Chapter 009: How to Customize
Honestly, Matsushita Yusuke was starting to think he might already be ahead of the average Kido instructor at this Academy.
Just instinct, of course. Put him in an actual fight and the results might tell a different story.
As for the four core disciplines overall, progress was slow but steady and completely within expectations. Time wasn't an issue. Chip away at it bit by bit and things would come together.
What he was most focused on right now was his Zanpakuto.
[Zanpakuto Ability Panel]
[Physical: 1]
[Elemental: 1]
[Kido: 2]
[Biological: 1]
[Rule: 1]
Every single category had cleared zero. He couldn't keep the smile off his face.
A small step for the Zanpakuto, a massive step toward the top.
Because when you thought about it, a normal Zanpakuto could only ever develop deep mastery in one category. That was the standard. That was the ceiling.
But Matsushita Yusuke could develop all five at once.
Which meant, in practical terms...
He had five swords.
Just thinking about it made him unreasonably happy.
At the same time, he noticed the panel had more to show him. When he focused on [Physical: 1], more information expanded beneath it.
[Physical -- Customization: (None set)]
[You may use your own understanding and intentions to set parameters for your Zanpakuto's (appearance) and (ability direction).]
There was more to this than he realized.
Now he understood what "self-directed" actually meant.
Not just the appearance. The abilities themselves could be shaped by design?
Though as he thought it through, he realized it wasn't quite that simple.
The keyword in the ability section was "direction," not "specification." It wasn't a full design tool.
After turning it over for a moment, he worked out what it actually meant.
He could steer the Zanpakuto away from developing in directions he didn't want, and nudge it toward the ones he did.
That was it. That was the mechanic.
Total control over the final ability was obviously too much to hope for. But ruling out the wrong paths and stopping it from growing in a bad direction? That seemed very doable.
Simple example.
Kido-type Zanpakuto. Were there any clear cases of things going wrong?
Oh, Matsushita Yusuke could talk about this all day. Because in the original story, Squad 5 under Aizen was basically a showcase of one bad outcome after another.
Tobiume, the one that launched explosive projectiles. Sakanade, which inverted perception, a weaker version of Kyoka Suigetsu without any of the depth.
Come on.
A Zanpakuto, one of the most profound expressions of a Shinigami's soul, and you end up with a missile launcher or a first-hit trick. Functional in specific situations, sure. But stacked against something like Kyoka Suigetsu's total sensory control? Not even in the same conversation.
So Matsushita Yusuke got to work planning, and two full days later he was still at it.
The sheer number of Zanpakuto in the original manga meant that even a rough sorting job took serious time. He spent that evening sitting down properly and going through each category one by one.
Physical type.
Straightforward by nature. The whole appeal was pure overwhelming force, so there wasn't much to restrict. Even Zangetsu could technically be filed here, though since that one was a compressed form and not a conventional Zanpakuto it wasn't a useful reference.
There was one exception worth flagging, though.
Ikkaku Madarame's Hozukimaru.
Releases into a spear shape, can be broken, which is already a strange design choice. But the actual ability turned out to be storing medicine inside it.
Sorry, what.
Your Zanpakuto ability is a hidden first aid kit?
Tite Kubo who designed that one was almost certainly laughing to himself the whole time.
Anyway. Obviously wrong answer. Excluded.
Elemental type.
Honestly this one was harder to find problems with.
In most other series, elemental abilities were the reliable second-lead type, serviceable but rarely the star. In Bleach they somehow ended up with world-ending potential at full development. Hitsugaya's future ceiling, Yamamoto's prime, both were in a completely different bracket.
Matsushita Yusuke struggled to find a clear bad example to rule out.
After going back and forth on it for a while, he landed on a vague restriction.
(No developing abilities outside the elemental category.)
Broad strokes, but that was about as precise as he could get given how wide the category was.
Next.
Kido type.
Now this one he'd thought about a lot, and he landed on a fairly specific restriction.
(No developing Kido abilities with an offensive focus.)
That conclusion came from actual reasoning.
For a Kido-type Zanpakuto, the abilities that leaned toward attack tended to be unremarkable. If he needed ranged offense he already had Hado for that. Using Zanpakuto slots to get a second, worse version of the same thing was just wasteful.
Following that logic, Hirako Shinji's Sakanade was actually a decent design in principle, just unlucky enough to exist in the same world as Aizen.
Biological type.
No strong opinions here. The category was rare enough that he didn't have a clear development roadmap yet. And if it ended up growing toward something like Unohana's recovery-type ability, that honestly seemed fine.
As a solo fighter, Matsushita Yusuke could see himself going either offense or support depending on the situation.
After thinking it through, his only restriction was:
(No developing abilities that split into multiple independent units.)
The reasoning was simple. Shinigami fights were fundamentally contests of reiatsu. Spreading your power across multiple bodies meant diluting it, and no matter how creative or unconventional the ability was, a high-level opponent would see through it immediately.
Dead end. Excluded.
Which left the last one.
Rule type.