"Sawatari, you'll handle this one. Your spatial movement ability makes you the perfect choice for the job."
Kariya had already decided who was best suited to carry out the mission.
The others nodded in agreement.
For a kidnapping that required speed, stealth, and minimal chance of detection, Sawatari's ability to move through space was undoubtedly ideal.
Kariya then led the group through the finer details of the operation.
Leave specialized work to the specialist.
With Sawatari's abilities combined with a carefully prepared plan, everyone believed the kidnapping should go smoothly.
"All right. Next, we need to decide who we're taking."
Kariya swept his gaze across the people gathered around the table.
"Let's hear your thoughts. Who makes the best target?"
Ugaki, their resident schemer, had already considered the matter thoroughly and come prepared.
Without any hurry, he pulled a thick stack of photographs from inside his coat and tossed several onto the table.
"First, this orange-haired boy is Kurosaki Ichigo."
Ugaki tapped the photograph.
"According to the information we've gathered, his combat ability is no weaker than that of an ordinary captain. Making him our target would create unnecessary complications and could easily jeopardize the entire operation."
"So I recommend excluding him."
He picked up Ichigo's photograph and drew a large red cross over it.
"Next is this expressionless man, Sado Yasutora."
"Don't let his quiet appearance fool you. His right arm can transform and possesses tremendous destructive power. He also presents too great a risk."
Another red cross went over Chad's picture.
"And this bespectacled young man is Ishida Uryū. Although he appears to be a close companion of the others, he is actually a Quincy."
After considering the matter carefully, Ugaki had concluded that kidnapping Uryū wouldn't serve their purposes nearly as well as expected.
He crossed him off too.
Finally, he picked up the last photograph.
"This is Inoue Orihime, the only girl among them."
"According to the intelligence we've gathered, her abilities are almost entirely focused on healing and possess very little offensive capability."
"That makes her by far the most suitable target."
Ugaki drew a prominent check mark over Orihime's photograph.
He then carefully slid it across the table toward Kariya and waited for the final decision.
"Hmm."
Kariya picked up the photograph and studied the smiling girl.
"She certainly looks like someone with almost no ability to resist."
Orihime's gentle smile, clear eyes, and long hair gave her an innocent, approachable appearance.
To someone as cold as Kariya, however, those qualities only made her look like easier prey.
He nodded in satisfaction.
"Sawatari."
Kariya handed him the photograph.
"You'll carry out the operation. Use the information here, bring the girl back, and make sure you leave no trace behind."
Since Ugaki had already done most of the preliminary work, there was no reason to delay.
Meanwhile, Orihime remained completely unaware of any of this.
She continued living her ordinary life, never realizing that a nightmare was already closing in around her.
Poor Orihime.
Simply because she appeared to be the weakest of the group, she'd become the hostage these people considered easiest to seize.
Perhaps in a world ruled by strength, weakness truly was a kind of original sin.
...
Kariya and the others had prepared an excellent plan.
Calling it flawless might have been excessive, but it was certainly close.
Unfortunately, people could plan as carefully as they liked.
Fate rarely cared.
Just as Sawatari was preparing to act, something completely unexpected happened.
Orihime had already been kidnapped.
And the ones responsible were none other than three specially modified souls created by Urahara Kisuke: Ririn, Kurōdo, and Noba.
Urahara had noticed the potential threat posed by the Bounts long ago.
After careful consideration, he'd sent those three Modified Souls to test Ichigo and his friends, hoping to draw out their hidden abilities and improve their reactions before they eventually encountered the Bounts in genuine combat.
That way, when the real confrontation came, they wouldn't be caught completely unprepared.
What Urahara himself had never anticipated was that this unrelated training exercise would accidentally prevent Orihime from being kidnapped by the Bounts.
Fate really did have a sense of humor.
...
"The operation failed."
Sawatari returned to the underground base with an ugly expression and delivered the news to Kariya.
"What happened?"
Kariya's face immediately darkened.
"Were you discovered?"
A plan that had seemed nearly airtight had somehow collapsed before it even began.
Had someone inside their organization leaked the information?
The thought made Kariya frown as his gaze swept suspiciously across everyone present.
"No."
Sawatari looked deeply frustrated.
"The target disappeared before I could even make my move."
"What?"
Kariya stared at him in disbelief.
Someone had gotten there first?
How was that even possible?
That was practically cheating.
"And that isn't all."
Sawatari's expression became increasingly grim.
"When I secretly entered the girl's home afterward, I discovered something even more troubling."
"The one who took her appears to be one of our own kind."
Kariya's expression froze.
Sawatari continued in a low voice.
"The spiritual signature left behind at the scene was almost identical to ours."
"It came from the same source."
If Sawatari's failure to kidnap Orihime had merely been an inconvenience, this revelation was something else entirely.
It struck Kariya like a bolt of lightning.
...
While Kariya and the other Bounts sat around their underground base with grim expressions, painstakingly trying to figure out where their supposedly flawless kidnapping plan had gone wrong and how someone had managed to abduct Orihime before them, an entirely different scene was unfolding on the other side of Karakura Town.
Kurosaki Ichigo, Ishida Uryū, Chad, and the others were running themselves ragged chasing Ririn, Noba, and Kurōdo.
They chased the three troublesome Modified Souls from one street to another, through alleys, across busy districts, and all the way into the outskirts of town, practically covering half of Karakura in the process.
By the end of it, everyone was drenched in sweat and panting like exhausted dogs.
Yet just when it seemed as though the whole kidnapping incident had spiraled completely out of control, the situation took a sudden one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn.
The terrifying abduction had been nothing more than an elaborate setup.
And the mastermind behind the whole thing was Urahara Kisuke.
He'd deliberately arranged everything to pressure Ichigo into using Bankai again, treating the exercise as preparation for the Bount threat that was about to emerge.
The revelation left everyone speechless.
None of them had expected such a ridiculous conclusion.
"Hat-and-Clogs, you've seriously got no bottom line!"
Ichigo pointed furiously at Urahara.
"You made us run all over Karakura like a bunch of idiots! What the hell do you think we are? Even walking a dog isn't this cruel!"
"Kurosaki-san, haven't you noticed something rather important?"
Urahara still wore that infuriatingly cheerful expression.
"You seem to have lost the ability to use Bankai."
"Huh?"
Ichigo froze.
Then realization finally dawned on him.
"Wait… he's right. I tried to use Bankai earlier, but nothing happened."
Only now did he realize he genuinely had been unable to activate it.
"You see, Kurosaki-san, your Bankai was obtained through an accelerated method."
Urahara opened his fan and began patiently explaining.
"In Soul Society, where the concentration of reishi is extremely high, successfully maintaining Bankai was considerably easier for you. The Human World is different. There simply isn't nearly as much ambient reishi available for you to draw upon, so using Bankai here places a much heavier burden on you."
"And there's another important factor."
Urahara pointed toward Ichigo.
"Your Substitute Shinigami Badge has certain… drawbacks. It allows you to leave your physical body and assume Shinigami form whenever necessary, but at the same time, it also suppresses part of your spiritual power."
"That suppression makes it much more difficult for you to properly activate Bankai."
Urahara patiently went through the reasons one by one.
Of course, stripped of all the complicated explanations, the fundamental problem was much simpler.
Ichigo just wasn't strong enough yet.
While everyone continued discussing the issue, Yoruichi suddenly arrived.
Several Shinigami stationed in the Human World had mysteriously died over the past few days.
Naturally, such an abnormal pattern had quickly drawn the attention of the Gotei 13.
Yamamoto had immediately ordered Suì-Fēng to lead members of the Onmitsukidō into the Human World and investigate the deaths.
After arriving, Suì-Fēng contacted Yoruichi and asked for her assistance.
Not long before coming here, the two women had discovered Yoshino Sōma feeding on the soul of a living human and had fought her briefly.
Yoshino had ultimately managed to escape.
Of course, calling it an actual escape was being generous.
With Yoruichi and Suì-Fēng's abilities, capturing Yoshino should have been effortless.
The two of them were simply excellent actresses.
"Kisuke! Ichigo! Good, you're all here. That saves me some trouble."
Yoruichi quickly explained everything, from Soul Society first noticing signs of Bount activity to her recent encounter with Yoshino.
"Bounts?"
Ichigo stared blankly at her.
"What the hell are those?"
His mysterious Schrift D — for Dumbass seemed to activate once again, leaving him completely unable to grasp what Yoruichi had just explained.
"The Bounts are…"
Urahara patiently began another history lesson.
He explained their origins in considerable detail, yet when he finished, Ichigo still looked vaguely confused.
For a moment, Urahara genuinely wondered whether Kurosaki Isshin had beaten his son too often while raising him and somehow knocked the intelligence out of his head.
Yoruichi had already explained the important parts perfectly clearly, yet the boy continued staring at them like someone had just introduced him to an entirely new language.
"Oh, right. There's one more extremely important detail I almost forgot."
Urahara suddenly seemed to remember something.
He raised his folding fan to conceal half of his face, wearing an unmistakably mischievous smile.
"The Bounts don't only consume the souls of ordinary humans."
His eyes curved with amusement.
"They're actually much more interested in souls possessing strong spiritual power…"
"Hehehe…"
"W-What?!"
Orihime immediately went pale.
"Then what are we supposed to do?"
She knew perfectly well that she lacked the combat ability of Ichigo or Chad.
If those terrifying Bounts decided she looked particularly delicious, she'd be in serious trouble.
"Please don't worry, Inoue-san."
Urahara gave her a reassuring smile.
"We have some very capable helpers right here."
He gestured toward the three Modified Souls.
"Kurōdo, Ririn, and Noba can accurately detect the unique spiritual signatures of the Bounts."
"So from now on, I'll have the three of them stay with you. If anything dangerous happens, their abilities should be quite useful in keeping everyone safe."
And just like that, Urahara smoothly dumped Ririn, Kurōdo, and Noba onto Ichigo's group.
As for how Ichigo, Orihime, Uryū, and Chad were supposed to divide three Modified Souls among four people?
That was their problem.
Certainly not Urahara's.
"Thanks, Hat-and-Clogs."
Still completely unaware that they were being manipulated, Ichigo and the others sincerely thanked him.
They were almost painfully easy to fool.
After the group finally left, Yoruichi could no longer contain herself.
"Kisuke, you really are awful."
She burst out laughing.
"Setting up a bunch of kids like that?"
"Oh, please, Yoruichi-san. You're hardly innocent yourself."
Urahara smiled behind his fan.
"One Bount somehow managed to escape while being surrounded by two captain-class fighters? That story might fool those kids, but don't expect me to believe you and Suì-Fēng weren't letting her go on purpose."
"Hahaha…"
The two exchanged knowing smiles.
In the end, both sides had been playing the same game.
Everything was meant to sharpen Ichigo and his friends before the real fighting began.
...
Meanwhile, Kariya and the other Bounts still believed they were quietly executing some brilliant hidden scheme.
They had no idea that, from Soul Society's perspective, they were little more than convenient pieces deliberately left on the board to train the younger generation.
Poor bastards.
They thought they were the ones doing the manipulating when, in reality, they'd been dancing on someone else's strings from the very beginning.