"I'll pass on that."
Honestly.
The mont those words ca out of his mouth, Matsushita Yusuke braced himself.
Because the predictable outco was that Soifon would blow up, start yelling, and possibly hit him again twice as hard.
Go ahead. Do your worst.
But the storm didn't arrive.
He waited. Nothing.
Matsushita Yusuke cracked one eye open cautiously, watching through a narrow gap.
Soifon was looking at him with an expression of genuine confusion.
Not anger. Not contempt. Just a searching look, the kind that ant she was trying to work sothing out.
"You're... serious?"
She actually wants to hear out. That's new.
"If you're willing to listen, I can explain."
"No. Never mind."
Soifon released her grip on his sleeve.
She stepped back half a pace. The frown was still there, but the edge in her voice had gone down considerably.
"You're not the kind of person who goes looking for trouble. If you've reached so kind of decision, you've probably thought it through."
When she actually settled, Soifon's read on people was sharp.
She said, slowly:
"You don't owe an explanation. I was just worried you might end up dead because of this. If you've got your own plan, that's fine."
She was about to turn and leave. Matsushita Yusuke couldn't help it.
"Aren't you curious what I'm thinking?"
Soifon stopped. Considered for a mont, then said quietly:
"Everyone has things they keep to themselves. I'm not going to go digging around in sothing that isn't my business. You've got your reasons. Knowing that is enough."
The fact that she would one day step up and hold things together when Yoruichi left: it wasn't purely a matter of being able to fight. This right here was part of it too.
Real discretion. Not perford, just there.
"Also..."
Matsushita Yusuke was still sowhere in that thought when Soifon's voice ca again from a few steps away.
She reached up and tapped the small pouch at her hip, tone light.
"I'm only thinking through how to help you get out of this safely because of this thing. That's all. Take care of yourself."
She raised her right hand without looking back. A single brief wave, fingers slender and precise, then she was gone.
Her silhouette disappeared.
Matsushita Yusuke stood where he was and sat with it for a while, turning it over until the aning ca clear.
Let translate that.
Was she just saying: you gave sothing, I care about you because of it, so I want to help?
That was actually kind of a sweet thing to say. So why did it co out with absolutely zero warmth?
So people just operated that way. He'd thought about it enough to find it more funny than frustrating. Soifon was exactly that kind of person. Think about her too hard and she'd make you laugh before she made you feel anything else.
Anyway.
She cares. That's what matters.
And there were plenty of ways to deal with a personality like hers over ti.
With that settled, Matsushita Yusuke patted his own cheek once and got his head back in order.
Focus. Tonight's entry exam. That's the priority. Even setting aside everything Soifon had just done for him, he needed to go in at full capacity.
He drifted through the last two classes without retaining anything, packed up, made a quick stop at the dormitory to drop off his things, and slipped quietly over the wall and out of the Academy grounds.
Seireitei after dark was livelier than it might have looked.
Despite the feudal setting, there were plenty of restaurants and drinking spots that ran through the night. Which made a formal curfew essentially pointless. The guards patrolled more than usual at this hour, mostly to make sure anyone who had too much to drink didn't wander sowhere they shouldn't. Nobody was checking papers.
So Matsushita Yusuke walked without any particular disguise.
The only real friction point was getting through the outer walls.
As he'd understood from before, Seireitei's four main gates separated the inner city from the Rukongai, and they were not casual checkpoints. The reason Academy students had ever been able to move through them was the internship program, and even then it required captain-level escort. That option wasn't available to him tonight.
So how exactly was this supposed to work?
He didn't worry about it for long. Aizen had told him to wait at the east gate. Soone would co for him.
He arrived half an hour early. The area was nearly empty: just the gate sentries and nothing else moving.
He was still turning the logistics over in his head when he heard a familiar voice behind him.
"Matsushita-kun. Sorry to keep you waiting."
He turned.
Tosen Kana was walking toward him at an easy pace.
Him? What was he doing here?
Tosen ca alongside him and said, without any particular preamble:
"I'll get you out of Seireitei."
"...Oh. Right. Okay. Thank you."
The response took a second longer than it should have. His brain caught up roughly a beat after his mouth did.
But: you'll get out? How?
The sentry rotation at the east gate had close to twenty people on it. Each of them was a registered Shinigami, which ant the baseline level of the weakest among them was already past ordinary. Taking out that many quietly, without killing anyone, required vice-captain level minimum. And killing them wasn't an option regardless: sentries reported in at regular intervals, and a missed check-in would flag an incident at the top of Seireitei's command structure faster than anything else.
Matsushita Yusuke didn't voice any of this. He just watched Tosen walk calmly ahead toward the checkpoint periter.
"Don't worry, Matsushita-kun. Aizen-sama asked to bring you through. Just follow."
He said it without turning his head, then stepped into the firelight of the torches ringing the gate.
The sentries reacted imdiately. Voices called out from multiple directions, overlapping.
That's bad. They've already seen him.
But Tosen drew his blade with the sa unhurried composure he did everything with, and said, quietly, as if talking to sothing just below the threshold of hearing:
"Sing, Suzumushi..."
A soft note rang out.
One clear, small sound.
And then, spreading outward from it, a long, sustained resonance.
****
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