Chapter 121: Nothing Is Impenetrable, Nothing Goes Unbroken
By any measure, Unohana Retsu had seen everything. In the most literal sense of that phrase.
Over a thousand years of confrontations, exchanges, fights without number... she had long since become familiar with more weapons and fighting styles than most people could count.
Martial arts existed to kill.
No matter how unusual or varied a style or form, the end goal was always damage. And from that, she could always find the gaps and weaknesses that led to her winning.
But.
This thing was a little different.
She watched the mass of light condensed in Yusuke's hands continuously shift and change.
Until finally, as if shaped by invisible hands, it stretched into something slender and familiar.
A blade?
More precisely: something mimicking the shape of a Zanpakuto.
Slender, contained, radiating a golden light along its full length.
She could make out the shape of a blade, a handle, all the expected components. As mimicry went, the completion was actually fairly high for a fabrication.
But out of habit, and out of genuine puzzlement, she pressed her lips slightly together, raised her chin, and said with a hint of confusion:
"What exactly is this?"
It wasn't a blade. It wasn't a weapon.
If she had to describe it accurately, Unohana would have called it a mass of reishi.
"You intend to fight me with that? Young man. Are you serious."
By the end of that sentence her voice had dropped a degree.
Because.
"This is no different from trying to stop a landslide with your hands. Do you understand that?"
A mass of reishi was not a solid material.
The same point that applied to Kido applied here: theoretically, all things were constructed from reishi, but the arrangement and the degree of refinement were the fundamental difference.
A mass condensed from reishi, shaped to look like a blade, expecting to perform like the real thing?
Fantasy.
Which was why Unohana's reaction was as visible as it was. Disagreement. Incomprehension. A deep distaste for what amounted to, in her reading, contempt for the exchange.
That shift in her was unmistakable, and Matsushita Yusuke could feel it as clearly as a change in temperature. He said, carefully:
"I'm not much for explanations. But I'd ask Captain Unohana to experience it before reaching a conclusion. If you're willing."
A slow breath, and she turned slightly away.
She lowered her stance, left hand reaching forward, five fingers spread, as if closing around something invisible.
Right hand on the hilt, drawing the Zanpakuto back into a position close to her body, the blade gathering its light inward until what Yusuke saw was almost a single concentrated point.
A stinging sensation moved through him in waves, like the pressure before a needle strikes.
He didn't know the specific technique yet. Once the motion took shape, the answer became obvious.
A thrust.
Speed maximized. Attack capability maximized. Specialized to its absolute limit.
"..."
Matsushita Yusuke drew a sharp breath.
This was probably the most completely focused he had been since arriving in this world.
The opponent was at the highest level. No margin for holding back. And himself? A quick internal count gave him the answer.
Three times.
Only three.
The pull of killing intent drew taut between them. Both tensed without any signal passing between them.
Like dancers balanced on a wire above nothing, once that silk-thin equilibrium broke, both moved.
CRACK!
A thunderclap entered his ears.
Unohana's foot had crushed the ground. The sound exploded outward.
Her figure stretched through the air, flattened, as if she had become something sharp and singular, cleaving through the space in front of her, every part of her body folded into one piercing line...
Until nothing remained in motion but that long, sharp edge, driving straight toward Matsushita Yusuke's face.
Fast enough that he seemingly hadn't reacted yet when the blade was already there, aimed between his eyes.
And then.
In a reversal that didn't look like it should have been physically possible.
Yusuke's reishi blade swung upward and met it.
Not a dodge. A block.
The judgment itself wasn't wrong. But the moment Unohana saw the trajectory, her mind was already ahead of it.
To block, the movement deforms. The chest opens. I change direction, drive straight in, and—
Her thoughts didn't finish.
Because at almost the same instant, something unusual came through her Zanpakuto.
She looked down.
Her Zanpakuto, at the point of contact with Yusuke's reishi mass, had begun to...
Warp?
It sounded impossible. But that was what was happening.
Unohana's Zanpakuto shook and trembled left and right like a small boat caught in an open current.
What.
Before she could process it, Yusuke had stepped forward.
The reishi mass in his hand had shattered in the collision. That didn't mean he was done.
He simply raised his hand again and gripped the air.
An identical reishi blade materialized in his palm.
A swing, that should have been next, but just before the motion locked in, Yusuke changed.
Horizontal slash.
His blade swept across and Unohana instinctively blocked with her Zanpakuto.
CLANG!
With a sharp, shattering crack, Unohana's Zanpakuto broke apart into scattered fragments.
Matsushita Yusuke drove through the debris.
Bankai: Kongokai.
The ability was simple and direct.
By pouring a large amount of reishi in rapid succession, it formed weapons of various kinds.
Each reishi weapon carried a compression of reishi at a nearly inconceivable density. At Yusuke's current level, forming three in succession was his absolute limit.
And the effect was equally straightforward.
Dismantling. Destruction. Applied to all things.
As an advancement beyond the Shikai, Kongokai broke free from the cycle of adapting to battle through pattern and repetition. Within the Dharma Realm, nothing is impenetrable. Nothing goes unbroken.
Including Zanpakuto.
Of course.
At its core, destruction here was only a surface-level effect. Given time, Unohana could reassemble it with her own reishi.
He had planned on one weapon to shatter the Zanpakuto and two remaining for the direct assault.
The hardness of the thing had exceeded every expectation.
Two rounds of attacks before it finally broke. If her Zanpakuto had been any harder, he would have run out of options.
Fortunately, that grinding standoff ended there.
Kongokai's dismantling ability had finally broken through Unohana's Zanpakuto and taken it apart. Pulling a tooth from a tiger's mouth.
He'd actually done it.
No blade now. What exactly are you going to fight with?
He gritted his teeth, raised both hands, and gripped again.
The third reishi blade materialized without sound. With a sharp shout, Yusuke's full reiatsu erupted, flooded both hands, and burst upward in a surging column of force.
This was his last move.
"Captain Unohana. Forgive me."
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OG Author's note: The Zanpakuto was designed with Shikai and Bankai in mind together from the start, since the two need to connect. Looking at just one part on its own might seem a little odd. The remaining four are the same way.