Chapter 043: Here's Hoping Next Year Is Better
When you thought about it, achievement rewards made sense.
What online game worth playing didn't have an achievement system? Log in every single day for years without missing once. You'd better get a title for that. Something along the lines of "Lives Here Now." A little recognition for the commitment.
As rewards went, Grit didn't hand over anything immediately usable. But techniques were long investments. The compounding on something like that took time to show up, and when it did, it showed up everywhere.
Matsushita Yusuke was, on balance, very pleased with himself.
Pleased enough that his face was doing something slightly excessive about it.
Aizen Sosuke glanced over at him more than once.
What did you score on that test, that you're this happy.
Today was one of the rare ones without a post-class office session.
"I'll be honest. With the year-end approaching, there's quite a bit to deal with back at Squad 5. I need to head straight back to handle it."
He hadn't even had time to mark the papers, which said everything about how truthful that was.
"Let's plan the gathering for around the year-end. I'll find somewhere more suitable this time. I think everyone will enjoy it more in a proper setting."
Matsushita Yusuke didn't particularly care about the venue. But the warmth in Aizen's voice when he said it was a little more than usual, and declining the whole thing would have felt wrong.
"Looking forward to it, Aizen-sensei."
"Good. You have exams coming up these next few days, so don't push yourself too hard."
Something in his mood had gotten ahead of him slightly. Aizen raised his right hand and gave Matsushita Yusuke a light pat on the shoulder.
"Get back to your room early. Rest properly."
They parted ways.
Watching Matsushita Yusuke head down the corridor, Aizen tidied the room, stacked the unmarked papers in a corner. He'd get to them in the next two days when there was a gap. Hand the grades over to the administration office after that, let them update the records.
That was how it was done.
And that was the year.
"..."
He turned toward the window.
Dark sky, cold wind coming in at the edges. The same image as every year at this point.
But Aizen Sosuke was not quite the same.
A gathering.
In years past, the year-end had meant sitting alone in a room with a book, letting the hours move past. A quiet that wasn't uncomfortable, exactly, but wasn't anything else either.
This year, the arrangement was different.
And he found, somewhat unexpectedly, that he was looking forward to it.
He'd have to book early. Good private rooms at izakayas went fast at this time of year, and he wasn't going to spend any effort on this and then get a bad table.
This one, Aizen Sosuke thought, was going to be worth doing properly.
The winter this year was, in some small way, warmer than last.
On the other side of the Academy, Matsushita Yusuke was in his room, still at it.
"Thrust of the spear, wave and turning south..."
He murmured the words under his breath, right hand raised, watching the light gather at his fingertips, then cut the chant short deliberately.
He pulled the reishi back in rather than releasing it, held the gathered flow in his palm, and slowly let it dissolve back into nothing.
When the last of it settled, he let out a quiet breath.
"Not that one either."
Left hand picked up the pen. Another horizontal line drawn through an entry in the notebook. Matsushita Yusuke looked at the dense spread of crossed-out attempts and felt the particular tiredness that came from sustained careful work rather than any physical effort.
Since picking up Grit, he'd been putting serious time into Kido modification. Time wasn't something he could afford to leave on the table, and having more reliable tools available was always worth the investment.
The original plan had been to attempt modifications on some mid-range Hado. That had turned out to be optimistic.
The reishi composition alone was several layers beyond what he could currently parse, let alone the incantation structure sitting on top of it. The feeling was something like finishing your first week of arithmetic and then opening a page of simultaneous equations. The symbols were all familiar. The relationship between them was not.
Pull the target back.
Start from the foundation.
Basic Master provided the access. Solitary Heart provided the modification path. Working within what those two skills actually allowed in combination, his realistic target was consolidating the sub-ten Kido into something more efficient. Not creating from scratch. Refining what was already there into forms that hit harder or held longer per unit of effort.
And Grit, it turned out, was doing exactly what its description said.
The trial-and-error time had compressed noticeably. When something wasn't working, the understanding of why it wasn't working arrived faster. The adjustment came faster after that. Within a few hours of focused effort, he had several modified forms of lower-numbered Kido that he was reasonably satisfied with.
He thought ahead to the rematch with Soifon.
These will do nicely.
Satisfied with the evening's progress, he put the notebook away and ran through a sword practice session. The Zanpakuto panel was moving at its usual pace: slowly, steadily, reliably behind everything else.
Which was fine. Getting to Shikai prematurely wasn't actually useful if the foundations under it weren't ready. Soul Society was full of people operating at levels that would make an early Shikai irrelevant. A Bankai wouldn't have saved him from Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni on a bad day. The only thing that actually helped in the long run was building every layer correctly before adding the next one.
Slow. Consistent. Correct.
He worked up a proper sweat, washed off, came back to his desk.
Voices outside the door, two students negotiating the hallway with noticeable difficulty, apparently returning from whatever they'd been celebrating early.
Year-end exams had staggered finishes by year level. Some people were already through. The free time was being used accordingly.
Probably a New Year's gathering of some kind.
He started to get into bed. Stopped.
"..."
He sat back up. Went to his desk.
Paper out. Brush in hand. He thought for a moment, then tried a New Year's couplet.
Soul Society ran on feudal conventions in most things, but the aesthetic traditions that had come with them were genuinely developed. Aizen's calligraphy course had been more practically useful than he'd realized at the time.
He looked at the result from both sides and decided it was good.
New year, new display.
It looked better the longer he looked at it, which led to a few more. Unplanned, improvised, one leading to the next.
Too good to throw away. He thought about it.
Give them to Aizen.
These were written with the exact brush technique Aizen had taught him, and the Academy probably wasn't producing anyone else with this level of calligraphy skill after a single year. The quest-system advantage was not subtle. If this put the man in a good mood, there was a reasonable chance it generated another achievement reward.
Worth doing.
He stacked and bundled the pieces carefully, then reconsidered and set one aside for Tosen as well.
Tosen couldn't see it. But New Year's couplets were displayed at the entrance for visitors, which meant it was for everyone else anyway.
Practically speaking, it still counted.
With all of that sorted, Matsushita Yusuke let out a slow breath.
He glanced out the window at the full moon, then lay back on the bed.
Here's hoping next year is better.