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I do really hope the black-haired woman is Hikifune, but I doubt it. It seems too comically up KT's alley to have hijinx with the rounder woman who ~looks~ maternal, though I agree that given that we're talking about Hiyori and Shinji's interpretation of maternal, there's wiggle room. Also, she was the previous 12th head, right? Urahara may have founded the Research thinger, but was 12 always science?

I also agree that they may not end up protagonists at all. A few things make me wonder about that, such as
a) Aizen's disgust re: the Spirit King, "that thing"
b) Yamamoto's background and the early squads being revealed as basically bloodthirsty monsters, which doesn't necessarily mean the Zero Squad (which took up a new member just 100 years ago) would have that attitude, but it feels like that might come back...
c) uhhh this point is actually moot after rereading, for some reason the first time I had an ominous feeling from the way the other captains talked about the Squad, but not so much now...
d) The periodic reminders that a) Soul Society has some pretty iffy corruption and b) the Quincy may not have been completely wrong

Basically, I'm open to the possibility that the real ~final boss~ won't be Bach at all. or lmfao ywhach or however ViZ romanized it. I can just seeeee the RG wiping out the Quincy and then having to be taken down, in all their crazy power (when are we usually told that a group is soooo much stronger than the Gotei, except when they're enemies?), the Spirit King in some fashion as well. Thus tying back Aizen and I think being more satisfactory, cos my Quincy rabu aside, the Quincy weren't well built up for this arc, and we've already seen some cracks in Bach's threat. The fact he apparently can't leave wherever for too long, that he didn't notice Aizen had fucked with his time (whereas Haschwald did, an interesting set up there), the possible justification in his past...

it just is too bad that their designs are SO exaggerated because while I really like the look of 'em, they do also come off as kind of ridiculous. Another nail in possible villainy is how much Shinji and Hiyori obviously respected Hikifune, but hay, maybe shades of gray...