Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 26 - Advancing Together — Breakthrough

The Reiatsu of the two Adjuchas-class Menos Grande faded and faded, moving further away until it finally vanished. Only then did Wayne's heart settle.

Once he confirmed the Gillian beside him was Nel, his pace picked up without thinking. He released what little Reiatsu he had left and swept the battlefield, a handful of Gillian still standing, all of them running on fumes. He brought them down, tore off their Hollow Masks, and fed them to Nel one by one.

When he was down to the last two masks, the glow around Nel finally turned translucent. That pale white light shifted, bleeding slowly into pink. Her form, dozens of meters tall, shrank steadily downward, two meters, then smaller still, until a Light Cocoon appeared before him, pink and luminous, like a polished gemstone.

"Hah... she finally evolved." Wayne looked at it for a long moment. "So this is what it looks like when a Gillian becomes an Adjuchas. It's beautiful."

He'd spent so long in this dim, chaotic wasteland. In a world this empty, that single bloom of pink had become the most brilliant thing he'd ever seen.

"...Lord Wayne." A soft voice reached his ear while he was still staring.

"Nel?" He blinked. "You're conscious?"

"Mm." One quiet syllable. The last tension in his chest dissolved.

"Good. That's..." He paused, and something unexpected moved through him, a sudden, absurd urge to cry. He'd been in this dark world so long he'd nearly forgotten what feelings were. Maybe that was why this felt like so much. "I thought you might forget me."

"Even when consciousness is lost at the Gillian stage, the memories carry over upon advancing to Adjuchas." Nel's voice was thick with gratitude. "Everything that happened — I remember all of it."

"Thank you, my lord. These past few years, you cared for me even when I was completely gone. I will never forget what Lord Wayne has done for me. Not for as long as I exist."

"It was nothing. We're companions." Wayne laughed. "Besides, you're the one who saved me against Yammy. I never even thanked you for that. Speaking of which — what actually happened after I went down? Why did you lose yourself and become a Gillian? And Yammy — what happened to him?"

"Lord Wayne, forgive me, I can't answer that right now." A pause. "I'm... about to fall asleep. How long this dormancy will last, I honestly don't know." As she spoke, a film of amber-gold light rose across the outermost layer of the cocoon. The whole thing began to sink, slowly, into the earth.

"Lord Wayne, please advance as soon as you can. I can feel it, your body is already close to its limit. The Reishi inside you is immense. The path of a Gillian is nothing like what you imagine. Once you advance, you'll understand far more about what we Hollows are. And everything that happened back then."

"Mm..." Wayne gave a small nod. He couldn't say exactly what becoming a Gillian would mean for him. But he knew one thing: over the years, protecting Nel had cost him countless chances to advance. Every time Reishi had surged toward him, pushing him toward the threshold, he had forced it down, refused contact entirely.

Maybe Nel was right. It was time.

Hmm...

A thread of pink light rose from within the cocoon. A piece of bone, flushed the deep red of rouge, drifted back and settled onto the Blade Claws of his right hand, the mark he had left on Nel years ago. Maintaining that tracking link had cost him. One segment of his blade had always been missing because of it.

"Lord Wayne, I've left a mark on you. And a fragment of my memories from that time. When I wake, I'll follow that trace to find you, wherever you are, even if you're no longer in this forest."

"Can I not stay here?"

"Which Forest of Menos calls us home isn't something we choose. Lord Wayne... I have to sleep now." A beat of silence. "May your strength carry you far."

There was more she wanted to say. He could feel it. But the dormancy arrived whether she was ready or not, and she had no choice but to let her words go unfinished. The Light Cocoon sank into the earth and took her with it.

"The Forest of Menos, huh." Wayne tilted his head back and looked at the sky. He exhaled slowly. His body went loose all at once, and without any effort on his part, it began drawing in the Reishi drifting through the air around him.

Years of running on edge had built up a weariness he hadn't noticed until now. With Nel safe in her cocoon, with the chase finally over, the knot that had lived in his chest for so long quietly came undone.

Uuuh...

With the tension gone, so was the suppression. The Reishi Wayne had been compressing for years broke free all at once.

The pull was immense. Reishi in the air around him began to tremble. Stream after stream of pale blue light coiled together and poured toward him from every direction.

"Heh. Barely stopped holding it back, and I'm already advancing?" Wayne felt the surge of Reiryoku rolling through him and felt the corner of his mouth pull into a grin beneath his Hollow Mask. He grabbed the last two Gillian masks and pushed them into his own mouth. One more log on the fire.

External Reishi. Gathered Reishi. His own. All of it converged inside him at once, spinning into a vortex, building and building until it became something enormous. Wayne drifted in the middle of it, soaking in that warmth like sunlight. It was the most relaxed he'd felt in years.

Somewhere in that warmth, he fell asleep. And somewhere in that sleep, the advancement came.

---

"Mm..."

He didn't know how much time had passed. Wayne surfaced from the depths of that drowsy warmth with a low, involuntary sound. His eyes opened.

Everything felt different.

"I... what—"

"Child." An ancient voice, deep and worn by time, resonated through his mind before he could get his bearings. "You're finally awake."

"Who's there!" He snapped to attention, then stopped. Three seconds, maybe less. He let the guard drop. There was no hostility in that voice. Only something like warmth. Like care that had accumulated over a very long time. He sorted his thoughts in the span of a breath. "You're... the Forest of Menos?"

"Heh heh. You're one of the rare ones." The voice held a note of fond amusement. "I am not Menos... no. Actually, yes. That's fine. You may call me that. The Forest of Menos."

"The Forest of Menos has a consciousness?" The words were out before he could stop them. He shut his mouth immediately.

"Yes and no. The Forest of Menos is only a part of me, the part where I raise my children. The nature of that relationship... I'll explain when you're stronger. Too much too soon does you no good."

"Fair enough. The consciousness alone is already more than I can fully take in. Even if you told me everything, I'm not sure I'd understand it."

Wayne kept the rest of his questions to himself. After the advancement, he'd already grasped quite a bit on his own.

"Can I stay in this forest?"

"Of course, my child." The ancient voice was gentle. "Only those children who have lost their way on the path of evolution need my guidance. You may choose wherever you wish to make your home. May you grow stronger on the road ahead.

"Your origins are not the same as my other children's. Because of that, I will give you something more, knowledge of Hueco Mundo's laws, and of the traits and abilities unique to you. Remember: do not speak of me to anyone. We will meet again."

A soft white light settled over him. Something new appeared in his mind, quietly, completely, all at once. Then the light faded, and the world snapped back into focus.

"Hah..." Wayne breathed in deep. He looked around.

He was enormous. Over fifteen meters tall. A Gillian.

Black outer robe. Pale white body. A massive hollow hole at his center. But his face wasn't like the others, no clown's mask. What covered it instead was something closer to armor, layered and solid, built for far greater protection.

"So I'm already a Gillian." He said it quietly, almost to himself. "Cero... so that's what it is."

What the Forest of Menos had given him wasn't only knowledge of Hueco Mundo's laws. It was also the ability every Gillian carries: Cero.

No two Gillian fire the same Cero. Every Hollow's traits are distinct, and their Cero reflects that, unique, specific to them. Only a rare few Hollows have wavelengths compatible enough to complement each other.

At the Gillian level, though, there is one exception. Consciousness. A Gillian without it can only release the most basic form, that flat, dark red beam. A Gillian who retains consciousness can draw on the specific character of its own Reiryoku and fire something entirely different.

And now Wayne understood. Why Nel had lost herself. Why, at the very last moment, her Cero Doble had activated anyway.

He touched the mark she had left on him and began to read through what it held.

First: after Wayne had taken severe damage, Nel had poured every last drop of her Reiryoku into her Healing Ability.

Then, to keep him alive, she had forced her own evolution, the kind that triggers when the Reiryoku threshold has been reached but the Reiryoku itself is no longer sufficient.

That kind of evolution flips instantly. A Hollow with Nel's potential would normally keep her consciousness intact when becoming a Gillian. But forced evolution carries a price: the consciousness begins to unravel. With insufficient Reiryoku to anchor it, her awareness bled away slowly over time, until nothing remained, and the Forest of Menos called her home.

Yammy's ability was accumulating Reiatsu, but he was still only a High Hollow at that point. One Cero from Nel was enough. He left behind a parting threat and ran.

After that, Nel stayed beside Wayne and healed him with everything she had left, until the last of her consciousness was gone. Then she moved, blank-eyed, one step at a time, like a puppet following an invisible string, toward the Forest of Menos.

That was why, when Wayne finally woke up, Nel hadn't gone far at all. It wasn't that he had only slept for a week. It was that Nel had only been forced to leave a week ago. That was the truth of the battle. That was the truth of how he was still alive.

After he woke, Wayne had tracked her all the way to the Forest of Menos. The Hollow Masks he'd fed her along the route let her grow fast, even without a shred of consciousness, a Gillian accelerating toward its limit. By the time of that final advancement battle, her Reiryoku was nearly sufficient. And then her passive ability did the rest.

Cero Doble.

As long as an incoming attack didn't exceed what her body could absorb, she could fuse it with her own Reiryoku and fire it straight back. It didn't require thought. It didn't require awareness. It was simply a part of her.

That was what had saved her. No consciousness, no intention, just an ability working exactly as it was meant to. Everything had fallen into place as naturally as if it had been planned from the start.

Wayne finished sifting through the memories Nel had passed to him. Then he turned his attention inward, taking stock of himself, and began to examine what he had become.

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