's a cat."

Urahara smiled. "Is she now?"

He blinked and the cat was gone, replaced by a gorgeous woman.

She had dark skin, a sight uncommon to Japan, and hair that looked violet under the current lighting. If the room was less well-lit, Ichigo knew it would appear black. Her eye-color was uncommon. A topaz that looked almost golden.

Neither her eyes nor her hair held Ichigo's attention for long because the woman- Yoruichi, he recalled- was naked, allowing him to appreciate just how trim her waist was, and how large her breasts were.

It occurred to him a second later that it might be impolite to stare. For all he knew, her nudity might be involuntary. She couldn't take her clothes with her when she turned into a cat, could she?

And yet, neither Urahara nor Yoruichi seemed to mind. Urahara seemed amused, and Yoruichi didn't react at all. She was perfectly content to lounge on her lover's lap. "I broke her the way same you did Rukia." Master's lap might be more accurate.

Ichigo reluctantly pulled his eyes away from Yoruichi's dark nipples and sought out Urahra's eyes. "A kindred spirit, I see."

"And as kindred spirits, I think we ought to help each other. How would you like to fuck my ?"

Ichigo's eyes widened. From the start of this meeting, he had been on the back foot. Each time he thought he found his footing- that he knew where this was going- Urahara pulled the rug out from under him. He wasn't done yet.

He glanced at the beautiful woman again. She wasn't protesting her master's command, so clearly, he had trained her well. "For free? That seems too good to be true. I'm assuming that this has something to do with the proposition you mentioned."

"Very astute, but in this case, your suspicion is unwarranted. The first time's free."

"And what of after?"

"It depends on you. If you're not satisfied with Yoruichi and don't want a repeat performance, you can leave and I shan't bother you again. If you'd like another night with Yoruichi, then we can negotiate for that. And if you want access to more women, we can negotiate on that as well."

"You sound like one of those salesmen. The type that pops up on t.v. every so often, promising that their products will satisfy one-hundred percent of the time, or they'll give your money back. Those ads always have tiny words on the bottom listing exceptions.

"I think you're trying to entice me into signing up for a deal, but the more enticing you make it, the more suspicious I get. Be honest with me. Give me the details, or I walk." Even as Ichigo said that, his eyes trailed below Yoruichi's neckline, giving away the bluff for what it was. At the least, he would be taking up the offer of a free night.

Urahara didn't call Ichigo's bluff. "I didn't mean to be round-about. I just noticed that your pants were looking rather tight and thought you might have appreciated negotiating when you were less pent-up."

Ichigo flushed but didn't get a chance to respond as Urahara continued, "But if you'd like the details, then very well.

"The first change the Soul King made to promote births was to neutralize chemical birth control. Condoms and physical barriers still worked, but things like morning-after pills and birth control? Those no longer worked, so several female soul reapers got a nasty surprise.

"At first, the Fourth Division, the division in charge of medical care, assumed the females were lying about being on birth control. Then, when the case numbers started to add up, they came to believe that the pharmaceutical company selling the pills had made a mistake. When they checked the pills and found the ingredients hadn't been tampered with, the fourth division gave up and transferred the case to the twelfth."

"Aren't you the captain of the twelfth?"

"Former captain, and yes. The Twelfth Division is the scientific one. It's the research and development branch of the thirteen squads. It's how I got involved in all this.

"At first, I was looking for changes in the pills, not the females. I checked everything from the capsule containing the pills- I suspected that they might have been coated with something- to the seal on the pillbox, to the temperature in which they were stored. And I made no progress. It was maddening."

"How did you figure out that the problems weren't with the pills but with the females?"

"While I was doing my research, the women hadn't been idle. The sudden bout in pregnancies hadn't gone unnoticed, and women decided to change their habits. For the most part, abstinence became more popular. At the time, no one had realized that this would be an ongoing issue. For the most part, it was thought the situation would be resolved in a few weeks.

"Consequently, Soul Reapers stopped fucking and the number of new pregnancies dropped to zero. The Soul King was," Urahara fished for the right word, "displeased."

"I'm assuming that has something to do with why Soul Reaper females are so submissive."

"For all the reasons I've mentioned before, getting pregnant isn't in a woman's best interest if she's a Soul Reaper. But, you'll note that this doesn't affect males at all. They don't have to carry a child to term. Consequently, their ranking isn't threatened by unplanned pregnancies.

"The Soul King figured that if women had less say in their sex lives, and men had more, then the situation would correct itself and the number of pregnancies would increase."

A shared moment of silence followed by both Ichigo and Urahara sharing a laugh. "That's brilliant," Ichigo rasped out in between peals of laughter.

"Isn't it?" Urahara chuckled. "You know the best part? The Soul King, being God and all, doesn't talk to mortals. He implemented the changes and didn't bother telling anyone." He paused then, as though expecting Ichigo to catch onto what he was implying.

When Ichigo didn't catch on, Urahara rolled his eyes and elaborated, " This change is only a few decades old right now, and it only affects a tiny demographic of women. Remember what I told you about the requirements to make a kid in the afterlife? Due to that, the Soul King made it so that the stronger the Soul Reaper is- the more likely they are to have kids- the greater the effect his changes will have on them.

"Because of how few people were affected, and how recent the changes were, the fact there were changes is still more or less secret, and I did my best to keep it that way. See, the people most overwhelmingly affected were the female captains and vice-captains. These women tend to also be the most beautiful in Soul Society."

Urahara's hands trailed down to Yoruichi's taut mid-riff, delicately pressing down on the hard skin. His digits didn't sink in at all, drawing attention to how fit she was. "Being a Soul Reaper is a very active career. Consequently, the women tend to have delicious bodies. Exhibition A is Yoruichi. Exhibition B is Rukia. Exhibition C, D, and E are Unohana Retsu, Rangiku Matsumoto, and Soi-Fon."

From under the table, Urahara pulled out three photos and brandished them as to say 'case closed.' Ichigo admitted that the photos did pretty much seal the deal.

"Gorgeous," Ichigo breathed out.

"Aren't they?" Urahara deflated, "Sadly, these aren't the women that I can offer you. The first one, Unohana Retsu, is the Captain of the Fourth Division. The second one, Rangiku Matsumoto, is the Vice-Captain of the Tenth Division. And the last one, Soi-Fon, is the current Captain of the Second Division as well as Yoruichi's previous protege."

While Ichigo tried to associate the faces of the three beauties with their names, Urahara recovered from his bout of depression and chirped in, "I do have decent replacements, however. I managed to collect Hiyori Sarugaki, former vice-captain of the twelfth division, Mashiro Kuna, former vice-captain of the ninth, and Lisa Yadomaru, former vice-captain of the eighth before I was to flee."

" to flee," Ichigo picked up on the wording.

Urahara shrugged. "Women make up fifty percent of the Thirteen Squads. When I figured that they can be enslaved this easily, I thought of the uses that having an army of unconditionally loyal women could have.

"The first and obvious one was sex. Looking past that, I figured that I could sell them for money, becoming a pimp of sorts. Then looking even further, I remembered just how strong they were and realized that I could use them for a military coup."

"A coup. Really?"

"Why not? Soul Society's army is controlled by thirteen captains and their vice-captains, a significant number of which are breakable females. My first step would be to break them. The second step would be to cut deals with the males that can be negotiated with. Not every captain is a bastion of goodness and a fountain of philosophy.

"The Captain of the Eleventh Division, Kenpachi Zaraki, is a mad dog that cares for little other than combat and sex. I figured I could sway him by giving him free access to Unohana. The current Captain of the Twelfth is a mad-scientist type. I could bribe him by giving him test subjects and ignoring... indiscretions.

"The third step would be to dispose of those that can't be negotiated with," Urahara said the last bit frankly. There wasn't much to elaborate on.

"Give that you’re here and not ruling the afterlife, I'm going to say that things didn't go to plan."

"Things didn't go to plan," Urahara confirmed. "It was always a risk given that the women I was going after were- by definition- in positions of highly visible leadership. I got the four girls that I've told you about, but that was all before my fellow captains caught on.

"Before I left, I played my final ploy. I didn't want anyone else to know about what I'd discovered, you see. They might steal my idea. If not, then at the very least, they might claim some of the women I had my eye on, and that was a big 'no.' So I told them that I had broken the women through a magical wish-granting device called the hogyoku."

"And they believed that?"

"And they believed that. Remember, I was the captain of the Twelfth Division and the best scientist Soul Society had seen in millennia. It was easier to believe that I had managed to make a mind-control device than to believe in literal divine intervention."

"So you stole a captain and three vice-captains, and they just let you go? No attempt to hunt you down?"

"I had a captain and three vice-captains. The collateral damage of pursuing me into the mortal world would have been too great. Moreover, I doubt they know where I am. Soul Society doesn't have too many ways of peering into the living world. If they knew I was here, they wouldn't have sent Rukia."

A moment's pause and then, "This was fascinating, but we've gotten off track. What is your proposition?"

"I haven't given up on taking over Soul Society. I just can't act openly at the moment. The reason coming after me doesn't seem worth it to the higher-ups at Soul Society is because, as far as they know, I've done all the harm I can. I’m harmless now, and getting would do more harm than good.

"I go back to Soul Society to enslave more women? The arithmetic changes and things get dicey. I’d rather not risk it. You, on the other hand... they don't know about you. You can act freely."

The dots connected. "You want me to enslave them on your behalf."

Urahara's grin took on a sinister edge. "You're perfect. You have enormous spiritual reserves and terrific latent potential. This will make it easier to overpower the women you need to, it'll make it easier to break them, and easier to impregnate them.

"You have the right attitude. You've already enslaved Rukia, and you did it without my prodding.

"And you have the right motivation. You want to protect your sisters, don't you?"

Ichigo was on his feet in a flash. "If you think you can threaten-"

"I wasn't threatening. The afterlife is a lawless shit hole, and your sisters will die eventually. From old age, if nothing else. Join me, and I can give them eternity. Give you all eternal comfort. Everything you can want. Join me, and I'll give you all the palaces you could ever want. A legion of servants and more jewels than you can count. I can give you women.

"The first night with Yoruichi is free. If you want her again, then fine. I'll share her with you if you share Rukia with me. I'll share Lisa with you if you bring Soi-Fon into the fold. Hiyori for Rangiku, and Mashiro for Unohana."

"I don't think that they'll all be as easy to subdue them as it was Rukia." Ichigo's words were as good as a yes.

Urahara smiled. "I'm more than willing to give you Soul Reaper powers and train you to use them."

The rest of the meeting was spent hashing out the details as their tea grew cold, long forgotten.

---

This story is going to be cross-posted to my hentai-foundry.com account under the same name.

All characters in this story are at least 18 years old.

This chapter was commissioned by Arakater.

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