Chapter 194: Not a Match
Yamamoto faced the relentless barrage in silence, maintaining a composure that looked almost rigid in its restraint.
"..."
He dodged, deflected, blocked. Through it all, the only sound filling the space was White Ichigo's brash laughter.
"Ha ha, ha ha ha! Why are you just defending, you wrinkled old man? Come on! Show me something real!"
Another heavy attack.
With each impact, Yamamoto's outward intensity seemed to diminish slightly further.
Going purely off presence alone, White Ichigo in a full wild state was in a class of his own.
More defense than offense.
Combined with constant lateral movement, shifting left and right like he was testing something.
The Captain-Commander absorbed and responded in silence, the gap between himself and victory apparently widening.
Though that was only the surface impression.
Because before long, Yamamoto's counterattack unfolded without any warning at all.
Step back. Evade. Sidestep.
After a chain of light, flowing movements, the Captain-Commander calmly extended his left fist and drove it into White Ichigo's chest at a particularly awkward angle.
What looked like retreat was actually preparation. In terms of pure combat experience, the old man was in a category by himself.
"Pbgh..."
White Ichigo was sent tumbling with all the dignity of a minor enemy and skidded along the ground before landing face-down in his trademark losing pose.
"You..."
He wiped the corner of his mouth and got up, looking less than composed.
The expression was still fierce, but the swagger from before was visibly knocked back a notch. Whatever else might be said about the old man, his iron fist had always been a universal corrective.
"Young one. Your ability is respectable. But the idea of challenging me is still beyond your present reach."
He sighed and settled his stance.
Yamamoto's voice carried the steadiness of deep water, carrying no trace of emotional movement.
"I have read your approach completely. If this continues... you have no path to victory."
A declaration of victory, in its own way.
But coming from this particular old man, those words carried a weight that was simply undeniable.
He's being suppressed.
Watching from the side, Matsushita Yusuke gave a small nod. The result didn't appear to surprise him.
"This alone was never going to be enough. Time to show the real cards and see what the old man actually has."
He snapped his fingers without any ceremony.
Snap.
The entire domain's sky went dark.
"..."
Yamamoto raised his eyes in silence and looked upward.
The clear sky from before was gone. Heavy clouds had gathered. Rain began to fall in a quiet, scattered drizzle, but the rain itself carried the deep, saturated quality of ink.
Black rain.
Changes in the environment were never without reason. Yamamoto was still reading the surroundings when, not far away, the familiar sound of complete abandon returned.
"Heh heh. Should've done this sooner, shouldn't you!"
Still not accepting the loss?
Fine enough. He had collected more than enough intelligence. Cutting this thing down right here would be perfectly acceptable.
The thought had only just formed when an indistinct surge of reiatsu spread outward in an instant.
Thud.
Something like a heartbeat's resonance moved through the air. Yamamoto's brow furrowed slightly, and he turned his gaze toward the source without needing to think about it.
The white figure was being wrapped in a brilliant current of reiatsu, that current weaving, restructuring, rebuilding it in an extremely short window.
Whoosh.
A gust of wind scattered the turbulence surrounding the figure, and a moment later, a masked, monstrous silhouette came into view.
Full Hollow form. The furthest state White Ichigo could push himself into.
"..."
Yamamoto's expression went visibly and unmistakably severe.
If the earlier stages had still involved some degree of estimation, purely sensory and observational, what he was looking at now was fact in the most literal sense.
His opponent was a Hollow.
One that simultaneously carried a portion of Shinigami power.
"What a repugnant thing."
The words fell. Yamamoto ran a hand along the flat of his blade, and Ryujin Jakka blazed with an intense, scalding light.
Like a fighting spirit that had been ignited, he drove his foot into the ground and advanced.
But the White Ichigo who had been so frenzied a moment ago, apparently stripped of rational thought, had now gone completely calm.
He looked toward Yamamoto, reacted with what seemed like a deliberate half-second delay, let Yamamoto close the full distance, and then finally "responded."
The long, slender blade erupted from below, driving upward to meet Ryujin Jakka head-on and producing a shockwave that would have unsteadied anyone nearby.
They were actually even?
Considerably stronger than before.
Still not enough.
Yamamoto was about to press the advantage, push through in one sustained motion and break it down completely.
White Ichigo lowered his head.
Hssss...
A sharp, crackling sound, like electricity arcing through air, cut straight into Yamamoto's perception.
Even without looking, he could feel it clearly: a tide of reiatsu surging and converging.
Above the white figure's head, in the gap between two long horns, a sphere of pitch-black chaos was silently forming. Growing.
A single glance was all it took.
Yamamoto knew what it was immediately.
Cero.
Move, now.
HMMM!!!
Like a radio with a failing connection pushed to maximum volume, an intensely unpleasant resonance tore through the air.
The black sphere was "pierced" in an instant. The erupting current swallowed Yamamoto's figure in one motion.
Like something capable of erasing the air itself, it swept across Yamamoto's body in a cascade, sending him stumbling back a single step.
So. Did it work?
That thought barely formed in Matsushita Yusuke's mind before, in the very next instant, a jet-black right hand drove out from inside the chaos.
And closed firmly around White Ichigo's skull.
Crack.
Yamamoto's figure emerged from the turbulence. The upper half of his robes had vaporized entirely. Faint, shallow char marks showed on his skin. But the expression on his face was more severe than it had been at any point before.
Something close to terrifying.
"Boy."
His voice was as even as ever. Not a single fluctuation.
"Did you think that was enough to put me down?"
Crk. Crk...
Visible fracture lines were spreading across White Ichigo's skull. He struggled with everything he had. He couldn't break free of the grip.
Even at senior captain level, facing something like this, a man who was practically a living fossil of Soul Society, you ran out of room quickly.
White Ichigo was not a match. That was entirely within expected parameters.
"Insolent creature!"
With that sharp declaration.
Yamamoto's grip surged, the skull seeming seconds away from being crushed completely when...
HMMM!!!
From an oblique angle, a vivid red beam of light cut through the air and struck Yamamoto's right arm with absolute precision.
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