Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 146 - Victories on All Fronts

Wayne struck once and won. The moment the match ended, a wave of sharp, hissing intakes of breath swept through the crowd outside the arena.

"Incredible — a first-year taking down a sixth-year in an instant. Is that the top student from first year?"

"Interesting."

"A fine prospect."

"Every man in the punishment corps needs that kind of one-hit killing ability. This kid has real talent."

"I heard his proficiency in Kaido is nothing to scoff at either."

"What a shame he's so weak in terms of Reiatsu — if we were evenly matched, I'd love to have a real fight with him."

Up on the viewing platform, it wasn't just the watching students, even the various captains had begun to comment on the one who had been the first to end his match. Wayne's performance had clearly started to draw the captains' attention. As a student in the Soul Reaper reserve, every outstanding cadet would receive preferential allocation of resources from their superiors, that had always been the way of things. And now that Wayne had made a name for himself with a single strike, countless resources would be directed toward him in the future. By defeating a sixth-year to claim a spot in the top sixty-four, the rewards Wayne had already earned were far greater than those of his peers, and this was far from Wayne's final stop.

"That boy is something, isn't he, Lord Aizen." Standing beside Aizen, Vice-Captain Gin Ichimaru narrowed his eyes and smiled softly.

"A pity — he was too reckless," Aizen said, shaking his head. "If he had challenged the fifth-years, he might have had a chance at winning the top prize for fifth-year. The reward would have been doubled — far more valuable than stopping in the top eight of the sixth-year bracket."

"Oh? Does Lord Aizen think he'll stop at the top eight?" Gin Ichimaru pressed.

"If the level of combat he's displayed is the full extent of his power, then the top eight is his ceiling." Aizen's eyes narrowed slightly, and he laughed softly. "Those children from the sixth year, I remember a few of them. Kitazawa in particular. I intend to bring him into the 5th Division."

"Heh~" Gin Ichimaru let out a long, meaningful chuckle, then fell silent.

Unaware of the conversation playing out among the captains on the viewing platform, Wayne, fresh from his victory, walked to the side of the arena and glanced toward where Momo was. With the visor over his eyes, he had no fear of anyone seeing them.

At that moment, Momo's own match was nearing its end. Her opponent had already been bound up tight by Momo's Bakudo.

This was the fighting strategy Wayne had taught her.

Unlike Wayne's approach of ending things quickly, Momo, gifted with exceptional talent in Kidō, combined her blade with Kidō to produce a surprisingly effective style of catching opponents off guard. After all, rapid continuous Bakudo chains didn't seem to exist in any established fighting method at the time.

And yet Momo had made it work.

Bakudo No. 1: Sai.

A Kidō that requires no incantation and is easy to slip free of, but what about firing it in rapid succession?

Throughout the match, whether locking from the front or from behind, Momo's opponent hadn't had her hands free for more than five seconds at a stretch. And beyond that, there was Hainawa, Sekienton, a whole sequence of Bakudo deployed like a chain of combo strikes, keeping her opponent completely unable to fight back. Low-level Hadō spells, Tsuzuri Raiden, Byakurai, and others, also became Momo's primary means of dealing damage. By the time the older student's hair was slightly singed from repeated Byakurai strikes, she was still three or four meters away from Momo.

"Got you!" Her opponent, battered and injured all over, finally lunged to close the gap, raising her Zanpakuto and bringing it down toward Momo, from the initial contempt she'd felt for Momo, to the shock at Momo's rapid-fire Kidō, to the rage that had built up from the injuries she'd sustained, this slash held nothing back. The older student swung hard and straight at Momo's face.

"Bakudo No. 8: Seki!"

"Bakudo No. 21: Sekienton!" Momo cried out sharply, slamming both palms into the ground. Thick smoke billowed up in an instant, and then, following an incantation chanted from somewhere indistinct in the haze, Momo released the strongest Bakudo she was capable of using.

"Bakudo No. 30: Shitotsu Sansen!"

Thunk, thunk, thunk!

Three sharp sounds pierced her opponent's shoulders and abdomen simultaneously, pinning her firmly to the ground.

Bakudo No. 30 had drained every last bit of Momo's Reiatsu, but it was enough. By the time that older student had wrenched herself free of Shitotsu Sansen's binding, Momo was already gasping for breath with her blade resting flat against the older student's throat.

"First-year — Momo Hinamori wins!"

A roar.

The entire arena erupted into an uproar. Who could have imagined that the quiet, delicate girl who had kept such a low profile throughout the past month would be able to defeat a third-year opponent? Before the match, they had been laughing at these first-years for overestimating themselves, yet here was the result, and it was nothing like what anyone had expected.

"That Momo Hinamori, isn't she the younger sister of Tsukishiro Hinamori? What is going on with those two siblings? How are they both so strong?"

"Momo Hinamori was clearly giving everything she had, that's probably her limit. But Tsukishiro looked completely at ease. No telling how far he can go."

"The betting pool is open, the betting pool is open! First-year Tsukishiro Hinamori has made the board, place your bets while you can!"

On the other side of the platform, the Soul Reapers had started their own private wagering. Wayne's outstanding performance had earned him a place on the board directly, though of course, all of this was well within what Wayne had anticipated.

"I won! Big brother, I won!" Momo was overjoyed. She had fought using the method her big brother had taught her, but the victory was real and it was hers.

Her opponent had been an older student with no particular aptitude for Kidō, exactly the type of target Wayne had told Momo to seek out. If her opponent had been proficient in Kidō, she would have used Kidō in return to restrain Momo, and Momo's chances of winning would have been slim. This third-year older student had fit Momo's requirements perfectly. It was a bit of an exploit, but the rewards were solid. Momo was very pleased with her victory.

"Mm. What kind of opponent you'll meet next, that's down to luck." Wayne smiled. He wasn't counting on Momo to keep winning; after all, everyone who had made it this far was no pushover. "Top sixty-four in the third-year bracket earns you three vials of Basic Reishi Supplement and three vials of Basic Soul Enhancement. That's exactly what you need for your training. If things go smoothly, Momo might be able to jump up a whole level in Reiatsu very soon."

"Heh heh~" Momo scratched her head, a little embarrassed. She was genuinely delighted with the reward.

Wayne glanced back toward Kira's side of the arena. Kira and his fourth-year opponent had taken to the air, clashing blade to blade. With every exchange, Wayne could clearly sense the improvement in Kira's swordsmanship, both in technique and in raw strength. Kira hadn't used his blade pressure once throughout the fight. Perhaps it was because this particular opponent was well suited for honing his sword skills.

Just as Wayne himself had once used the Adjuchas-class Hollow Saros to train his swordsmanship, Kira needed an opponent like this to sharpen himself.

Blades rang together again and again, sending sparks flying with each clash. Kira and his opponent were evenly matched, trading blows back and forth.

His opponent was a student who specialized in swordsmanship, and his Zanpakuto had yet to release into Shikai, that was the only reason the fight was this close. Still, although Kira appeared to be under some pressure, he clearly hadn't given his full effort. He was simply using the opportunity to train.

Turning his attention away from Kira, Wayne shifted his gaze to Renji Abarai.

Renji had only a month of training behind him, and there was nothing especially remarkable about his blade techniques. But the second-year opponent he was facing was already nearly spent, so Renji stepped in to test his luck, and a win would be pure profit.

In practice, Renji's brutish, forceful hacking, infused with his Reiatsu, was enough to send his already exhausted opponent retreating step by step. In the end, unable to sustain his Reiatsu any longer, the older student had his Zanpakuto sent flying from his hand with a single strike from Renji and was declared the loser. Renji rubbed his nose and grinned with the self-satisfied smile of someone who thought himself the best in the world, then quickly glanced toward the viewing platform. Following the direction of Renji's gaze, Wayne spotted Rukia seated in the stands, smiling and waving at Renji Abarai. At this point she likely hadn't been approached by the Kuchiki family yet, otherwise that warm smile on her face would have been replaced by that cold, distant look, along with the flustered urge to run away.

"Challenging a second-year's top sixty-four, a successful win earns one vial of Basic Reishi Supplement and one vial of Soul Enhancement. Not bad at all." Wayne smiled faintly, then turned his attention to the sixth-year students who were still fighting. Beyond the written records he had reviewed, Wayne needed to observe them in practice as well, hoping to identify weaknesses from watching their battles that would give him a better advantage going forward.

Before long, the first-year challenge matches came to a close. Wayne, Kira, and Momo had all advanced. Kira had performed admirably, he suppressed the urge to use his blade pressure slash and forced himself to fight with pure swordsmanship, successfully using the match to temper his blade skills, coming away with a great deal of gain.

Most of the other first-year students had still been defeated by their older opponents. Of the two-hundred-odd first-year students who had stepped onto the arena, fewer than thirty were still standing at the end, and their opponents had generally been second- and third-year students.

With the challenge round over, the top-sixty-four-to-thirty-two matches were set to begin two hours later. The intention behind this pace was, in fact, to prevent these newcomers from finding loopholes to exploit. It also served as a way to further temper the older students.

Shortening the recovery time between bouts pushes students to better draw out their latent potential.

There had been precedents before, some students had gained insight into their Zanpakuto's release during intense combat, causing their Reiatsu to spike dramatically in an instant.

Two hours later, the top thirty-two matches began. Wayne's opponent was an older student who excelled in Kidō. After the sixth year, students were taught all the Kidō incantations, short of those numbered ninety and above, but Kidō in the sixty to eighty range was simply beyond what the current crop of students could control. At present, a student who had mastered the first fifty Kidō numbers and some in the sixties was considered at the upper limit.

This older student was one of the best among them, having mastered Bakudo and Hadō up through the seventieth number. She had the aptitude to one day enter the Kidō Corps. The only drawback was that her Reiatsu wasn't high, releasing high-level Kidō one or two times would leave her completely drained.

Given that Wayne had done his intelligence work thoroughly, he was naturally unfazed.

Based on Wayne's understanding of Kidō, there were two categories, those that locked onto a target automatically and those requiring manual targeting. Most of the self-targeting type tended to be Bakudo; Hadō had fewer in that category. As for combining Kidō in sequence, aside from rapid low-level chains like Momo's approach, chaining high-level Kidō was difficult even for sixth-year students.

Wayne's countermeasure was equally straightforward, meet everything with a steady, unmoving response. Low-level Kidō he let come; he simply stood there. When she began incanting a high-level spell, he would surge his Reiatsu to break free of any binding, then flash-step out of the attack's path. He would wear her Reiatsu down gradually.

And in practice, this approach worked exactly as intended. He absorbed a good portion of her low-level Bakudo, then she switched to low-level Hadō. For anything below number thirty, Wayne didn't even bother dodging, he simply layered a Reiatsu-based defense over his body. He waited until she began chanting an incantation, preparing for a full release.

Bakudo No. 61: Rikujōkōrō!

Bakudo No. 62: Hyapporankan!

The use of two mid-to-high-level Bakudo earned the sixth-year older student a round of thunderous applause from the crowd, but the enormous drain on her Reiatsu made her complexion gradually pale.

Pinned to the ground by light plates and light rods, Wayne was completely calm. He channeled his Reiatsu internally, waiting for the right moment to surge, simply watching for his opponent's next move.

"Bones of the scattered beast, soaring towers, crimson crystals, wheels of iron, move and become the wind, still and become the void; the sound of clashing spears overflows the Hollow city. Hadō No. 63: Raikōhō!" At the center where the older student's right hand stood upright, a golden bolt of lightning flared to life, gathering, weaving together, and then a massive sphere of thunderous energy launched itself toward the spot where Wayne stood.

BOOM!

A tremendous explosion shook the arena. Every pair of eyes turned toward the blast.

"Was that, a sixth-year's..." The spectators in the arena murmured to each other without prompting. "Hadō and Bakudo in the sixties, isn't that the level only seated officers in the divisions can use? And that was just a sixth-year student."

"A Kidō prodigy from sixth year, then? Is that Tsukishiro going to be blown to dust?"

"With a referee on the field, surely not?"

In truth, even the referee on the field was wiping cold sweat from his brow. Someone capable of using Kidō in the sixties had already surpassed him in ability, he would never have been able to intervene in time. Still, he could sense the Reiatsu of the other competitor, and that allowed him to exhale. As long as there was still a Reiatsu reading, whether it was the 4th Division or the 12th Division, there would be a way to bring him back.

"Look up, at the sky!" At last, the students on the viewing platform spotted the figure standing in the air. It was Wayne, Wayne, free from the Bakudo's binding. He hovered in the sky, his long blade angled at a slant, not a scratch on him.

Before Raikōhō could strike him, he had surged his Reiatsu, forcibly shattered the binding of Rikujōkōrō, and leaped into the sky with Shunpo. And while the dust and smoke swirled below, he had pulled the light rods from his body.

"What?!" The sixth-year older student looked up, staring at Wayne floating unharmed in the sky with an expression of pure disbelief. "How is that possible!"

"Senior." Wayne flash-stepped back down to the ground. "I'll take the win." He had no intention of drawing his blade, he could sense that his opponent's Reiatsu was completely depleted. If she managed to fire off a Shakkaho at this point, it would be something to admire.

"Hah..." The sixth-year older student's brow furrowed tightly, but in the end she let out a long sigh and chose to concede. "You're very good. I don't like that cautious, evasive style of yours, but I have to admit, you used the most efficient fighting method possible. In an actual battlefield, I'd probably already be dead. I surrender."

"First-year — Tsukishiro Hinamori wins, advancing to the top thirty-two!"

A roar!

Down on the viewing platform, another wave of uproar swept through the crowd. This first-year newcomer had advanced to the top thirty-two of the sixth-year bracket.

➤ Next: A Formidable Foe