Chapter 143: True Words
Reversal.
The moment those three syllables left Yusuke's lips.
The entire world seemed to be seized by an invisible hand, and everything in it began to move.
The ability had activated.
What was the effect?
All three captains pushed their focus to absolute maximum, eyes locked onto Yusuke. Everyone was certain they wouldn't miss a single piece of important information. Whatever had been hidden would have no way to stay hidden now.
Show us what you've got.
The first to react was Kensei.
He stood there staring, watching himself slowly backing up, his already-thrown right fist drawing back in.
At the same time.
The air around him shifted. Fine traces of wind began to curl back toward him in reverse, and his expression went blank with shock.
"What..."
Kensei's expression froze on his face.
Loss of control over his own body. Air currents changing direction. His posture shifting back. These things alone weren't enough to produce that look on his face. What actually stopped him cold, what startled him more than anything, was that the scattered wind from his punch was also reconvening. Pulling back in.
It was as if.
Time itself was reversing.
Like a silent, absurd film reel running backward, frame by frame.
Kensei's movements compressed and retracted, walking him step by step back in the direction he'd come from.
At the same time.
Yusuke, who had been shattered, was gradually reassembling.
First came fine fragments of flesh, shards of bone, and scattered tissue of every kind.
Thousands of pieces. More than that. Under the force of Kensei's reiatsu detonation, Yusuke's body had been continuously pulverized, reduced to something approaching the raw constituent level of reishi particles.
Honestly. Even the most skilled medical team in existence could not have reassembled those fragments into anything recognizable.
But a Zanpakuto's ability could.
The scattered fragments gathered like ants returning to a nest, dense and purposeful, converging and merging until they coalesced into a blurry outline.
Tissue. Organs. Skin and flesh. Nerves and blood vessels rebuilt themselves in silence, as if thousands of hands each holding a single puzzle piece had received a command and placed every piece exactly where it belonged.
Absolute order delivered without a sound. The impact of watching it needed no description.
The two people not far away looked at each other and couldn't find words for a while.
What was this?
"Time... reversed?"
"Impossible."
Rojuro dismissed Love's hypothesis instantly.
"There couldn't be an ability like that. Not one a person at this level should possess."
Power came in many forms. Pure brute force. Tactical intelligence that commanded respect. But even someone like the Captain-Commander, at the absolute peak of Soul Society, had no ability to manipulate time itself. This had to be some form of misdirection. A special method used to conceal what was actually happening.
An unspoken consensus, and at the same moment, the supporting evidence.
Azure light seeped through the areas that hadn't yet fully closed, and the three observers understood what they were actually looking at.
As expected.
"Similar to what we've seen before. Ultimately, this is just reishi application."
Healing the body required reishi as the guiding and filling agent. The outline visible through Yusuke's still-recovering form confirmed the hypothesis exactly.
And that was indeed the case.
As the Bankai of a Kido-type Zanpakuto, the essence of Ichion Enpo couldn't escape the application and control of reishi.
The degree, however, was something else entirely.
Rojuro pressed his lips together, his gaze going dark.
"So through reishi application alone, you can produce something that looks like time going backward?"
Love said nothing. He just stood silently and tightened his fist.
What level of mastery in reishi application would even be required to produce that kind of effect?
The answer wasn't clear.
And there was something else.
Neither of them could move.
Both were in the same position. Both could feel a strong sense of restraint, as if pressed down by something invisible, unable to act.
And while those thoughts were still turning, everything completed itself with perfect ease, without any obstruction.
As Yusuke's reconstituting body gradually settled, he reappeared before them. Completely intact. He slowly opened his eyes.
What was reflected in those eyes flickered like something lit from within, carrying a brightness that could not be ignored.
So. What exactly was this ability?
"Can't say. But if it's built around that kind of function, the attack power should be on the weaker side."
"There's always a trade-off -- that's your theory?"
"The opponent has only been a captain for a short while. Even if the ability itself is impressive, his depth shouldn't be there yet."
In that case. What needed to be done was straightforward.
"All at once. Overwhelm him."
A held breath. A gathering of force. As muscles tensed, both captains' reiatsu surged in an instant.
They had read the situation. Now they were entering the fight.
Matsushita Yusuke watched Kensei continuing to retreat, pulled back like a rewinding tape, steadily moving further away. Then he turned and looked at the other side, where the two were about to release their Zanpakuto simultaneously.
He looked at his own hands in silence, as though something had just become clear to him.
Then he slowly opened his mouth and said it.
"Forbid. Release."
Gurgle...
The spiritual pressure that had been building toward a peak converged and compressed all at once, drawing back entirely into the two captains' bodies.
Both showed expressions of complete disbelief.
At almost the same moment, from somewhere further away, Kensei let out a furious roar of raw frustration.
"AAAAAAH!!!!"
Compared to the other two's relative quiet, Kensei's reaction was considerably more intense. He screamed, clenched both fists until his knuckles went rigid, veins standing out sharply at his temples, as if fighting against something invisible, something that would not yield.
Until two seconds passed.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
The armor on Kensei's body split piece by piece, breaking apart.
Until it reached some kind of threshold, held for one final moment, and then came apart entirely.
CLANG!!!
Tekken Tachikaze. Kensei's Zanpakuto in its released state.
Completely.
Shattered.