Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 86 - Tia Harribel

Harribel appeared without warning.

She stepped between Wayne and Mila Rose in an instant, her blade flashing through the air and cleaving his sword beam apart with raw authority.

Golden hair. A Hollow Mask that left her eyes bare, shark teeth set into its edges. Hierro-forged armor wrapped tight around her body, and two long bone spines jutted from her shoulder blades, the mark of a predator. Her right forearm was sheathed deep inside a massive white sword. Golden Reiatsu rolled off her in steady waves, every pulse of it aimed squarely at Wayne.

"Whoever you are — leave my territory."

She didn't attack. She couldn't afford to. Wayne's Reiatsu was surging, and her three Adjuchas were already struggling to stand under it. If he went after them directly, she wouldn't be able to protect all three. So she held the line and waited.

"Tia Harribel."

Wayne's eyes sharpened with interest. He had never seen her in this form, before Arrancarification, before she became an Espada. He had to admit it: a Vasto Lorde who was naturally humanoid was something to envy. Her Hollow Mask had never covered her full face. Her hair was almost entirely intact. That was the privilege of someone born at the Vasto Lorde level, the transformation simply had less to take.

Still. He had climbed to that same level, step by step, from nothing. And in his own way, he'd come out ahead. No bone spines crowding his body. No massive sword restricting his movement. His right claw had been awkward once, back when he first reached this tier, but by now he had recovered nearly all the dexterity he'd had as a human. Just himself.

"You know who I am." It wasn't a question. Harribel hadn't moved, hadn't lowered her guard by a degree.

"Heard about you from Baraggan's side."

"Baraggan." Something shifted in her voice, not quite suspicion, not quite surprise. She knew the name. Baraggan had sent subordinates to her territory more than once, sometimes to negotiate, sometimes to fight. But the Hollows under him all called him Your Majesty. Nobody in his camp said his name out loud.

Which meant the male Vasto Lorde in front of her was either completely unaffiliated with Baraggan, or he stood on equal footing with him.

She glanced past Wayne toward the cliff. Shak was up there, watching. She looked back at the Reiatsu still pouring off Wayne's frame.

The second option was more likely.

"Then what do you actually want from me?"

"I want you to join my faction."

A beat of quiet. Then a look crossed her face, cold, flat contempt.

"Our lady would never join a faction of stinking males!" Mila Rose was already snarling, her gold lion mask shifting with every word. "Give it up!"

"Exactly! Whoever you are, just get lost already! Our lady is—"

"Enough. Mila Rose. Apache." Harribel's voice cut through cleanly. Both of them stopped. She understood the math. If this Vasto Lorde lost his patience, she couldn't protect all three of them. Not in the same breath.

"Sir." Her tone had cooled to something almost formal. "There is no need to pursue this. All we want is to support each other and survive in Hueco Mundo. We have already faced more than enough rejection."

"I'm not Baraggan," Wayne said. "I don't have a problem with female companions. There are female Adjuchas in my faction. My closest partner is also female."

He had caught what Harribel meant. The rejection she was describing wasn't abstract, it was lived. When she had first found Mila Rose and Sun-Sun, they had likely already been driven out of other factions, hunted down simply for existing. In all of Hueco Mundo, females made up less than thirty percent of the Hollow population. That gap bred contempt, and contempt bred violence. A Vasto Lorde-level female was the strongest shield those three could have ever found.

He knew exactly what they were afraid of.

"Nel. Come down."

His voice carried across the white expanse to the cliff. A moment later, Nel dropped from the edge, Shak beside her, both landing lightly at Wayne's side.

"Master." Nel stepped forward, and a faint pink Reiatsu had already begun drifting from her body, her gaze sharpening as she looked at the group ahead. "Are we fighting them?"

"No. We're here to negotiate." Wayne reached over and ruffled her head, then gestured down. She got the message and let the Reiatsu settle.

"Oh~" A soft sound, and she pulled it back.

Wayne turned back to Harribel. "This is my closest partner. She's female. That's part of why I'm making this offer. Our faction isn't what you're picturing, so I hope, "

"Stop wasting words!"

Apache's voice cracked out like a slap. Her history didn't need explaining. From the moment she had entered the inner territory, male Hollows had hunted her without end. If Harribel hadn't found her, she would have died at the hands of a male Adjuchas long before now.

"You didn't threaten this female into it, did you? Hey, if you're being coerced, just say something. We'll, "

"Shut up."

Wayne's patience was gone. Bringing Nel forward had been the most goodwill he was willing to show. This Adjuchas talking over him like this, he wasn't going to let it pass. His Reiatsu surged to its peak in a single beat. Vasto Lorde-level pressure crashed down over all three of them at once, pinning them where they stood.

WHOOSH!

He was gone.

"This is bad, Apache, move—"

Harribel was already spinning, but she was already too late. Wayne stood in front of Apache. His hand came down on her head.

"Lady Harribel, help—"

The light went out behind Apache's Hollow Mask. Starting from the head, her body began to disappear, fading piece by piece until there was nothing left, as though she had never been standing there at all.

"Bastard!"

Mila Rose lunged. Sun-Sun swept her tail from behind. They came at him from two directions at once.

Apache hadn't been with them long. The three of them bickered constantly. But under Harribel's roof, they had at least stopped being prey, no more males hunting them down, no more running. And now, in a single exchange, Apache's Reiatsu had simply ceased to exist. The rage and the despair hit them like a wave.

"Mila Rose! Sun-Sun! Stop!"

Harribel moved to intervene, and Nel was already there, a flicker of Sonído and she was blocking the path, standing between Harribel and the fight behind them.

Nel at her peak couldn't beat Harribel outright. But holding her long enough to buy Wayne those seconds? That was a different question.

"Move." Harribel's voice was flat.

"I'm sorry." Nel's Reiatsu began to rise, slow and steady. "I can't let you interfere with Wayne."

She wasn't pushing for a fight. She didn't need to. A few seconds was all Wayne needed, and three Adjuchas would be gone. And this was only a mild lesson, anyway. Nel had experienced that ability herself, once. She knew exactly what it meant. As long as Wayne didn't release it, Apache wasn't coming back.

"You—"

Harribel started to raise her Reiatsu. But the fight behind her was already over.

Less than ten seconds. Apache's Reiatsu simply gone. Sun-Sun kicked into a spatial rift. Mila Rose pressed face-first into the ground by a single hand, unable to move.

Mid-tier Adjuchas. To Wayne right now, they were nothing. The three who would one day be called the Tres Bestias, subdued, contained, and pinned, almost without effort.

"Let me repeat myself." Wayne pressed down harder. Mila Rose let out a whimper she couldn't hold back. "I only wanted to talk. Don't make this harder than it needs to be."

"Let her go." Harribel's voice had changed. "I'll talk."

She had already lost two companions in a single exchange. She had built everything around the idea of avoiding that, around never letting sacrifice happen again. That was why she had brought Apache in, why she had brought Sun-Sun in. Her vision had always been a faction without killing, without loss. Any enemy too strong for her alone, she would face together with her companions.

But Hueco Mundo didn't care about visions. It was a world where the strong ate the weak, and even within Wayne's own faction there were hunts, absorptions, the same cold calculus. The utopia she was reaching for didn't exist here.

Unless she could reach the living world one day, live in human form under laws that meant something. Only then would there even be a chance. And only a chance.

"Ready to talk now?" Wayne lifted his hand from Mila Rose's head, but he didn't stand up. He stayed half-seated on her back, unhurried, which filled Mila Rose with a humiliation she swallowed in complete silence. "Keep your people in line."

"Take me over." He gave Mila Rose a pat on the head. He had spent enough time riding Nel that switching to a lion was a welcome change. The fur beneath the mask was genuinely satisfying.

"You're despicable..." The words stayed in Mila Rose's head, locked behind her teeth. She carried him forward, one step at a time, toward Harribel.

"'Keep your people in line,'" she muttered. "Apache and Sun-Sun are already dead because of you."

"Who told you they're dead?" Wayne raised a hand and knocked lightly on her lion's head. Then he snapped his fingers.

Apache reappeared exactly where she had vanished.

"Uwaaah!"

The moment she hit the ground, her moose-formed body crumpled and began convulsing, limbs shaking without control.

"Apache!" Harribel crossed the distance in a Sonído and dropped to her side.

"M... my lady..." Apache was gasping, wide-eyed, pulling herself out of something that felt like drowning. "What happened to me? It felt like I actually died."

"It's over now." Harribel reached out and rubbed her head, voice softer than it had been in minutes. She was already analyzing quietly. Whatever ability Wayne had used, if Apache could come back from it, then Sun-Sun might also be...

"Can we talk properly now?" Wayne rode up on Mila Rose and stopped beside them.

"Sir." Harribel looked up at him. She still couldn't read his abilities, still couldn't measure his ceiling. She had no real leverage. With one of her companions still in Wayne's hands, of unknown fate, she had little choice. "What is it you actually want?"

"Same as before. Tia Harribel, I'm inviting you and your companions to join my faction. Are you willing?"

"You, " Apache's jaw moved, something hot already rising in her chest, but the Reiatsu Wayne let slip and the cold flat look in his eyes froze it solid before it reached her mouth.

"Sir." Harribel's tone had leveled back out to something distant and deliberate. "Why are you this fixed on having me join? We have no conflicting interests. No direct confrontation." She paused. "We are Hollows living in the cracks of Hueco Mundo. Why, "

"And why do you lead three Adjuchas drifting through Hueco Mundo?" Wayne cut her off.

Silence.

"...So that none of us have to sacrifice anyone else," she said, finally. "To unite whatever strength can be united."

"Against absolute power, do you genuinely believe that so-called unity makes any difference?" He kept going. "Do you think your strength is enough to shelter them in Hueco Mundo?"

"If there is an enemy I cannot defeat alone," Harribel said, "then I believe my companions and I can defeat them together."

Wayne was quiet for a long moment.

"...Foolish."

He said it plainly. No heat, no contempt, just a conclusion.

"That kind of thinking doesn't work in Hueco Mundo. That Baraggan considers you a thorn in his side at all is something I genuinely can't understand."

Maybe it was the confidence that came with power. Maybe it was the image of her that had built up in his head, the Shark Empress, Tia Harribel post-Arrancarification, a presence that had always felt immense and unyielding. But standing here in front of the real thing, listening to her talk about unity and sacrifice and never losing anyone, Wayne found himself wondering if that version he'd carried in his head was something the Arrancarification aura had created, not the person underneath it.

Because the Arrancar Harribel had been cut down by Aizen in a single strike. After that, imprisoned by the Wandenreich. The queen of Hueco Mundo, and her reign had been bitter and brief. Though perhaps that made more sense now, the ancient Hollow beasts and the Hollow kings had not yet appeared at that point in the story. With that tier absent from the board, it was possible for a mid-tier Vasto Lorde Arrancar to rise to the throne.

But if Arrancar Harribel couldn't survive one blow from Aizen, then what could Wayne do against him, right now, at his current level?

The thought settled into him like a stone dropping through water.

He had climbed. Step by step, from the very bottom, one level at a time. He had finally started to feel like he was standing at the top of something.

And reality had just slapped him across the face.

Not enough. He had to keep getting stronger.

➤ Next: Wayne vs. Harribel