Chapter 200: One Slash and the PTSD Hits
A brilliant, blinding, impossible-to-look-away-from light.
In that moment, with a radiance that left no room for resistance, it wiped the blood-colored mist cleanly from the middle outward.
Just the blink of an eye, and the sky and earth seemed to go clear, showing a sharp and unmistakable division between above and below.
Matsushita Yusuke watched the Hollow alt get cut cleanly in two at the waist. Within the light, Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni emerged slowly, still holding the posture of the completed stroke.
At the same time.
The domain barrier, already tottering on the edge of collapse, now also met its end.
The environment that had been constructed at considerable cost in concentration and reiatsu faded with that light and dissolved into nothing.
As though it had never been there in the first place.
Crack.
With a sound like glass giving way, every last illusion shattered and was erased. In the next instant, everything snapped back to its original state and rejoined reality.
Matsushita Yusuke stood on the ground.
He raised a hand and pressed it against his chest, stepped back half a step, and a faint expression of pain showed through behind the mask.
Domain forcibly interrupted, caster takes backlash damage, brain about to fry... wait, wrong franchise.
In practical terms it was basically the equivalent of a Zanpakuto's ability being cut off by force, in an extremely violent manner at that.
Physical discomfort was only to be expected.
"Cough, cough..."
He couldn't stop coughing, and finally a sudden sweetness told him his mouth had half-filled with blood.
Being injured was the smaller matter. What mattered more was the experience and the understanding it produced.
One slash.
That was all it took.
The Hollow alt cut in half. The Bankai domain broken.
Even sending his most essential skill to back the alt up as a foundation hadn't stopped the power behind that one swing.
The sheer scale of it made everything Matsushita Yusuke had built and arranged over all this time look like a joke. Kicked aside by the old man like something lying in the road.
More than despair, what this moment produced in him was closer to understanding.
He now saw exactly why both Aizen and Yhwach had been so careful.
When you run into a stat monster at this tier, even the anger turns into helpless laughter.
Of course, considering that the pro-edition version of the three-worlds' number-one stat monster was still ahead somewhere further down the road, Matsushita Yusuke found his feelings releasing on their own.
What was there to get worked up about? There was something even more absurd still to come.
He suddenly found himself understanding something: why, after everything that happened in the Thousand-Year Blood War, someone with Aizen's personality could still go back and sit in prison without argument.
The category being: made peace with it, laughed it off, gave up.
All those years of meticulous planning. Unmatched in the world. Illusions capable of deceiving anyone. Omniscience across the full arc of history and future both.
All of it, at the end of the day, not as effective as one man's cleaver?
Fine. I quit. The balance in this world is garbage. Handle it yourselves.
When you looked at it that way, the only conclusion was: without something underhanded in your toolkit, you genuinely had no idea how to fight him.
"Are you alright?"
Aizen's voice came from behind.
Matsushita Yusuke half-turned. The words 'I'm fine' stuck completely in his throat and refused to come out for a good while.
My partner just got cut in half, the Bankai got smashed, my dignity is scattered across the ground and it's going to take a minute to collect... how exactly does any of that count as fine?
But things were what they were. More words wouldn't help.
Matsushita Yusuke let out a quiet breath and spoke with resigned helplessness.
"Let's move, sensei. Keep this up and we're all going to end up leaving our names on this spot."
If Matsushita Yusuke had still been mostly in a probing mindset before the fighting started, he was fully and completely convinced now.
You ridiculous stat monster. Give me time to plan this properly, and I'll be back for a real round.
The remark wasn't especially subtle, and Yamamoto, surging out after them, caught it clearly.
The old man had apparently gotten a bit caught up in the heat of it. Understandable enough, considering Bankai did tend to get the blood running.
He looked toward Matsushita Yusuke, both eyes snapping wide open, and bellowed "Stop right there, scoundrel!" while raising his blade to charge over.
Let alone Matsushita Yusuke.
This even put Aizen briefly on edge.
After all, that blade genuinely killed whoever it touched. He had Kyoka Suigetsu out in an instant, and using the power of the illusion, took Matsushita Yusuke and vanished.
Yamamoto's charging momentum broke abruptly. He roared "Where do you think you're going?!" and charged off in the completely opposite direction.
Streams of blazing light rained down from above like divine fire, burning the Rukongai district into spreading sheets of flame behind them.
Aizen Sosuke went quiet for a moment.
"Although I had heard various accounts of Captain-Commander Yamamoto's power before, now that I've seen it firsthand... there truly is no substitute for witnessing it directly."
Matsushita Yusuke wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, watched Tosen closing in at speed from a distance, and once all three had come together they withdrew.
As the gap behind them steadily grew, Matsushita Yusuke let the tension in his chest ease slightly and asked quietly.
"How did you pull that off, Aizen-sensei? Getting the Captain-Commander running in the wrong direction?"
"Perceptual deception."
Aizen raised his right hand and traced a circle in the air with one finger.
"I simulated both your reiatsu and mine and placed them in the exact opposite direction. Under suitable conditions, it creates the impression for the Captain-Commander in an instant that we are fleeing that way."
Of course, just that alone would not have been sufficient.
"I placed approximately thirty or so marked points along that route, with careful spacing between each one. Under normal conditions, he would need to pursue through at least ten or more before realizing something was wrong."
That was genuinely skilled work.
Matsushita Yusuke let out a quiet internal breath of relief.
When it came to this kind of misdirection, there was simply no holding a candle to Aizen. No point even trying.
"How are you feeling, Matsushita?"
Tosen was genuinely asking after him, but right now Yusuke couldn't help feeling a subtly sarcastic quality to the question.
The category being: one slash from Yamamoto and the PTSD sets in.
He removed his mask, raised a hand and rubbed his cheek, then spoke with an expression that could only be described as sourly pained.
"I'm fine. My partner, though, is not so much."
As he said it, he reached into his pocket and drew out a pulsing lump of flesh and blood.
The two beside him turned their gaze toward it, both looking at what sat in Matsushita Yusuke's palm.
"That is..."
A mark left by the God of War from Hell, was what it was.
"The important remnant left behind by the Hollow that helped me escape just now. Through this, I can help it reconstitute its body."
Matsushita Yusuke hadn't told either of them the truth about the alt's origins. His account up to this point had been simply that he had a very capable companion.
Because the alt genuinely fought at an exceptional level, Aizen's impression of it was favorable.
Watching it get cut into matching Yhwach-edition styling just now, Aizen had shown visible regret.
Hearing this news, he was also a little surprised.
"Can it... come back to life?"
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