Chapter 195: Trump Card
The beam came without warning, wrapped in light and heat both, and in an instant it covered Yamamoto's right arm and left behind what was clearly, unmistakably, visible char.
"..."
He looked at the injury in silence, sat with it for a moment, then turned his gaze sideways.
What he found there was another unfamiliar figure.
Like the Hollow-Shinigami fusion it stood beside, this one had human-like limbs, but where a face should have been there was only a cross-shaped outline, blank beneath it, no features of any kind. The impression it gave was one of absolute, almost aggressive coldness.
Another one?
Didn't matter.
Yamamoto's right hand came down hard. Ryujin Jakka cut without hesitation.
"Aaah!!!"
A milky-white arm spun into the air on a vivid trail of red.
White Ichigo rolled and scrambled back in disarray.
It had been a hasty cut. It still landed true. His left arm was gone.
Yamamoto's composure and depth of experience showed in everything he did. Even when the situation shifted mid-exchange, he could read the correct response in the shortest available window and apply exactly enough force to limit what his opponent could do.
Which was precisely why not taking the head was, genuinely, a missed opportunity.
A sidestep. A flick of the wrist to shake imaginary blood from the blade. Yamamoto turned his cold gaze toward the distance.
Reading your opponent was essential. Measuring their level was its own form of training.
Appearance, posture, reiatsu, taken together and weighed against his experience, Yamamoto could build a workable estimate of what he was dealing with in short order.
And that was precisely why his expression had shifted, just slightly, into something more serious.
This one is considerably stronger than the horned Hollow.
Yamamoto drew his right hand back and made a small, deliberate motion: relax the grip, then close it again.
The action meant nothing on its own. Right now, though, it served as a confirmation he needed. That red Cero a moment ago had been different.
If the horned Hollow's Cero had been like a laser, a blazing unified mass of heat driven forward in a single sustained line, then this red one was something else entirely. It felt like countless invisible fragments, all of them embedded simultaneously into the muscle and tissue. The moment he tried to move, tried to summon any response from that arm at all, a sharp stinging met the attempt.
Nobody needed to argue Yamamoto's pain tolerance. This was a man who could invoke Ittō Kasō and hold his expression throughout.
But even he found himself furrowing his brow at this, his lips pressing together slightly.
Losing a limb left a scar. That was manageable. But this sensation, like a fine needle driven endlessly into flesh and never pulling back, made even his scalp want to crawl.
'Another spirit body inside the domain?'
If the watching Matsushita Yusuke could read minds, he would probably have laughed out loud right about now.
Is this thing strong?
Obviously. This is the alt he had spent five years raising.
The domain was Matsushita Yusuke's sphere of influence to begin with, which meant guiding other things into it was entirely within his reach.
'In theory, bringing him out anywhere near Soul Society is a nonstarter. But under circumstances like these, with nobody watching, there's nothing to worry about.'
Such a small perk was nothing more than what the situation deserved.
The truth was, judging purely by the Zanpakuto's ability, the Rule-type release form had limited standalone strength.
At the end of the day it was basically just sending your units out to fight while you watched from the sideline, and having the main body not participate always felt like something was missing.
But Matsushita Yusuke's situation was completely different.
He could bring his own separate body into the domain and create a literal two-on-one.
Which was why the Rule-type release form was, at its core, fundamentally a support mechanism.
The strong deserved the stage best suited to them.
Was the advantage entirely his? Completely and unreservedly yes.
As a character who hadn't made an appearance in quite some time, the alt's growth rate had been considerably more extreme than the main account's.
Granted, part of that was the alt's starting point being low enough to leave a lot of room. But the real reason was that Hueco Mundo's resources were simply obscene.
Unlike operating in Soul Society, where there were restrictions on every side to navigate, Hueco Mundo ran purely on survival-of-the-fittest. The environment itself was fertile ground in the most literal sense.
In the early days, Matsushita Yusuke had still needed to personally step in to make sure the alt could hunt successfully. But as time passed, that stopped being necessary.
Because the strength had caught up.
The same principle that applied on the main account's side: given enough accumulation, there was no ceiling that couldn't be reached. Growing without restriction, by the end of five years it had become a threat in a tier by itself.
Matsushita Yusuke took a moment to pull up its panel.
[Hollow Power Level: 75]
[Sonido: 66] [Cero: 78] [Hierro: 66]
Hollow Power Level could be roughly converted to a reiatsu equivalent, and a basic comparison from there was straightforward enough.
Its reiatsu alone had already reached upper-tier captain level. Which was enough to show exactly how diligent Matsushita Yusuke had been across these five years.
He'd fed it until it became a bottomless pit.
"Hey. I didn't ask you to come help me."
White Ichigo was on his feet again, standing beside the alt with an audible sulk in his voice.
The permissions Matsushita Yusuke had granted were high enough that even the replicated construct had real intelligence behind it.
Which raised the question of how the alt was going to respond.
Matsushita Yusuke chose not to intervene and let the alt's instincts run the exchange entirely.
The response came quickly.
The pure-white Hollow, unmarked by any trace of color, extended its right hand and wrapped it around White Ichigo's throat.
Lifted him up.
Slammed him down.
Thud.
"Get... lost."
The voice was hoarse and flat. There was nothing in it you could use to identify anything about its nature.
And the Hollow, operating entirely on raw instinct, had absolutely no patience in its makeup.
"Gah..."
White Ichigo's pained shout followed, and a kick sent him skidding away.
With that settled, the alt turned its head and fixed its gaze on Yamamoto across the field.
"You... smell delicious."
Watching from the outside, Matsushita Yusuke rubbed his forehead with an expression he couldn't quite hold back.
Well. He had to say, this thing had a serious temper.
Refused to cooperate, preferred solo combat, appetite to match the attitude.
He genuinely wondered who it took after. Five years of feeding and it had apparently developed opinions about everything.
Faced with this, Yamamoto settled silently into his stance.
Both sides went quiet for a moment. Then, by some mutual and wordless agreement, they moved.
BANG!!!
The Hollow's right hand drove forward and downward, landing squarely on Ryujin Jakka where Yamamoto had braced it in front of him.
The blade erupted with light and heat. The blazing substance, dense and spreading, splashed outward and adhered to the Hollow's surface on impact.