Chapter 142: Reversal
Yusuke's release had been calm and quiet, but even that whisper of a declaration had been caught by everyone present without exception.
A Bankai. As expected.
Different from the release he'd shown before. This one had been kept hidden.
All three grew more certain of their earlier read, and more careful along with it.
What was this ability? To win in the shortest possible time, they needed to capture enough information fast.
Under everyone's eyes, the reiatsu sea Yusuke had formed swept over everyone's position in an instant, continuing to roll outward toward more distant areas.
They had entered the effective range.
All three immediately ran a check on their own status.
Reiatsu usage... normal, no sign of interference.
Connection with my Zanpakuto is intact, no sign of disruption.
Illusion? Could this be another form of misdirection?
Watching the reiatsu surge up like an ocean, Kensei made the first move after a brief pause.
"All smoke and mirrors, you bastard!"
He roared, launched himself off the ground, went airborne.
Kensei wasn't great at thinking. That was what people said. But in reality he was careful enough when it mattered. It was just that when faced with something unknown, his preference was always to seek the answer through action rather than analysis.
Throw a punch first. Figure out the rest after.
His figure flashed forward, footwork light. The whole person seemed to move with the wind. Carried on gusts of gathered pressure, Kensei drove straight at Yusuke.
Frontal breakthrough.
"Don't you dare dodge!"
A brief wind-up. Kensei half-turned his body and, just before impact, drove his right fist out with everything behind it.
Simple. Straightforward to the point of being almost plain.
But that was Kensei's power.
The punch, accelerated by reiatsu and wind pressure to a speed that defied easy understanding, struck Yusuke squarely in the chest. He appeared to have had no time to react at all.
THUD.
The impact of fist against flesh produced a sound that was flat and oddly muted.
Kensei's brow lifted slightly. A mildly surprised look.
Years of striking opponents had long since given him a precise read on the feel of a clean hit.
Without question, he'd connected.
But the current situation was giving him pause. His opponent had released his Zanpakuto. He had neither attacked nor made any movement that looked like defense.
Did he just get through that easily?
The process was surprisingly clean.
That didn't stop him from making a follow-up decision. After a brief silence and hesitation, Kensei's expression went savage, power erupted in an instant, and he activated his ability.
HISSSS!!!
Like the brief hiss of gas escaping just before an explosion, that short dense resonance was the signal that Kensei was about to push everything he had.
Here we go.
A bright orb of light appeared at the contact point between fist and flesh, like a sun rising, its brightness blooming outward in an instant and swallowing both figures completely.
"Burst!!!"
BOOM!!!
Explosion. Resonance. Shockwave. Everything at once, stacked on top of each other, the point of origin collapsing into something that absorbed both light and dark.
Kensei's Bankai was fundamentally a deeper release of his Shikai's explosive capability. He could pour explosive force into his fists, boosting both speed and power, and use the wind's momentum to shift his attack angle in an instant, producing something close to a feint effect.
And at the moment of impact, he could direct that explosive force along the contact point and drive it endlessly into the opponent's body.
This intensely aggressive, purely destructive reiatsu mass, like a charge of dynamite, implanted in an instant: it detonated from inside.
Feeling the surge and pulse of reiatsu, Kensei narrowed his eyes.
He was certain. His power had been driven fully into the punch, and from there, directly into Matsushita Yusuke's body.
Normally, Kensei would stick to the simplest version of the ability: use the explosive force to blow the opponent away, knock them out, achieve something like suppression. But this opponent was different. A traitor to Soul Society. A target marked for elimination and disposal. Considering the severity of what he'd done, whatever came afterward was going to be severe. In other words, even if Kensei didn't hold back, this person probably wasn't going to be walking away.
So there was no reason to pull the punch.
A flicker of reluctance crossed his eyes and was just as quickly covered by something harder.
Can't help it. You brought this on yourself.
He didn't ignite the reiatsu mass immediately. He let a small interval pass.
He was waiting. Waiting for the moment the reiatsu seeped into skin and flesh, burrowing its way inside.
Triggering the explosion from outside was just a straightforward attack. But detonating it from inside?
That was something closer to cruel.
Pop...
Half of Yusuke's body inflated in an instant, and then, like a balloon reaching its limit, it ruptured.
SPLAT!!!
Blood and flesh in all directions. That simple statement was the most direct description of what happened.
Half of Yusuke's body scattered into fine mist and debris. Everything below the chest was pulverized in that moment, leaving no outline behind.
From any measure of method, this was undeniably cruel.
Even Kensei couldn't help narrowing his eyes and giving a quiet click of his tongue.
An unexpected development.
Even at vice-captain level, a person could use reiatsu for self-protection and avoid something this gruesome. But Yusuke's complete "do nothing" approach had him genuinely puzzled.
What was he actually trying to do?
Before that thought could go further, Yusuke's figure began to fall. The light in his pupils seemed to gradually dim and fade away.
Everything seemed to be heading toward its end.
And yet.
Just for a moment.
The seemingly dying Yusuke suddenly shifted his eyes.
His pupils lit up with a brilliant, dazzling light. With the trembling of the entire world around him, Yusuke's lips parted slightly and let out three syllables.
"Reversal."
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