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saranel · 7 years

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Thanks for the update to TEF! Love ALL your fics! I'm wondering if you think there would even be any attraction between Urayoru if they never grew up together? Would he even have made it to Captain? Would they have been friends, anyway? Thanks and looking forward to your answer :)

Tyyyy!

And I love your question, because one of the things that makes the UraYoru relationship so special has always been their connection since childhood. So what happens when you take that away?

For starters, I believe we’d be looking at two different people. Not radically so, but to put it in the words of one of my favorite quotes about relationships:

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” – Carl. G. Jung

(THE AU I DIDN’T KNOW I NEEDED UNDER THE CUT)

If TBTP is any indication, Kisuke in his youth was a far more reserved person than the behatted trickster Ichigo first meets. And bear in mind that this is a Kisuke already influenced by Yoruichi, so I can only imagine how much shier he must’ve been as a young boy. What’s interesting, however, is the slow reveal that Kisuke in TBTP was still the same deep down, he simply lacked some of the confidence that was most likely the product of his tenure as a Captain.

I don’t believe Kisuke’s playful (and darker) side was the result of his association with Yoruichi; I believe that she drew out what was already there, lying dormant. Kisuke and Yoruichi are kindred spirits in many ways, but differ in the way they express themselves: where she will make no apologies about her brazen nature and openly tease someone, Kisuke is a manipulator who employs subterfuge to produce the same result, and not only enjoys it, but also feigns innocence –however poorly- after the fact.

One of the aspects of Kisuke’s personality I enjoy the most is the occasional peek into his more sinister side. And as much as Yoruichi seems to encourage it and even share it at times, I think that with Kisuke, it goes much deeper. In fact, I firmly believe that a friendless Kisuke could have easily become someone dangerously close to Aizen. It’s not that Kisuke doesn’t have a moral compass, or that his friends and loved ones act like it, but rather Kisuke strives to be better because of them (see: his completely new attitude toward Ichigo once he starts to truly care about him).

There’s also the matter of motivation to consider. Fun though the anime version of TBTP was, we have no idea how Kisuke and Yoruichi came to the decision to nominate him for Captaincy. Our only clue comes from Kisuke’s reflection after his first day, where he muses out loud that Yoruichi was right:

This implies that Kisuke did need a bit of convincing, but the quote he repeats explicitly states that Yoruichi’s main argument was that becoming a Captain would be ‘interesting.’ At no point does Kisuke say anything to the effect of: “Yoruichi-san was right; it’s high time I stop messing around.” What this tells me is that Kisuke, like many a genius before him, was bored. As averse as he seems to be to assuming responsibility, he’s a natural leader when he’s confident, and I’m willing to bet Yoruichi, who knew him so well, also knew that this was the kind of challenge he needed to truly shine.

Even more tellingly, Kisuke wastes no time in going forward with his plan to create the SRDI, which tells me it must’ve been on his mind for a while. But a Third Seat simply doesn’t have the necessary clout to get an organization like the SRDI approved by the Powers That Be, which leads me to believe that this was yet another reason Yoruichi wanted him to get the promotion. I can easily picture Kisuke talking her ear off for years beforehand about his sole ambition.

What I’m getting to with all this prologue is that a mind like Kisuke’s would not have been content to remain idle for long, with or without Yoruichi’s intervention. Sooner or later, one of his superiors would have taken notice, so I think he would’ve made Captain anyway, even without Yoruichi there to give him a swift kick up the ass nudge. Personally, I would love to picture him as a dark horse of sorts from the Fourth Division. Y’all know how I feel about Kisuke’s bloodlust, and the idea that Unohana could have discovered him, so to speak, as a Kidō genius and a secret zanjutsu badass (now even more so because of her tutoring) makes me beyond giddy. Just try and picture him as the deceptively meek underling from the healer squad who suddenly shows up for the Captain Exam and jaws start dropping all around when he whips out Benihime.

On the friendship front, since Yoruichi is out, this means that Kisuke didn’t grow up in the Shihōin estate and thus never met Tessai, either. So I see him as a pretty withdrawn kid who only barely socialized during his Academy years, got a little better at it as an active Shinigami, and just because their friendship gives me life, I like to picture a possible scenario in which he struck a friendship with Shinji before he made Captain. Which would’ve helped bring him out of his shell a bit.

As for Yoruichi… I think that Kisuke’s absence from her life would have marked her in deep, but not easily noticeable ways. I’ve spoken before about my headcanons re: the Shihōin Clan and how the pressure to live up to their expectations affected Yoruichi’s life. Personality-wise, I don’t think Kisuke was as big an influence to Yoruichi as she was to him, in the sense that I think she was already a spunky, outspoken kid. If anything, perhaps she learned to exert a small measure of control over herself earlier on than she would have without him.

I do, however, believe that Kisuke was a massive catalyst in the way Yoruichi balanced duty and personal desires, because I think that the Training Grounds he built for them was the first true taste of freedom Yoruichi ever had. And without it, I can picture her having a much more tumultuous relationship with her family, and a far rockier path to becoming the head of her clan. And given how both Kisuke and Yoruichi do not trust easily, their absence from each other’s lives would’ve made them even less likely to open up, in the sense that their relationships (both platonic and romantic) would’ve been far more superficial. For Yoruichi, I believe the exceptions were Kūkaku and Tessai (and perhaps Kaien, to a lesser extent), which would’ve made her a significantly less lonely child than Kisuke, but still without someone who understood her intimately.

So basically, I believe that without Kisuke, Yoruichi would still strive for the same excellence in her career and reach Captaincy before he did, though perhaps later than she did in canon, since they both also lacked a good sparring partner. Yoruichi’s proficiency with Kidō would not be quite at the same level, and similarly, Kisuke’s hand-to-hand combat and Shunpō prowess would’ve suffered as well. Not to a terrible degree, since I think both were talented enough to excel even on their own, but they wouldn’t have become the legends they were until after they met in this ‘universe.’

On a personal level, Yoruichi would, as mentioned above, appear more or less the same person to the unknowing eye, but would have an even harder time opening up to anyone.

So what would happen when a meeker Captain Urahara met this version of Captain Shihōin? Well… sparks for one thing ;) Chemistry is something you either have or you don’t. It can’t be forced, and those two have it in spades, so there’s no reason to think they wouldn’t in this universe as well.

I don’t think Yoruichi would have been very impressed with Kisuke upon first glance. That is beyond finding him cute, because c’mon:

In order for her to actually take notice, she would have to be afforded a peek into his darker side, and the way I can see it happening is either during a joint mission, of sorts, or better yet, during his Captain’s exam. Cute little woobie shuffling into the exam room all smiley and puppy-like, then he pulls out Kannonbiraki and Yoruichi is all: “HOLD THE FUCK UP.”

Which, of course, piques her curiosity and leads her to try to get to know him a bit. Perhaps by getting him to talk about the SRDI, and talking about the inventor side of her own family. And by the time they’re done talking, she’s more stunned and impressed by his genius than she’d like to admit. Kisuke, in comparison, is a goner the second he hears her laugh, this is not even up for debate.

The way I see romance blossoming in this scenario is a little ass-backwards, to be honest xD As in Yoruichi finds him interesting enough to take him to bed and sees it as a completely casual affair, whereas Kisuke is 1000% smitten and tries to win her over bit by bit. Which he does, of course, but it takes a while, because Yoruichi is a stubborn, stubborn woman.

I can even picture them being non-exclusive at first (mostly on her side) and then her slowly coming to the realization that she’s only really interested in him, so the prospect of seeing other people gradually loses its appeal until it vanishes altogether.

…………………..

……………

……You realize, of course, that now I must write this AU.

…………..Dammit.

#asks #bleach #urahara kisuke #shihouin yoruichi #urayoru #*sighs as she adds another fing WIP to her list*#xmkatx

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