Chapter 295: You Haven't Looked?
Unable to see the baby, Yamamoto settled for a brief conversation with Matsushita Yusuke.
"I don't normally use my position to arrange things for people. But for someone like you--" He paused, apparently deciding the phrasing needed adjustment, then leaned closer and said quietly:
"If there's anything you need handled, go to Sasakibe. Some things can be sorted out quietly, within reason."
Using his position to do someone a favor.
The image of Yamamoto as incorruptible and utterly impartial had taken some significant damage over the course of this evening.
Was it simply that the Gotei 13 had gone too long without a child being born? Everyone seemed to be operating at a slightly elevated emotional temperature.
Though Matsushita Yusuke's sense of that phenomenon was rooted in something more specific than general sentiment.
It was straightforward.
This was the child of Matsushita Yusuke and Soifon. Of course people were going to pay attention.
After a sustained period of mild insistence, Kotetsu Isane eventually relented and let Yamamoto and Sasakibe in for a brief look. The baby was asleep, so they could only observe from a distance without making contact.
That seemed to be entirely sufficient.
When Yamamoto walked back out, he had the energized bearing of someone who had received something genuinely nourishing.
"Looks healthy from what I can tell. That matters more than anything." A pause. "Matsushita -- I have official business, so I'll head off. If anything comes up, reach out."
He gave a small nod, said thank you, and saw Yamamoto off.
With the Captain-Commander gone, Matsushita Yusuke had been planning to find something to eat -- but before he could take a step, a familiar reiatsu reached him from not far away, and he stopped instinctively.
He looked up.
Aizen Sosuke and Tosen Kaname were walking toward him at a brisk pace.
Neither of them was wearing the expression they usually carried -- the composed, slightly distant quality that tended to keep most people at arm's length. Both were smiling in a way that was openly warm, bright enough that a stranger passing by might have assumed they had just found out they had won something significant.
Done dealing with one set of leaders, now another one shows up.
And he couldn't brush either off without generating exactly the kind of talk he didn't need.
The undercover life. Not easy.
He suppressed a quiet internal sigh, stood, and went to meet them.
"Captain Aizen. Captain Tosen."
Aizen stepped forward with a nod of acknowledgment, then immediately tilted his head toward the door behind Matsushita Yusuke.
No words needed. The right hand lifted slightly in the direction of the ward --
Intent perfectly clear.
Kotetsu Isane, who had already bent the rules once tonight and was apparently feeling the weight of that, planted herself in the doorway with a firm expression.
Captain-Commander was one exception. That was the limit. The Fourth Squad might come across as gentle and approachable under normal circumstances, but in critical moments they had principles and they intended to keep them.
Aizen blinked, apparently genuinely thrown off by the sudden resistance.
"Have I done something to offend you, Vice-Captain Kotetsu?"
"Ah? No, no -- it's not -- I mean, visiting hours are over and no one can go in to see the baby right now!"
"I see. That's fair."
Aizen let out a sigh of mild resignation, made no attempt to push further, and simply picked up the thread that Isane had given him.
"Vice-Captain Kotetsu really is thorough. Second most reliable person in Squad 4 -- and that shows."
"Oh -- that's not really-- I mean, I'm not that--"
Professional flattery.
This was Aizen's primary skill, applied without any visible exertion -- a tool that had been refined to such a point that using it on people was essentially effort-free.
On a small, easily flustered Squad 4 vice-captain it was working with minimal resistance. Matsushita Yusuke watched with the feeling of someone witnessing an extremely familiar technique executed on a new target.
Then Aizen half-turned and looked at him.
"Matsushita-kun. Could you come talk for a moment?"
The tone was exactly the same as always. Easy. Collegial. The register of two friends arranging to chat about something inconsequential.
To anyone listening, it wouldn't have registered as anything of particular significance.
But after working in proximity to this man for the better part of a century, Matsushita Yusuke caught the thread beneath it immediately.
This wasn't casual. There was something real behind it.
"Of course."
The three of them moved together toward a quiet, empty corner of the compound.
They hadn't reached it yet when Aizen's voice came from ahead.
"Boy or girl?"
"...Girl."
"Haha. She'll probably grow into someone quite striking. Both you and Soifon have distinctive features -- that tends to carry."
After that brief observation, Aizen half-turned and looked at Matsushita Yusuke directly.
"Something I should say upfront, Matsushita -- have you done anything to the child?"
Matsushita Yusuke's eyebrow went up almost before the sentence was finished.
"Why would you think that?"
Done anything.
The phrasing was indirect, but in the context of the three of them it had a specific meaning. The word being avoided was "experiment."
Which meant what Aizen was asking, in plain terms, was whether Matsushita Yusuke had used his own child as some kind of test subject.
The answer was obviously no. And beyond the answer -- a response came that Matsushita Yusuke had not fully anticipated from himself.
Something rare for him. An actual emotional reaction.
Nearly a century of working under Aizen had made certain dynamics essentially automatic. Speaking up. Deferring. Calibrating around the existing hierarchy. All of it had settled into muscle memory.
But this was his child.
"Aizen-sensei. Don't you think that question has a problem with it?"
Something in the air shifted.
Tosen, who had been standing slightly to the side, quietly stepped forward half a pace and raised his right hand -- clearly about to place it on Matsushita Yusuke's shoulder as a low-key signal to ease off.
Before he could, Aizen spoke first.
"I apologize. I don't think I said that clearly."
He adjusted his glasses.
His expression carried a visible trace of having been caught off-guard -- like the defensive edge in Matsushita Yusuke's response had, unexpectedly, hit something real. His next approach was noticeably more careful.
"Matsushita-kun. Haven't you looked at her yourself?"
Looked at what?
Aizen let a moment of silence breathe. Then, smiling, he continued.
"The reiatsu around that child. The kind that doesn't disperse. Haven't you sensed it?"
The words finished.
And then --
A cry came ripping through the night.
Loud, sharp, the kind of sound a newborn produces when something has pulled them from deep sleep into something else entirely.
All three of them turned their heads at the same time. Matsushita Yusuke's expression was one of genuine surprise.
Newborns startled awake and cried. That was normal.
But this was not that.
"What is -- what is this?!"