Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 87 - Wayne vs. Harribel

Chapter Eighty-Seven

"I can't understand your way of thinking." After a long silence, Wayne spoke again.

"No one needs to understand it. I am simply doing what I believe is right." Harribel had no intention of abandoning her convictions because of a few words from him. Ever since her birth, she had survived in Hueco Mundo by holding to that belief.

"I can't understand your way of thinking. But I can offer you and yours a faction where you no longer need to run. And you, as a top-tier combatant, would only need to help me repel enemies when my territory comes under threat."

"Hmm?" She had expected the conversation to end badly, or perhaps in a fight. She had not expected Wayne to extend an olive branch even now.

"This doesn't violate your principles, does it?" Wayne's attitude had shifted. From her perspective, it probably looked like he had simply grown tired of dragging things out. In truth, Wayne was irritated by the thought of Aizen's strength. He was no longer willing to waste time. He had to raise his own power as quickly as possible.

And so, stripped of her Arrancar halo in Wayne's eyes, Harribel was no longer that important to him.

Taking her in would be ideal. If he couldn't, Wayne didn't mind adding to his own strength right here.

"So why did you come looking for me?" Harribel's eyes were filled with wariness.

"Miss Harribel." Beside Wayne, Nel, sensing the shift in his mood, stepped into the conversation at the right moment. "Our faction has been building under Lord Wayne's hand since the days of the Forest of Menos, and we have walked together all the way to where we stand now. From the Forest of Menos, to entering Hueco Mundo, to establishing a foothold.

"In the end, Lord Wayne used his own strength to forge an alliance with the Skull Emperor, Baraggan, and earned that emperor's respect with the power of an initial-rank Vasto Lorde. Now, Lord Wayne and Baraggan are preparing to march into the lawless regions of Hueco Mundo. Both our faction as a whole and Lord Wayne's immediate side need top-tier fighters to help us break new ground and expand our territory."

"So you are Baraggan's allies after all." Harribel's gaze grew heavy. "I'm sorry. Tempting as your offer may be, I refuse to stand alongside that rabble of Baraggan's."

"It is not a matter of joining Baraggan, but of joining Lord Wayne's camp. Our faction lies in the far west of Hueco Mundo. If you are willing, we can take you to see it for yourself. There is no harm in that for you."

"No thank you. Please allow me to decline."

"Stubborn." Wayne's tone edged toward irritation. "Fine then. Let's fight. The most common way among Hollows, you win, do whatever you like with me. You lose, either join, or die."

"You and I have no grudge between us. Why do you press me this hard?" Harribel's golden Reiatsu had already begun to stir.

"I need combat strength, and you happen to have it. It's that simple. That paradise you speak of, perhaps you'll get to experience it after you've reincarnated as a human."

"A human?" An unfamiliar word entered Harribel's mind. It wasn't that she had no knowledge of the living world or of humans, only that she knew very little about them. After all, she had been in the inner reaches of Hueco Mundo from the moment of her birth. She had never had the opportunity to open a Garganta and venture into the living world. More precisely, the ability to open a Garganta was not even something Harribel was necessarily capable of using.

"There's nothing more to say. I'll repeat it once: you win, you walk free. You lose, either join my camp, or die!" With that, Wayne said no more. He had already driven his Reiatsu to its peak, and the Sky-Rending Greatsword materialized in his hand in an instant. A single Sonído carried him directly in front of Harribel, and he brought the blade crashing down straight at her head.

CLANG!

The sound of metal collision rang out. Harribel raised the Imperial Shark Greatsword in her hand to meet Wayne's attack head-on, but the sheer force behind it nearly drove her to her knees.

"Such overwhelming strength!" Harribel thought in silent shock. They were both initial-rank Vasto Lordes — so why was this male's physical power so much greater than hers?

Harribel was still turning that thought over in her mind, but Wayne wasn't thinking that deeply. He simply had a well-matched opponent in front of him to use as a sparring partner, and chances like that weren't easy to come by.

And so, setting aside everything else and making no use of his ability to suppress by sheer rule, Wayne prepared to face Harribel in a genuine clash of strength.

Ha!

Wayne let out a fierce shout. A pale-gold Cero gathered before him. The point-blank range gave Harribel no room — her eyes went wide. The pressure of the greatsword against her left her feet unable to move. There was no dodging it. Harribel had no choice but to force her Reiatsu higher to meet the Cero head-on.

BOOM!

Smoke and scorching blast-wind scattered in every direction. The explosion from the pale-gold Cero swallowed both of them whole.

"Lady Harribel!" Outside the fighting circle, Apache and the others called out for their lord in alarm, yet not one of them dared step forward. In a battle between two Vasto Lorde-class fighters, a single misstep would make them a burden to their own lord. On the other side, Nel kept silent, her eyes fixed quietly on the interior of the fighting circle.

She had complete faith that Wayne would not be hurt by his own attack.

Soon the smoke cleared. Harribel, blasted back by the Cero, still stood on the opposite side from Wayne. But from her somewhat ragged breathing, it was plain that the sudden Cero she had failed to anticipate had cost her a significant amount of Reiatsu to block.

"Not only is his strength remarkable, his Cero hits no less hard. A Cero at that level of power is already closing in on my Cero Oscuras." Harribel swung the greatsword in her right hand in a wide arc, and golden Reiatsu radiated from the Imperial Shark Greatsword in rolling, wave-like surges.

Soon, the golden Reiatsu shifted into pale-blue flowing water and surged toward Wayne.

"Cascada!"

A high-temperature, high-pressure column of water drove straight at Wayne. Watching the scalding steam rising from that torrent, the eyes beneath Wayne's Hollow Mask narrowed slightly, and he simultaneously gathered a massive Sword Gleam.

"Space-Rending Slash!"

By now, Wayne's Space-Rending Slash was no longer limited to close range. He could channel Reiatsu outward to form a massive Sword Gleam, and after being laced with spatial properties, the Space-Rending Slash had truly reached the point of tearing through space itself, carrying the power to wound enemies at a distance.

The massive Sword Gleam drove straight into the scorching water column and split it instantly. The Sword Gleam's power did not diminish, it continued flying toward Harribel.

"Don't count on it!" Harribel pushed her Reiatsu higher, and the flow speed and diameter of the water column surged at once. The oncoming Sword Gleam buckled under that second surge of pressure and finally shattered, evaporating beneath the column of water.

But it had served its purpose as a means of buying time. In those mere three seconds, Wayne had already used Sonído to appear behind Harribel and brought his blade sweeping down.

Feeling the sharp sting of Reiatsu behind her, Harribel cut off the technique immediately and swung a water veil back to defend against Wayne's attack.

THUD!

The Sword Gleam punched through the water veil and landed squarely across Harribel's back. Blood sprayed out in an instant.

Dimension Slash, in that brief moment, Wayne had poured a massive concentration of spatial force into the Sky-Rending Greatsword.

If Harribel had met that strike by swinging her blade, there was a good chance the blades would have clashed again, deflecting the crisis and possibly even forcing Wayne back with the blade's own properties. But as it was, the defensive water veil carried no offensive capability, and that was what allowed Wayne's Dimension Slash to land squarely on Harribel's body.

Wayne acknowledged there was a gamble in it, but it was a calculated gamble he had made only after forming a preliminary read on Harribel's attack speed, reaction speed, and raw strength.

Having landed a clean hit, Wayne had no intention of stopping. Strike while the iron is hot. Harribel's ability was water, and those with that kind of elemental power almost always had some degree of self-recovery. Wayne had no intention of giving her that opportunity.

Shadow Flash!

A Sonído launched from beneath his feet, and Wayne's Sonído was far faster than Harribel's. Before Harribel could recover from the pain of her wound, Wayne was already past the water veil, driving forward with a powerful thrust.

CLANG!

Harribel barely managed to raise her blade to parry in time, but the impact — several times greater than what had come before — sent her flying. The Imperial Shark Greatsword in her hand cracked from the force.

The violent impact left Harribel unable to keep her footing. She bounced across the sand multiple times before finally slamming into a massive rock and coming to a stop.

HMMMM!

The pale-gold Cero fired again. Wayne had no intention of giving Harribel a single moment to breathe.

"Cascada!" Still not finished tumbling to a stop, Harribel drove her Reiatsu to its absolute peak the moment she came to rest and unleashed her strongest technique straight at Wayne.

A torrent of scalding water surged forward like a raging water dragon, racing toward Wayne.

The pale-gold Cero stood no chance against the water dragon. It was swallowed whole without a trace.

Watching the water dragon close the distance at full speed, Wayne neither dodged nor stepped aside. He raised his blade and met it head-on. The water dragon showed no mercy and bit down on the Sky-Rending Greatsword. Pale gold and deep gold Reiatsu clashed and churned against each other, and the sheer momentum of the water dragon shoved Wayne's body backward, kicking up sand and dust across the ground.

"Not bad at all." Wayne smiled and poured more Reiatsu into his hands.

As Harribel's strongest technique, Wayne had now felt the full output of a normal initial-rank Vasto Lorde. In terms of raw Reiatsu volume, these techniques far exceeded the Reiatsu level of a peak Adjuchas-class fighter. If Nel had been on the receiving end of this attack, she likely would have taken a grievous wound from the water dragon. But against Wayne himself, when all of his Reiatsu was committed to defense, this level of attack could not truly harm him, though it was more than enough to drain his Reiatsu reserves.

BOOM!

Wayne condensed a Sword Gleam onto the Sky-Rending Greatsword, bracing against the water dragon as he swung. A massive crescent blade cleaved the water dragon apart in an instant, and the crescent blade itself spent the last of its Reiatsu and faded into the air.

War Drop!

Rising from the rock, Harribel Sonído'd forward and pressed close to Wayne, swinging her greatsword in a relentless series of strikes. Several water blades flew out, and every rock they grazed along their path was sliced clean through.

Clang clang clang!

Wayne raised his blade to block. The water blades were not especially powerful, and with the spatial properties layered onto the Sky-Rending Greatsword, he broke them apart with ease.

"His ability seems capable of dispersing water-formed attacks quite readily. Is he redirecting the flow of the water?" Harribel pressed forward and drew breath, rapidly analyzing Wayne's abilities.

"The slash that passed through the water veil, the ability to easily disrupt water flow, and the incredible movement speed. Is it time-manipulation, same as Baraggan? No, time-manipulation can't pass through a water veil. If it were a penetration-type ability, that absurd speed would still be too much to explain. Could it be spatial-manipulation?!"

Harribel quickly arrived at her conclusion regarding Wayne's ability, but it didn't do her much good. From the start of the fight, Wayne had never once used his concealment ability. He had held it in reserve precisely so he could face Harribel in a proper straight fight. Otherwise, the battle might have ended the moment it began.

After all, at the same tier, Harribel had no way of seeing through Wayne's concealment ability on the spot. Had he used it with full intent, Harribel might already have been finished.

Having figured out Wayne's ability, Harribel suddenly pulled back and shifted to defense, beginning to gather Reishi to recover her Reiryoku.

"Oh?" Seeing Harribel abruptly halt her fierce offensive and switch to a defensive stance, Wayne was briefly taken aback. He had barely finished testing his own defensive output, why had she stopped? And from how Harribel looked, she didn't seem to be winding up for a big technique either.

"She's analyzed my ability, decided she has no path to victory, or can't find a weak point, so she's stopped attacking and shifted to defense to try to outlast me in a battle of Reiatsu attrition? That's too naive."

Wayne shook his head with a smile, but his hand didn't stop. A Sonído carried him forward, and he brought his greatsword driving straight down at Harribel's face.

A battle of attrition? Don't make him laugh. Wayne and Harribel were the same rank, but the quality of his Reiatsu was far and away superior. If Harribel's attacking Reiatsu was a stream, then Wayne's attacking Reiatsu was a waterfall. Every exchange hit Harribel with tremendous force. Against someone at the same rank, a war of attrition was the last thing Wayne feared.

Clang clang clang!

The Sky-Rending Greatsword and the Imperial Shark Greatsword clashed again and again. With every collision, Harribel was pushed back a full step, and her disadvantage mounted steadily. But Harribel was no fool either. With each collision, the Sky-Rending Greatsword grew heavier. This was because Harribel was using every moment their blades met to inject water element into Wayne's greatsword. Once enough water element had built up, Harribel would be able to manipulate the water element inside the blade and deal Wayne a devastating blow.

However, unlike the Imperial Shark Greatsword, which was a part of Harribel's own body, the Sky-Rending Greatsword was a manifestation of Wayne's own Reiryoku. It was a projection of his own power, how could he not be aware of the little trick Harribel was pulling? He was simply curious how many more swings he could manage with a blade growing this heavy.

And so, after dozens of clashes, Wayne finally felt the Sky-Rending Greatsword beginning to labor in his grip. After one final heavy downstroke, Wayne dismissed the Sky-Rending Greatsword's existence entirely. The sudden change startled Harribel. All the water-element Reiatsu she had painstakingly accumulated solidified into water vapor the instant it lost contact with the blade, and dispersed into the air.

"Did you really think I didn't know what you were planning?" With the greatsword dispelled, Wayne seized on the instant Harribel lost focus. He gathered Reiatsu in his right claw and gripped her Imperial Shark Greatsword with the force of a Space-Rending Slash. At the same time, his now-free left hand closed around Harribel's face, and a pale-gold Cero began to gather — slowly, steadily — poised to deliver a killing blow at any moment.

"Join. Or die."

➤ Next: Forced to Join When You Can't Win