Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 112 - The Fall

CLANG!

Wayne's Sky-Rending Greatsword met Aizen's Zanpakutō again. Kyōka Suigetsu already had him in its grip, but he still had to buy Nel time. Whatever scraps of life he had left. Trapped in the hypnosis, escape was impossible. Stalling was all he could do.

"Wayne-kun. Is that your companion?" Aizen asked, feigning ignorance. He had Wayne locked down. There was no rush.

"No comment." Wayne's last dregs of Reiatsu flared, but against Aizen's overwhelming spiritual pressure, it was nothing.

"Wayne-kun, let's make a deal." Aizen parried the greatsword with ease, his voice unhurried. "Return Tōsen's Zanpakutō to me, and I'll let your companion live. How about it?"

"You think I'd believe that?" Wayne's voice was ice.

"In that case — how long do you think you can keep stalling for her?" Aizen's smile never wavered. Because as he spoke, Gin Ichimaru had already abandoned Tōsen's treatment. A single Shunpo brought him to Nel's side. His blade crashed against her Lanzador Verde.

At their current Reiatsu levels, Ichimaru couldn't finish her in an instant, but the moment he used Bankai, her defeat was only a matter of time.

"Hmph. And how long do you think that kid can last? You want that half-dead subordinate of yours to bleed out?"

"Cough, cough..." Wayne's words had barely landed when Tōsen, missing an arm, sat up. The wounds were still horrific, but the fact that he'd regained consciousness at all meant his life was no longer in danger.

"How?!" Wayne's shock gave way to understanding almost immediately. Kyōka Suigetsu's hypnosis. When Aizen had dealt that crippling blow, he must have let time stretch inside the illusion, long enough for Tōsen to receive treatment.

"Heh. So, Wayne-kun — what will you do? Will you accept my deal?"

"In your dreams. Trusting you only gets me killed faster." Wayne swung for Aizen's chest, and cut through nothing but an afterimage.

"I don't believe I ever told you what my Zanpakutō does." Aizen's voice came from behind him. A blade punched through Wayne's spine in the same instant. Cold steel and searing pain flooded his nerves together.

"My Zanpakutō, Kyōka Suigetsu. Its power is Complete Hypnosis. The moment you witnessed its release, you were already ensnared. The effect persists for life. Each time I release my blade, I can trigger the hypnosis anew. So, Wayne-kun, you cannot escape my control." He pulled the blade free. Blood poured from Wayne's chest and back in torrents. The critically wounded Wayne collapsed. That single strike had brought him to the brink.

"Lord Wayne!" Nel strained against Ichimaru. She wanted to reach him, but there was no opening.

"Get... out!" Wayne forced out his last breath, hurled the Sky-Rending Greatsword toward Ichimaru, and fired a Cero at the same time, forcing him back. That done, Wayne fell onto his back in the sand. Not a flicker of Reiatsu left.

Ichimaru Shunpo'd clear of the incoming blade. In that split second, Nel did not flee. She charged straight at Aizen.

"YAAAH!" Her double-headed spear drove straight toward him. Aizen deflected it with a single stroke, then his other hand seized her by the head and slammed her down hard. She hit the ground.

"Idiot... why didn't you run..." Wayne lay in the sand, eyes filled with despair. He couldn't do a thing.

"My lord... even if I die, I want to die at your side!" Nel's eyes glistened, tears on the verge of falling. "You said it yourself, we're family!"

"Nel..." Wayne looked at her, the tears shining in her eyes. Then at Aizen, who had her pinned to the ground and was waiting for his answer. He made his choice.

"Nel. My final order." He pressed his right claw against his Hollow Mask.

"Whatever happens — you live. For both of us."

Crack... BOOM!

He tore the mask from his face. Blood sheeted down. Then he shoved the mask into his mouth. His Reiatsu detonated, exponential, surging past Low-Class, past Mid-Class, straight to Vasto Lorde-level pressure. But with the mask gone, that Reiatsu was hemorrhaging just as fast, plummeting. The peak felt like it would scatter in the next breath.

"Devouring your own Hollow Mask to force your Reiatsu into overdrive. Sustained output beyond your natural ceiling, roughly one minute at peak. After that, one full tier lost every minute, until the final collapse." Aizen, pushed back by the shockwave, narrowed his eyes. Studying Wayne like prey. "But under Kyōka Suigetsu's hypnosis, what good does any of this do you?"

"Won't know till I try. I'm already dead either way, might as well go all in."

Without the mask, his face was bare. Not handsome, but carved with absolute resolve. Drenched in blood. His pale-gold eyes fixed on Aizen, cold and unwavering.

"Lord... Wayne." Nel rose to her feet, trembling. Staring at the comrade, the friend, the master who had stood beside her for years. The first time she had ever truly seen his face.

The price of forcibly tearing off one's Hollow Mask was singular: death. To carve a path of survival for her, Wayne had chosen the most extreme road possible.

"Nel... leave." He wiped the blood from his face. A gentle expression settled into her vision. "Remember my order. You live."

BOOM!

He raised a hand and shoved her into a spatial rift he had opened in that same instant.

"LORD WAYNE!" Her scream tore out of her, but all she could do was watch as her master pushed her away from his side, until she was gone.

The extreme Reiatsu surge let him forge the rift in a heartbeat. Nel gone, he drove his foot into the ground. The explosion launched him forward, straight at Aizen, sword coming down at speed barely visible to the eye. Time was running out. The mask inside him was bleeding Reiatsu fast. He had to cripple Aizen before it ran dry, before Aizen could use the Reiatsu trail to track Nel down.

The Soul Reapers' Senkaimon had a sub-function among its developed abilities: tracking targets through the Garganta and similar spatial corridors. Wayne knew this. He could not let Aizen succeed.

CLANG!

Aizen didn't flinch. Inside the hypnosis, Wayne's attacks were hollow.

"I told you. Under my hypnosis — you cannot harm me."

THUD!

One second, Aizen was blocking Wayne's slash with Kyōka Suigetsu. The next, Kyōka Suigetsu had punched through Wayne's chest.

"Guh... gah!" Blood sprayed from his mouth. Against the hypnosis, he was powerless, no matter how hard he fought for control, his senses were no longer his own.

"Wayne-kun, why go this far?" Aizen's half-smile watched him cough blood, voice laced with regret, while the blade drove deeper still. "We could have been comrades. Now I have no choice but to seal your Reiatsu into the Hōgyoku and put it to use."

"Hah. Finally saying what you really want." Wayne's left hand gripped the blade, as if straining to pull it free. It didn't budge a fraction. "From the moment you slaughtered my subordinates, this was always the plan. Asking me to join you, you just wanted to use my influence to harvest Hollows across Hueco Mundo and feed them into the Hōgyoku. Did you really think I couldn't see it?"

"Heh. You truly are different from the other Hollow beasts. A pity it's too late. Your Reiatsu is at its peak right now, if I don't absorb it, it'll scatter into the air." Aizen produced the Hōgyoku with his left hand and poured Reiatsu into it. The orb flared with a deep indigo glow. Wayne's hemorrhaging Reiatsu was instantly drawn in, pulled into the Hōgyoku.

"Hmph. Aizen, you know what? I spent decades preparing for you." Watching the Hōgyoku drink his power, Wayne's blood-soaked face twisted into a mocking smile.

"Oh?" A flicker of confusion crossed Aizen's eyes. He didn't understand.

"Shame. I thought I was growing fast enough, never expected you to be this bottomless. My thinking was: if I had no one to worry about, joining you wasn't the worst option. Lose my freedom, sure. Find a chance to run later. But..." His hand on the blade suddenly clenched tight. Aizen's pupils contracted. He tried to pull Kyōka Suigetsu free, impossible. Wayne's grip locked the blade in place. The edge bit into his palm, but Ultra-Rapid Regeneration sealed it shut around the steel, trapping it fast.

"Kyōka Suigetsu's counter, touch the blade before the hypnosis triggers, and you're immune. A flaw that glaring, and you thought... I watched the damn anime in my past life for nothing?!"

Muttering words Aizen couldn't parse, Wayne's right claw exploded upward. A Shattering Slash, every last scrap of his Reiatsu poured into it, came crashing down on Aizen with overwhelming force.

Aizen abandoned his Zanpakutō and Shunpo'd back.

BOOM!

The explosion shook the sky. A distant mountain range was sheared in two by the shockwave. The blast carved a massive crater into the sand. And that single strike drained Wayne completely, within seconds, his power had collapsed to Gillian-level.

Before him, the upper half of Aizen's Shihakushō had been vaporized. Aizen clutched his throat, coughing blood. A massive scorched wound ran up half his body all the way to his neck. Blood poured freely from it.

That final slash, Wayne had driven it from bottom to top, aiming to split Aizen in half lengthwise. Even that hadn't been enough.

The reason: the Hōgyoku.

At the critical moment, it had blazed with a sudden, deep light, absorbing the brunt of the Reiatsu that struck Aizen. The cost: the once-indigo orb was now dim and lightless. The souls Aizen had fed into it were spent. To gather power again, he would have to start from zero.

A pity the Hōgyoku hadn't been destroyed. Otherwise, Wayne might have rewritten the history of this story.

"Cough, cough!" Aizen clutched his throat, eyes venomous. "As I thought... cough, cough... you did know my Zanpakutō's secret."

"Hmph. Idiot." Wayne laughed, derisive. Kyōka Suigetsu was in his hands now. Seal it away in his Innate Space, and it would never appear in Soul Society again. No one else would ever be hypnotized. Nel would be,

THUD!

A blade punched through him before his hand could open the space. From hundreds of meters away, Gin Ichimaru's Shinso had pierced Wayne's body, scattering the last trace of his Reiatsu.

"Ah... close one. Real close. Nearly got taken out by that guy." Shinso withdrew. Ichimaru, roughed up and dust-covered from the shockwave, walked over. One stroke severed Wayne's arm. He reached down and took Kyōka Suigetsu. "Terrifying. Shame he's completely spent."

"Gin Ichimaru... fool." Wayne's vision blurred. The spatial rift at his side dissolved. His legs buckled. He toppled toward Ichimaru, and from somewhere barely above a whisper came his last words. "You... should have struck him."

Under Ichimaru's suddenly wide blue eyes, Wayne went still for the last time.

"Gin..." Aizen pressed a hand to his throat, beginning to heal himself, his voice a rasp. "Use the Hōgyoku. Gather his leaking Reiatsu. Before he disperses."

"..." Ichimaru said nothing, his back to Aizen. He stood motionless for several seconds. Then he crouched, picked up the dim and lightless Hōgyoku from the sand, and walked toward Aizen.

Wayne's gaze held on Ichimaru's retreating back. His eyes slowly closed. He dissolved into scattered black particles of light, fading, fading into Hueco Mundo.

Ace Wayne. Fallen at last.

➤ Next: Twin-Soul Rebirth — Heartbreak