#though tbh Akon is my favorite candidate

[berrymascarpone]

Who is Urahara’s Soul Society Contact?

I’ve been reading some early chapters of Bleach, and it is clear that Urahara has some connections in Soul Society still, as he is selling standard-issue Soul Society supplies in the beginning (to who? Rogue shinigami? Fullbringer? The Visoreds?). The fact that he had a decommissioned mod soul like Kon means that he gets his product from Soul Society instead of making it himself. So, the obvious question is, who is providing him with all this Soul Society contraband?

I put forward the following candidates beneath the cut:

1) Shihouin Yoruichi

This is the most obvious answer, and it’s clear that she does travel back and forth between Soul Society and the Living World occasionally, and her cat form helps with that. However, it seems like she rarely visits Urahara these days (or at least has not visited since Ururu and Jinta started living there, since they don’t recognize her by name or by cat form), so who knows how out of date her information is. Also, I don’t see her making regular supply runs, and in any case if she took too much then they’d probably notice, so she’d be a pretty spotty source of stolen contraband product.

2) Kurotsuchi Mayuri

He is head of the Research Institute, and I can see him wanting to flex on Urahara with his latest inventions. He also has no respect for Soul Society rules, so I wouldn’t put it past him to do a little under-the-table business. Of course, he would never do it out of the kindness of his heart, so what exactly would he be getting in return? Maybe he’s flexing on Urahara, showing off all the shiny new product he’s developed in Urahara’s absence? But it seems like most of the stuff he’s sending is pretty common stuff, like gikongan dispensers aren’t exactly cutting edge, which seems a bit too boring for a flex.

3) Akon

I don’t think he is an exact extension of Mayuri the way Nemu is, so I can see him going behind his captain’s back to have some shady dealings with Urahara, perhaps in exchange for living world cigarettes because he’s the only one smoking them in Soul Society as far as I remember. Also, I definitely can see him as the lab manager type, and if anyone is making sure the biohazard and possibly radioactive waste is getting disposed of properly, it’s him. And if his way of proper disposal involves skimming some off the top and selling it to Urahara, well, he wasn’t in Maggot’s Nest for no reason. He has some points docked because he didn’t recognize the handiwork on Rukia’s gigai during his first appearance though.

And my final sleeper candidate is…

Bonus candidate) Shutara Senjumaru!

This is an unexpected one that I didn’t even consider until later, but here’s the evidence. A) We know that Urahara has seen the Soul King before, from his conversation with Aizen at the end of the Fake Karakura Town arc. This would be hard to do without meeting Squad Zero, who guards the Soul King. B) Shutara seems to be on familiar terms with Mayuri and the Research Institute, and so she must have visited the Gotei 13 either before Urahara was exiled, or sometime after (in which case she would probably know about the latest developments). C) She can clearly come and go in the research institute without much difficulty, even with whatever security measures Mayuri has set up, as seen by the way she manages to take Ichigo’s broken bankai from there easily. In any case, it wouldn’t be strange if she knew Urahara, and we know that Squad Zero is out of Gotei 13 jurisdiction, so she would be able to interact with an exiled shinigami without much issue. As for motives, perhaps she is fond of Urahara? Perhaps she does it to mess with Mayuri? Who knows. It’s a fun thought though.