Why I believe Urahara refered to Rukia in chapter 666
Okay, at first I was confused by who did he meant since it would make sense for it to be Byakuya since he appears in the same chapter but then thinking about the worlding of the phrase, it meaning Rukia would make more sense.
After all while Byakuya appears his presence is not that important in the chapter (donāt worry bae, youāll get awesome moments too...soon...probably), Kenpachi being the true reveal.
And while Iām no japanese expert (like, at all, but Iāll try to learn it) Urahara says onlyĀ āKuchikiā (since āKurosakiā didnāt get itās onorific I guess the translator either decided to leave it out or in itās almost death situation Urahara decided to drop it, but I believe it probably was the first) that is the way he usally refers to Rukia (with onorifics), with Byakuya being the most respectfulĀ āKuchiki-taichouā.
Besides how Rukia is an important character (in 13 Blades I believe Kubo refers to Rukia asĀ āThe Shinigami side protagonistā) and while you can think of it as romantic or not, it would make sense for them to be referenced together (or at least it makes more sense than Byakuya)
So I believe that unless itās reveled something new about Byakuya, the chances are that the Kuchiki, Urahara meant was Rukia
(This one is about another matter about how Rukia is refered in the story, feel free to skip it if you donāt want to read it)
While I thought it was a very simple conception, I discovered some, SOME NOT ALL, people donāt think that Rukia is also refered asĀ āKuchikiā,Ā Rukia is refered as Kuchiki severel times (they once even made a joke about it when Toushiro says "Kuchiki and Kuchiki"), I actually believe that if you count only the characters and not how many words they say there are a lot more people who call her Kuchiki (since it's polite in japan to call people by the surname unless youāre reeeeaally close to that person, reson why in early chapter Ichigo was so worried of people hearing him calling her by her given name) but since the ones who call her Rukia appear more it looks like that's how she's more refered to (that I can remember right now the ones to call her Rukia are Ichigo, Renji and Byakuya while even Inuoe calls her Kuchiki-san)ļ»æ
