Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 32 - The End of the Pursuit

Chapter Thirty-Two: The End of the Chase

It didn't take long. The Lord of the Northern Forest led his subordinates back to the core nest where they all resided, the Northern Forest Nest.

This was his dwelling, and the heart of the entire forest.

The nest ran underground: a complex, interlocking subterranean space. Beyond its many entrances and exits, it connected to the entire underground network of the Forest of Menos. Every zone had a hidden entrance and exit, and every zone had an Adjuchas-class standing guard at the opening. However many Adjuchas were under the Sandworm Menos's control, that was how many zones there were.

This was how the Lord of the Northern Forest controlled the entire forest. Scatter Adjuchas guards across the cave mouths, establish dominion over each territory, consolidate his own centralized power.

The moment they returned, he ordered his subordinates to resume searching for Riat's whereabouts.

Here, Yadelus's Perception Sound Waves could travel continuously through the cave's structure, feeding back out through every entrance and exit into each domain, tracking every living creature within the forest.

The method of identification was simple: the distinct Reiatsu fluctuations and scents unique to each Adjuchas-class. Anything below Adjuchas-class went undetected, their numbers were too vast, their feedback too faint. Practically nothing.

Gillian-level feedback already carried a recognizable waveform, identifiable by the character of their Reiatsu. Unconscious Gillians produced nearly identical waveforms. Only Gillians with true consciousness could actively engage their own traits and generate something distinct.

Adjuchas-class, needless to say, produced waveforms that were not only massive but entirely unique to each individual. Certain Hollows with special abilities were the exception.

Once this method lost the support of the underground nest, its effectiveness dropped to half. That was precisely why the Sandworm Menos had rushed back to the Northern Forest Nest so quickly.

And so, with the cave's network carrying sound across the entire forest, every movement within it fell within Yadelus's perception. However...

"M-My lord..." After a round of probing, Yadelus's trembling voice rose slowly from below the nest's main seat. "This subordinate has just surveyed the entire Forest of Menos and detected no trace of Riat's Reiatsu."

"What?" The Lord of the Northern Forest's expression darkened. "And that little worm?"

"A-Also... nowhere to be found..." As the nest's most powerful perceiver, Yadelus had now given an answer that sent a chill down even his own spine. He was terrified that this reply might make the Lord of the Northern Forest tear him apart on the spot.

"This subordinate surveyed every region. No trace of that worm's Reiatsu. Even Riat's has vanished without a trace."

Hissss...

Every Adjuchas in the Northern Forest Nest stirred at once, a ripple of disbelief moving through the chamber. They all knew Riat was the lord's most favored subordinate. That he would go silent while chasing a Gillian-class nobody, this was something none of them could wrap their heads around, let alone have anticipated.

"..." The Lord of the Northern Forest was beyond words. His savage Reiatsu erupted straight up, punched through the ceiling of the nest, and burst open into the air above. "FIND THEM!" His roar shook the entire nest. "Dig three feet into the ground if you have to — find Riat and that worm!"

One order. Every Adjuchas poured out at once, dispersing toward cave openings in every direction across the forest, hoping to drag Riat back before their lord's fury consumed something worse.

But the Forest of Menos was vast. Crossing it in half a day was nearly impossible.

Not for them. Not for Riat. And certainly not for Wayne. So when it came to how this had all played out,

Either the two of them had blundered into the Sandy Expanse mid-chase and passed through to the Inner Circle, or they had destroyed each other. Beyond those two answers, the Lord of the Northern Forest could find no reasonable explanation.

Yet both had problems.

First: if a Sandy Expanse leading to the Inner Circle had appeared along Wayne's escape route, even if the little worm was willing to jump in, Riat would have pulled up before the Sandy Expanse and come back to report.

The second option he dismissed without a second thought. A mid-tier Gillian killing a mid-tier Adjuchas was impossible. Rank, tier, Reiatsu, the suppression ran across every dimension.

And yet Riat had not returned. Even his Reiatsu had gone cold. Was he really supposed to believe that somewhere in this vast forest there existed a being with Reiatsu close to his own — something on the verge of advancing to Vasto Lorde-class — that had cut Riat down in an instant?

Even less likely. If a Hollow at that level existed here, his subordinates would have found it long ago. He'd never have let something like that go unchecked until now.

Or, perhaps some Gillian had suddenly advanced, become an Adjuchas, and taken Riat down?

Just how combat-seasoned would a Hollow have to be to overturn a mid-tier Adjuchas at the initial stage?

The Lord of the Northern Forest didn't let himself think too hard about it. He pushed his subordinates out in full force to find the truth. But days passed, and the Forest of Menos yielded nothing. As for Wayne, he had long since gone completely dark.

Why things turned out that way...

Rewind.

After Wayne threw things into chaos for the Lord of the Northern Forest, he activated his Concealment trait and ran.

With his current strength, full invisibility strong enough to shake Riat's pursuit was out of reach. But dropping his Reiatsu low and blurring his movements into something hazy and hard to track, that he could manage. Add in the precise calculations running through his head at every moment, and throughout the entire chase, Riat could do no better than hang a few hundred meters behind him. And that gap was slowly widening.

It wasn't that Riat lacked the will to close it. The problem was that faint, on-again-off-again Reiatsu signature made him hard to pin down. Deep inside the forest, the dense canopy shrank his field of vision further. He had no choice but to inch forward step by step, reading the Reiatsu and adjusting.

The only moments Riat could lock on were when Wayne carelessly vented a larger surge of Reiatsu to recover, then Riat would snap onto a direction and pour everything into closing the gap.

One fled. One chased. A full hour of it. Don't underestimate an hour of running at full sprint, for Menos Grande, it covered an enormous stretch of ground.

But Riat was growing tired of the game. He unleashed his Reiatsu and ran at full power. The gap between them had always been wide, and Wayne was already running on fumes. After just a few breaths, the Reiryoku in his body ran dry. His speed bled away. His Concealment failed. He stood completely exposed.

BOOM!

The great tree Wayne had pressed himself against exploded as Riat drove straight through it. Wayne rolled clear, barely avoiding the impact, a hit that would have put him down hard.

"Stinking worm. Low rank, decent tricks." Riat's mask twisted into something ugly as he found his prey again. "Go on, run. Why'd you stop?"

"Hah... hah..." Wayne didn't react to the taunt. He just breathed, pulling in the Reishi from the air in great lungfuls. Even a sliver of recovery was a sliver of hope.

Riat wasn't going to give him time to collect it.

His body vanished. The next instant he was behind Wayne, a dark-red Cero already taking shape at his mouth.

Sonído, a technique only Adjuchas-class could master. Against an equal, it was just a high-speed movement tool. Against someone several rungs below, it became something else entirely.

A fear that had no other name descended on Wayne. He watched the enemy in front of him disappear and threw himself left on instinct.

It wasn't enough. His speed had no answer for a point-blank Adjuchas-class Cero. In the instant he lunged, a blood-red beam tore past him, the Reiatsu pressure rolling off it like a wave. His Gillian-class arm, the whole massive limb, was gone. Blasted into nothing.

The blood hadn't even had time to flow before the Cero's heat evaporated it into Reishi. His right shoulder was scorched black. The pain hit first. The stench of burning came right behind it.

"Ugh..." The blast's shockwave sent Wayne tumbling. He rolled across the ground for dozens of meters before a massive needle tree stopped him. He'd managed to throw his left hand up in time to shield his Hollow Mask, which should have shattered, and kept it whole. The price was his left hand smashing into the tree trunk hard enough to crack the bones.

"Hmph. Stinking worm. Know your place." Riat's tone dripped contempt. "Just who gave you the nerve to go against my lord?"

"Heh." Wayne pushed himself upright against the tree at his back. He knew he was probably going to die here. Good, no reason to hold his tongue. "I may be weak. But I still won't bow to a real worm." He said it and started quietly drawing together every last scrap of Reiatsu he had left. If he was going to die, he was taking this insect with him.

"Ignorant ant — still flapping your mouth!" Wayne's words hit home. The shell on Riat's back split open. Semi-transparent wings unfolded from within, and his massive body launched straight at Wayne like a thrown spear.

"ROAR!" Wayne had been building for this. He threw his mouth open. A massive Cero erupted and drove straight for Riat's face.

What was Riat's rank? A full stage above Wayne, an Adjuchas-class Menos Grande. Facing a Gillian's Cero, Riat didn't flinch. Didn't even bother to dodge. He opened his mouth and fired back with a Cero of his own, stronger, larger, and the two beams collided. The sound tore through the forest.

The surrounding trees were flung outward from the impact, reduced to wreckage.

When the dust settled, what had been a dense stretch of woodland was now a bare clearing, raw and jagged against the surrounding forest.

One of the two who'd made it stood unscathed at the center. The other lay collapsed on the ground, body burned all over, alive or dead unknown.

"Hmph. The posture of an ant." Riat looked down at Wayne and snorted. The Reiatsu at his mouth began gathering again, a dark-red stream of light pooling between his jaws and taking shape.

"The weak have only submission — or death."

A final verdict. The moment the words left his mouth, Riat fired.

Wayne watched the blood-red Cero close in on him from the ground. He let out a quiet breath and let his body go slack.

He had nothing left. No way to dodge. Was this it?

He didn't want this. But he couldn't do a thing about it.

A strange calm moved through him, the sliding reel of a life reviewing itself.

He had been in this dim, lightless world for over a decade. Still weak, in the end. But the time itself, at least he couldn't say he'd wasted it.

A second life, one he'd had no right to expect. He hadn't spent it entirely on his knees, either. He'd carved out a territory, called himself a ruler of it. He'd fought alongside people he trusted. And somewhere along the way, in all that darkness, he'd found something that bloomed clean and white.

He'd never climbed past Gillian. But the ride had been worth something.

His last life had given him no power. This one had shown him what it felt like to have it.

His last life had been a black world of schemes and knives pointed in every direction. This one had given him people who were genuinely, almost bewilderingly, good.

In his last life he'd never let his guard down for a single moment. In this one, tired as he always was, he could crawl into a hollow tree and sleep, really sleep, because someone he trusted was standing watch.

Short. But full. Dying here wasn't a tragedy. Not really.

I wonder how Nel is doing. The thought came to him on the edge. She should be about to evolve into an Adjuchas by now.

Once she hits Adjuchas-class, she can protect herself. Just... a shame I won't get to go see this world with her. Really is a shame.

The last red light in Wayne's hollow Gillian eyes dimmed and went out. He closed them. And waited.

BOOM!

The Cero hit.

The world turned dark crimson. Without opening his eyes Wayne could feel the shift in the air, the pressure rolling in from every direction. The heat was almost here. In another moment it would tear him apart.

"...Hm?"

One second.

Two.

No pain. Not even warmth.

His eyes opened.

What he saw gave him back something he thought was already gone.

A pink silhouette, small, almost impossibly small, standing between him and the dark-red Cero. Holding it there. Not giving an inch.

Half antelope, half human. A gazelle-faced Hollow Mask concealed whatever lay beneath. And the Cero that should have ended Wayne was flowing into her mouth, steady and continuous, like water drawn down a drain.

The crimson light poured into that tiny frame and kept going. Less than five seconds. Then it was gone, every last trace of it swallowed. What remained was a figure that looked ready to burst, standing between Wayne and everything that had wanted to kill him.

The red shifted. Transformed. And then a Cero, thicker than what had come in, faster, fired back the way it had come. Pink light swept across the clearing, lit the ruined trees, washed color across ground that had been nothing but ash and scorched earth.

CERO DOBLE.

Nel.

It was Nel.

She had come for him. And she had advanced to Adjuchas-class.

➤ Next: Nel Returns