Chapter 071: You've Never Grinded It, You Don't Understand
Matsushita Yusuke walked out of Aizen's office with a heavy expression.
Two reasons for that.
The first was Kijishi's death stare hanging over him. That one could be delayed for now. Aizen had agreed to buy some time, using "can't locate him" as an excuse to stall Squad 11 for a day or two.
The second reason was more immediate.
Tonight was probably his entry exam.
The affection meter had to be high enough by now, otherwise a late-night invitation like this wouldn't have triggered at all.
He just hadn't expected that joining Aizen's little club required an actual test. Urahara's Unique Quest had been considerably more straightforward by comparison. All he could say was that Aizen had his own particular way of doing things.
There was also another problem he had noticed.
Why hadn't a quest notification fired yet?
The faction quest was a bulk reward, that much made sense. But by the normal design logic of this kind of game, tonight's entry exam should have generated its own standalone quest on top of that. Something was missing.
He turned it over for a while and eventually landed on the only explanation that fit: the examiner probably hadn't decided what the test was yet.
Fine. Move on.
Time was short and the stakes were real. Everything was riding on tonight.
Because of all this, Matsushita Yusuke spent the entire afternoon in a vague daze. He barely tracked the last two classes and was somewhere between thinking about noodles before heading out and thinking about nothing at all, when a voice came from outside.
"Matsushita-kun! Hey, Matsushita-kun!"
He turned. A classmate, someone who shared several of his course slots, though Matsushita Yusuke genuinely could not remember his name. He felt slightly bad about that.
He stood up and went over.
"What is it?"
The other student pointed back toward the entrance, grinning.
"There's a really pretty girl waiting for you at the gate. When did you manage that? You've got some serious luck going on."
What?
Matsushita Yusuke scratched the back of his head, mildly confused, and made his way out of the classroom.
He walked down the corridor toward the Academy entrance. He hadn't even reached it yet when he spotted a familiar silhouette from a distance.
Short hair. Small frame. Arms crossed, back against the wall, visibly impatient. Index fingers tapping against her own sleeves. Brow drawn together.
Soifon.
What was she doing here?
She spotted him before he said anything and came straight toward him.
She was dressed in her usual inner operational wear, with a loose white outer layer over the top. Old-style cloth shoes, the kind that had been the standard for generations. The overall look was more casual than her typical on-duty appearance.
Her right hand came up, index finger jabbing into his chest.
"Did you get yourself into trouble out there?!"
That tone. That specific accusatory energy. Slightly unsettling in ways he wasn't going to examine too closely.
Soifon seemed to catch something off in her own phrasing. She made a short sound, glanced around once, then grabbed his sleeve.
"Come with me."
No room to push back. He followed.
They moved to a quiet corner with almost no foot traffic and stopped. Soifon glared at him.
"Do you have a problem with Squad 11?"
How does she know that already?
"Don't try to hide it. Kishinoshin's side handles intelligence, he has ears everywhere. Kijishi's been in a bad mood for days, something clearly happened. I looked into it and somehow you're in the middle of it!"
She hit him in the chest with one fist. The impact was genuine.
"Why are you getting tangled up with those people? Are you thinking at all?!"
Matsushita Yusuke rubbed his chest and processed this.
Everyone in the Gotei 13 seemed to have a working understanding of what Squad 11 was like. Based on what Soifon was saying, the general consensus appeared to be: don't touch them if you can avoid it.
Which meant there was an information gap between what Soifon knew and what Aizen had known going in.
But Aizen couldn't have not known. The man knew everything.
He was the one who brought me there in the first place. Was that deliberate?
Wait. Hold on.
Aizen wouldn't set him up for a bad ending. The affection meter on that relationship was somewhere above eighty at minimum, and he hadn't done anything to tank it. A sudden betrayal made no sense from a game logic standpoint.
So think differently.
Was Aizen nudging him toward asking for help specifically? Arranging the situation so that Matsushita Yusuke would have nowhere to turn except back to him?
That actually tracked. Squad 11 was Aizen's introduction. The resulting problem had Aizen as the most obvious solution. It was neat. It was safe. It was exactly the kind of move a person like Aizen would find satisfying.
A little unsettling when you saw the shape of it clearly.
While Matsushita Yusuke was still working through this, Soifon's hand came down.
Smack.
Hard.
"Snap out of it! Are you broken? Squad 11 doesn't think before they act, they're completely unpredictable!"
He rubbed the side of his face, which had gone slightly puffy.
She was really not holding back.
"So... so what do you think I should do?"
"Come with me. You can stay at Squad 2 for a while until this settles down."
The moment she finished saying it, a notification appeared.
This too?
[Quest: Use another method to avoid Squad 11's hostility]
[Profile: Squad 11 does hold a number of privileges, but there are other ways to handle this. Staying at Squad 2 with Soifon for a while can defuse the situation. However, Aizen Sosuke's affection level will decrease moderately. Some people respect evasion as a strategy. Others value something else entirely.]
[Rewards: Reiatsu Level +10, Zanjutsu +5, Hoho +5, Zanpakuto Physical +5]
Matsushita Yusuke looked at the notification and felt his brain stall slightly.
Generous rewards. Simple trigger condition: just go stay at Squad 2 for a while.
But the cost.
Aizen Sosuke's affection level drops.
That was completely out of the question.
You have no idea how hard that meter is to push. You've never grinded it. You don't understand what it takes.
A moment's thought. The answer was immediate.
"I'll pass on that."