okay lemme explain to you as briefly as I can why Yoruichi was the actual Final Boss of Bleach the entire time and neither Kisuke nor Aizen are shit
Chapter -97. Yoruichi says she knew what was going on the moment Shinji told her people in Rukongai were disappearing. that is to say, she knew it was Hollowfication immediately. also, notice the command: "Get to work." Kisuke works for Yoruichi. Kisuke didn't know that he'd been outplayed by his boss and is actually amused that he's only free because she succeeded where he failed
Chapter -103. we know Kisuke didn't know what was going on because he straight-up tells us he should've known what was going on. he:
wasn't really concerned when Shinji (and Aizen) told him what was going on in Rukongai
only tried to destroy his Hōgyoku when Todo showed up, which was a waste of time and a distraction, when he could've contacted Yoruichi with Tenteikūra for reinforcements or whatever
sent Hiyori, who as a Vice Captain is slow af, (see also: Rangiku saying in Chapter 80 it could take "half a day" for Vice Captains to gather at a meeting; also compare with how quickly the Captains arrive to save Hiyori) on what she believed was a milk run. Hiyori should have been stopping periodically to check reiatsu and noticed something had happened to Kensei and Mashiro, but also Kisuke just never should've sent her to begin with when he could've used a Riteitai messenger or whatever
keeps falling asleep in TBTP. he's sleepy when he gets back from talking to Shinji (and Aizen!), he falls asleep after trying to mess with the Hōgyoku, and falls asleep while working on the Vizard. he's the narcoleptic equivalent of Jūshirō's Ghost Tuberculosis bouts and isn't qualified for this
doesn't identify for sure that Hollowfication is going on until he shows up in Chapter -98 and uselessly exposits at Aizen for no reason
Chapter -102. if Yoruichi knew what was happening, that means she allowed what happened to unfold the way it did. Kisuke also wasn't that invested in saving Hiyori because if he was, he simply would've gone AWOL to save her (compare with Isshin in EBTR). why did Yoruichi allow this?
either A. the perpetrator had to be allowed to openly make a move so their identity would become known, or B. she already knew it was Aizen but needed him to reveal himself by moving out in the open. remember that her intelligence-gathering is only later matched by all Mayuri's technology (we'll return to this later)
Kisuke needed to be allowed to fail to learn from his mistakes
a catastrophe being allowed to occur would actually enhance her degrees of freedom, not restrict them. chaos is a ladder (we'll return to this later)
Chapter 405. Aizen straight-up says Kisuke is smarter than him. yet Yoruichi is smarter than Kisuke, and Aizen never pays any attention to Yoruichi despite her having persistently ruined his plans this entire time
Chapter 421. Aizen doubles down on Kisuke being smarter than him, and complains about him serving "that thing". notice Kisuke clarifies what he means by that, because even at this late hour Aizen still doesn't get that Kisuke serves Yoruichi
Chapter 175. Aizen calls West Rukongai "Kisuke Urahara's base of operations", insinuating he believes Shiba Kūkaku works for Kisuke. Aizen is incapable of understanding Kūkaku is not Kisuke's minion. he likewise asks if Ichigo "[works] for him", because he is incapable of understanding that Ichigo is not Kisuke's minion either
Aizen comforts himself with a fairy tale version of the universe in which the "smartest" people are in charge of everything. he likewise tells himself a fairy tale that his own kind of intelligence is not just the greatest kind of intelligence, but the only kind of intelligence. if you're not like Aizen, you're not "smart"! it's on this basis that he decides that he deserves to rule the universe
Aizen is only able to understand the world through this lens, and is only able to imagine strict power relationships formed on the basis of what he judges to be the necessary rule by the "smartest"
since Kisuke's kind of intelligence is A. similar and B. greater than Aizen's, Aizen is forced to recognize it, and yet Aizen cannot understand that Kisuke does not see the universe through this same kind of lens as HE, AIZEN does
Kūkaku and Ichigo do not work for Kisuke, they work with him. Aizen cannot fathom this because it's not how HE, AIZEN would do things if he was in Kisuke's shoes, and he cannot fathom than an intelligence greater than his own would do things differently than he himself would, because he cannot fathom that he is not actually that smart in the grand scheme of things. you see this in his rage at Kisuke in their meeting in 421
and yet it goes deeper still, as Aizen is not even remotely capable of conceiving that Kisuke works for someone else, and that someone is even smarter than Kisuke, albeit with a different kind of intelligence than him, because HE, AIZEN, would not ever work for someone else, even if they were superior to him in intelligence
Aizen is completely unaware the entire time that he is actually fighting Yoruichi, not Kisuke, and he never—not even for a single moment—becomes the slightest bit aware of it
Chapter 371. as Baraggan dies, we become aware of his seething resentment toward Aizen for the way he asserted himself and forced Baraggan to submit. the other Espada don't seem quite so resentful, but it shows you that Aizen ultimately possesses little in the way of tact or skill. if he cannot charm or trick someone into serving him, he forces them into subservience
Chapter -97. talking on what happened, Shinji credits Kisuke with everything. but who does Kisuke work for?
Aizen forcibly conscripts troops that hate his guts for the means by which he forced their subservience
Yoruichi acquires the loyalty of troops who don't even know they're ultimately working for her
"If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it."
— Sun Tzu, The Art of War
so I'm watching this video about Littlefinger in the books and how he's completely different than in the show. book Littlefinger is everyone's friend and everybody likes him. at this particular timecode, it gets noted how Littlefinger engineered the Crown's debts to the Iron Bank so that they'd become reliant on him. let's look at Bleach. what does Yoruichi actually do? she makes the Gotei 13 dependent on her. observe:
Yoruichi first becomes a Captain
Yoruichi pushes Kisuke into becoming a Captain
Yoruichi through circumstances beyond anyone's control gains Kisuke and Tessai (also Captain-class) as permanent allies
Yoruichi gains five more Captains and Captain-class allies (Shinji, Rose, Kensei, Love, and Hachigen) by saving them, although they credit Kisuke
Yoruichi has two people she sort of mentored (Soifon and Byakuya) become Captains
Yoruichi has another individual she saved (Lisa) become a Captain too
one of Yoruichi's allies, Kisuke, saves a Captain (Isshin), and helps build up another Captain (Rukia) and another Captain-class (Ichigo)
count it up. including herself, Yoruichi has effectively brought together 14 Captain-class individuals. what are Aizen's meager 3, two of whom are both dead, and his collection of Espada which were dispatched in literally a single day, by comparison?
and how is Yoruichi described after having done all this?
“It would be nice if they were all like Ms. Yoruichi.”
“I think that would be dangerous in its own way.” Muguruma imagined a group of Yoruichis jumping around the aristocratic district and scowled.
Though Hirako had spent some time slipping away to the living world, he was a veteran in the current Thirteen Court Guard Companies. Because of that, he was one of the people who fully understood the Four Great Noble Clan’s absolute power; he knew they weren’t all openhearted like Yoruichi Shihoin or unfailingly loyal like Byakuya Kuchiki.
Yoruichi is agreeable and nice and openhearted, so think suspicious and critical people like Shūhei, Kensei, and Shinji—the same Shinji that is doubly suspicious after having been burned by Aizen
hmm, so Yoruichi is liked by everyone... just like Littlefinger. weird, huh?
“Well, Captain Kurotsuchi and Yoruichi have probably found out by their own methods. They probably even found out what happened next before I did.”
Kukaku had casually heard about this situation from Yoruichi, and there was a chance Mayuri had also found this information through his own methods.
“What’s wrong, Captain?” Assistant Captain Akon asked quizzically when Twelfth Company Captain and head of the Department of Research and Development abruptly paused at his work.
“I suppose you could say something foreboding is bugging me.” Looking unamused, Mayuri resumed his work. “The quantum spirit bugs I inserted in my cerebellum are throbbing. I’m sure it’s just the jealous ramblings of some banal scientist, going on illogically.”
While ignoring the “bugging” that was no metaphor, Mayuri turned his eyes to the image receiver in front of him. What was displayed there appeared to be the Rukongai as seen from high above. If a person from the living world were to see it, they would have likely concluded it was a shot of a desolate village taken from a satellite or airplane. However, the Soul Society naturally had no satellites in the air.
When Akon saw the image, which was leagues more sophisticated than the best satellite surveillance images from the living world, he was half impressed and half dubious, remarking, “That’s pretty precise, though I should expect that from you. But why’d you go to all that trouble to devote yourself to building a surveillance system from scratch? It would’ve been a heck of a lot easier to just build it on top of the Visual Department’s system… Actually, wouldn’t that have been more efficient?”
The Visual Department—that was the general umbrella organization that managed the visual surveillance system that spread like a net primarily over various places in the Soul Society and the living world and, in recent years, even a section of Hueco Mundo. Its ties ran deep with the Department of Research and Develoment, and by joining forces, they could access all types of intelligence from various sources and use that as a basis for analyzing the current state of affairs.
and yet, as I've kept telling you, Yoruichi knows as much as the man who's surveilling everything to a much greater standard than any real-world intelligence agency does
so Yoruichi isn't just Littlefinger. she's also Varys, and the Faceless Men, and on and on and on. lest we also forget...
While jokingly scolding Hisagi, Urahara continued to speak as though he were a child up to some sort of trick. “But a guess is nothing more than that. This is all the information I can give to you as of right now. I have several other conjectures, but in the unthinkable chance that I’m mistaken, I’d be causing a great deal of trouble to many people. On account of that, I’d like a bit more information to settle my guesses.”
“In other words, you want information from me too?”
“I’ve asked Miss Yoruichi for the same. I’d like data from all angles. As a matter of fact, what you just told me about that child Hikone was an extraordinarily useful data point. Thank you very much.”
Kisuke relies on Yoruichi for information and...
He knew he was a burden. Urahara’s power was tremendous, to the point that Hisagi had no idea why Urahara had suggested that they would tag team. Though he had been shown a way of battling that was great enough to make him think that the only person who could keep pace with Urahara in terms of ability was Yoruichi Shihoin, Hisagi stayed to maintain dignity as a Soul Reaper.
Shūhei notes that Yoruichi is the only one who can keep pace with Kisuke
allow me to put all this together for you. Yoruichi is:
smarter than Kisuke, stronger than Kisuke, more informed than Kisuke, and at least as talented as Kisuke
smarter than Mayuri, stronger than Mayuri, as informed as Mayuri, and more talented than Mayuri without his deus ex machina technobabble
smarter than Aizen, stronger than Aizen pre-Hōgyoku (who would've died to her twice, as well as Yamamoto, Isshin, and Kisuke, had Aizen not been fused with the Hōgyoku) because reiatsu isn't everything despite what Aizen claimed to Soifon, more informed than Aizen, and more talented than Aizen
Chapter 405. both her attacks would've killed him stone-cold dead without the Hōgyoku, but especially this partial Shunkō hit which would've shattered his skull and exploded his heart like a Mortal Kombat Fatality, if he hadn't already been incinerated by Kisuke by this point. let's not even bother talking about how Aizen, Gin, and Kaname fled from Kisuke and Tessai in TBTP, and didn't try and stop Yoruichi back then either. and yes, Isshin already beat Aizen's ass too, by Aizen's own admission:
Chapter 400. base Aizen literally could not compete with a base Isshin not even using Shikai or Bankai. what do you think "I've reached my limit" means? without the Hōgyoku he would've died to Kisuke or Yoruichi easily after this if he somehow didn't die to Isshin. he couldn't even dodge Yoruichi's first attack in Chapter 403, if he was even aware she was approaching him, so she could've killed him in literally a single hit (just like she could've killed Byakuya in a single hit in Chapter 117 or Aizen in a single hit in Chapter 177 had she wanted to)
base Aizen wasn't shit without Kyōka Suigetsu no matter how much people delude themselves into imagining he was orders of magnitude beyond any other Shinigami, and I haven't even brought up how SAFWY told us he has had to trap Kenpachi in Hueco Mundo and how the manga makes clear he needed Wonderweiss to handle Yamamoto (with all the other Espada being a distraction until Wonderweiss was created, with Aizen himself roasting them when he cuts down Tia in Chapter 376 as though their weakness isn't actually another failing of his)
The World Needs A Hero
The World Needs A Hero
Phantom rule, the hidden jewel
Who's really in control?
On puppet strings, a nation swings
Undermined by moles
your vaunted, allegedly GOATed manipulators... who's manipulating them? who's really in control? ain't Kisuke and ain't Aizen
oh yeah and don't forget you know nothing about her Shikai or Bankai. she's the only Captain from the manga for whom that is true. think about that for a little bit on top of everything else
