Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 117 - Terror by the Stream

The next morning, Momo woke up early and tiptoed out of the bedroom, careful not to disturb her big brother. But when she saw the two lunchboxes set out on the table, her nose stung for just a moment. She recovered quickly. She eased the bedroom door open a crack and spoke into the gap in a voice thin as a mosquito's hum.

"Thank you, big brother~"

Then she closed the door and started getting her things together. On the other side of the door, Wayne, still in bed, let the corner of his mouth curl upward, then went back to sleep.

About two hours later, he woke up. He stretched, then headed to the washroom.

Before long he was done, ate the rice ball Momo had deliberately left out for him, and walked out the door toward Shiro-chan's house.

"Granny, I'm here to bother you again." Wayne called into the room, and Granny's reply came quickly from inside.

"Is that little Tsukishiro? Come in, come in." Her voice still carried decent strength. "Coming every day to help tend the melon field — you really do work hard."

"It's nothing, Granny." Wayne stepped inside with a smile. "I genuinely enjoy this kind of peaceful life. I was more worried you'd find me a nuisance."

"Heh heh~ What a good child. How could I possibly find it a nuisance when you all help me out every day? Shiro-chan and I only have each other — having you and little Momo coming and going makes the house feel a little more lively." Granny sat on the cushion and smiled at him.

"By the way, little Tsukishiro — when you're here with me, you can take that Blindfold off." She said it gently.

"...I really can't fool you, can I." Wayne gave a rueful laugh. He still needed a lot more practice at acting blind. For someone like Granny, a person of advanced years who had seen a great deal of the world, it was plain at a glance whether a performance was genuine or not.

"Heh heh~ I don't know why you need to pretend to be blind, but you treat Shiro-chan and Momo so well. You must have your reasons, so Granny never said anything." She smiled. "You see, my late husband was blind, so I've always had a particular sense for it — and certain habits and movements of yours show you still rely on your eyes out of instinct."

"Ah, I'm sorry, Granny." Wayne nodded. "I do have my difficulties. Please don't take it to heart."

"It's all right, it's all right. After a month together, I can feel that your care for Shiro-chan, for Momo, and for this old woman here is genuine. Granny just doesn't want the Blindfold to be a bother to you." As she spoke, Granny reached to the table behind her and picked up a slice of watermelon.

"...Then I won't stand on ceremony." Wayne scratched his head and walked over. "Granny, if it's not too much trouble, could you teach me some of the particulars of how a blind person gets around? I'll need to keep up this disguise for quite a while yet."

"Heh heh, of course." Granny nodded at him, then drifted into memory. "We'd have to start from the year my old man lost his sight. That year..."

For the whole afternoon, Wayne did no farmwork at all. He simply sat beside Granny and listened to her talk about her life with her husband. As an old woman who had spent her years in Rukongai, she had gone far too long without really telling someone her own story. Of course, along the way she also shared with Wayne a great many practical details about how a blind person moves through the world, and Wayne found it immensely valuable. Perhaps what he heard from Granny today would let him show one fewer crack in front of Aizen.

Of course, once his perception grew strong enough, he would be able to move freely by feel alone, and Aizen would never catch anything wrong. Still, two layers of preparation were always better than one.

After the afternoon had passed and Granny's story reached its end, it was about time to go take care of his own affairs. Wayne had not tended the melon field today. Instead, he had asked Granny for a watermelon from her plot and taken it to the market. He would still have to play the blind man when he got there, naturally. There was no telling when someone might cross paths with Momo and the others. If you were going to play a part, you played it all the way through. And with Granny's guidance today, he had picked up a few useful techniques.

Carrying the watermelon Granny had given him, Wayne made his way to the street market. His goal was simple: use this watermelon to make a trade.

He found his target quickly, a vendor with a pushcart.

One watermelon bought him the use of the cart for one week. He gave the vendor his home address; after seven days, he would return it in one piece. Any damage would be compensated at full value, at which point the matter would no longer be settled by a single watermelon.

His reason for wanting a pushcart was straightforward. Over the coming week he needed to leave the melon field and venture alone into the forest beyond the settlement. According to the map of Rukongai, the forest held a wide variety of wild vegetables and fruits. If he could gather their seeds, he might be able to grow them in his own plot. He would also need to dig up some of the local soil to bring back, which was exactly why he'd chosen a pushcart.

As for wild game, that would come down to luck. His perception wasn't particularly powerful yet, and its range was limited. That fact made him think back, involuntarily, to his days as a Hollow. As a Vasto Lorde, a casual sweep of his perception could cover the span of an entire city. That feeling of having everything within his grasp, Wayne couldn't help but linger on the memory.

By the time he had wandered through the whole market, noted down every place that bought and sold materials and food, and pushed the cart back home, it was already dusk.

"I'm home." Wayne wheeled the cart into the yard. He had already worked out how to explain things to Momo. But after he pushed open the front door, there was no sweet welcome home from inside.

"Strange — she should be back by now." He looked around and found no sign that Momo had returned.

"Could she have gone over to Shiro-chan's place to share today's catch?" He asked himself, then pulled the door shut and headed in that direction.

It didn't take long. He arrived at Shiro-chan's house only to find Shiro-chan's grandmother sitting at the front door, her face creased with worry as she stared into the distance.

"Granny."

"Hm? Oh, it's little Tsukishiro." Granny startled, she had been staring off so intently that she hadn't heard him coming.

"Why are you sitting out here instead of going inside?"

"Shiro-chan still hasn't come home. I'm a little worried about him."

"Eh? Shiro-chan isn't back either?" Wayne's surprise sharpened into something else. Both children, at the same time, could it be...

"Granny, please go inside and rest. I'll go down to the river and look for them." He thought it over for a moment, then made up his mind.

"Little Tsukishiro, you..."

"It's all right, Granny." Wayne pointed to his eyes. "Don't worry about me." He helped her back inside, then broke into a run.

The stream that Momo and Toshiro had gone to lay in the opposite direction from the market. There were no people over that way, which was exactly why the fish were plentiful, worth the trip. Wayne pulled off his Blindfold and ran hard. No need to worry about being seen out here; there weren't many people along the road anyway.

Half an hour of hard running brought him to the stream. He followed it southward, and quickly spotted a long trail of irregular footprints. From the size and number, there had to have been at least seven or eight people. It seemed more than just Momo and Toshiro had come here today.

Wayne pressed on, following the direction of the footprints, but found no sign of either of them. He had already gone much farther than where people normally came to fish.

Finally, the larger group's footprints thinned away, until only two sets remained. And right at that moment, Wayne spotted something on the bank, a straw sandal. Small. The kind only a child would wear. He had a vague memory that Shiro-chan had been wearing exactly this type of sandal when he left the house.

"This can't be..." Unease rose in his chest. He swept his gaze around and quickly spotted a small fish basket.

He ran to it. The basket lay scattered on the ground. Two bluegill fish lay nearby, already still, not large, but certainly big enough to eat. Judging by how dry they were, they hadn't been out of the water very long.

Looking farther ahead, the footprints that had been one large and one small suddenly showed a dramatically wider stride, and one set had changed from sandaled to barefoot.

"The two of them started running. Did something happen?" He was already fearing the worst. Then he spotted it, behind the two sets of human prints, two more sets appeared. Enormous. Strange. Not human at all.

His chest tightened. He ran.

Meanwhile, Momo and Toshiro had set out early that morning, said their goodbyes to Granny, and made their way to the stream together. After a full day's effort they had a good haul. They had run into others competing for fish along the way, but neither side had started any trouble, they had simply split off in different directions to avoid disturbing each other. Shiro-chan and Momo had gone deeper into the stream; the other group had stayed closer.

On the way home, Momo bounced along happily. A good catch today, enough for a plentiful grilled fish dinner.

"Shiro-chan, Shiro-chan, you know what? I can feel that big brother's Reiatsu has gone up again." She walked with the fish basket in hand, singing Wayne's praises to Toshiro beside her.

"You've already told me that a bunch of times." Shiro-chan gave her a look that made it clear what he thought of her.

"That's exactly why we have to catch lots and lots of fish again tomorrow! So big brother can grow even faster. Then he can take the exam with me three months from now!"

"Listen, bedwetter Momo, don't push Tsukishiro too hard, all right?" Shiro-chan's expression was pure disdain. "You've been building up Reiatsu in Soul Society for over ten years. Tsukishiro has only been here for one month. You want him to catch up to ten years of your accumulated Reiatsu in four months, how is that even possible? Even if he makes a little progress every day, four months is still too short. Give him more time to build up his Reiatsu. Otherwise, even if he passes the exam, he might not be placed in a good class. That would only hold him back."

"But... I want to take the exam and get into the academy together with big brother."

"Then wait for the next intake. There's an enrollment every three years anyway. With Tsukishiro's potential, three years should be enough for him to reach a decent level."

"But..." Momo was about to say something more when Shiro-chan's expression stopped her cold, a look of sudden, sharp shock. There along the bank, a shimmering plant drifted slowly through the water and silt, trailing a faint rosy glow. At its very tip, a red fruit gleamed brilliantly, radiating an alluring light.

"How beautiful! What is that?" Momo's gaze locked onto it.

"Probably a Spirit Plant that floated down from upstream." Shiro-chan rested his chin in his hand, thinking it over. Upstream lay Seireitei, and occasionally things that nobles had dropped or accidentally let fall into the water drifted down from the inner city.

Spirit Plants were unusual flowers and plants cultivated by the nobles. They generally held a large amount of Reishi. You would crush their fruit and scatter it across your courtyard, which could quickly and greatly improve the Reishi density of the local soil. The fruit was the concentrated essence of all the Reishi stored in the plant. Most noble families in Seireitei cultivated such plants to enrich the Reishi in their household grounds.

Common as they were among the nobles, such plants were exceedingly rare in the downstream stretches of Rukongai. Shiro-chan knew a little about them, though, because he had once heard his grandmother say that their watermelon plot was land that had been improved by exactly this kind of Spirit Plant.

"A Spirit Plant?!" Momo's eyes lit up. If she brought this plant home and crushed it to scatter over their own yard, wouldn't their place grow Reishi-infused vegetables and fruit just like Shiro-chan's family?

She dropped the fish basket, kicked off her shoes, and ran straight into the stream. She had to fish this thing out. This was directly tied to whether her big brother could grow stronger in a short amount of time.

But just as Momo drew close to the bank, something went wrong. Shiro-chan had been watching lazily from behind as she waded in, when he noticed, not far ahead, a blurry halo of light blocking the flow of the water. His eyes snapped wide open.

"Watch out!" The halo closed in at terrifying speed. The so-called Spirit Plant drifted toward the center of the stream at the very moment Momo was about to touch it.

"Momo! Run!"

"Huh?"

ROAR!

The bellow erupted and a massive wall of water exploded outward. The halo vanished, and a colossal creature burst from the surface, over five meters long, four-legged, fish head on a lizard's body, wearing a Hollow Mask. The Spirit Plant fruit was nothing but a fleshy lure growing from its fish head like a tendril.

A decoy trap.

"Ahhhh!" Momo screamed. The sight of it shattered her nerve in an instant.

"It's a Hollow Beast! Momo, run!" Shiro-chan sprinted to her side, grabbed her hand, and yanked her into a run. That single pull dragged her clear of the snapping jaws already lunging for her.

The ambush had failed, but the fish-lizard had no intention of giving up. It came after them on all fours. It was a creature of the water, and its land speed was no great thing, but it clung stubbornly to their heels.

"How, how is there a Hollow Beast here?!" Momo ran with tears streaming down her face.

"How should I know?! Just keep running!" Shiro-chan dragged her and kept on running. How long they ran, neither of them knew.

But souls tire, just as people do. A Hollow Beast does not, at least not before its Reiatsu runs out. Before long, the two of them were gasping for breath.

Finally, Momo's strength gave out and she went down.

"Ah!" She tumbled forward and scraped her knee and arm hard against the ground. Bright red blood welled up, and behind them, the Hollow Beast grew more excited.

"Momo, are you all right?!" Shiro-chan rushed to help her up, then looked back to see the Hollow Beast drawing steadily closer.

"Damn it..." He bit down. At this life-or-death moment, he had nothing, not a single option.

"Come on, come at me!" He snatched up a stone from the ground and hurled it at the Hollow Beast's head, trying to draw its attention. It failed. The blood flowing from Momo's scraped arm was a far greater draw than the nuisance of a few thrown rocks.

"Damn it!" Shiro-chan swung his fishing spear and jabbed at the Hollow Beast's eye, only for a tendril on the creature's head to snatch it, whipping him hard into the ground. He hit with a pained grunt and couldn't get up.

ROAR!

The Hollow Beast let out an excited cry and advanced on Momo step by step, its massive jaws yawning open, ready to swallow her whole.

Staring into that abyss, Momo's eyes had gone blank. The Hollow Beast's Reiatsu, the crushing weight of those gaping jaws, terror had locked every muscle in her body.

"Big... big brother..." Tears brimmed in her eyes. On the edge of death, she called the name of her only family.

"Tsukishiro — big brother!"

BANG!

A thunderous crash rang out. Momo had already squeezed her eyes shut, but death never came. She opened them slowly.

The fish-headed Hollow Beast had been slammed into the ground by a tremendous force. And on top of it, her big brother straddled the creature, one hand gripping a blade. The watermelon knife from Shiro-chan's house. Its edge was buried in the joint where the Hollow Mask met the fish head, and crimson blood welled steadily from the wound. The creature's roars poured into her ears one after another.

"Tsu... Tsukishiro — big brother, big brother!"

"Sorry about that, Momo." Wayne gripped the blade and twisted it hard, then wrenched it upward. The fish-type Hollow Beast's skull and Hollow Mask levered apart in an instant. He drove a hard stomp down onto the top of the mask.

The next moment, blood gushed out like a fountain. Mask and skull tore apart.

"Sorry, Momo. Big brother was late."

P.S. Writing through the night really is exhausting, especially after a full day of work... I feel like slacking off.

➤ Next: Volume 3: The Soul Society's Flowing Souls