AN: Anyone else unsatisfied with Aizen's defeat? For a guy who had formulated a plan so long in the making and then faced every single would be obstacle with a pompous ass smirk and an impossibly strong finger, he sure went to pieces almost instantly when Ichigo turned Deus Ex Machina Infinity Overdrive DX Alpha plus. Where's the victory or satisfaction in beating a child having a tantrum rather than the cool and collected villain we had been groomed to hate this whole time?

So, I decided that the final scene would have been so much more appealing if there was a last second reveal that changed how we looked at a character completely, whether in fear or respect. They'll all take place at the moment the 'prologue' ends, and the list will descend from most likely at number 1 (in my humblest opinion) to the absurd and even completely insane all the way at 22. In fact, I might just make a spin-off for the last one since I liked it so much. There's also a rant embedded in here, so I dually apologize and stand by it.

And yes, I know the title's misspelled, fuck off!

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"-With this level of Kido!"

Just as he made this proclamation of contempt, the ivory 'skin' that covered Souske Aizen's right arm burst off, like the surface of an ancient statue, taking the remnants of Kyoku Suogetsu with it. The Man Who Would Be God turned his eyes on this, unaware that one of his eyes had returned to normal while the other still sat in a pool of amethyst.

"…what? What's happening to me?!" He stared in open shock at his thin, pale and most definitely mortal arm, as though the limb itself was the very reason that he was so suddenly being plunged into this unknown scenario. Surprisingly, an answer was forthcoming to the despotic turncoat.

"It is the Hougyokou's Will," Urahara solemnly declared, any and all mirth long gone from his scruffy visage. "The reason the seal I shot into you is only now taking affect, is because your powers are starting to weaken." He turned his head slightly to acknowledge the orange haired teenager sitting somewhat between him and the outmaneuvered former captain. "This is all thanks to Ichigo. The seal was able to take effect because he fought so hard and pushed you to your limit."

Souske breathed in in short bursts, his body coming down from requiring no earthly sustenance to once again requiring air. He knew that he should be able to understand where the shop keeper was going with this, but it was hard for him to think, to move; everything felt as though his body was scattered to different ends of a dream, and he could only watch and listen, something he hated beyond reason.

Urahara returned his unusually flat and emotionless gaze to Aizen, giving the impression of looking at nothing more than an uninteresting exhibit in a museum. "The Hougyokou…is saying that it doesn't recognize you as its master."

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And then a chilling smirk washed over the young outlaw's face, something that he could no longer hide under a hat nor behind a fan. And even if he did have one of those, he wouldn't use it; this was the moment that he had been looking forward to for over a century in exile. "Exactly as I had planned."

Aizen, already slightly wild-eyed, began to look manic as the energy embedded in his flesh began to heat up, leaching away his energy to fuel its work. "What do you mean 'as you planned'? There was no way you could have foreseen Kurosaki obtaining such an evolution, let alone that he could injure me so greatly!"

But that grin never left Urahara's face, creating a disturbing resemblance to his protégé turned replacement. "On the contrary, I was the one who told Isshin about it in the first place, knowing that he would eventually either utilize it himself or help his son attain it, with the latter being the most likely."

He stepped towards the devolved godly being, prompting an instinctive step away, giving that devilish grin further vigor. "You see, I had always known that you would eventually try to fuse with the Hougyokou in a bid to reach the next level, as it was your only option left after realizing as I did that Soul Reapers and Hollows have only so much growth potential. You would then stagger the time of your ascendance with your obtaining of the Oken and entering the realm of the Soul King, as is your dramatic nature. It was simplicity itself to deduce that you would then take the time to beat and humiliate all those that opposed you, meaning that you became far too arrogant and unwilling to lower yourself to partake in simple defensive measures that you would have otherwise."

Aizen was glaring pure death now, but he couldn't shake the effects of the unknown Kido and move freely, though he was throwing all of his spirit energy at it in in a vain attempt to quash the demon magic before it took root and germinated. "You formulated such a flimsy plan in the spur of the moment! You're even madder than I believed!"

"Oh no, you misunderstand;" Kisuke wagged his finger, like he was scolding a disobedient child, "I didn't figure this out today, or yesterday, or last month: I had all of this planned out shortly before you arranged for us to be exiled from the Seireitei."

This bombshell had the intended result of making Souske gape at him like stunned fish, mismatched eyes staring at the debatably insane scientist in utter disbelief. His refusal to believe this was obviously en route, so the former Captain of Squad 12 preempted him by offering some explanation.

"Shinji never said so, but it was easy to determine that he not only mistrusted you, but outright suspected you of treachery on some level, though he never did get enough evidence until that night. I, on the other hand, was quite capable of monitoring your comings and goings, regardless of Kyoku Sougetsu's Complete Hypnosis. You see, you can trick people with it, but you can't trick machines. I had numerous monitoring devises installed in your quarters, your office, and even on your person so that every time you went somewhere, I had a record of it. All I had to do was check with those hat you were supposedly around to determine when you were actually present or simply using hypnosis so others thought you were."

There was a cyst-like substance swallowing Aizen's feet, moving upward at a creeping pace, slowly engulfing his body in its hungering embrace. "Impossible! There is no way that simple machines could overcome Kyokou Sougetsu's capabilities; you still would have been under my control!"

Kisuke merely shrugged nonchalantly, now casually walking in circles around the trapped traitor. "True, true, I was still affected by your shikai so I couldn't actually monitor progress. I could, however, take note of consistent anomalies: detection charms that went off when nobody was nearby, camera's that looped the same image for several seconds, bugs that suddenly went silent for the length of time it would take for someone to walk past or have a conversation. But most telling were the tracers that I had put on you yourself. I bet you never even knew about those, did you? It's dangerous, making enemies with even a former member Squad 2 and then underestimating them. Anyways, those personal bugs weren't for me to directly track you, but rather to scan for where the signal didn't come from, thus working around the Hypnosis."

At this point, Aizen could only stare wildly at the man he had never realized was his true opponent all along, a sense of surrealistic dread washing through his body like another kido (for all he knew at this point it very likely was).

"But I still didn't know your end game, so I had to wait until you tipped your hand and showed us what it was that you were planning. I eventually caught wind of attacks happening on Soul Reapers and residents of the rukongai, wherein no trace was left of the victim was left but their possessions. Admittedly, I passed this off as a new type of Hollow, same as all the rest; but then I managed to get ahold of some of the clothes and did a full examination, revealing that the only Hollow reishi apparent was also the same reishi of the victim. Child's play to make the obvious jump in logic that you were experimenting on merging Soul Reaper and Hollow to find that elusive transcendent evolution, and that you were undoubtedly going off of my research regarding the Hougyokou."

Ichigo, well on his way to being completely lost and still sitting on the ground in his depowered state, raised his hand to get Urahara's attention, subconsciously falling into the role of the student while the shop keeper acted out the Teacher. A nod from his occasional mentor prompted him to speak. "If you knew what it was that he was doing, then why didn't you stop him from hollowfying the Visoreds, or exiling you, Youruichi and Tessai?"

"Ah, that's simple:" Urahara waved his hand at the young savior, an effect that would have been better suited to having a folded up fan between his fingers. "We needed to be outside the system that Souske had so deeply infiltrated. We were restricted by the laws and customs, making any attempt at stopping him there futile so long as he had the ability to control those that would determine the outcome. So we let him have his little show and kick us out, really just doing us a favor and sparing us the trouble it would have taken to manufacture a reason for our disappearance." Behind him, Aizen slapped a hand to his forehead. "As for Shinji and the rest, I predicted that eventually someone with both Soul Reaper and Hollow powers would come along, and who better to train him than those who had already wrestled with their inner Hollow and won? I admit that it's not pretty, but they turned out alright, and I already knew that none of them had what it would take to put down Souske; remember what I said about a Soul Reaper having limited potential for growth?"

Aizen was now covered up to the waist by the rapidly hardening magical restraint, red blades of energy sprouting from the points in his back that the kido had been planted, and at Urahara's words the process of swallowing him sped up to a dramatic degree, forcing the once almighty schemer to actively fight against it to buy a few more seconds. He howled and raged, cursing the inventor and all of the Soul Society repeatedly, but it was all just words and he was soon vanished, replaced by a bone white spire that culminated in a triple cross emblem, the final stage of the Ultimate Seal of Destruction.

Silence now filled the valley, which would, in the intervening years, become known as the legendary site of Aizen's ultimate defeat and the place where one of the most powerful attacks ever was unleashed by a fifteen year old human substitute Soul Reaper.

It was both an inspiration and a punch-line.

Ichigo was mutely looking down at the ground by his feet, trying hard not to think too much on what he had just learned. It's one thing to learn that the majority of you r life was molded according to the whims of a tyrannical madman with delusions of godhood, but it was a completely different matter when that tyrannical madman with delusions of godhood was unconsciously following the plans of a very likely chemically unbalanced scientist with a penchant for nearly sadistic pranks and misdirection. It was these kinds of things that made him seriously wonder if anything he had ever done in his life was his own choice. Did he even like the cereal he ate because he liked it, or because one of these two lunatics decided that he should like it years earlier and arranged to have him be subliminally influenced towards that choice by way of reverse psychology and positive reinforcement?

'…oh, my brain…should have tried harder…'

Urahara walked backwards over to Ichigo's side, admiring his handiwork as he went. Eventually nodding to show his contentment, he looked down at the weakened and exhausted teenager with twinkling eyes. After a moment, he offered his hand. "Wanna get some ramen? There's a place I know in the 15th district that I've been wanting to go to for a century and now seems as good a time as any."

Ichigo slowly rubbed his head, trying to get the idea of Urahara and Aizen having an indirect argument over whether he should wear boxers or briefs out of his mind. He was now very glad indeed that he was going to lose his powers and become inconsequential to the machinations of Soul Reaper's.

"Only if you're buying."

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