Chapter 178: I Fight Yamamoto?
Aizen seemed to catch the slightly stunned look on Matsushita Yusuke's face. Or possibly he simply realized his remark had come out a little more unguarded than usual.
After a brief silence, he covered the awkward moment with a cough.
"Ahem. Let's just get to the point."
Starting from the simplest, most direct angle.
"Matsushita-kun. And Tosen, think on this as well. In terms of what is actually working against us right now, where does our biggest problem lie?"
A fairly broad question.
Both of them showed the expression of people who were genuinely thinking about it.
Matsushita Yusuke went first.
"The Hueco Mundo side of things?"
It was going to be their primary base eventually. If progress there stalled indefinitely without results, that would become a genuine headache.
Tosen followed.
"Could it be the pace of the research?"
That reasoning had its own logic. Given what they had been working on lately, things were essentially stuck at a series of critical technical bottlenecks. Slow, but the kind of slow that eventually got there if they kept pushing.
Faced with both answers, however, Aizen Sosuke sighed and shook his head. The expression on his face said he was pained to be here.
That's not it. Either of you.
"Our actual problem right now is that we have no high-level combat capability to deal with Captain-Commander Yamamoto."
Aizen raised his right hand and spoke with a faintly somber note.
"Hueco Mundo, research pace, these are problems time can solve. They are not genuine obstacles in the strict sense. By comparison... the Captain-Commander is the mountain standing directly in front of us. If we cannot find a way to deal with him, the plan cannot move forward at all."
That was fair, honestly.
Looking at the source material, Aizen had spent years maneuvering around exactly this. When you stripped everything back, every layer of his scheming ultimately came down to one thing: Yamamoto.
In his own way, the boss had been enduring and biding his time for a very long while. His opponent was an absolute force of nature, a being who at full power could incinerate all three worlds. His own ability was illusion. So how exactly do you solve that matchup?
According to the source material timeline, the answer Aizen landed on was to use Hueco Mundo's resources to build himself a dedicated counter: a purpose-built fire-suppressor, tailored specifically for that problem.
And the results, objectively, were fairly solid. Not only did it successfully seal the old man's flames, but Aizen backed it up with a series of precisely chosen taunts that pushed Yamamoto over the edge and into Ittō Kasō. The kind of move that costs you everything to deal next to nothing back. The kind of play that only works when you already know you can't be touched.
If Ichigo hadn't shown up, Aizen's plan would have been essentially complete after dealing with Yamamoto. Everything after that was just charging the Soul King's Palace dungeon, getting kicked around by a handful of Royal Guard members, and going to sit in Muken...
So hold on. Did the ending actually change at all?
Matsushita Yusuke scratched his head and decided not to pull that thread any further. Thinking it all the way through was going to break something.
Anyway.
The old man was, objectively, the final boss of this particular arc. Unlocking the Soul King's Palace required clearing him first.
But still.
"Aizen-sensei, isn't trying to deal with the Captain-Commander right now a bit of a stretch?"
Tosen gave a small nod, evidently in full agreement.
Aizen, however, seemed to have a different perspective.
"You are not wrong. That statement in itself has no problem. But it is not a reason to simply sit still."
His gaze sharpened, something that looked a lot like anticipation flickering through it, and his tone shifted into something harder to read.
"Before we can fully deal with the Captain-Commander, we need to probe him continuously. Build up a picture of where his actual limits are. Like running an experiment: accumulate enough data points and you can work backward to the correct answer."
He paused briefly, then added:
"That is how the two of you see it as well, isn't it?"
Honestly.
In theory, nothing wrong with any of that.
But something about the framing felt slightly off.
Matsushita Yusuke and Tosen exchanged a glance. The blind man couldn't read expressions well, but the look on his face still communicated something clearly.
Yusuke tried the question.
"So... Aizen-sensei. What you're saying is, you want us to pick a fight with the Captain-Commander?"
"Not quite to that extreme. But we can make attempts... probe the Captain-Commander's strength gradually, in our own way. That gives us what we need when the time comes to put countermeasures together."
In theory, perfectly reasonable. But the obvious question remained.
Who does the probing?
Aizen Sosuke turned his gaze to Matsushita Yusuke. He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. The look alone answered it.
Huh?
I'm the one fighting Yamamoto?
Is that real? He'll evaporate me on the spot.
"Matsushita-kun, your Zanpakuto's abilities are an exceptionally adaptable type."
Aizen began laying out his reasoning.
"Compared to myself and Tosen, your abilities have considerably more range. The capacity to deal damage in ways an opponent won't anticipate... and of course, your potential is part of what I'm factoring in here."
Therefore.
"I'll provide the cover. Tosen prepares backup. Between the two of us, we'll construct a scenario where you face the Captain-Commander in what appears to be a one-on-one. If things go badly, I'll pull you out under Kyoka Suigetsu."
No, no, no. This isn't even a question of whether to take the assignment.
The part where I fight Yamamoto is already completely unreasonable on its face.
I just finished patting myself on the back for being able to take out Zaraki Kenpachi. That was a Hogger situation at best. And now you're sending me after the Lich King?
Bro genuinely seems to think I've been running a buffer build this whole time.
"Aizen-sensei, this..."
"The plan won't be rushed. We'll prepare thoroughly, have sufficient contingencies in place, and only move when everything is ready. Don't worry, Matsushita-kun. I won't be gambling with your life. And naturally, before any of this begins, I'll find ways to raise your strength first."
Matsushita Yusuke's expression was genuinely strained.
Boss, it's not that simple. As someone who had read the source material, the image of Yamamoto at full capacity was practically hardwired into his threat response. The mere thought of it triggered something automatic.
But then.
In rapid succession, a familiar string of text materialized before him, floating in his field of vision.
[Quest: Challenge Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni (Staged)]
[Description: You are already walking a difficult, thorn-lined road. To reach this destination, you will inevitably pay a great price, and keep pushing forward no matter what... And now is the moment to challenge your own limits. Failure is normal. Adjust your mindset and start again.]
He gave the rewards a brief look. Matsushita Yusuke sat with it for a moment, then drew a slow breath and looked up.