REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!
Chapter 064: Still the Overhead Cleave
As had come up before, Matsushita Yusuke had five Zanpakuto categories to work with.
None of them had been developed to the full Shikai threshold yet, which was why his approach in combat had been running through secondary methods. Indirection. Angles. Tools that worked precisely because they weren't the main event.
But even a bird that hasn't taken flight yet has been growing.
He couldn't perform a complete Shikai. That wasn't where he was.
What that didn't mean was no progress at all.
Partial release.
A change in form only, without the full ability set behind it. Just the shape. But even that was enough to produce a genuine shift in the weapon's character.
That was what he was doing now.
Release.
A faint sound. Something between a breath and a note, so quiet it was almost not there. Light flickered briefly at the blade, bloomed for an instant like something that opened and closed in the same moment, a flash of white that flared and then pulled back.
The designed form appeared. A broader blade, heavier in proportion, locked in his grip. More aggressive in outline than the standard Zanpakuto it had been a moment ago.
It was only a flash. But it was enough to register with everyone present who had anything to register with.
"..."
Aizen Sosuke's chin came up a fraction. The expression that settled on his face as he looked toward Matsushita Yusuke was one that could be described as several things, none of them easy to name precisely.
"What was that just now?"
Kijishi had his arms crossed and was no longer wearing the easy expression he'd come in with.
Different people processed unexpected developments differently. Composed or unsettled, it didn't matter. Time moved either way, and the fight between the two people in front of them was still going.
The Zanpakuto in Matsushita Yusuke's hand was broader now. More defined along the edge.
Miasa Susumu clocked the change immediately and narrowed his eyes for one fraction of a second.
A shift in form.
A Zanpakuto releasing.
Is this person actually just a student?
He wanted to ask it. The situation didn't allow for that kind of pause.
What is he going to do?
Miasa's school ran more naturally on the defensive side. His style lived in close-range exchanges, layering attack angles, looking for the moment when an opponent's responses started to fall behind. That was when the opening appeared. That was when you ended it.
Right now, looking at Matsushita Yusuke moving into an obvious attacking posture, whatever ripple had briefly passed through Miasa's focus settled back down and went still.
Nothing to be surprised about. Nothing to be thrown off by.
This was just the same thing he had done hundreds of times before, done once more.
Wait for the opening. One strike to close it.
The Daijo Mushin-ryu's iaijutsu was a method that had come out of actual survival fights at the bottom of the Rukongai. Decades of that. There was no reason to lose to someone who had grown up in a controlled environment with padded floors and scheduled meals.
Come on then.
Miasa pulled himself back, settled his breath.
He watched Matsushita Yusuke advancing toward him, a wave of energy and forward intent, and forced himself back into something calm. The state where thought dropped away and the body just operated.
Lunge. High overhead. Diagonal slash.
A hundred different attack shapes flickered through his mind at once. In his perception, Matsushita Yusuke's silhouette split into countless projections, each one launching a different form of assault.
His depth of sword knowledge was enough to anticipate over a hundred possible approaches. What Miasa had to do now was watch.
Which one is it going to be?
Matsushita Yusuke started moving.
No flourish. No setup. No anything extra.
He simply gathered himself, brought both hands together, and lifted the heavier blade directly over his head.
Every person watching who knew what they were looking at produced roughly the same expression.
Because Matsushita Yusuke's stance was nearly identical to the first time.
Wide open. Maximum commitment for damage and speed. A high overhead cleave, straight down the centerline.
Hard to understand why anyone would make that choice. For a competent swordsman, the first exchange against a new opponent was information. You used it. You found the opening that had been revealed and you built your next move around it. That was how it worked.
And the high overhead cleave was the move that had already given Miasa a counter opportunity once. Less than a minute ago. The same approach, returned to immediately.
Miasa felt the particular absurdity of the situation tip into something close to dark amusement.
Is this person out of their mind?
But the face was serious. Completely focused. Not a trace of anything reckless about the expression.
Miasa had no contempt left for it.
Maybe the person in front of him had stopped thinking clearly. That was possible. But he was going to stay sharp regardless.
If someone walked into the same sword willingly, he had no reason to refuse.
Before the strike came down, an iaijutsu counter, moving before the attack could land. A single horizontal draw across the opponent's midsection.
The movement built into his hands through decades of repetition, Miasa's right hand closed on the hilt. The light in his eyes was specific and focused, a catalogue of every opponent who had come apart under that same motion running somewhere behind it.
Even an Academy student. At the end of the count, just another ordinary opponent.
Matsushita Yusuke's hands were at the top of their arc, the weight fully loaded.
Now.
The draw came. Horizontal. The blade dragged at the angle of its exit from the sheath, friction between edge and housing producing visible sparks that caught the light for an instant.
To achieve the counter-first effect, he committed everything.
You lose.
Miasa let the breath out, the Zanpakuto sweeping through the final arc of the horizontal draw and—
The thought stopped there.
Because in the next instant, a blade cut through it.
From above. Silver light, no hesitation, angled straight down from where Matsushita Yusuke's weapon had been at the top of its arc. It split through whatever Miasa's mind had been assembling and left a blank silence behind it.
What—
Fast. Too fast.
Not beyond reaction. Not exactly.
But at that speed, before the horizontal draw could complete, his own head was going to connect with the incoming blade.
Change now.
Block it.
The Zanpakuto that had been tracking toward Matsushita Yusuke's midsection reversed direction, swinging hard upward at a diagonal to intercept.
Two blades meet. Then it's just a question of force. Give ground, create distance, reset.
Miasa had the next sequence mapped in his head. He had barely started executing it when the contact came.
The collision he'd planned for didn't happen.
There was a short, clean sound. A crack.
Miasa's Zanpakuto broke.
Split completely through the blade.
Matsushita Yusuke's strike came down with the same forward momentum it had been carrying from the top of the arc, the weight behind it entirely intact, and it passed through the intercept like a heavy vehicle through something that had no business being in its way. The opposing blade didn't slow it. The blade shattered.
"How-!"
The word hadn't finished.
The edge was already there.
Matsushita Yusuke's blade came down in a full overhead cleave.
****
70+advance chapters at patreon.com/Eatinpieces