Chapter 251: Absolute Suppression
So what exactly was the Club's main objective?
Looking at the current situation, the rough answer was: help Aizen achieve his breakthrough, and dismantle the existing structure of Soul Society. That much was obvious enough. But stated at that level of abstraction, it wasn't actually useful.
The question was what that looked like in practice. Specifically, what did step one actually involve?
After enough thought and deliberation, the answer turned out to be blunt and simple.
First: deal with the Gotei 13, starting with Yamamoto.
As the primary line of defense for the current order, the Gotei 13 was the first gate standing between them and the Soul King's Palace. Which meant Yamamoto had to come down before anything else could move forward.
Matsushita Yusuke had read the plot and understood this clearly. Bringing the old man down for real would have to wait until Hueco Mundo was fully developed. That was just the reality of the timeline.
But there were other angles to work in the meantime.
Going after the people around Yamamoto, steadily reducing the number of captains in the equation, was its own form of erosion. From the standpoint of someone actively planning to overthrow the current order, the Gotei 13 were, straightforwardly, the enemy camp. Taking one down was always a net positive.
That said.
"Isshin Shiba is barely a month into the job. Is he really worth this much of our attention?"
Facing Tosen's question, Aizen just smiled, calm and unhurried.
"You're looking at too thin a slice of information, Tosen. He went from unknown to captain in roughly two years. That's not something you dismiss."
With Matsushita Yusuke handling things on the ground, Aizen had room to breathe. No pressure right now. Chatting with Tosen like this cost him nothing.
"Judging purely by the present is a shallow way to read a situation. We need to look further out, from a broader angle, and find the most objective answer available."
That came out somewhat convoluted. Not exactly easy to respond to.
Tosen stayed quiet.
Getting no reply, Aizen raised an eyebrow and glanced sideways, then exhaled with something close to resignation.
Not everyone could follow the way Matsushita Yusuke did. For most people, certain observations Aizen made just registered as complaints without a clear target.
"Simpler version: Isshin Shiba's potential isn't far behind some of the more troublesome figures we've had to account for. I had considered addressing him myself at some point. But now that Matsushita-kun is willing to take it on, helping him along is perfectly reasonable."
Having a subordinate handling the front line while he managed the larger picture -- that was exactly how things were supposed to work.
Matsushita Yusuke's presence had genuinely made things more convenient across the board. It freed up Aizen's attention for other problems, other angles of approach.
And as for this particular operation: for the Club, it felt more like a standard work cycle coming toward completion. One project wrapping up, everyone pushing a little harder toward the finish.
Tosen, recognizing he couldn't contribute much to the current phase, looked around once and volunteered quietly.
"Aizen-sama, I'll do a patrol circuit. Check for any gaps in the coverage."
He withdrew.
Aizen was left standing alone.
He looked out toward where the action was unfolding at a distance. He had just finished saying he wasn't worried. But his expression, now that Tosen was gone, had shifted into something more complicated.
Confusion.
A quiet, circling version of it that kept coming back no matter how many times he set it aside.
Honestly, he still couldn't quite work out why Matsushita Yusuke had chosen to put this much personal attention into a newly appointed captain with barely any tenure.
Had the Shiba family done something to him at some point? Some old grievance?
There was a vague sense of entanglement in it that he couldn't quite place.
Beyond that -- and this was a more fundamental point -- the way Aizen read the current balance of power, he was actually feeling fairly confident about their prospects. Given the timeline they were on, with Matsushita Yusuke as a factor, it seemed possible that Aizen himself might find a path to handling Yamamoto without needing to push past the Shinigami ceiling at all. Just a matter of more time and more angles to consider.
We're doing something significant here, Matsushita-kun. Big picture. The real thing.
How was it possible to get distracted by someone this small in the grand scheme of it?
He wanted to complain about it. At the same time, he trusted Matsushita Yusuke's judgment. He always had. From Aizen's perspective, Matsushita Yusuke was the one person who could genuinely be placed on the same level as him. His decisions and reasoning always had an underlying purpose, even when it wasn't immediately visible.
A capable leader knew how to delegate. Aizen had always considered himself particularly good at that.
So if you want to spend your time on this... then I'll give you my full trust.
And so.
Let me see what you're actually trying to do.
With a thread of genuine curiosity woven through his thoughts, Aizen Sosuke chose to watch and wait.
On the other side of the district.
The Hollow alt's charge carried no subtlety whatsoever. It wasn't trying to be quiet. So it was almost immediate when Isshin Shiba caught the wave of killing intent surging up behind him.
He spun around. His brow pulled tight. His Zanpakuto cleared the scabbard.
A horizontal slash.
The sound of the impact rang out hard.
The motion was clean. The execution was fine. None of it mattered.
Even doing everything right, Isshin Shiba still took the full impact of the oncoming comet dead-on.
Both arms went numb from the force of it. Pain bloomed up through his hands immediately.
The sheer volume of power transferred through the blade, running all the way down through the handle, the shock of it threatening to split the skin between his thumb and index finger.
He went flying like a bullet punched clean through the air, then dropped, and hit the ground at the top of a mountain pass.
The surrounding terrain was wild country. Rough peaks, isolated valleys. And the point where Isshin hit was the crest of one of those ridges.
He went in like a spike driven into wood.
Against the scale of the mountains, a human body was barely a speck. But the force that had launched him didn't care about that distinction. It kept spreading outward through the rock beneath, unstoppable, until it had saturated the entire ridge and torn it apart.
Rubble cascaded. Dust billowed upward in massive rolling clouds.
In the air above, the Hollow alt hung still, holding the position of the kick it had just thrown.
A proper captain, unreleased, could not absorb a strike like that. Not without warning. Not at that speed and force.
This was, in the most literal sense, absolute suppression.
So what did Isshin Shiba do?
A wave of heat erupted outward ahead of the falling debris, moving faster than the rubble itself, pushing the cloud of shattered stone upward and outward in every direction.
A figure emerged from within it, looking fairly roughed up.
Isshin raised his head and stared up at the Hollow alt with open fury.
"So it's you! The Hollow that's been running loose in Rukongai!"
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