"It's true!" Kisuke Urahara paced nervously through the shop.
Divergent timelines!
Why was he in Yongen-Jaya?
"I saw a timeline where I didn't let her convince me to move, and the Kurosaki kid didn't die. But when Yoruichi showed such interest..."
His cane tapped once against the floor.
"Can fate really be manipulated in such a way?"
"How did you do it?"
He was missing something.
He kept pacing and recursively thinking.
---
"Ah. So you don't know what to do today," Sojiro said.
"Yeah. I need a change of routine." Ren shifted uncomfortably.
'Hm?'
"What's wrong, kid?"
"It's nothing. Just had a weird dream and met a weirder guy."
DING.
"Are you talking about lil' ole me?" Urahara walked in.
"Don't mind me. I'm just here for a cup of coffee. Got a lot to do today." He gave a wide smile.
"Uh. Okay?" Sojiro said in confusion.
"Who are you again?" he bluntly continued.
"Why, the weirder guy, of course."
"What can I get you?" Sojiro realized this man was trying to get a rise out of Ren, who was getting visibly annoyed.
'I hate that kind of behavior,' Ren grunted mentally.
'You wish you could be the same way, though, He Ho!'
Ren got even more annoyed. Not only was there an idiot outside him, but he himself was apparently convinced that he was also an idiot.
---
"That guy was more annoying than Rise," Ren sighed. "Fuckin' annoying hat bastard."
"Whoa, Ren. Why are you so bothered?" Morgana was shocked.
"Because he's wearing the opposite mask to mine. He is a genius acting as an idiot. I'm an idiot acting as a genius."
"Ren... you—"
"Sorry, Morgana. I didn't mean to dump that on ya. Had a bad dream."
Morgana knew Ren didn't want to talk about it.
---
Ren had calmed down and visited Takemi briefly, promising to come by soon for a clinical trial. She didn't seem happy, but she also didn't seem particularly bothered.
Just—
"I'm not going anywhere, guinea pig," she said with a teasing smirk.
Exiting the clinic, he walked past the still-closed secondhand shop.
'Did that annoying bastard really buy this place?'
Unbeknownst to him, a lithe black cat was watching him. When he began talking with the cat once more, it deeply surprised her. Someone else could transform into a cat? Otherwise, that level of intelligence and body language...
"What are these kids involved in?" Yoruichi whispered as she jumped off to look at the other children of interest.
"Fucking shitty hat. Don't involve uninvolved kids in your bullshit," she grumbled.
She was upset with that. That whole theory hinged on a fucking dream he had of a golden butterfly.
Despite knowing that, she still loosely followed him. Urahara acted like an idiot and was annoying as fuck—
Yoruichi exhaled.
He was the smartest person she'd met in her long life.
---