Chapter 074: This Is a Good Thing
There it is.
The club that had been sitting just out of reach this entire time was finally extending an invitation.
All the work that had gone into getting here, and it was paying off right now. Matsushita Yusuke felt something in his chest that was almost embarrassingly close to being moved. This had not been easy. Not everyone could have done it.
Alright. Let's see what we actually get.
He glanced over at the notification.
[Entry Exam]
[Profile: Greater potential means greater expectations. Though you and Aizen Sosuke have addressed each other as teacher and student, he has been genuinely curious about your actual capabilities this whole time. Especially after the Squad 11 fight, he has begun to think you may have developed something worth taking seriously.
Whatever the case: this is his opportunity to find out exactly where your ceiling is. Show him everything you have. Only then will you earn your place. For you, this is both a checkpoint and a trial.]
[Note: Hold nothing back.]
[Rewards: All Zanpakuto categories +10]
...What?
Why is there still an exam on top of everything else?
"Matsushita-kun."
Aizen's voice pulled him back.
He looked up just in time to see Aizen step back and draw his Zanpakuto.
Kyoka Suigetsu in hand, right hand on the blade, left hand adjusting his glasses in a single easy motion. His tone was as light as if they were meeting for the first time.
"As your teacher, allow me to personally assess what you're capable of. Don't hold back on my account. Come at me."
Beside them, Tosen turned away at those words. Given that his eyes didn't work in the first place, the gesture meant something more than the obvious. A considered absence.
For Matsushita Yusuke, though, the situation had taken on a particular quality.
He scratched the back of his head and let his thoughts run for a while before he managed to accept what he was looking at.
Wait.
I'm fighting Aizen?
Is this actually happening?
After a short blank pause, he slapped himself in the face and pulled himself together.
Calm down. Think.
This wasn't a fair match, or a proper contest. The quest description made the nature of it clear: a trial. A checkpoint. The kind of evaluation that came after a long stretch of build-up, where the person across from you needed to see for themselves what you'd actually become.
It made sense, when he put it that way.
You're joining the organization. Of course there's a background check first.
So the real question was how to fight.
Aizen had told him to come at him. The quest description had emphasized holding nothing back.
That said two things clearly.
First: Aizen was confident enough in himself that even a sudden burst of everything Matsushita Yusuke had wouldn't be a problem. He expected this to be safe.
Second: this exam could not be half-hearted.
In RPG terms, this was the end of a quest chain. The final step before the payoff, the one that came after all the tedious prerequisites. The conversion quest. After pushing through all of it to get here, the actual reward was within reach.
He'd thought at the beginning that Aizen's club didn't have great benefits.
Looking at it now, that had been a serious failure of judgment on his part.
There was still a bonus quest. All Zanpakuto categories plus ten. Stack that on top of everything already in place, and the gap between him and where Urahara's quest would have taken him wasn't as large as it had seemed.
So this was a good thing.
Of course, one more question still needed answering first.
"Aizen-sensei. Will you be fighting back?"
"...That depends on what Matsushita-kun shows me."
That was a frightening thing to hear.
But fine.
It was time. There was nothing left to do but go.
He took a slow breath and settled into his stance.
He even closed his eyes.
From the outside it might have looked like hesitation. But both of the people present could feel it: something substantial was gathering around Matsushita Yusuke, moving and pooling, not yet released but undeniably present.
He was building toward something.
After a few slow breaths, he opened his eyes again.
Every scattered thought had been set aside. Every extra emotion had been cleared out.
Purity was the prerequisite for real strength.
And right now, even if the reward was the entire reason, Matsushita Yusuke was going to give this everything he had.
Aizen Sosuke looked at him and watched the serious expression settle onto his face, and felt the familiar smile spread across his own.
He said it again, as if to make it final.
"Come."
"Forgive me, Aizen-sensei."
Matsushita Yusuke drew his blade.
He adjusted his grip into a two-handed hold, and the reiatsu that had been gathering without releasing finally boiled over all at once.
Reiatsu was the observable expression of the spiritual energy accumulated within a Shinigami's body, drawn inward and compressed until it became something measurable from the outside. Its intensity was what gave spiritual pressure its name and its weight.
As Matsushita Yusuke's power surged outward, Tosen, who had been standing quietly apart, turned his head despite himself toward that side.
His eyes couldn't see it.
But the observer's sense that lived somewhere deeper than vision could catch what mattered.
Spirit Class 10. Spirit Class 8.
Spirit Class 7. Spirit Class 5.
It was strained at the edges, but by any honest measure, Matsushita Yusuke was brushing the Spirit Class 5 threshold.
That was not a level any Academy student should have been able to reach. He had barely been enrolled for a year.
Tosen felt something genuine surface in him, aimed entirely at his leader's judgment.
What an eye for people.
Given enough time, Matsushita Yusuke could reach captain level without it being a stretch.
Aizen's smile had grown. The anticipation that had been somewhere beneath his expression was now close to the surface.
"That reiatsu. I recognize your talent, Matsushita-kun." A brief pause. "So now: how will you prove to me that the work was real?"
An impressive line.
And yet somehow completely natural coming out of that specific person's mouth.
Matsushita Yusuke shook his head with something that was almost a laugh, and a moment later found his answer.
What was the move here?
The obvious one. The strongest tool currently available to him.
Kido, sitting at 30. The highest stat he had.
But before that, there was something else he needed to do first.
His gaze dropped to the blade in his hand.
A breath.
Light appeared, slowly twisting, and then held its shape.
Kido-type: Release.
***
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