REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!
Chapter 033: Aizen Is Still the More Authoritative One
They'd agreed on half an hour. Matsushita Yusuke had absolutely no intention of arriving exactly on time.
First impressions were worth maintaining.
He was at the gate in under ten minutes.
He stood there for a solid twenty-odd minutes watching Kishinoshin work his way out of the administrative building, exchanging pleasantries with people at every step, pompadour leading the way.
Matsushita Yusuke waved from a distance.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Matsushita-kun. No point in delaying. Let's head out."
"Lead the way, Kishinoshin-senpai."
The two of them fell into an easy pace. Matsushita Yusuke took the opportunity to probe a few things he'd been curious about.
Starting with the obvious one.
"After joining -- is it true I don't actually have to do anything?"
"In theory, no. But special circumstances do come up."
"Such as?"
"Yoruichi-sama occasionally likes to steer people toward certain organizations after graduation."
Kishinoshin thought it through for a moment, then started counting off on his fingers.
"You've probably heard this already -- the Shihoin family doesn't only oversee Squad 2. The Detention Unit and the Onmitsukido fall under Yoruichi-sama's authority as well."
Organizations outside the Gotei 13 proper.
To be honest, the ones that rarely showed up in the original story had left only a shallow impression. The members, the structures, the day-to-day operations. Most of it was background.
But that didn't mean they weren't there.
The Gotei 13 accounted for roughly a third of how Soul Society actually functioned. The rest needed other organizations, noble houses, and various auxiliary bodies to keep the whole thing running.
Within what Matsushita Yusuke knew: the Academy's entire faculty was organized under Sasakibe Chojiro, the Squad 1 vice-captain. A completely separate institutional arrangement, running in parallel.
Situations like that were everywhere once you started looking. The whole structure was an old feudal system that had been accumulating weight for longer than anyone could reliably track. The bloat was inevitable.
"Does being directed toward specific organizations happen often?"
Kishinoshin rubbed his chin and considered.
"Probably... not that frequently."
He seemed to be reaching for something to make the point clearer.
"In my memory, there's really only one case -- Urahara... ah, actually. Never mind. Forget I said that, Matsushita-kun."
Half a sentence. Then a full stop.
What exactly is that supposed to accomplish.
In practice, Matsushita Yusuke had already followed the thread to its conclusion.
You just said Urahara Kisuke.
Not that he could have said the name freely even if he'd wanted to. The man was currently Squad 12 captain and nominally the head of the Research and Development Bureau. Both titles. Named out loud in casual conversation, that invited the wrong kind of attention.
So why had his name been coming up at all?
The Yoruichi-Urahara connection. The two of them had history that stretched back a long way, and the closeness of it wasn't something either of them bothered to conceal.
Given that history -- and given where Urahara had ended up professionally -- a certain picture started forming.
"He was going to use him as an example. But he's a captain now, so he caught himself."
The logic kept assembling.
Urahara's dual appointments -- Squad 12 captain and Bureau head -- might not have been something he'd arrived at entirely on his own. Yoruichi had connections. Noble houses had leverage. If she'd used that leverage to place someone she trusted in a position that gave the Shihoin family access to the Research and Development Bureau's resources for the first time...
That was not a small move.
And it meant the arrangement had worked at least once. Which was exactly the kind of evidence Kishinoshin would reach for as an example before remembering he shouldn't say the name.
"Thank you for the pointer, Kishinoshin-senpai. I think I've got the picture."
"Oh, really? Talking to you is genuinely low-effort. You've saved me a lot of explaining."
Smart people were efficient to work with. That was just a fact.
Kishinoshin gave a satisfied nod, looking at Matsushita Yusuke in a way that was difficult to interpret as anything other than approving.
"Anything else you want to know, feel free to ask. I'll tell you what I can."
Given that opening, there was no reason to hold back.
Supplementary information was a resource. Use it while it was available.
"What does day-to-day life actually look like for someone from a noble family? Like yourself, Kishinoshin-senpai."
"Right to the nerve, Matsushita-kun."
He said it lightly, the corner of his mouth pulling up. Then he thought about it properly.
"Matsushita-kun isn't from a noble background, so not knowing how it works is completely normal. The noble class, in straightforward terms, is a group with special privileges. Access to resources that others don't have. A structural position above the general population."
Blunt. But accurate.
Matsushita Yusuke had no particular reaction to it.
Because in a world where a Shinigami's power could grow without a ceiling, bloodlines only counted until they didn't. Five Zanpakuto categories, each one a door waiting to be opened. Let the nobles enjoy their privileges now. Once the groundwork was properly laid, the structural advantages of birth weren't going to mean very much.
"But what I said just now is the ideal version. The theory."
Kishinoshin pointed at himself, the resignation in his voice more genuine than the irony.
"I'm a noble. But does my life look particularly enjoyable to you?"
The dark circles visible under his sunglasses answered before anything else could.
"Is the work grinding you down?"
"When your superior doesn't manage anything herself, and everything, every single detail, ends up on your desk... yes. It is, in fact, grinding."
Squad 2's captain was Yoruichi Shihoin.
Matsushita Yusuke could not produce a mental image of that woman doing administrative paperwork. It simply did not assemble.
Which meant everything had been landing on her vice-captain. Very on-brand for the nobility, actually.
"My view has always been fairly simple. Responsibility and reward scale together. Eating well, dressing well -- those come because I've put in the work to earn them."
Kishinoshin added, with a small smile:
"A noble like me sits in an awkward middle position. Left to run on family money and do nothing, you can coast indefinitely. But you don't actually amount to anything. So there's still work to be done."
The effort was mandatory if the outcome was going to mean something.
"Following Yoruichi-sama -- following the Shihoin family -- as long as you actually apply yourself, the returns over time won't be small."
The reasoning was sound enough on the surface.
But.
It only worked if you'd started with access to begin with.
Kishinoshin had some genuinely progressive instincts. But the framework underneath was still feudal. The whole model assumed entry points that most people simply didn't have, and it didn't hold up once you poked at that part.
On that particular question, Aizen Sosuke was still the more authoritative voice.
Power wasn't something you were born into. It was something you built. And once you'd built enough of it, the people who'd inherited their advantages tended to have a quiet rethink about how permanent those advantages actually were.
"We're almost there."
The voice pulled him out of his thoughts. Matsushita Yusuke looked up.
And his expression did something slightly unusual.
"This is..."
Where exactly were they?