Chapter 060: What Have You Done to This Squad?!
The voice was unfamiliar.
Matsushita Yusuke looked up. A broad figure was seated in the shadows at the far end of the room, half his face obscured, difficult to make out clearly.
"Hey. You're here for me, aren't you? Stop standing at the door. Come over."
The figure waved them forward.
The people clustered around him stood up immediately and started calling out.
"Captain's talking to you!"
"You deaf or something?!"
"Disrespecting us?!"
These guys were like the filler enemies on the path to a boss room. The kind of minor obstacle where the designer didn't bother giving each one a distinct face. All the same model. Practically identical.
And the dialogue to match.
Matsushita Yusuke pressed down the commentary that was building in the back of his head and glanced sideways.
Aizen was completely unbothered. He looked over, gave a small nod.
Nothing to be concerned about, apparently. Fine. Moving.
The two of them walked forward side by side.
On the way in, Matsushita Yusuke took stock of the interior. Squad 11 was a different situation from Squad 5 in almost every visible way.
The word that came to mind first was bare.
Most of the structure was wood, and a fair amount of it showed signs of long neglect. Not just budget constraints. The place didn't look like it had been properly maintained in some time. He wasn't sure if anyone had ever thought to try.
The path they were walking down ran straight through the middle of the building like a corridor in a dojo, with people seated on either side watching them come in.
All of them looked like they'd had rough lives, and were fine with that.
Compared to members of any other Gotei 13 squad he'd seen, these people had none of the professional quality. What they had instead was an energy that read as loose, unhurried, and specifically not interested in being told what to do. Several of them weren't wearing their uniforms properly. That was a polite way to put it.
And then, as they got closer.
Matsushita Yusuke's face started doing something.
There was a smell.
Not blood. Not rust. Something in a different category entirely. The specific quality of an unwashed public facility, the kind of thing that settled into enclosed spaces over years of neglect and built into something with genuine structural presence.
He took a moment to work out why, and the answer arrived fairly quickly once he thought about it.
The standard Shinigami uniform was, at its core, a derivative of older Japanese formal wear. The lower garment in particular was cut wide and loose, which was practical for a variety of reasons. The problem was that this same generous cut had, over generations among people who prioritized combat over maintenance, produced a consistent behavioral shortcut when it came to basic functions. Rather than dealing with the full process of untying and removing the garment, many simply didn't bother. They lifted it. That was that.
Efficient, technically.
But the results of that approach, sustained over years by people who also didn't prioritize laundry, accumulated in ways that were now making themselves known through a person's nose.
On top of that, Squad 11 didn't exactly have a culture of encouraging personal hygiene. Asking these people to wash their uniforms was, by all evidence, not something anyone had successfully managed.
Decades of that. Layered. Changing character the way things did when left alone long enough.
There was a reason certain older individuals had a specific reputation for a specific variety of smell. Part of it was the ordinary difficulty of maintaining hygiene with age. Another part of it was exactly this kind of habit, compounded over enough time to produce something with its own internal chemistry.
Formidable. In the most literal sense.
Matsushita Yusuke's expression had taken a turn.
This wasn't a squad barracks. This was an outhouse that had learned to organize itself.
He was not alone.
Even Aizen Sosuke's expression had acquired a particular quality. Subtle, but unmistakably present: a very controlled version of someone deeply unhappy about where they were standing.
Both of them reached a silent mutual conclusion at the same moment.
This place had a hygiene situation.
They stopped at the end of the corridor and looked at the figure seated ahead of them.
He straightened up. A broad, heavy face emerged from the shadow. The expression carried impatience and contempt in roughly equal measure, combined in a way that made neither one look accidental.
"You two. Squad 5 vice-captain? Aizen Sosuke? And a student? What do you want with us?"
Kijishi Kenpachi.
Nearly a century before the main story began. This was not the one-eyed monster from the original. That version of the Kenpachi hadn't happened yet.
The man stood up. His uniform was, to put it generously, open to interpretation. The chest was half-undone, revealing a significant amount of chest hair. His sandals had been pushed to their structural limits by his feet. Both arms hung at his sides, the whole silhouette giving an impression of pure, unfiltered mass.
Dark complexion. Large build. Heavy.
And when he stood up, the smell in the immediate area got noticeably worse.
Both Matsushita Yusuke and Aizen took exactly two steps back without discussing it.
Right. Okay.
How did anyone deal with this.
This was not the kind of opponent you could prepare for.
In the original story this particular Kenpachi had never appeared directly. He showed up at most as background context for Zaraki, a name attached to something that had already been superseded. Nothing about him warranted deep attention. And in terms of ability, the evidence was right there: this was someone who had been beaten by Zaraki Kenpachi before any training, any release, any power development. Zaraki in his rawest unrefined state had been enough. That said a great deal.
No wonder Unohana hadn't spoken of him as a worthy predecessor. She might not have thought of him that way at all.
Beside him, Aizen let a moment pass, then spoke.
"I'm here regarding the matter I mentioned previously, Captain Kijishi. Do you recall?"
The large man stared at them.
Someone near him leaned in and murmured something close to his ear. Something shifted on his face.
"Oh, oh, right. The Academy representative. Exchange fights. Yeah, I remember now. That was a thing."
Academy representative. Exchange fights.
Matsushita Yusuke looked sideways. Aizen made a small gesture without turning his head. Wait. Don't push it.
This was Aizen's arrangement. Matsushita Yusuke didn't have grounds to ask questions about the details yet.
Fine. Your call, Aizen.
"Squad 11's recruitment has been difficult these past few years, so we were interested in establishing some cooperation with the Academy. Someone willing to come over for an exchange... it's a good thing, all in all."
Matsushita Yusuke watched Kijishi nod along to his own summary and had to stay quiet about everything he was thinking.
Hey. Have you actually considered that the problem might be on your end?
The general atmosphere in this building alone. Never mind actively volunteering. Someone who got transferred here by accident would probably smell the air for thirty seconds and immediately start planning their exit.
And there were no female squad members anywhere in sight. Given the overall standard on display, the number of reasons a person wouldn't want to be here was not small.
What happened to this squad.
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