Sometimes, the people who understood you best were not your friends, but your enemies. Without a doubt, when it came to understanding Aizen, aside from Aizen himself, Kisuke Urahara knew him best.
"Isn't that obvious? If that guy dared to show himself like this, he definitely had a scheme." Shinji Hirako stood beside Kisuke Urahara, glaring at Aizen in the distance with an irritated expression. Being played by Aizen so thoroughly was a loss Shinji had never suffered before.
Back then, he had transferred Aizen to his side as vice-captain not so Aizen could play him, but so he could keep Aizen in check.
"Hey, baldy, when are we making our move?" Hiyori Sarugaki was already growing impatient.
"We'll wait until they've fought each other to the brink. If we act now, the first person we'll face probably won't be Aizen, but the Captain-Commander." Kisuke Urahara was helpless as well. He wanted to act immediately, but Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto was exceptionally stubborn. In his eyes, this battle against Aizen was the Shinigami hunting down a traitor—an internal matter of the Gotei 13. If wanted criminals like them suddenly appeared to help, and Aizen provoked them with a few words, they might start fighting each other first.
This time, Captain-Commander Yamamoto had not even wanted Kurosaki Ichigo involved in dealing with Aizen. In the Captain-Commander's eyes, even if Ichigo was a Substitute Shinigami, he was still human, not a Shinigami.
Perhaps many people thought a Captain-Commander like that was utterly inflexible, an old fossil. In the original work, after Aizen had been defeated by Ichigo, he had even refused Orihime Inoue's offer to heal the injuries caused by the sacrificial Kido, Ittokaso, that he had used against Aizen.
On the surface, that seemed somewhat pedantic, but in reality, it was his