REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!
Chapter 040: Unique Quest
"I don't think I'm capable of anything like that, Captain Urahara."
"No, I think you are."
Urahara turned his head to thank the server for the drinks. His gaze dropped to the glass in front of him. His tone didn't change.
"Kido is a fairly complex system. As a tool for Shinigami combat it's genuinely comprehensive: offense, defense, recovery, all of it in one discipline. A Shinigami who has truly mastered Kido will never have a low ceiling."
A one-sided statement.
Delivered with the certainty of someone who had already confirmed the answer and was now simply laying out the reasoning at a comfortable pace.
Matsushita Yusuke watched him. He'd been wary of this man going in. He was also finding, somewhat against his better judgment, something close to admiration.
This was Urahara Kisuke's particular quality.
Having seen everything. And choosing, after all of it, to come back to the ordinary. Completely at ease with the gap between what he knew and what he was willing to show.
"The process of releasing Kido can be broken into two stages. The first is drawing out reishi, shaping it, giving it a form. The second is reinforcing that form through the incantation, locking it into a specific structure, activating it, producing the intended result."
In simple terms.
"Reishi is the liquor. The incantation is the glass. The two together hold and complete each other, and the result is something someone can actually drink."
He took a sip.
Let out a small breath.
"So then. Given how many people have practiced Kido across all of history, why has almost no one managed to create or meaningfully modify one?"
The tip of Urahara's nose had taken on a faint red tinge. Alcohol absorbed, circulation moving faster. The small physical tell of someone beginning to feel it.
"Because they can't. Or rather, it's too much trouble."
The situation was more involved than that made it sound.
"Reishi isn't liquor. It has some plasticity, yes, but it is not something you can push into any shape you feel like. The incantation fixes it in place. But handle it carelessly and all you've done is give it a faster route to running out of control."
His eyes half-closed.
When he spoke again it was quieter, almost to himself.
"Fixed forms. Fixed paths. Use what the people before you already built. No need to put your own understanding into it. That's enough. That's always been enough."
His tone went somewhere lower and stayed there for a moment.
Then he surfaced, blinked, and let out a short hiccup.
"Sorry, I said too much, didn't I?"
You really did.
"Sorry about that. Work has been busy lately, and I think, maybe it's also age? I feel like I'm getting more long-winded..."
He rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish smile, and Matsushita Yusuke found that he could, actually, understand this man a little.
When you'd seen too much, the genuinely unusual things stopped landing with any weight. The ordinary pushed back. And what you were left with was a tolerance for nothing except the very specific few things that could still reach you.
This kind of person didn't have many friends. Probably didn't have many people they could actually talk to either.
In that sense, not so different from Aizen Sosuke. The altitude was similar. The isolation that came with it was similar.
Though at least this one had Yoruichi's company in his personal life, and Mayuri Kurotsuchi's particular brand of aggressive unpleasantness keeping him professionally occupied. Some texture to the days, even if the texture was strange.
Aizen's situation, by comparison, was starting to read like a man eating alone in a very large house.
Matsushita Yusuke adjusted his expression and smiled.
"Don't worry about it, Captain Urahara. Think of me as somewhere to put things you need to say. Talk about whatever you like."
He understood the terms.
"Nothing you say is going anywhere. You have my word."
"Ha. You catch on fast, Matsushita-kun."
Smart people were efficient to talk to. Unlike the exercise of provoking Soifon, which was a different kind of productive entirely.
And since reward generation required actual exchange rather than one-sided listening, he needed to put something in.
He thought it through, then spoke carefully.
"Going back to what you said earlier, I think I follow the general idea, Captain Urahara. Though I should be honest: my understanding only reaches the simpler Kido. The lower numbers."
Basic Master only operated on numbered ten and below. Everything above that was outside its range, no special modifiers applying.
"If I use your liquor-and-glass framework..."
He pointed at the promotional poster on the wall. A highball advertisement. He kept his voice low.
"I'm still at the stage of telling liquor from soft drinks. Actually combining them into something with its own flavor, something distinct, that's still a long way off for me."
And what came out when he tried was not only undrinkable. It also tended to explode.
Something in Urahara's eyes lit up.
The best moment in any conversation was when the other person caught the same frequency without being told to. When the shared understanding arrived without being negotiated. It didn't just make the exchange faster. It made it genuinely satisfying in a way that efficient exchanges usually weren't.
Good sake and good company needed nothing else.
"Matsushita-kun, you really are a little different. Running into you today, I'm genuinely glad it happened."
"You're being too generous, Captain."
"Ha! That's completely sincere."
[Quest complete... Rewards acquired]
"...??"
Wait.
Already?
It felt like being two rounds into a close match, finally catching the opening, winding up for the finishing move, and then the opponent disconnects.
Matsushita Yusuke brought the oolong tea to his lips and used the motion to settle himself.
Quest completion meant the other person had already registered the result on some level. Urahara had apparently decided the conversation had produced something worth counting, even if it didn't feel finished from where Matsushita Yusuke was sitting.
But.
The man across the table looked like he was just starting to warm up.
The mechanics were unclear. The three points in Zanpakuto Rule were collected regardless. Moving on.
"Matsushita-kun. I have a proposition. Would you be willing to hear it out?"
"Go ahead, Captain Urahara."
"How would you feel about coming to work at my Research and Development Bureau directly?"
In the next instant.
An exclamation mark appeared above Urahara Kisuke's head.
A quest had triggered.
But the color was wrong.
Not yellow. Not the standard side-quest color he'd seen on every other interaction since arriving in Soul Society.
The same rare color that had appeared the very first time he laid eyes on Aizen Sosuke.
[Join Urahara Kisuke's Project to Rebuild Soul Society]
[Rewards: Soul Modification Technology, Zanpakuto Modification Technology, Kido Mastery, Zanpakuto Rule +50]
[UNIQUE QUEST: Completing this quest makes the quest (Standing Above Everyone Else Club) permanently unavailable.]
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