The World of the Living, Karakura Town.
Two silhouettes darted through the shadows of the buildings at high speed, the fierce wind in their wake blowing clothes off drying racks onto the rooftops.
"Hey! Asuka! Slow down! I can barely keep up!"
Kaien Shiba trailed behind Asuka, complaining while panting heavily.
'What did this kid eat growing up? How is he so fast?'
'Aren't we both using Shunpo?'
Asuka did not even turn his head, his Shunpo showing no signs of slowing down.
A fire was burning in his heart.
'I'm back.'
'I'm really back.'
'...'
Asuka silently repeated her name in his heart.
With every repetition, the force beneath his feet grew heavier, cracking the edges of the concrete rooftops he stepped on.
To him, his experience in Fuyuki City had only lasted a few short days.
'But to Shinobu...'
'Is she still waiting for me?'
'Has she encountered any danger?'
'Did that guy Aizen... make a move against her?'
Countless questions lashed at Asuka like a whip, preventing him from resting for even a moment.
"We're here!" Asuka said as he spotted the familiar street from his memories.
There sat a dilapidated grocery store that looked almost eerie to him.
Urahara Shop.
Although the storefront looked exactly the same as it did eighteen years ago—still bearing that half-dead appearance, as if it were ready to go out of business at any moment...
Under Asuka's Spiritual Sight, the Bounded Field enveloping the shop was far more precise and dense than before.
'What happened?'
The rolling shutter was half-closed, and several unpacked crates of goods were piled up at the entrance.
"Hurry up and finish moving these, Jinta. Are you slacking off?"
"Shut up! I've already moved ten boxes! Ururu is the one slacking off, just standing there spacing out!"
"Ururu is keeping watch. The manager ordered it."
Two small figures were busy at the storefront. They were faces Asuka had never seen before.
'When did that guy Urahara start using child labor?'
Asuka's figure suddenly dropped, landing right at the shop's entrance.
Kaien landed closely behind him, sizing up the shop before them. "This is that great sinner's shop? It doesn't look very impressive."
Asuka ignored Kaien's assessment and strode forward.
"Who's there?!"
Sensing the presence of strangers, the girl named Ururu snapped her head up. Her previously timid gaze instantly sharpened, and she held her broom horizontally across her chest like a sword.
"Hey! Who are you two?! Jumping out in the middle of the night to scare people!"
The boy, Jinta, threw aside the box in his hands and pulled out a massive spiked club from behind his back, completely disproportionate to his size.
"Are you thieves? Or perverts? To think you'd dare cause trouble at the great Urahara's shop, are you tired of living?!"
The two small figures stood their ground, blocking Asuka's path.
"Kids?" Kaien paused for a moment before pointing at the spiked club in Jinta's hands and bursting into laughter. "Hey, hey, whose brats are these? Is that a toy? It's dangerous, hurry up and go home!"
"Shut up! You useless old man!"
Jinta was infuriated by Kaien's attitude.
He let out a roar, pushed off the ground, and swung the spiked club with a howling gust of wind, smashing it viciously toward Kaien's head.
"Hah? Who are you calling useless?!"
Although Kaien wanted to argue, his tattered clothes were hardly convincing, leaving him momentarily speechless.
Moreover, despite his teasing words, he was inwardly startled.
'This brat doesn't look very old, but his physical explosive power is quite something.'
He shifted his body slightly, easily dodging Jinta's attack, and then lightly tapped the side of the spiked club with his unsheathed katana.
Clang!
A muffled sound echoed.
Jinta felt a massive rebounding force travel up his arms, causing him to stumble backward uncontrollably.
"Damn it! Ururu! Let's get them together!"
Jinta steadied himself and shouted indignantly.
"..."
Ururu, who had remained motionless until now, experienced a shift in her gaze.
Boom!
The ground beneath her feet instantly shattered as she turned into a blur, her speed actually twice as fast as Jinta's!
However, her target was not Kaien, but Asuka, who was standing off to the side.
"Oh?"
Asuka raised an eyebrow slightly.
"You didn't choose to pincer the useless guy, but came for me instead?"
"I said, who are you calling useless?!"
Facing Ururu's kick, which packed enough force to split mountains and shatter rocks, Asuka did not draw his sword.
He merely took a half-step forward.
"Stand down."
Buzz!
A violent surge of Spiritual Pressure instantly expanded outward with him at the center.
It was one of his few gains from Fuyuki City.
A Spiritual Pressure field unique to the Avenger class, which activated when faced with killing intent and malice.
It was mixed with All the World's Evils and Asuka's own Spiritual Pressure fluctuations—something the brats in front of him could not possibly withstand.
Ururu's movements suddenly stiffened in mid-air.
Like a small animal encountering its natural predator, her instincts screamed that the man before her was extremely dangerous!
Her attack came to a dead halt right in front of Asuka; no matter how hard she tried, she could not follow through.
Thud.
Jinta even fell flat on his rear, unable to maintain his grip on the spiked club, staring at Asuka in sheer shock.
The killing intent in Ururu's eyes slowly faded, and she reverted to that timid little girl. Tears welled up in her eyes, looking as though she would burst out crying in the next second.
"My, my, what's going on here? So lively in the middle of the night?"
Just then, that familiar and highly punchable voice finally drifted out from inside the shop.
Kisuke Urahara, wearing his eternally unchanging dark green Japanese haori and green-and-white striped bucket hat, slowly strolled out of the shop while fanning himself with a folding fan.
"Jinta, Ururu, didn't I tell you? You must be polite to our guests..."
Urahara's words caught in his throat halfway through.
Clack.
The folding fan slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground.
His usually cynical eyes were now wide as saucers, staring fixedly at the figure standing outside the door.
To Soul Reapers with their long lifespans, eighteen years might just be the blink of an eye.
But for Kisuke Urahara, these past years had been filled with guilt and self-blame.
Although the Spiritual Disaster in Fuyuki City back then had no direct connection to him.
It was, after all, him who had brought Asuka to Fuyuki City, ultimately leading to Asuka being swept into the spacetime turbulence, his fate unknown.
Even though he constantly told Shinobu Kocho, and himself, that the man would definitely return.
But as time passed...
No matter how many abnormal Spiritual Pressure fields he detected, he could not find a way to breach them, unable to even observe what lay within.
Even for him, the conviction deep in his heart grew fainter and fainter with the passage of time...
He even felt somewhat afraid to face Shinobu Kocho and those eyes that came to inquire every single month.
But now...
That man was standing right there.
Wearing that familiar, somewhat tattered black Shihakusho.
His gaze remained as indifferent as ever, looking exactly as if he had just finished delivering goods yesterday.
"...Asuka, my boy?" he asked, speaking up to confirm in disbelief.