Bleach: Starting with Marrying Retsu Unohana

“The other squads’ dormitories have all been affected. Some squad leaders have even gone to my squad to report you.”

Araki looked at Mayuri Kurotsuchi and spoke calmly.

"Huh? Which blind bastard reported me?"

After hearing Araki's words, Mayuri Kurotsuchi angrily rebuked him.

"..."

Araki simply looked at Mayuri Kurotsuchi indifferently, without saying a word.

"Hahaha, so Captain-Commander Araki came because of yesterday's explosion~"

After a while, Mayuri Kurotsuchi suddenly lightened the slightly somber atmosphere with a loud laugh.

"Regarding yesterday's explosion, Captain Araki, you don't need to worry about it. Just leave it to me. In fact, yesterday's explosion was just a small error in one of my experiments, which caused a fire inside the lab, eventually igniting my mainframe and leading to a chain reaction explosion! But don't worry, I've reinforced the mainframe, and this will absolutely never happen again..."

When Mayuri Kurotsuchi learned that Araki had come because of yesterday's explosion, he breathed a sigh of relief. He first wiped the sweat from his forehead, then smiled.

"Really? So it was your computer that exploded yesterday~"

"Then Captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi, translate for me, translate what this means?"

After listening to Mayuri Kurotsuchi's words, Araki first nodded slightly, and then, under Mayuri's horrified gaze, pulled out a stack of documents. The title of the documents clearly read "Research Experiment on Immortal Souls".

"Well, this..."

Mayuri Kurotsuchi looked at the documents in Araki's hand, and his eyes immediately went blank.

"Damn it, how did this document end up in Captain Araki's hands?"

At this moment, Mayuri Kurotsuchi couldn't understand how the document, which he had clearly destroyed, had ended up in Araki's hands.

"Mayuri Kurotsuchi, I'm asking you, translate for me what exactly this 'immortal soul research experiment' means!"

Araki looked at Mayuri Kurotsuchi and spoke in a rhythmic, cadent tone.

"The research and experimentation on immortal souls is..."

"An experiment to make ordinary souls, like Lord 'Spirit King,' become eternal beings..."

After hearing Araki's words, Mayuri finally chickened out and recited the contents of the experiment name that Araki had asked him to translate.

"Was the experiment successful?"

Araki looked at Mayuri Kurotsuchi and asked.

"It succeeded, and it failed..."

"According to the law of soul hunting, the experimental subjects I created can replenish their own depleted souls by devouring souls, thus achieving a different kind of immortality. So theoretically, I have succeeded. However, this is completely different from what I originally wanted to create, so strictly speaking, I have failed."

After hearing Araki's words, Mayuri Kurotsuchi lowered his head and said helplessly.

"What about the test subjects?"

Araki looked at Mayuri Kurotsuchi and continued to ask questions.

"They all ran away..."

"Yesterday's explosion was caused by those despicable experimental subjects."

After hearing Araki's words, Mayuri Kurotsuchi replied through gritted teeth.

Clearly, yesterday's explosion and the loss of the experimental subject have left Mayuri Kurotsuchi extremely upset.

"Araki-sensei! I've brought back all the experimental subjects you asked me to capture."

The very next second after Mayuri Kurotsuchi finished speaking, a burly figure descended from the sky, followed by seven or eight already dead corpses.

"I'm sorry, Araki-sensei, you didn't say whether you wanted me to capture them alive or kill them, so I took it upon myself to kill them all..."

The person who came was naturally Kenpachi Zaraki. As soon as these test subjects defected yesterday, Araki released Kenpachi Zaraki to fight them, and the final result was indeed quite good.

These experimental subjects, though powerful, were nothing more than a bunch of breathing minions when facing Kenpachi Zaraki; he could take them all down with a single slash...

"My experimental subject..."

Mayuri Kurotsuchi looked at the group of experimental subjects she had painstakingly cultivated, whose power even surpassed that of the first generation of 'Undying Souls,' and felt a pain in her heart as if it were being stabbed with a knife.

At this moment, Mayuri Kurotsuchi finally understood what it meant to be heartbroken.

"Zaraki! How are you going to compensate my experimental subject...?"

Mayuri Kurotsuchi glared at Zaraki and rebuked him.

"Kuro Mayuri, you never intended to create any immortal souls. You deliberately created these experimental subjects called 'Soul Hunters' according to the completely wrong direction recorded in the report left by the Lan Island researcher, didn't you?"

However, Araki didn't give Mayuri Kurotsuchi a chance to speak and continued.

"How can it be……"

"I, Mayuri Kurotsuchi, am not that kind of person at all!"

Mayuri Kurotsuchi's expression changed slightly after hearing Araki's words.

"Look what this is..."

As Araki spoke, he threw another stack of documents at Mayuri Kurotsuchi.

The document was clearly titled "Experiment Report on the Artificial Spirit King".

"Forehead……"

At that moment, Mayuri Kurotsuchi was completely numb. To be honest, Mayuri couldn't understand why Araki even had this document in his possession…

"This was left behind by Kisuke Urahara."

Araki looked at the numb Mayuri Kurotsuchi and added a sentence.

"That bastard! I've already left Soul Society, why did he have to cause me this mess! He's like a persistent ghost..."

Upon hearing that it was a report left by Kisuke Urahara, Mayuri Kurotsuchi was immediately enraged and began to curse loudly at the sky.

"However, Captain Araki, please allow me to explain this point."

"As the report you saw records, His Majesty the 'Spirit King' is indeed not stable enough. We absolutely cannot place all the hopes of the 'Three Realms' on a single wedge. Therefore, I share the same idea as Kisuke Urahara: to prepare several wedges in addition to His Majesty the 'Spirit King' as backup..."

"After all, we can't guarantee that an existence like Yhwach, the Quincy King, won't invade the Soul Society again. If such an existence were to reappear in the Soul Society and defeat us Shinigami, and storm the Soul King Palace, we would need a backup Soul King to prevent the collapse of the Three Realms."

Mayuri Kurotsuchi looked at Araki and spoke earnestly.

However, this is a lie! It's just that Mayuri Kurotsuchi also saw the artificial Spirit King report that Kisuke Urahara left in the 'Technical Start', so he planned to create an artificial Spirit King before Urahara to gain an advantage over him, that's all.

Unfortunately, what Mayuri Kurotsuchi didn't know was that the report about the artificial Soul King that Mayuri saw, although written by Kisuke Urahara, was actually left behind by Araki. In other words, Araki specifically left it for Mayuri to see...

"So because your artificial soul technology and artificial body technology are not as perfect as Kisuke Urahara's, you thought of using Soul Hunters, a byproduct of the immortal soul technology, to replace artificial souls..."

After listening to Mayuri Kurotsuchi's words, Araki stroked his chin and made a reasoning gesture. After thinking for a while, Araki deduced...

"Captain Araki! It's not that my artificial soul technology, or my artificial body technology, isn't as perfect as that bastard Kisuke Urahara's technology; it's that I simply don't want to use the same technology as Urahara to create my Soul King..."

“This is what I think: since that bastard Tsunayoshi Tokinada said that all the users of the Fullbring ability are people chosen by the power of the Soul King and have fragments of the Soul King residing in their bodies, and the Quincy are people who bear the power of the Soul King’s destruction, and the Shinigami and Hollows are the souls of humans after death, that is, the two seemingly different but common states that evolved from the choice between 'reason' and 'instinct' in the process of pursuing evolution.”

"Then all I need to do is have the Soul Hunter, who can devour souls, consume the powers of Quincy, Fullbringers, Shinigami, and Hollows, and combine them all together! Then he should be able to evolve into a wedge that can replace the Soul King and support the entire 'Three Realms', right?!"

When Mayuri Kurotsuchi heard Araki say that his skills were inferior to Kisuke Urahara's, he became furious and glared at Araki, trying to explain. Seemingly because Araki had been pushing Mayuri too hard, he directly explained the principles behind his theory to Araki.

"Well said..."

"In that case, I approve your experiment."

Araki smiled and nodded after hearing Mayuri Kurotsuchi's words.

Araki didn't know the feasibility of Mayuri Kurotsuchi's plan, but if Mayuri Kurotsuchi succeeded, he could most likely create an artificial 'Soul King substitute' similar to Kūgo Ginjō.

Therefore, Araki was quite interested in Mayuri Kurotsuchi's experiments...

"Lord Araki, you really understand me..."

Upon hearing Araki's words, Mayuri Kurotsuchi immediately smiled happily.

However, whether Mayuri Kurotsuchi was genuinely happy or was just smiling to please Araki, only Mayuri herself knew...

"But you absolutely cannot conduct the Soul Hunting experiments."

However, Araki added a sentence after that.

"Lord Araki, you must be joking..."

"Without Soul Hunter, I wouldn't be able to conduct my experiment on creating an artificial Spirit King!"

"And all my original test subjects have been hacked to death by this big oaf! He has no idea how much those guys he killed were worth..."

Mayuri Kurotsuchi's face immediately fell, and he looked at Kenpachi Zaraki beside him as he spoke.

"Huh? You want to fight me?"

Upon hearing this, Zaraki angrily addressed Mayuri Kurotsuchi.

"A muscle-bound idiot!"

"What else can you do besides fighting?!"

After hearing what Zaraki said, Mayuri Kurotsuchi spoke angrily.

“That’s true. Right now, all your test subjects have been killed. If I don’t allow you to continue cultivating test subjects, it seems your artificial spirit king experiment can’t continue either. It seems we’ve reached a stalemate…”

Just then, Araki seemed to be following Mayuri Kurotsuchi's lead and began to preach.

"exactly……"

Upon hearing this, Mayuri Kurotsuchi nodded vigorously.

"However, experiments involving soul hunting are absolutely unacceptable; this is a matter of principle..."

"However, while you may not be able to create Soul Hunters anymore, that doesn't mean Mayuri Kurotsuchi can't hunt the existing Soul Hunters."

Araki looked at Mayuri Kurotsuchi and smiled.

"what do you mean……"

Mayuri Kurotsuchi was indeed a clever man; he instantly understood Araki's meaning.

"Those first-generation Soul Hunters who escaped to the mortal world, created because of the Lan Island experiments, are all yours to deal with, Mayuri Kurotsuchi..."

Araki looked at Mayuri Kurotsuchi and spoke seriously.

"Hoohoho..."