Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 134 - Passing — Words Unspoken

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Four

A week slipped by. Wayne and Momo spent it waiting anxiously at home. The morning the results were posted, Momo stood rigid in the doorway, eyes fixed toward the Seireitei, watching for the messenger.

"Momo, you don't need to be this nervous. If you don't pass, you can always try again in three years. Besides, you've already got two stamps on your form — that puts you ahead of most people before you even start. What you should be worrying about is whether your dorm roommates will be decent, and whether the boys in your class will chase after you."

"Big Brother~!" Momo stomped her foot. He was teasing her again. "But I really am worried."

"Based on past admission rates — eighty Rukongai districts, upper, middle, and lower nobles inside the Seireitei, plus the children of retainers from the great houses and the Four Great Noble Families, you're looking at close to twenty thousand examinees. One in ten gets in. Those are solid odds. And your form has every subject rated above average or excellent. Two badges on top of that. You're already miles ahead of the pack. Stop selling yourself short. You'll get in."

"I'm not as outstanding as you, Big Brother. You passed almost every assessment at the top level."

"Except Kidō sensitivity." Wayne gave a self-deprecating twist of his lips.

"B-but, Big Brother, you have four whole badges."

"Hopefully those four badges can offset that one failing mark." Wayne lay sprawled on the tatami, eyes closed, savoring the morning calm.

Since returning from the Seireitei, Wayne had spent the week mulling over two things. The first was the Kira family's business chain. Kira getting into Shin'ō Academy was a certainty, and in the future, he would become a Soul Reaper, eventually rising to lieutenant of the 3rd Division.

Wayne had a bold suspicion about how that played out. Aizen pulled strings behind the scenes, then sent Ichimaru in to play rescuer, pulling Kira out of his predicament, earning his loyalty, and simultaneously setting Gin Ichimaru up to take the captain's seat of the 3rd Division.

The specifics were beyond Wayne's knowledge. But if he were to intervene now, what would the future look like? And could he leverage the Kira family's business connections to get Granny and Shiro-chan settled comfortably inside the Seireitei, growing watermelons and other crops there, forming a healthy trade cycle with the Kira family?

The second thing was that Hollow he'd seen inside the container during the final assessment.

That the Seireitei held Hollows didn't surprise Wayne. In Mayuri Kurotsuchi's dungeons, he'd probably find far more, from the weakest beast-type Hollows all the way up to Adjuchas-class Menos. Traces of them were surely scattered throughout Kurotsuchi's private laboratory.

But that humanoid Hollow, Wayne couldn't read its Reiatsu level. Perhaps it had been incorporated into the apparatus as a component, its Reiatsu completely extinguished. But that illusion-casting ability? He found himself coveting it.

As far as he knew, the only hypnosis-type and spirit-manipulation abilities belonged to Aizen's Kyōka Suigetsu and Shinji Hirako's Sakanade. No one else's Zanpakuto touched that domain.

And for a mere apparatus to plunge a person into a spiritual illusion, that was no small feat.

Getting to the bottom of it meant entering the Seireitei. Only with a deep understanding of the place could he investigate further. Otherwise his efforts would backfire, he'd offend the Seireitei, and if things escalated to being hunted down, Wayne figured even ten lives wouldn't be enough to survive the Gotei 13.

The bitter waiting, at last, bore fruit. Dusk had settled in before the messenger from the Seireitei finally hurried over, gave Momo a slight bow, and delivered the Shin'ō Academy admission notice.

"Yesss!" Momo jumped for joy, snatched the letter, and rushed into the bedroom.

"Big Brother, Big Brother, we passed! We both passed!" She waved the envelope, along with two dormitory proof badges.

"Haha, go tell Shiro-chan and Granny. I'll head into town and buy some food. Tonight, we celebrate."

"Mm!" Momo handed one of the badges to Wayne, then ran off toward Shiro-chan's house with the envelope.

"The first step toward the Seireitei, huh." After she left, Wayne picked up the badge and turned it over in his fingers.

"I wonder what my roommate will be like. Hopefully someone easy to get along with."

That night, they ate a wonderful meal at Granny and Shiro-chan's house. Seeing both of them admitted to Shin'ō Academy, Shiro-chan was happy and envious in equal measure. But a small hollow crept in too, once these two left, he'd have almost no playmates.

"Granny, about our melon field, what's the yield looking like these days?" Wayne asked at the dinner table.

"About a hundred or so melons every three months, I'd say." Granny thought for a moment.

Unlike the World of the Living, with its planting seasons and climate demands, in the Soul Society, as long as the soil's spiritual energy was abundant, plants produced delicious, Reishi-rich fruit quickly.

"A hundred-plus in three months, so roughly one melon a day?" Wayne considered it. That tracked. Before he'd arrived, Shiro-chan and Granny had scraped by on watermelons. To bring in any income at all, Shiro-chan had gone through stretches of eating one meal and starving through the next. That was why he'd never developed properly before awakening Hyōrinmaru.

After Wayne showed up, Shiro-chan got the food Wayne brought back every day, plus help working the extra land Wayne had added. The two melon fields let Shiro-chan start growing strong. His height hadn't changed much, but his Reiatsu was building at a real, steady pace.

"Granny, once Momo and I are at the academy, we won't be back as often. So I'm thinking — while we've still got these few days before school starts — we turn all the soil in my yard into the kind that can grow watermelons, like the forest soil. After that, I'll find a way to open up connections in the Seireitei so our melons can sell there instead of in Rukongai, where so many end up going to waste."

"With two fields and that semi-automatic watering device Tsukishiro Big Brother made, I think we could manage," Shiro-chan said, chin resting on his hand. "I can run around a bit more."

"Mm. Two melon fields would put the household in a much better spot." Wayne nodded. "Granny, does that work for you?"

"Of course, little Tsukishiro." Granny smiled. "But won't it cause you trouble at the academy? You'd need to pull quite a few strings."

"It's no trouble, Granny." Wayne smiled. "Opening up a new melon field is something that needs doing regardless. Whether we can connect to the Seireitei market depends on whether the opportunity comes, I can't guarantee that. But an extra field means extra prosperity down the line either way. The only cost is a bit more running around for Shiro-chan."

"It's fine. Our houses are close anyway." Shiro-chan looked relaxed. "Besides, lately I feel like my perception of spiritual power has gotten sharper all of a sudden. Tsukishiro Big Brother, do you think I might..."

"You're still young. Even with extraordinary talent, you can't master Reiatsu as fast as Momo and I did. But that's okay, you can start practicing control little by little from here." Wayne thought for a moment. "In the future, Momo and I will find chances to come back and teach you what we've learned. That way you build a solid foundation at home first. Three years from now, when you sit the Shin'ō Academy exam, you'll hit the ground running, maybe even graduate early."

"Eh? You can graduate early from Shin'ō Academy?" Momo asked.

"I've heard you can. Once you've mastered everything the academy teaches, you can apply for early graduation. And if you awaken your Zanpakuto before graduation, you can be placed directly into the Gotei 13 afterward. That's why the ages in the Gotei 13 vary so much."

"So that's how it works." Momo turned it over in her mind, wondering how many years it would take her to graduate, and how long it would take her big brother.

"Anyway, I'll leave the melon fields to Shiro-chan. I'll use these last few days at home to turn over all the soil in the yard and make sure it can grow watermelons properly."

"Mm, okay!"

They didn't stay much longer after that. Once dinner was cleaned up, they headed home.

"Is Big Brother going to the forest tonight?" Back home, Momo saw Wayne gearing up and knew exactly what it meant.

"Ah. I'm going to borrow a cart from Uncle Kuraki in the Rukongai and keep hauling soil back. We're going to cultivate the whole yard."

"Can't you go during the day?" Momo asked. In truth, they'd been brother and sister for over three months, yet she rarely got to exchange more than a few words with Wayne at night. He left early and came back late almost every single day. The two of them had barely ever gone to sleep at the same time. Once they entered Shin'ō Academy, those moments would shrink even further. And if they ended up in different classes, even seeing each other would become rare.

"Better to finish it fast." Wayne's hands didn't stop moving. "Granny's getting older. After the land is cultivated, there's still seeding, watering, maintenance. The more we do now, the less Granny and Shiro-chan have to deal with later."

"Mm... that's true." Momo accepted the reasoning. "Then — can I come with you?"

"Momo, just rest at home. I'm only digging soil, nothing more." Wayne smiled. "Get some good rest. Tomorrow's seeding and watering is all yours."

"Mm. Then, Big Brother, be careful out there." With one last word of concern, Momo walked inside and blew out the candle.

Wayne finished packing his gear and stepped out the door. He went into the Rukongai and borrowed a flatbed pushcart from Uncle Kuraki, his usual source.

He made his way into the forest and began searching for soil suitable for planting, keeping half an eye out for any game he could hunt on the side. Just a bonus if he bagged something.

"Tsukishiro Big Brother?"

Wayne was digging when he sensed a faint Reiatsu drawing near. Instinct said to pull back, but the moment he heard how the other party addressed him, his guard quietly settled.

"Oh? Kira." Wayne tilted toward the voice and kept working.

"What brings you out here today? How did the exam go? You passed, right?"

"Yes. I passed."

"Is that so? Congratulations." Wayne offered a quiet word. "That should ease some of the pressure on your family."

"It's all thanks to Tsukishiro Big Brother. Without your guidance, I never would have stood out. Not only did I surpass several of my peers within the family, I earned the recognition of the 6th Division and the 11th Division during the exam."

"The 6th Division?" Wayne was surprised, though it clicked right away. Izuru Kira was of noble lineage, being noticed by the noble 6th Division made perfect sense. As for the 11th Division, that went without saying. Wayne hadn't trained Kira for long, but that single Sword Gleam Slash must have shone brilliantly during the exam. The rest didn't matter. Kira had passed. That was what their deal had been about.

"At any rate, congratulations. But since the exam is over, why come here today?"

"I'm not entirely sure. I just feel like this forest holds a lot of memories for me." Kira looked around quietly. "Here, I learned how to fight. Here, I tempered my will and found my confidence. I even killed my first Hollow here, before I was a Soul Reaper. The growth I found here made my family see my worth, and let me see hope for my family's future. So without thinking about it, I just wanted to come back. By the time I came to my senses, I was already standing here. I just didn't expect to find Tsukishiro Big Brother here as well."

"Ah. I'm just digging up soil. To grow watermelons." Wayne said it plainly.

"Watermelons?" Kira heard the word again. "Tsukishiro Big Brother has a melon field?"

"To be precise, a close neighbor of mine grows them. In my earliest days in the Soul Society, they looked after me. The daily watermelons were genuinely enough to fill me up every time. That gave me the chance to build Reiatsu, which let me go out hunting, which led me to you."

"I see." Kira understood what Wayne was saying. "No wonder you brought up the watermelon trade last time."

"Just a passing remark. I wanted to repay them." Wayne waved it off.

"Actually... regarding the watermelon trade, perhaps we truly could cooperate." Kira was quiet for a moment. "Would Tsukishiro Big Brother be willing to take me to see the melon field?"

"Oh?"