Chapter 188: The Mightiest Ghost He Buried With His Own Hands...
The punch came straight at his face.
The strike itself hadn't arrived yet, but the razor-edged killing intent preceding it swept forward like an arrow, and Matsushita Yusuke felt every hair on his body rise at once.
This old man is genuinely frightening.
Catching someone mid-Bankai invocation was a rare opening in most fights. But for someone with this depth of combat experience, finding that exact momentary gap and moving on it was completely second nature.
He had identified it without effort, read it precisely, and moved.
Attack.
Watching the fist close in, Matsushita Yusuke's eyes narrowed slightly.
Any ordinary Shinigami would almost certainly have been caught by that opening.
Fortunately.
Matsushita Yusuke was not in that category.
Yamamoto's heavy punch tore through the air, weight and force behind it, and landed squarely on Matsushita Yusuke's face.
It looked solid. It felt decisive. But all of that was only a fleeting illusion, because in the next instant, Yusuke's body dispersed like smoke and simply vanished.
A clean miss. Yamamoto's own momentum carried him a half step forward.
And that was all.
The Captain-Commander steadied himself where he stood. His gaze swept slowly around the surrounding area, expression unchanged, though something faintly resembling exasperation crept into his voice.
"Hmph... just a fraction too slow."
Indeed.
"You came about that close to blowing my head off. Crafty old man."
Matsushita Yusuke's voice arrived from all directions at once, formless and drifting, saturated with the quality of something not quite real.
Yamamoto stood still and did not move further.
Information gap.
Before understanding an opponent's ability, acting rashly was not the right play. Given his history fighting the Quincy, this kind of caution had almost certainly been paid for in painful experience.
So. Where was the body?
Reiatsu. Presence. Even killing intent.
Any of these could be detected and analyzed, picked out of the air like signals.
With Yamamoto's experience, these fine details were enough to determine almost anything about an opponent's position.
But this time was different.
"..."
Nothing. Not a trace exposed.
Not even breathing. Not even a heartbeat. Not the faintest outline of anything.
Matsushita Yusuke had vanished along with that straight punch, dissolved into nothing, leaving no trail at all.
Where was he?
The thought surfaced for an instant. Then Yamamoto's eyes snapped wide open and he spun around.
He saw it.
Matsushita Yusuke's figure materialized behind him without a sound, as if condensing from the air itself.
No reiatsu detected. No presence whatsoever. The appearance was as though he had simply been placed there by an unseen hand. Directly counterintuitive, and to Yamamoto specifically, something that had never once occurred in his experience.
How did he get there?
"..."
Thoughts churning. Not a single change in expression.
Talking would produce no useful answers here. In almost no time at all, Yamamoto made his decision.
Move first. Use experience to determine the ability from its effects.
Commit the moment you decide.
His right hand lifted. The blade in his hand made a single light slashing motion, and a sweep of blade-light flashed forward like a bolt of white cloth.
It split the distant Matsushita Yusuke in two.
"That's a sharp attack. I have to say... Captain-Commander Yamamoto, in a straight-up fight you would absolutely have me right now. At least at this point, no question."
Therefore.
"I've prepared something more interesting for you instead. A confrontation designed specifically for this occasion. That's my approach... heh, I hope you enjoy it."
The scattered figure twisted for a moment, then dissolved like smoke.
Gone again.
The feedback confirmed what Yamamoto already understood: that had not been a physical body. A shape constructed from reishi particles, made to look real.
So then.
"An ability that works through illusion and sensory interference. A Kido-type Zanpakuto designed to attack perception..."
Within the Gotei 13 there were more than a few fighters of this category. Classifying the opponent this way seemed like a reasonable enough conclusion.
But the moment that thought settled, Yamamoto heard more sounds, soft and quiet, spreading from all around him.
The ground began to tremble.
Fissures opened in the earth below. Through the cracks, faint, flickering light seeped upward, as though something unseen was building toward a threshold underground.
Until it reached that point.
Crack.
Something burst through the surface and clawed its way out.
Yamamoto lowered his gaze calmly and looked toward it.
It was a reishi cluster with a half-transparent body. Through the roughly formed, near-translucent outline, Yamamoto could make out something like internal patterning, a network of faint lines pulsing gently like veins.
Controlling reishi... assembling it into a humanoid shape and directing it against the opponent?
"A contemptible method."
He remarked on it, then let out a cold sound through his nose. He raised his right foot.
And brought it down.
CRASH!!!
The ground split apart as expected, like a buried dragon roaring and rolling beneath the surface. With Yamamoto at the center, the surrounding earth fractured in every direction and began sinking downward.
The nearer figures were caught in the wave instantly. Those closest absorbed the impact directly and were simply crushed apart without leaving any trace.
The force, backed by reiatsu, poured outward in all directions.
Yamamoto's expression was cold. His gaze was certain.
He had drawn enough power for this to eliminate that kind of trick in a single sweep.
And yet.
It didn't go as intended.
Not far away, a spirit body suddenly raised both hands and drove them downward against the ground beneath it.
A simple motion. Another surge of reiatsu emerged and sank into the earth, meeting Yamamoto's attack and pushing against it in a countervailing direction.
Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni's eyes widened slightly. An expression close to disbelief passed across his face.
The opponent had stopped his attack. Worth noting. Though this alone was not particularly remarkable, since he hadn't been using his real strength.
But what he was looking at right now was, in the most literal sense, a familiar face.
The figure was lean and wiry, short hair, apparent age around fifty, a diamond-shaped scar at the corner of one eyebrow.
It held its Zanpakuto raised and was watching Yamamoto in silence.
"Igarashi...?"
The fourth seat of Squad 1. Dead. Killed during the Quincy War.
Why was he here?
No...
Yamamoto's expression shifted sharply. He looked further out.
The spirit bodies he had not yet cleared were shifting. Distorting. Until each of them became...
Someone he recognized.
"Yamamoto."
Another voice came from behind.
Carrying a tone that made even Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni turn in startled disbelief toward the source.
The mightiest ghost he had buried with his own hands.
The man called Yhwach stood there, wearing a look of clear amusement.
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