REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!
Chapter 039: Rule-Type Zanpakuto
Matsushita Yusuke kept provoking until the quest panel stopped updating.
When the last refresh produced nothing new, he let it go.
"Alright then. When exactly did you want to fight?"
"Now. Here. Immediately."
"What about the cleaning? Yoruichi-sama is coming tomorrow. If she walks in and this place looks like this, what do you think she's going to say?"
"You— you absolute—"
Matsushita Yusuke smiled and suggested the day after tomorrow.
"Why can't it be tomorrow?!"
"The day after is better. You'll have time to rest properly." A pause. "Besides, losing in front of Yoruichi-sama would be pretty embarrassing for you, wouldn't it?"
[Furious Soifon]
[Profile: She still finds you genuinely intolerable. Someone like you has no business being here -- one Urahara Kisuke was already more than enough. And yet here you are.]
[Rewards: Soifon Affection +??, Shunpo +3, Zanpakuto Elemental +2, Zanpakuto Biological +2, Soifon Shunpo Technique]
Now that was a more substantial reward.
Though looking at it, something didn't quite add up.
She was this angry. So why was the affection meter going up.
Something about this girl was genuinely unusual.
He left that thread where it was.
Cleaning wrapped up, Soifon stormed back to her room with an expression that could have stripped paint, apparently having decided that tonight was going to be preparation time. She was fully committed to winning this one.
Matsushita Yusuke was not particularly worried. His rewards were immediate, and two days was more than enough time to put together a targeted approach to this specific opponent. It would be fine.
With the work done, he wandered through the Squad 2 grounds for a while.
This had become part of his routine.
Because Squad 2 was Yoruichi's home ground, drifting through it on any given afternoon almost always produced a handful of small quests that bumped something useful upward. Not the main course. More like the small sweet at the end of a meal: low effort, consistent value, worth making a habit of.
Today, though, he ran into something unexpected.
A figure stepping out of one of the side rooms. They passed each other in the corridor, and the other person stopped him before he'd taken another step.
"Hold on a moment."
Both of them paused. Looked at each other.
"You'd be..."
The figure considered briefly, then spoke in a probing tone.
"One of the people Yoruichi brought in recently? Her new retainers?"
The voice was low and unhurried. The face carried an easy smile. The eyes had a slight curve to them, something lazy sitting just underneath.
Matsushita Yusuke's attention had been elsewhere. He looked properly.
And stopped.
That's Urahara Kisuke.
"Captain Urahara, sir. I'm Matsushita Yusuke."
"No need to be so formal. Relax."
He'd heard the name plenty of times. This was the first time seeing the face.
Different from Aizen Sosuke in a specific way. Aizen's smile always carried warmth that kept you at a measured distance. You could feel the gap. This one had no particular warmth. But it also had no gap. It was simply there, easy and completely uncalculated, and somehow that made it harder to get a read on.
The overall impression was of someone who had simply stopped pretending that things required effort.
"I was actually looking for Yoruichi. Since she's not here, no point in waiting around. Ha. Want to find somewhere nearby and get a drink? Just to talk."
Yes. Exactly.
That was precisely the energy. Slight inconvenience encountered, pivot immediately to whatever seemed reasonable, no particular attachment to the original plan.
Matsushita Yusuke's first instinct was to decline.
His situation was a little complicated in that respect. Given the very specific and very unresolvable tension between Aizen Sosuke and Urahara Kisuke, getting too close to this particular person while the other track was still running was not obviously a good idea.
Positioning mattered. Even for a Shinigami.
Then the panel opened.
[Quest: Have a brief conversation with Urahara Kisuke]
[Profile: At this moment in time, in both research and raw understanding of this world, Urahara Kisuke is the most capable mind in Soul Society. A short exchange with him might give you more to think about than you'd expect.]
[Rewards: Zanpakuto Rule +3]
A sensible man knows which way the wind is blowing.
Let's go.
Setting aside the slightly pointed profile text, Matsushita Yusuke was genuinely surprised by the reward.
The Rule category was the slowest-moving part of the Zanpakuto panel. Of everything he'd accumulated so far, relevant progress there had been almost nonexistent. It had been sitting in the back of his mind as something without a clear farming path.
Apparently the path had just introduced itself.
Rule-type lagging? Spend time with this man.
Apparently just talking to him made the number move.
The two of them found an izakaya near the Squad 2 grounds and settled in.
"Let's see, a lemon cocktail for me. And whatever the house recommends, just bring a few of those."
Urahara scanned the menu, then slid it across.
"Have a look, Matsushita-kun. Order whatever you want. My treat."
"You really don't have to."
"It's fine. Captain's salary has nowhere else to go, honestly."
Matsushita Yusuke looked at him.
Was that a complaint? That was barely even a complaint. That was something so mild it barely registered as a statement.
He thought it over and ordered oolong tea.
"I still have classes at the Academy tonight. Showing up noticeably unsteady would make a bad impression."
A reasonable explanation. Urahara nodded without argument.
Good. Straight to the point then.
"I've heard about you from Yoruichi. In passing."
Urahara rested his left hand against his chin, weight leaning forward on the table, expression carrying a specific kind of interest that was unhurried but not vague.
"An Academy student who has somehow picked up dual chanting, which ordinarily takes vice-captain-level ability or above to pull off. And chantless casting on certain Kido as well?"
He held Matsushita Yusuke's gaze.
"I'm curious. Would you be willing to explain how?"
Straight to it. No preamble.
Which made sense for someone like this. Once you understood what the Soul King actually was, there wasn't much left in the world that felt worth dancing around.
When everything was already visible, the pretense of not seeing it became its own kind of exhaustion.
Matsushita Yusuke chose his words carefully.
"The dual chant, I just happened to know that certain incantations could be layered, so I tried it. I'm genuinely not very good at it. I probably won't attempt it again soon."
As for the chantless casting:
"Honestly, I can only simplify certain lower-level Kido. Anything more complicated than that is beyond me right now."
Urahara listened, nodding along, making a short sound of acknowledgment.
Then he smiled.
"Capable of simplifying incantations, and of modifying them independently. So in that case, Matsushita-kun, given the right conditions, would it be fair to say you could potentially create original Kido?"