Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 144 - The Tournament Begins

Three days later, the Shin'ō Academy Ranking Tournament officially opened. Over ten thousand competitors from five school years had gathered at the tournament grounds.

The arena was divided into five zones, filling the academy's entire plaza to capacity. The viewing stands were packed to overflowing with students and Soul Reapers who weren't competing.

It was, without question, one of the few great events Shin'ō Academy ever hosted. To maintain order and security, the Gotei 13 had deployed every captain, including the Captain-Commander himself. The 9th and 10th Divisions were responsible for in-venue security, the 11th Division handled perimeter patrol, and the 4th Division stood by to treat seriously injured students. The 12th Division was in charge of distributing prizes, though they had sent only a small number of personnel, the majority of their members remained at the research institute monitoring Reiatsu fluctuations across the three realms. The 13th Division had not sent its full complement either, as they still had duties in the living world. Captain Ukitake had come, accompanied by only two attendants from his Division, likely his lieutenant.

Standing on the viewing platform, Wayne, eyepatch in place, glanced quietly toward the highest observation deck. The figures assembled there represented the peak fighting strength of all Soul Society. Aside from the 3rd Division, whose captain's seat was temporarily filled by the lieutenant, all twelve remaining captains were present without exception. At this point in time, Gin Ichimaru was still serving as Aizen's lieutenant, though his promotion to captain was surely not far off.

After that one quick glance, Wayne pulled his gaze back. He had no need to spread his senses, the venue was full of people, and picking anyone out was nearly impossible. Mizusue, the 7th Seat, had arranged a good vantage point for Wayne so he could step onto the stage for challenges easily. As a result, as soon as they arrived at the venue, Nakai had helped Wayne, Momo, and Kira all make their way to the very front of the student viewing area.

"I didn't expect Brother and Lady Mizusue of the 4th Division to be on such good terms — she actually arranged the best viewing spot for him." Momo looked left and right, then tilted her gaze up toward the highest tier of the observation stands, her face full of admiration and excitement as she watched those white-robed figures radiating powerful Reiatsu. She lingered longest on the captain of the 5th Division.

"Arranging seats for a student is a small thing — Mizusue can manage that much." Now that he and Mizusue were on familiar terms, Wayne wouldn't call her "my lady" behind her back; their relationship was one of cooperation, after all. Still, he kept up appearances to her face, since that teal-haired woman cared a great deal about her image in front of others.

"Brother, I heard someone say that once the tournament reaches the top 64, challengers are allowed to step in?" As a girl, Momo naturally chatted with classmates during free time, and lately the hottest topic by far was the academy Ranking Tournament.

"Right. They say it's to give the first-year talents a chance to grow. So the preliminary rounds are bypassed entirely — challengers start from the top 64 onward. You have to understand, the top 64 from each school year are that year's elite geniuses. Taking anything from them won't be easy at all." Wayne explained patiently, and at the same time, he let his gaze drift through the eyepatch down to the arena below. "From what I hear, the prize pool is quite varied. Even the lowest reward is a medicine that temporarily boosts Reiatsu — something genuinely valuable to any student. And that lowest-tier prize is awarded starting from the top 64."

"Wow... I really want one of those medicines." Momo's eyes burned with longing.

"We haven't received our Zanpakutō yet, but we can still go up and try." Wayne smiled.

"Brother, you're definitely going up." Momo puffed her cheeks. "But I don't have that kind of strength. I haven't even fully mastered all the Kidō spells up to number thirty. I've learned the incantation for Shakkahō, but I'm still getting a feel for it."

"Miss Hinamori is already remarkable. I can't even manage the first ten Kidō spells..." Nakai deflated a little. Over the past month he could feel his own Reiatsu growing considerably, yet he still couldn't keep pace with the people in Wayne's circle. Whether it was Kira or Momo, neither was someone he could catch up to. Still, he didn't let himself dream too big about how strong he might become. He had only ended up in this class because of Wayne. In the future, even if he couldn't keep up with Wayne's footsteps, as long as he could awaken his Zanpakutō and enter the Gotei 13, that would be enough.

"You two are ahead of me, I can't use a single Kidō spell." Wayne laughed wryly. "Though it's not like I can't fight." He scratched the back of his head, then leaned close and whispered into Momo's ear. "Momo, you could try..."

Momo perked up and listened carefully, nodding repeatedly. The light in her eyes grew brighter and brighter with each word, until at last she looked up at Wayne with pure delight. "Brother, brother, can that really work?"

"All I can say is, give it a try." Wayne ruffled Momo's head. "When the fights reach the top 64, just pick someone from the third year or fourth year and test yourself against them. And if you play it cleverly, who knows, you might even make the top 32."

"Got it! I'm going to try!"

Watching Momo's confident face, Kira beside her couldn't hold back any longer and leaned in to murmur to her. "Hinamori, what did Brother Tsukishiro tell you? Can you let me in on a bit of it? I want to go up and compete too."

"You've already learned Sword Pressure, just go up and fight." Wayne said with an amused scold. "Do you really think a Sword Pressure technique like Blade Radiance Slash is easy to learn? Out of the nearly ten thousand students here, fewer than a hundred can use Sword Pressure. Trust me, Kira, pick the right targets and you can make the top 16. Push a little further and the top 8 isn't out of the question either."

"Really?" Kira's face lit up with surprise. "Brother Tsukishiro, can I really do that?"

"Watch the fights below carefully. Learn from their battles whatever you can absorb and fold it into your own fighting style. Only by constantly learning, practicing, and accumulating experience will you keep getting stronger. Powerful Reiatsu is the foundation, but combat experience is the capital that keeps you alive in a fight. And intelligence on your opponent is the key to winning. So before you've made contact with anyone, the information on these five school years and ten thousand-plus students is absolutely critical." Wayne lectured the two of them.

"Of course, don't bother studying the ones whose flaws you can already see through. Focus on the ones you can't read. That means locking your attention mostly on the upper-year matches. Leave the lower years for when the top 128 comes around."

After a few brief pointers to the two of them, Wayne turned his full attention back to the arena. The first few rounds of the advancement matches offered, unsurprisingly, little of real interest. Students who could use Shunpo to find footing in the air dominated those who couldn't. Students with a strong command of Kidō steamrolled those who had none. Straight blade clashes weren't absent, but there was nothing particularly striking about them. As for hand-to-hand combat, fewer than ten competitors in the entire arena were using it, and three of those were already eliminated in the first round.

As expected, the way of the fist was a dying art. Of those who could claim to use it to any real effect, the only names Wayne knew from the source material were Old Man Yamamoto and, Six! Wheels! Fist! West!

The first three rounds passed quickly. The 256-to-128 advancement matches resumed after the venues were reconfigured, and now, finally, Wayne began to see the arena floor sustaining actual damage. These students were starting to push themselves. Mid-tier Kidō and Bakudō from numbers thirty to sixty appeared with increasing frequency. Fights were no longer confined to the ground, more and more competitors launched themselves airborne, stepping on Reishi particles to take to the sky. Naturally, they were still required to remain within the boundaries of their assigned zone; stepping outside meant an automatic loss.

Unlike the previous bouts that ended in a matter of minutes, or even seconds, the fights from this round onward became noticeably longer. Within the same school year, students' Reiatsu levels were often closely matched, so the deciding factors became technique and experience. This gave Wayne and the others the opportunity to identify more combat-capable students as the round progressed.

After roughly a quarter of an hour, the top 128 from all five school years had been decided. The students were given a brief rest; 4th Division members moved in to treat their injuries and help restore their Reiatsu. After lunch, the 128-to-64 advancement matches would begin, along with the first-year challenge rounds.

"Brother Tsukishiro, I've identified four or five third-year opponents. I think I have a decent chance against any of them." At the lunch table, Izuru Kira's eyes held a flash of confidence. After watching the matches, he had narrowed down a shortlist of potential targets.

"Good, being able to zero in on your opponents by watching a few fights is exactly right." Wayne gave him an affirming nod. "That said, winning the match is one thing. Don't forget that fighting has its own strategy."

"Oh?" Kira's eyes sharpened with interest, and he straightened up at once to ask Wayne directly. "Please teach me, Brother Tsukishiro."

"From the fights just now, it's very hard to see through every tactic an opponent has. Anyone who made the top 64 has real ability. So for the challenge rounds, my advice is this: either use the opponent to sharpen your own fighting skills, or go in with overwhelming force and end it in one decisive move."

"The first path — temper yourself. The second — seize the win."

"I see." Kira looked thoughtful, and soon the clarity returned to his eyes. "I understand. Thank you, Brother Tsukishiro." He bowed again in the manner of a disciple showing respect.

Wayne gave a small nod, then turned to Momo. "You don't need to feel any pressure, Momo. Just go out there and show what you can do. When second year comes, you'll officially enter the Ranking Tournament. By then, I want you to fight with your own style, not by copying or borrowing someone else's."

"Got it, Brother!" Momo nodded vigorously.

The group returned to their lunch, and none of them noticed that at a nearby table, Renji Abarai had his ears perked up, listening intently to their conversation with a thoughtful look on his face.

Soon enough, the lunch break slipped by, and everyone made their way back to the venue. As the number of competing students shrank, the battle zones were drawn progressively larger, to give these stronger students enough space to fight freely, without holding back.

In the 128-to-64 round, Wayne finally saw the upper-year students beginning to release Shikai. These exceptional students who had awakened their Zanpakutō before graduation were simply waiting to finish school and enter the Gotei 13. Among the fourth- and fifth-year students, however, Shikai releases were comparatively rare, because if a student awakened their Zanpakutō early, they could apply to the school to graduate ahead of schedule. In other words, it wasn't that the lower years lacked talent; it was that the talented ones had already gone off to become full Soul Reapers.

All manner of Zanpakutō took the field, physical types, Kidō types, elemental types, the rare healing type, even the rarer still summoning type, all represented here. A Zanpakutō's ability was intimately tied to its wielder, and strangely, the younger a student was when they awakened it, the more powerful the ability tended to be.

By comparison, the sixth-year students' awakened Zanpakutō were actually somewhat weaker. Of course, this was only a horizontal comparison of the Zanpakutō themselves, it didn't mean the sixth-years were inferior, since the final effectiveness of any Zanpakutō ultimately came down to its user.

"Wow, what a sight." Momo watched the growing variety of abilities manifesting from the Shikai releases across the arena, her eyes full of longing.

"You'll get there someday." Wayne reached out and patted Momo on the head.

"Hehe, yeah!" Encouraged by Wayne, Momo nodded with excitement.

"After releasing Shikai, so many of these students' Reiatsu suddenly spiked." Kira's expression dimmed. The students with Shikai awakened a kind of dread in him at the thought of facing them.

"Keep observing them. Even with Shikai released, these students almost certainly haven't fully mastered the full power of their Zanpakutō yet. You need to develop a deep understanding of it over time before you can bring out its true strength." Wayne explained to both Kira and Momo together. "So don't be afraid of Zanpakutō. They're just a type of ability. Find the weak point, and a Zanpakutō is nothing more than a somewhat troublesome blade."

"Yes, understood, Brother Tsukishiro." Kira recovered a measure of confidence and began studying in earnest the students who might soon become his opponents.

The top-64 advancement rounds for all five school years ran for a long time. The longest single match was between two sixth-year students, both of whose Zanpakutō were physical-type after Shikai release, one transformed into a massive executioner's blade, the other into a siege lance nearly two meters long. Those two enormous weapons clashed for a full twenty minutes before the match ended with both fighters' Reiatsu completely spent. The student wielding the executioner's blade ultimately won by a single decisive move.

Watching it afterward, Wayne couldn't help thinking to himself that he had no idea what these two would ever use those weapons for. As things stood, neither of them had managed to really bring out the principle that greater reach meant greater advantage.

When the fighting concluded, all students had successfully advanced to the top 64, and another brief rest was called. The 4th Division stepped in once more to help restore injuries and Reiatsu. Unfortunately, those whose Reiatsu was fully depleted or whose injuries were too severe had no way of recovering to their peak in time. They could only pray that in the coming challenge rounds, none of the first-years would pick them as their targets.

After the matches, Old Man Yamamoto stepped forward on the highest observation platform and began his address.

"Students, you are all the finest future warriors of Soul Society. Watching your performance today, I am deeply gratified. The fresh blood of the Gotei 13 remains full of vitality and spirit.

For outstanding students, the Gotei 13 will naturally not be stingy. Exceptional prizes of all kinds have been prepared for each of you. Give everything you have, show the best of yourselves, and claim the rewards you deserve!"

"Yeah!"

A great cheer erupted from the competitors on the platforms. Most of them already knew something of what the prizes entailed, and every one of them was hungry for them.

"Of course, our academy's first-year class is not without its own outstanding talents. With that, I hereby declare: the first-year challenge rounds are now open. And so, first-year students."

Whoosh...

As Old Man Yamamoto's words fell, every spectator and every competing student turned their gaze simultaneously toward the first-year viewing area.

"Is there a challenger?"

"Here!"

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➤ Next: A Second Was All It Took