Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 133 - The Final Assessment

"Eh?! Big Brother actually got a Fail?!" Momo stared at Wayne's evaluation form, a single "Fail" sticking out of a sea of "Excellent"s. The contrast was painfully glaring.

"Ah. Zero affinity for Kidō." Wayne didn't seem bothered at all.

It was true. Wayne's control over spiritual power was extraordinary. Having once compressed the spiritual power inside his body, his Reiatsu could erupt in an instant and hold steady under precise control for long stretches.

But Kidō? He simply couldn't use it. He'd already guessed why. Either he genuinely had no talent for it, or the Reiatsu of the Hollow beasts inside him conflicted with the art.

Not that he cared much either way. Soul Reaper combat, at its core, was a contest of Reiatsu. Flashy techniques meant nothing without the power to back them up, all style, no substance.

Kidō below the nineties didn't interest him. And by the time he'd need to train up to the nineties, he'd probably already be strong enough to handle everyone with Reiatsu alone.

"Spiritual Power Control: Excellent. Kidō Affinity: Fail... Big Brother, the gap between your two scores in the same category is just too extreme." Momo sounded a little regretful.

"It's fine. Plenty of people are in the same boat as me." Wayne shrugged it off. "The examiner inside told me neither Kidō nor Bakudō suits me, but I could try Kaidō. It uses a different method of channeling spiritual power — not even in the same system as Kidō. And strong spiritual power control is actually a major advantage for learning Kaidō."

"Is that so?" Momo didn't seem too familiar with the Kidō system, though her own control and affinity were both high. She'd already received the stamp of approval from her examiner, the Eighth Seat of the 5th Division.

"Heh. Don't overthink it. Come on, let's head to the last station." Wayne ruffled Momo's hair. She took his hand and led him toward the final stop.

The last station was a room. Not particularly large. Pitch black inside, you couldn't see your own hand in front of your face. This was where their final assessment would take place.

The Chamber of Illusions. A willpower test developed by the 12th Division. Once inside, the test-taker would see things they didn't want to remember. Things they feared. People who struck deep into their hearts. Everything drawn from the deepest layers of the test-taker's own memory. Different for everyone.

The examiners would judge the test-taker's willpower based on brainwave fluctuations, endurance time, and present condition.

"Number 918, please prepare yourself." The tester's voice came from somewhere deep in the room. Then the entire dark space began to tremble. Wayne shut his eyes immediately and started using spiritual power to perceive his surroundings. Whatever method this test used, he would never look directly at anything capable of causing mental fluctuations. Who knew if Aizen's Kyokasuigetsu was waiting on the other side of that darkness.

But even with his eyes closed, Wayne couldn't escape the Chamber's test. In moments, he found himself on a street brimming with sleek, futuristic energy, prosperous, bustling, crowds flowing past.

Then the street collapsed, transforming into a hospital.

Gray-white ceiling. The steady beep of life-monitoring equipment. Doctors and nurses standing around him.

"I regret to inform you... there is nothing more we can do for your illness..."

"This is..." Wayne looked at the elderly physician before him, face grave and deeply sorrowful. Something was surfacing in his memory.

This... is the day I died.

Wayne's heart trembled. The scene seemed to be telling him that everything, Hueco Mundo, Soul Society, had been nothing but a dream. And he, in the end, could not escape death.

The torment of his illness made him wish he were already dead. Every breath was an assault on his lungs. Death itself wasn't frightening. What was frightening was the dying, tortured to death, inch by inch, by sickness.

The heart-rending pain drove him nearly to madness.

Forget it. Dying would be a release. Just die, and it's all over...

"...Lord Wayne!"

Nel's voice surfaced through the haze. Wayne's eyes flew open.

The scene shifted. A wasteland. Before him, Nel was being run through the throat by Aizen's blade. Not far away, Jekain, Timd, and the rest of his comrades had already fallen. In the distance, Gin Ichimaru and Kaname Tōsen were reaping the lives of everyone else.

"Way... ne..." Nel's voice was barely audible now. Bloody froth sprayed from her mouth. Her Reiatsu grew weaker and weaker.

"Nel!" Wayne had already reverted to his Vasto Lorde form, but the emptiness of his own Reiatsu told him the truth, against these three invincible enemies, he was utterly powerless.

"Damn it... damn it!" Rage erupted through him, but something was binding him in place. He couldn't move at all.

"...Tsukishiro, Big Brother." The voice rang out again. Momo's sweet, smiling face appeared before him.

"Momo." A thread of calm returned. Then the Momo before him was suddenly impaled through the abdomen by a sharp blade. A spray of fresh blood scattered across Wayne's face.

"Momo!" Wayne roared. Scene after scene interwove, cycling over and over. Under the assault of sickness, tearing pain, and violent rage, his emotions grew increasingly restless and agitated.

"They're all fake! All fake!" Wayne's Reiatsu erupted. The spiritual power inside him began to grow chaotic. Even though a single thread of clarity still clung on, that stifling, suffocating feeling stirred violent impulses he couldn't hold down.

Then, in the very next second, every negative emotion vanished. He fell abruptly into a desolate scene.

Pitch-black sky. Pale white earth. A half-crescent moon. Barren ruins.

"Hueco Mundo?" Reason returned. Am I going to see Nel killed again? He waited quietly. But that brutal scene never came.

"What's going on?" He looked around. Nothing but desolation.

Soon, a white mist rose before him, swallowing the surrounding scenery whole. He couldn't make out anything ahead.

That... what is that? Gazing into the mist, Wayne had the distinct feeling that a human silhouette was looking back at him.

The mist advanced slowly. The silhouette walked toward him. But no matter how close it drew, Wayne still couldn't make out its features. One thing was certain, the figure held no hostility toward him.

"Who are you?" Wayne spoke instinctively, wanting to step forward. He couldn't move a single step.

He was rooted in place, but the figure in the mist moved freely. It raised its left hand and extended a single finger, gently tapping Wayne's forehead. In the next second, his consciousness began to return. The scene before him silently dispersed. He was back in that utterly pitch-black room.

"Qualified." The examiner's voice rang out.

A faint light flickered on. By that dim glow, Wayne saw several enormous containers before him. Inside each: a brain. In the central container, a Hollow with a humanoid body and an octopus-like head floated in a solution. Numerous brains were connected to it, pulsing with a faint blue glow.

"This... this is..." Wayne was stunned, but he didn't dare speak.

"Hey! Who told you to turn on the light?!" The examiner's voice was hushed, but it still reached Wayne's ears. "This is a forbidden object. No one is supposed to see it."

"Relax — he's blind," the other examiner replied. "I just wanted to turn the light on so I could take a leak."

"It's a damn good thing he's blind, or you'd be in serious trouble! Turn it off, now!"

"Yeah, yeah. I got it."

The examiner leaned toward the microphone. "Number 918, you may leave now."

"Oh. Alright." Wayne rose and left. But his mind was shaken, badly, by what he'd just witnessed.

What was that? A Hollow with a special ability? Used for experiments? Modified into a machine that generates the test environments? What kind of ability is that?! It could even read my past life? Was it reading memories, or causality? A string of questions surfaced in rapid succession.

"Big Brother!" Momo's voice cut through his thoughts just as he was still turning it all over.

"My exam's all done!"

"Mm. Good work. How'd the last one go?"

"I hated it! It made me watch Big Brother, Shiro-chan, and Granny all slowly grow old and die. What a stupid exam." Momo clearly hadn't been broken by it. Or rather, being the eternal optimist she was, whatever collapse had come during the exam itself was already behind her, the moment she regained clarity, she'd blocked those illusions right out.

"Haha. Your Big Brother isn't that easy to kill." Wayne reached out and ruffled her hair. "Come on. Let's turn in our forms and head home."

"Mm!"

Letting Momo lead the way, Wayne walked leisurely toward the submission area.

"Good work, everyone." At the far end of the exam hall, the Soul Reapers stationed there greeted each candidate in turn, hands never stopping as they sorted through the forms. Most with multiple Fails went to the left pile. Passes and Excellents went to the middle. On the far right, the ones stamped by the various divisions. Momo's and Wayne's forms ended up there.

"About how long until we know if we've been accepted?" Standing at the counter, Wayne asked the Soul Reaper opposite him.

"About a week. The divisions need to go through the forms and identify talent. Then comes class placement." The receptionist answered with a thoroughly businesslike expression.

"Understood. Thank you." Wayne gave his thanks and turned to leave with Momo.

"Big Brother, Big Brother! Let's go look over there." Outside the exam hall, Momo pointed toward the Seireitei's bustling commercial street.

"Mm, sure. We can pick up a few things for Granny and Shiro-chan while we're at it." Wayne thought it over and agreed. Besides, he wanted to stay in the Seireitei a little longer himself. The spiritual power density here was far richer than outside, absorbing it even for a short while would yield far more than anything the Rukongai could offer.

He accompanied Momo as she browsed, occasionally buying her snacks. The silver rings Kira had given him last time still hadn't run out, more than enough to cover today. He didn't forget to bring back some of the rarer things either, items scarce or simply nonexistent in the Rukongai. Satisfying the palate while letting Granny and Shiro-chan try some new flavors.

"Tsukishiro, Big Brother?"

Wayne stopped. A familiar voice from behind. He turned, and there was Kira in his blue-and-white student uniform, standing there with a slightly dazed expression.

"That voice... Kira?" Wayne made a show of tilting his head, listening carefully. "Is that you, Kira?"

"It's me, Tsukishiro, Big Brother!" Kira looked excited. "You really did come to take the exam."

"Ah. Came to try my luck." Wayne nodded. "This is my little sister, Momo Hinamori. Momo, this is Kira — a friend I met while hunting in the forest." He didn't mention the master-student relationship. Kira seemed to understand, and added nothing either. That was something only the two of them needed to know.

"P-pleased to meet you. My brother has been in your care." Hearing that her big brother had made a friend outside, Momo was momentarily flustered and unsure how to act. She bowed respectfully and offered a polite, formulaic greeting.

"Not at all — in truth, I've always been the one under Tsukishiro, Big Brother's care." Kira scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. "Tsukishiro, Big Brother, have you finished your exams already?"

"Ah. Just finished not long ago," Wayne replied. "You?"

"I only just arrived." Kira looked sheepish. "Family matters held me up. I couldn't make it sooner."

"Speaking of which — I've seen plenty of family businesses along this street. Why haven't I spotted the Kira name anywhere? Your family isn't in trade?"

"My family..." Kira glanced toward the distant street. "We used to do business here. But after my grandfather passed and my father was injured, the families we're not on good terms with started squeezing us out. If I can't get selected for Shin'ō Academy this time, then perhaps..." He trailed off, unwilling to go further.

"Your main trade?"

"Fabrics. Clothing."

"I can't help with that one." Wayne shook his head. "It's not my area. But if you ever want to sell watermelons, I could lend a hand."

"Watermelons?" Kira didn't quite grasp the meaning behind the sudden remark, but he didn't press it. He gave a light reply. "Opening a watermelon stand, selling cold drinks... that actually doesn't sound bad."

"We'll talk about that another time." Wayne smiled. "Go take your exam. There's nothing left that should give you trouble. Show the examiners what you can do, especially your Reiatsu control and the things I taught you."

"Yes, Tsukishiro, Big Brother. I won't let you down! I'll take my leave." Kira's eyes hardened with resolve. He turned and walked back toward the exam hall.

"Big Brother, he really does seem to respect you," Momo said, watching him go.

"Ah. I taught him a combat technique before. So to him, it's something between teacher and friend."

"Ehhhh?! Big Brother knows combat techniques? Why haven't you taught them to Momo? Big Brother, you're playing favorites!" Momo's cheeks instantly puffed up into round, indignant balls.

"Haha, alright, alright~ Big Brother will teach you the moment we get home!"

"Hehe, okay!"

➤ Next: Passing — Words Unspoken