Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 111 - Defeat

Chapter 111, Defeat

On the battlefield, Aizen's expression was dark. This was already the third time he had attempted to activate Kyōka Suigetsu and failed. Worse, the Hollow before him seemed to understand his ability far too well, unsettling, given that he had never once explained it to anyone. He had been telling himself that everything up to now was coincidence. But it was starting to feel like far too much of a coincidence.

Wayne, for his part, was on high alert. Three ambushes, nothing to show for any of them. His Reiatsu was nowhere near Aizen's level, and a cold sense of crisis had taken hold: the moment Aizen stopped relying on Kyōka Suigetsu, any chance at a sneak attack would be gone. He would have to face that overwhelming Reiatsu head-on.

BOOM!

Aizen sheathed his Zanpakutō. His formidable Reiatsu erupted all at once. A moment later he raised his hand, voice ringing out with incantation.

"Bakudō Number 63, Sajō Sabaku."

"Bakudō Number 73, Tozanshō."

"Bakudō Number 75, Gochūtekkan."

Three unchanted Kidō descended simultaneously. Iron chains, a falling mountain of crystal, and stone pillars all came crashing down on Wayne at once.

BANG! BANG!

Wayne severed two of the chains flying at him and blasted the descending Tozanshō apart with a Cero. But the five pillars that followed slammed into him and pinned his body to the ground.

"Hadō Number 63, Raikōhō."

BOOM!

A golden cannon of energy surged toward him.

ROAR!

Wayne bellowed and fired a pale-gold Cero from his mouth. The two blasts met head-on and detonated in midair, blasting a deep crater into the sand below.

"Hadō Number 88, Hiryū Gekizoku Shinten Raihō!" Aizen raised both hands. A bolt of thunderous light, several times more powerful than the last, shot toward Wayne.

Wayne bit through his tongue and gathered within his mouth a Cero dense enough to warp space itself.

The King's Flash.

Between them, across the not-so-great distance, a massive pillar of energy erupted skyward. Cero met lightning cannon, and the collision unleashed a storm of staggering force.

BOOM!

As smoke flooded the air, Wayne drove his Reiatsu outward in a burst and shattered the five iron pillars pinning him. He crawled free from the Bakudō's grip.

"Hah... hah..." He was gasping. High-level Kidō, one after another, the relentless chain had drained his Reiatsu to nearly nothing. On the other side of the field, Aizen's Reiatsu had barely shifted. This was what a gap in level actually meant. Wayne was running on empty. Aizen had scarcely been touched.

"Bakudō Number 99, Kin!"

Swoosh. Swoosh...!

The dust hadn't even settled. Aizen's voice cut through the haze, and several white canvas strips shot out from every direction, binding Wayne fast to the ground. Stone slabs burst upward from the earth, locking the strips firmly in place. Wayne had barely broken free from one Bakudō, and now a higher-level one had him flat on the ground all over again.

"Damn it!" He tried to surge his Reiatsu, but he couldn't break free even slightly. He needed time. He just needed a little time.

"Impressive, Wayne." The dust cleared. Aizen stood on the far side of the battlefield, softly clapping. It almost sounded like encouragement. From his voice alone it was plain: the highest-level Bakudō he had cast without incantation had barely cost him any Reiatsu at all. Nominally still a lieutenant, yet already in this moment his Reiatsu had surpassed even the Kidō Corps Chief.

"Impressive indeed. I have entered Hueco Mundo many times and encountered more Hollows than I can count, yet those with your level of combat ability are exceedingly rare. Even Hollows whose Reiatsu exceeded yours were captured by me with ease and became experimental material. You, however, genuinely have qualities worth praising." Aizen slipped one hand into his sleeve.

"But... this is as far as it goes. As a reward, let me show you the results of my research. Perhaps it will change your mind." He reached into his robe and drew out a small transparent square crystal. Within its clear frame sat a single gem pulsing with blue-white radiance, a dreamlike jewel that radiated something unmistakably mysterious.

"That's..." Wayne's heart lurched. Had Aizen already completed the Hōgyoku? No. It had to still be a prototype. It hadn't reached its perfected state.

"This is called the Hōgyoku." Aizen's tone was unhurried, almost conversational. "Something I discovered and created by chance — capable of dissolving the boundary between a Hollow's power and a Shinigami's power. Or put another way, it can give physical form to whatever its wielder desires. An all-purpose wish-granting device.

"The reason I came to Hueco Mundo is to refine it. Its current state is not yet complete. But once it has absorbed sufficient power and fully awakens, it will bring me limitless strength." He finished speaking, flash-stepped to Wayne's side, and pressed the Hōgyoku gently against Wayne's forehead.

"Feel it, Wayne. Feel the power the Hōgyoku gives you."

"Ngh!"

Still struggling against his restraints, Wayne felt it instantly, a surge of alien Reiatsu flooding into his body with ferocious force, crashing against his own Reiatsu from within. Shinigami spiritual energy. A power completely opposed to his own nature.

The two energies collided inside him, over and over, each clash consuming the other. The process was agony. Yet as Aizen had said, with every collision, thin tendrils of Shinigami energy fused into his own, but at a cost. The pain had cold sweat pouring down Wayne's body. And beneath it all, it was pushing him closer and closer to his absolute limit.

RUMBLE!

The Bakudō's restraints destabilized as Wayne's Reiatsu raged and thrashed within him. Cracks were forming. Aizen made no move to reinforce the seal. He simply watched in silence as the Hollow before him writhed and screamed under the Hōgyoku's influence.

BOOM!

The seal shattered. Wayne burst free, but the forced fusion had left him terribly weakened.

"As expected. The Hōgyoku in its current state is still insufficient to break the boundary between Hollow and Shinigami. It requires further strengthening. Thank you, Wayne, I have obtained important data." Aizen retrieved the Hōgyoku and flash-stepped back. He had never intended to grant Wayne power. The Hōgyoku had been used purely to drain what little Reiatsu Wayne had left. As for those thin tendrils of fusion, he had extracted extremely valuable parameters from watching the process.

"Hah... hah..." Wayne pulled himself free from the shattered seal, his body pushed to the very edge of its limits. After enduring that barrage of Kidō, his Reiatsu was nearly gone. Even the fused energy inside him was something he couldn't properly control right now. It surged chaotically through his body, constantly disrupting the rhythm of his own spiritual power.

"Then, one last time. Wayne, will you join us?"

"What's the point of asking that now." Wayne stood and worked the stiffness out of his body, forcing exhaustion and weakness aside for the moment. "Don't talk like you'd actually let me go."

"Heh. True enough." Aizen's eyes narrowed slightly, and a quiet laugh escaped him. "There is one matter I must confirm for myself, though it may require you to die before it can be proven."

"Words are pointless." Wayne raised his Reiatsu and healed his injuries in an instant. "Fight." He reached into his Innate Space and produced the half-mask fragment from the ancient Hollow Beast, and shoved it directly into his mouth. The next second his Reiatsu erupted again, surging past the early Vasto Lorde threshold and into mid-tier.

"Oh? A temporary Reiatsu boost by consuming something? Wayne, you never stop surprising me." Aizen showed no alarm whatsoever. He simply toyed with the Hōgyoku in one hand while the other rested lightly on the Zanpakutō at his hip.

BOOM! A pale-gold and a blue-white column of Reiatsu shot straight into the sky. Two low thuds, and both figures vanished from where they stood. Their blades met at the midpoint between them, sending wave after wave of explosive force rolling across the barren sand.

Against the crushing pressure of a higher-tier Reiatsu, Wayne held his ground through sheer density and quality of his own spiritual power, forcing a standoff with Aizen. But it couldn't last. The moment his Reiatsu fell away, he would lose the edge and be driven to defeat.

I need to find a way out, Wayne thought as he fought. Just as he'd feared, the Aizen of this era was completely beyond him. And he had the sinking feeling that Aizen had already realized he knew the nature of Kyōka Suigetsu's ability. After three interrupted attempts, Aizen would have his suspicions by now. That was why every exchange since had been raw Reiatsu and Kidō. No more Zanpakutō tricks. Wayne needed to leave. Now.

"Can you afford to lose focus in the middle of a fight, Wayne?" Sensing the distraction, Aizen pushed his Reiatsu higher still. Each strike came heavier than the last, pressing down without pause. Wayne had no choice but to take them head-on. He could dodge, but the opening that created would likely give Aizen the chance to use Kyōka Suigetsu, and if that happened, there would be no escape at all.

CLANG! Blades met again. Both figures leapt skyward, and layer after layer of Reiatsu shockwaves rolled outward, enough that even the barren sand below gave a faint tremor.

Then a small crack appeared in Wayne's desperately held form. Aizen didn't miss it. In one fluid motion, he sent Wayne flying with a single slash, and hurled the Hōgyoku after him. This time it wasn't channeling Shinigami power into Wayne. It was pulling the Hollow power out of him, absorbing it in reverse.

"Ngh!" Wayne's already unstable Reiatsu suddenly boiled. His body surged in fierce rejection against the Hōgyoku's pull.

"Losing focus will cost you your life." Aizen seized the moment — Wayne's Reiatsu thrown into chaos, his form shattered — and opened his mouth to chant.

"Bakudō Number 61, Rikujōkōrō. Hadō Number 90, Kurohitsugi."

Six rods of light locked Wayne completely in place. A pitch-black barrier rose up, enclosing him within it. Then countless black blades drove inward from every direction at once.

ROAR!

Blades tore into him. Wounds opened across Wayne's body, blood pouring freely. With a furious cry he drove his spiritual power to its absolute limit and fired a black Cero from his mouth, punching straight through the Kurohitsugi. And in the very instant he tore through it, Aizen was already there, blade reversed in a back-grip, watching him with a cold, expressionless stare.

This is bad. Wayne snapped his eyes shut, but in the fraction of a second before they closed, the Hōgyoku blazed with an intense blue light directly in front of him, and in that same instant his entire body was locked utterly motionless by its power. Not just his spatial or concealment abilities. He couldn't even blink.

A chilling smile crept onto the corner of Aizen's lips.

"Shatter, Kyōka Suigetsu."

Crack... BOOM!

A brief silence. Then space shattered around Wayne like a pane of mirror glass. Countless sprays of blood erupted outward. Countless wounds opened across his body. Every cut ran deep enough to expose bone. The sight was horrifying.

One moment Wayne had been fading in and out of consciousness. The next, bone-deep agony hit him all at once. Kyōka Suigetsu had activated, in the instant of hypnosis, he'd been able to do nothing. By the time the pain reached him, Aizen had already sheathed his blade. This battle was over. Wayne had lost, grievously wounded and utterly defeated.

"Lord Wayne!"

From the peak of a distant ridge, Nel had been watching the entire time, not daring to move. The Reiatsu from the fighting far exceeded her own, if she suddenly entered the battlefield, she would only become a hostage, or be eliminated outright, or worse, break Wayne's concentration mid-fight.

So she had suppressed her presence and stayed hidden on a cliff face several hundred meters away, watching the distant battle unfold.

Wayne had been holding on, not entirely at a disadvantage. Then, for a reason she couldn't understand, he had suddenly lost the ability to move. Nel watched helplessly as Aizen walked toward him at an unhurried pace and cut him down stroke by stroke until he was gravely wounded. At that, she finally scrambled down from the cliff, ready to risk her life to drag him out.

"Oh? There was another Hollow hiding." Aizen spotted her coming. He sensed her Reiatsu — not particularly strong — and relaxed slightly. At Nel's level, even Ichimaru could handle her with some effort. He was more curious what this Hollow that had come charging out would actually do.

"My lord, my lord!" Nel shook Wayne's fallen body in frantic urgency and poured her healing fluid along with the medicine she'd prepared earlier over him all at once.

But Aizen's attacks had very nearly destroyed every one of Wayne's internal organs. Nel's current healing ability wasn't enough to restore him fully.

"Oh? A Hollow with healing ability, at the peak of Adjuchas, is she? What a pity. If she could become a Vasto Lorde, she might have been of use to me." Aizen murmured with what sounded like genuine regret. A Hollow with healing ability was exceptionally rare, not necessarily even one in a thousand. In all of Wayne's time wandering Hueco Mundo, Nel included, he had encountered fewer than a handful.

"Nel? You're..." The gravely wounded Wayne slowly opened his eyes. What he saw was Nel crouched beside him, still working to heal him without pause.

"My lord, how are you, are you alright?" Seeing him conscious, Nel asked in frantic haste, paying no attention to the enemy not far away — an enemy she had absolutely no hope of matching. Right now, Wayne was the only thing in her head.

"Get out of here... the enemy... is very strong." Wayne's voice was barely a thread of sound. Kyōka Suigetsu's activation had pulled him deep into hypnosis. Had Nel not been here treating him with her own healing fluid and medicine, he would almost have feared this Nel was a construct of Aizen's illusion. But Aizen couldn't create, within the hypnosis, something he'd had no prior knowledge of, so Wayne knew the Nel in front of him was real.

Even so, if she didn't leave now, she too would fall prey to Kyōka Suigetsu. That was not something Wayne wanted.

"No, my lord, if we go, we go together!" Nel tried to hoist him onto her back. Wayne's gaze had locked onto Aizen, not far away, watching them with an expression of keen amusement.

Those mocking eyes said it plainly: go ahead, pretend I'm not here, with any luck you'll lead me straight back to where you're all gathered, and the Hōgyoku will absorb even more Hollow Reiatsu.

"There's no point, Nel. I can't run." With her help, Wayne slowly pushed himself to his feet. "My injuries are past recovery now, and he won't give me the chance to heal. Go, leave this place. Take Jekain and lead everyone still alive to survive."

"My lord!"

"Go!" Wayne shoved her away with force, then flash-stepped toward Aizen on his own.

➤ Next: The Fall