Chapter 250: Hands Ready, Hands Ready
They reached the destination quickly.
Outside the controlled districts, the area still technically fell under the banner of "Rukongai" in name, but the reality was something else. Beyond the narrow pockets of habitable land, most of it was open, empty wilderness. Untamed and largely unoccupied.
"Finding a Hollow out here isn't going to be easy."
Isshin Shiba surveyed the surrounding terrain, his brow pulling together into a knot.
The original plan, the efficient, fast-resolution version, was already off the table. Time to adapt.
"How about we split up? If we're only dealing with one Hollow, working solo should be fine for either of us."
Matsushita Yusuke said it like he was reading Isshin's mind. Which, for the person standing across from him, was more or less accurate.
Isshin blinked. Looked tempted. Then caught himself.
"Wouldn't that look bad?"
"If you're asking whether anyone's going to report it, I'd say that's pretty unlikely."
Matsushita Yusuke spread his hands with an easy shrug.
"Our people are all out of the area. Nobody's watching what we do out here. Right?"
Isshin scratched the back of his head and let out a rueful, resigned laugh.
Fair point.
"Since you put it that way, we might as well move fast. Maybe we can still squeeze in a drink afterward?"
Matsushita Yusuke smiled and nodded.
"My treat. Kirishima."
"Are you serious?! That's generous. Alright, I'm bringing my best game!"
"Ha ha."
You might not make it to that drink, though.
He watched Isshin set off with his usual enthusiasm, heading in the opposite direction, until the figure disappeared from sight.
The smile on Matsushita Yusuke's face faded as it went.
Then, a moment later, as though something had just occurred to him, he raised one hand and rubbed at his own cheek.
He pressed lightly at the corners of his mouth, the line of his brows. Exhaled quietly.
Almost let the villain grin slip out there.
Not yet. The plan wasn't finished. No celebrating early.
Keep it together.
Of course, once he'd had his quiet moment with himself, Matsushita Yusuke shifted his attention to what actually needed doing.
Isshin was moving. He needed to move too.
First step.
He raised his right hand, half-extended, and snapped his fingers.
Snap.
With that single small sound, the space to his left behaved like a lake surface struck by a stone. The air rippled. Visible, spreading rings of disturbance moved outward through the open air.
Then, without sound, the space split open.
In the gap, a pair of pale hands emerged. They reached outward, gripping both edges of the tear, fingers curling in tight.
Matsushita Yusuke watched this with an expression of mild interest.
He waited.
The hands pulled, slow and steady, stretching the gap wider, peeling it open the way you'd tear a piece of cloth. And then, from inside that gap, a figure stepped through.
Under the sunlight, the pale white surface caught the rays and scattered them, producing something close to a haze effect, a visual strangeness that made the whole thing feel slightly unreal. Like camouflage made of light.
The impression didn't last.
Because Matsushita Yusuke's attention had already moved to something else.
"Target. Where."
No face. Just a head, angular and seamless, all one smooth surface. No eyes, no nose. And yet it was speaking. Actual words, shaped and released, which should not have been possible and was somehow happening anyway. The effect was profoundly unsettling.
Matsushita Yusuke scratched his head without much urgency and smiled.
"After all these years, that's your opening line?"
This was Matsushita Yusuke's Hollow alt.
After the fight with Yamamoto, it had been cut in half and sent back to Hueco Mundo to recover. That had been years ago. Now, finally seeing it again after all this time, not only had it fully recovered its previous strength, it had clearly pushed past that baseline.
How far past, exactly, would need testing.
"I only... want to fight."
The alt's delivery was halting, effortful, like each word was being hauled up from somewhere deep. Matsushita Yusuke just watched it with the same cheerful expression.
"Easy, easy. Just a joke. You're basically me, so whatever I say goes."
Same team. All family here.
As for the alt's inner life, well. Based on years of experience running it remotely, Matsushita Yusuke had developed a fairly solid read on the thing. It was essentially a talking steel wall. Daily existence: fighting and eating. Nothing else.
Simple like that, almost impressively. At least certain legendary characters had a small square box to sleep in. His alt just napped under open sky and seemed perfectly content.
Ahem. Back to business.
"The target is that guy I was just talking to. Think you can handle it?"
The alt was quiet for a moment. Then it raised both hands and made a slow, deliberate gripping motion, fingers closing into fists.
"As long as it's not... that old man. Anyone else, I can take."
The Yamamoto trauma is real.
Before Matsushita Yusuke could get a word in, the alt's knees bent slightly, a coiled motion, like a spring being compressed at high speed through a short, sharp wind-up.
Boom.
The air exploded outward from the point of departure. The alt's silhouette cut across the sky in a straight line, like something ballistic, gone in an instant.
It just attacked without any warning. We hadn't even finished talking.
He wanted to complain. He had been prepared for this, though. So rather than doing anything dramatic, Matsushita Yusuke simply raised his left hand and touched the air beside him with one finger.
The Kido expertise he had built over decades let him construct the reishi communication form almost instantly.
And in nearly the same moment, not far away, Aizen Sosuke had already registered the signal.
He raised his Zanpakuto halfway and smiled, activating Kyoka Suigetsu.
The purpose was simple.
Within the range the ability allowed, conceal everything happening in this section of Rukongai.
Because from here on out, this particular stretch of ground was going to be, in the most literal possible sense, a battlefield.