REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!
Chapter 051: This Is This Year's Final Battle
Back to the point.
The change in Matsushita Yusuke's blade was the clearest evidence anyone could ask for.
Tosen Kaname took that in without speaking. He simply turned his face in Aizen's direction and waited, the way a subordinate waited before acting on something significant.
A subordinate always runs things by the boss first.
Aizen Sosuke let his gaze drop for a moment. The expression that came out on his face was one of genuine interest.
"Finding your own path through combat. That's an interesting approach." He nodded once. "Understood, Matsushita-kun."
Investment was, by definition, a long-term matter.
And when you could see the potential clearly, offering some support wasn't a difficult call.
A vice-captain's resources weren't something an ordinary Shinigami could appreciate the scope of. A vice-captain who thought ahead as carefully as Aizen did even less so.
He turned to look at Matsushita Yusuke, and the smile that settled onto his face had a quality that was difficult to read precisely.
Difficult enough that the person on the receiving end of it felt the hairs on the back of their neck stand up.
This man is not thinking about anything harmless right now.
"Anyway. Details can wait for later. Tonight is a New Year's gathering, and I'd rather not spend it talking about work." He looked between them. "Come on. Everyone drink."
When the boss spoke, there was no arguing.
Matsushita Yusuke had already mentally prepared himself to handle the sparring situation when the timing was better. He'd adjusted his expectations accordingly.
And then Aizen Sosuke, without any visible prior indication, produced a 2-liter black bottle of shochu from somewhere that had no obvious storage space for it.
Like a man who had pockets with no logical bottom.
Matsushita Yusuke stared.
"Uh. Aizen-sensei. That bottle. Why doesn't it have a label?"
"Ah. I brewed this myself. Honestly, I have a few small hobbies I don't usually advertise."
"Oh... home-brewed. What's the alcohol content?"
Aizen poured generous measures into both glasses with a smile that carried a very specific kind of anticipation.
"It's not high at all. Just a little something sweet, nothing to worry about."
Tosen produced a lighter from somewhere on his person, held it to the rim of his glass, and flicked it.
A flame appeared.
Matsushita Yusuke swallowed.
"Aizen-sensei. Your little sweet something is extremely flammable."
"Ha ha ha! You're overthinking it. Less talk, more drinking."
Matsushita Yusuke came face to face, for the first time, with the specific horror of a smile that didn't match the eyes behind it.
He watched Aizen grinning pleasantly at him and broke into a visible sweat.
"Aizen-sensei... are you by any chance still holding a grudge about the last drinking contest...?"
"Of course not. That would be beneath me. I simply thought the New Year's occasion was too good to waste." He raised his glass slightly. "Now then. Everyone."
[Aizen Sosuke's Petty Side (are you even up to this? probably not...)]
[Profile: Proud people are usually also, in the most literal sense, the kind who can't stand being shown up. They rarely notice their own flaws. And even if they do, they rarely bother to correct them. Aizen cannot accept the reality that a student got one over on him. He has decided to teach you a lesson you won't forget. Subordinates don't get to win. Try to beat Aizen at his own game.]
[Rewards: Reiatsu Level +5, Kido +3, Zanpakuto Kido +5]
I knew it. Petty, I called it!
On the other hand, Matsushita Yusuke had also picked something up over the past few rounds of this. You didn't actually need real combat to generate quest rewards. The System seemed to respond to any situation where the other person had been worked up into a competitive mindset, whether the competition was swordsmanship or drinking.
Games had social interaction rewards. This tracked.
It sounded great in theory.
The practical problem was severe.
Last time, Aizen had used Kyoka Suigetsu to make him drink alone while thinking he was keeping up. This time, Aizen had come prepared and Matsushita Yusuke had walked in with no plan and no counter. The odds were not in his favor.
Was he just going to have to concede?
Absolutely not.
He couldn't win on raw drinking ability. But he wasn't going to roll over either.
Regardless of whether this was a setup, and regardless of the circumstances, the reward was sitting right there and he was going to make an attempt.
"Aizen-sensei, I'm willing to drink, but—"
"It's fine."
Aizen downed his glass in one motion. The color came up in his face almost immediately, which told you something about what was actually in that bottle.
He set the glass down, touched the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, and smiled.
"This time I won't be using my Zanpakuto's ability."
He refilled his own glass, let the sitting posture he'd been maintaining relax into something more casual, and raised his cup toward Matsushita Yusuke, then toward Tosen.
The edge in his voice was slight but unmistakable.
"Can either of you keep up?"
You said that. You actually went there. What do you want me to do, not try?!
Tosen Kaname and Matsushita Yusuke looked at each other.
Neither of them hesitated after that.
If we're doing this, we're doing it together.
Screw it. Let's go.
The shochu hit the throat and didn't wait to be swallowed. It went down the esophagus like something that had decided where it was going, and the warmth spread to every corner of the chest at once.
Matsushita Yusuke's eyes went slightly wider involuntarily.
This was not a drink. This was lava in a bottle.
"What the–"
He caught himself, braced, and didn't quite fall forward into the table. His hand caught the edge at the last second and prevented the worst of it.
"Matsushita-kun? Having trouble keeping up already?"
"Ha... not at all."
He steadied himself and managed a slightly hoarse response.
"It's not that I can't handle it. It's that this drink has opinions and it is expressing them."
Like getting punched by the bottle itself.
Aizen blinked.
Then he laughed. A real one, unguarded, carrying actual warmth.
"You really are something, Matsushita-kun. Come on. Keep going."
Tosen, beside them, had the loudest voice in the room.
"I'm-I'm going again too!"
"Tosen-san, you are really going hard tonight. Your face is extremely red."
"Matsushita-kun, yours isn't much better."
"Aizen-sensei, you really shouldn't talk. Your eyes have gone completely red. Have you seen a mirror lately?"
"...No need for commentary. Drink."
Nothing left to say then.
Matsushita Yusuke and Tosen looked at each other one more time with perfect mutual understanding, raised their glasses, and brought them down hard against Aizen's.
"Cheers!" x2
Ha, I managed to slosh some out. That counts as a win.
"Your glass looks a little low, Matsushita-kun. Let me top that up."
No. Please. Do not.
The three-way chaos that followed was, in its own way, the perfect period at the end of the year.