Chapter 183: An Opportunity
With Tosen leading the way, Matsushita Yusuke made straight for Squad 5 without stopping.
Compared to five years ago, the two of them moved considerably more freely now. Because Aizen had spent these years not only running his squad but also continuing to bring more people under Kyoka Suigetsu's effect. He visited Shin'o Academy on a regular basis, which meant that with each passing year, more of the people who would eventually hold positions of influence had quietly become part of the picture.
Yhwach could call his operation the Shadow Empire all he liked. The real shadow work belonged to Aizen. If the man hadn't stepped out into the open himself in the source material, staying hidden indefinitely would have been entirely within his reach.
The art of biding your time, perfected.
Those thoughts trailed behind them as they arrived at the office door.
Before Matsushita Yusuke could raise his hand to knock, Aizen's voice came through from inside.
"Come in."
"Pardon the intrusion."
He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Both of them found Aizen Sosuke with his back to them.
Five years had left no visible mark on the man. From the outside, he looked essentially unchanged.
A powerful spirit body. In its own way, that was almost another form of longevity. Matsushita Yusuke noted this with quiet appreciation, then noticed what Aizen was actually doing.
He was making tea.
"Try some, both of you. I've picked up a new approach recently. Should taste different from before."
There was no reason to refuse.
The two of them settled into their seats in the familiar way, each accepting a cup, looking very much like office workers who had shown up to a meeting they had attended a hundred times before.
"There are a lot of small details I'd like to get into, but everyone's time is valuable, so let me keep this moving."
Aizen took a small sip and set his cup down without any particular change of expression.
"First, the Hueco Mundo research. Tosen, I'll let you handle this part."
Tosen hadn't managed even half a sip. He set his cup down, folded his hands in front of him, and nodded with his usual seriousness.
"Understood. We have now identified a method for mass-producing Arrancar, and through that method, found a more stable evolutionary pathway."
The precise mechanics could be discussed separately. What mattered for now was simply that it was achievable.
The moment those words landed, Matsushita Yusuke's expression shifted into something thoughtful.
Mass-producing Arrancar already? At this pace, bringing Hueco Mundo fully under their control was looking like a matter of when, not if.
Though, wait.
The timeline's predictive value had shrunk considerably since his arrival, but certain things weren't going to change. One of them was the eventual appearance of the Espada.
Being able to mass-produce didn't mean they were strong enough yet. The source material had hundreds of Arrancar who never even made it onto the page. The ones being produced now were early-stage experimental types. Most of them would keep getting filtered out along the way.
In other words.
This was only the beginning. The Espada from the source material were the endpoint. The distance between here and there was still enormous.
That thought settled him.
Worth being happy about, certainly. But nowhere near the point of resting easy. There was still a long road ahead.
Of course, now was not the moment to interrupt a colleague's report.
After Tosen finished walking through the overall results of the period, Aizen gave a nod carrying a measured degree of satisfaction.
"Good. This means we've taken another significant step toward our goal. Additionally, this gives us a foundation to begin follow-up work on soul fusion..."
Right, that too.
Matsushita Yusuke's eyebrow rose slightly. He made a quiet sound of acknowledgment and rubbed his chin.
Soul fusion.
This was, at its core, Aizen Sosuke's ultimate objective: the search for a way to break past the limits inherent to a Shinigami. All the research was built around that purpose.
In the original story, after a chain of maneuvers, a sequence of accidents ended up pulling Isshin into the living world. Then, indirectly, that brought a particular couple together, which led directly to Ichigo Kurosaki being born.
Thinking through the whole sequence now, it had always struck Yusuke as a little too convenient. Nine times out of ten, the old Soul King had been writing that script from behind the scenes the whole time.
The research direction itself was sound: use Hollow-ified Arrancar to raise the overall baseline, then seek out the possibility of fusion, then piece together something that might actually break through the ceiling.
The research also extended to others. Tosen was the most pointed example: in the source material, he was currently the only Shinigami confirmed capable of achieving Resurreccion.
And reading Aizen's stated goals against the research itself, Matsushita Yusuke could follow the logic. That particular development was probably one of the other results the Hogyoku had quietly produced. The source material had given it barely a sentence, but standing here now, it was something that could be pulled apart and examined properly.
"That concludes the summary of our gains in Hueco Mundo during this period."
Five years. Not short, not long.
Looking at the steady progress laid out in front of him, at what had actually been built over that stretch, even Matsushita Yusuke found himself pausing.
Life really wasn't easy.
Running a small operation was hard. Everything had to be arranged one step at a time, and the progress needed constant watching.
"Now, moving to the second part of our plan."
Aizen's tone shifted, and with it, his gaze settled directly on Matsushita Yusuke.
The feeling of finally arriving at the main topic.
"Based on observations over the recent period, and the intelligence I've gathered: one week from now, Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni will have an outing planned."
There it was.
At those words, Matsushita Yusuke already understood where the Boss was going with this.
Time to move? This year?
The internal reaction ran loud. His expression managed to hold steady. He took a small sip of his tea on instinct.
"Is there a particular occasion, Aizen-sensei?"
Aizen gave a small nod, assumed a thoughtful expression, and replied at an unhurried pace.
"Based on the intelligence I've obtained, it's something along the lines of going out to pay respects to the dead. That might be a little vague, so let me be more precise."
He paused briefly, then added quietly.
"When the thousand-year war against the Quincy was fought, the memorial stone for the squad members who fell defending Seireitei was placed in the sixth western district of the Rukongai."