Chapter 066: I'm a Fundamentalist
To wield one's full power without constraint. Truly, this was the pinnacle of Matsushita Yusuke's mastery. The mere shackles of the twenty-five heavenly tiers meant nothing to one such as I, who—
Eh? wrong genre...
"The simple version... I suppose you could think of it like this: people's movements shift when they're preparing to react to something, right?"
Matsushita Yusuke explained this with a pained look on his face.
"Take running. When you're running, your attention goes to your center of gravity and your legs. And naturally, your attention on everything else relaxes to compensate.
What my ability does is pull all that scattered focus back together. Even while concentrating on one specific thing, I can run everything in parallel at the same time.
Short version: no matter what I'm doing, I can maintain one hundred percent focused attention through reaction, at any moment."
Multitasking, while still performing at full capacity on both fronts.
Aizen Sosuke's gaze shifted fractionally. The interest was visible.
"Let me give you an extreme example. If Matsushita-kun were attacked while under a hypnotic state, would this ability still let you respond immediately?"
Hold on. That example is a little too pointed.
He wanted to let that go. He couldn't quite manage it.
"Haven't tried it, so I can't promise anything. It would probably be pretty difficult. If I didn't perceive the attack at all, I definitely couldn't react to it."
"I see."
Aizen nodded once, then said quietly:
"Even so, what you have is already remarkable."
He wasn't done yet.
"And this ability, as it stands now, still has more room to develop?"
Of course it did. The Zanpakuto hadn't reached full Shikai yet, so the ability naturally had room to grow. That part wasn't easy to explain without getting into things he wasn't ready to explain, so Matsushita Yusuke fell back on something vague: still new to all of this, still figuring out the Shinigami side of things as he went.
Aizen, weighing the injury situation, didn't press. He walked Matsushita Yusuke back to Shin'o Academy and left.
As for whether they'd arrange something next time: that didn't even need to be said out loud.
Because just from the look on Kijishi Kenpachi's face as they were leaving, the expression of a man who had bitten into something he expected to enjoy and absolutely hadn't, both of them already understood where this was going. His guy had lost. That reflected on him. People who had scraped by at the bottom of the world cared about that more than almost anything else.
Even if Matsushita Yusuke didn't go looking, Kijishi would come looking eventually.
He wasn't worried about it. From a game logic standpoint, he'd basically just unlocked the Squad 11 quest line. Beat the first opponent, and the whole chain opened up.
More where that came from. Work through them one at a time. That bruiser would fall eventually too.
On the immediately relevant side: good news.
[Points acquired...]
This quest had been a solid haul. Matsushita Yusuke could feel the difference.
[Reiatsu Level: 1] (Current cap: 30)
[Zanjutsu: 19 / Hakuda: 17 / Hoho: 18 / Kido: 28] (Total: 100)
Small gains across the board, and the Reiatsu Level cap had pushed out to 30. Each of the four disciplines had moved up a little from the grinding he'd done during the break.
What actually got his attention was the label at the bottom.
[Overall Assessment: Sixth Seat]
He stared at it.
Not lower-ranked seated officer anymore.
If the raw stat numbers gave you a vague sense of progress, this was concrete. A named rank. A specific seat.
He was finally not dead last.
He let that settle for a moment, then turned to the Zanpakuto panel.
[Zanpakuto Ability Panel]
[Physical: 18]
[Elemental: 4]
[Kido: 13]
[Biological: 7]
[Rule: 4]
Physical at 18.
The overall picture was still a work in progress, but you worked with what you had. And given where Squad 11 now sat relative to him, the trajectory was clear. A little more time and the Shikai threshold for Physical was going to be within reach.
He was also curious what would happen once Kido hit 30. Some kind of unlock waiting on the other side, presumably. Worth finding out.
Everything in his head was good news. His body, on the other hand, still felt like one large numb spot.
Matsushita Yusuke grumbled his way through washing up, tidied things minimally, and went to bed.
After that, over the roughly two weeks between New Year's and the start of the new semester.
School hadn't resumed yet, so Matsushita Yusuke spent most of that time at the Squad 2 grounds. Quest opportunities were a little better over there, and it gave him a chance to keep working on Soifon's affection meter.
Not asking for hearts in her eyes the moment she sees me. But at least a kind word once in a while shouldn't be completely off the table, right?
Soifon's position on this was short and unambiguous.
No. Not happening. Dream on.
"Watch your conduct! Keep up with your training! Don't think having a few tricks means you can coast! Next time we spar and you take a hit, you'll regret it badly!"
The higher her affection meter goes, the worse the behavior gets. What is going on here.
Soifon, nothing about this is what Yoruichi is like. You're supposed to go red when you see me, say something kind, practice some kind of elegantly named romantic sword technique with me in a sunlit field somewhere. That's how this arc is supposed to go.
Why are you just beating me up every day? I didn't sign up for this. This is not the relationship I wanted.
"Yes, fine. On it now..."
He grumbled on the inside. Then he noticed the small pouch hanging at Soifon's hip and let it go.
Fair enough. She just had trouble putting things into words.
As for the particular shape of their dynamic, the specific way they communicated...
You just got used to it over time. Tsundere was like that. First encounter it hit harder than you expected. After enough exposure, the only honest reaction was: okay, actually, this works.
People had strong opinions about what they were into. Entire subcultures built around very specific preferences. One type, another type, a whole taxonomy if you went looking.
Matsushita Yusuke's position was simple.
He was a fundamentalist. Bare feet only. No notes.
The way the two of them operated together had not gone unnoticed by Omaeda Kishinoshin, who stopped by periodically to check in. The man looked at them, shook his head slowly, and said something privately that he clearly found remarkable.
"Who would've thought... Matsushita-kun, you really are something else."
Just like that, the two weeks ran themselves out, and the new semester arrived.
Being a second-year now, skipping the incoming student address was perfectly fine.
"So..."
Soifon had on her standard operational clothes. She was sitting in the corner of the training room, wiping sweat from her face and drinking water.
"Now that school's started, you won't be coming here as often?"
Matsushita Yusuke was similarly dressed and similarly drenched. He nodded, slightly out of breath.
"That's right. So for the cleaning going forward... you'll need to find someone else."
A full deep clean every three days. Who was ever going to agree to that voluntarily?
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