Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 156 - Semifinals — Steel and Blood
A blazing net of fire enveloped Wayne, red and yellow flames licking outward, swallowing the air as if they meant to consume it all.
"Combination Kidō? That's a technique even seated officers below Fifth Seat might not have mastered." The students below the arena were stunned by Yagami Kina's assault. As expected of a Kidō Corps scion, her command of Kidō ran deep.
"Understanding the properties of Kidō and recombining them for use — that's Combination Kidō. Every Kidō has distinct characteristics, and the effects shift depending on how they're paired. Two Kidō with opposing elemental natures can't be used simultaneously. Their Reiatsu circulation pathways differ, and attempting it locks the caster into a brief paralysis. Without someone guarding you, even a few seconds of that will get you killed." A Soul Reaper supervisor nearby spoke evenly. "Combining two Kidō is excellent. Three or more is genius. This young lady of the Yagami family is already using Combination Kidō at her age — she's clearly advancing further down that path, surpassing what some of her elders achieved in their day."
"I never imagined Kidō could be wielded with such sophistication. That's an eye-opener," a lower-year student murmured.
"That Tsukishiro Hinamori... he's not just going to burn to death in there, is he?" Someone finally remembered Wayne, still trapped inside the flames.
FWOOSH!
The words had barely left the student's mouth when Wayne slashed through the fire net in a single stroke. He Shunpo'd out. But as he escaped the blaze, everyone could see the Combination Kidō had left burns on Tsukishiro Hinamori. Not severe ones, it looked like he'd used a burst of Reiatsu to keep the flames at bay, suffering only scalding from the heat.
"Just as I thought. I knew a Kidō combination in the thirties wouldn't put you down." Yagami Kina stuck her tongue out at Wayne. But her hands never stopped working, she immediately raised three panels of Enkōsen around herself. Then her voice, bright as a songbird, rang out again. "But this fight isn't over!" She raised her Zanpakuto high and chanted the release incantation. "Reveal your twilight glow — Tsukiruri!"
Hum!
With the incantation, moonlight shimmered across her blade. It grew longer, more slender, its tip curving into an eerie hook. A glimmering stream of light flowed along the full length of the Zanpakuto, and at the end of the hilt, a crescent-moon glass pendant swayed, casting a seven-colored radiance.
"A Zanpakuto with no intel." Wayne narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses, no intel meant no rapid assault. He'd need to observe. And soon enough, Yagami Kina resumed her offensive.
"Hadō #33: Sōkatsui!" A burst of white flame shot toward him. Wayne leaped, barely dodging it.
"Hadō #58: Tenran!" In the direction of his leap, Yagami Kina whipped up a powerful whirlwind and swept him into it.
"Hadō #12: Fushibi!" Bright flames surged along the whirlwind, and a dragon of fire swept across the arena in an instant. The searing heat forced spectators to raise their arms for protection.
"Another Combination Kidō!" The audience squinted, enduring the scorching air to keep watching.
"Hadō #54: Haien!" Giving Wayne no chance to escape, the moment the fire dragon took shape, Yagami Kina hurled a burst of violet flames into it. The dragon's temperature shot up even higher.
"AHHH!" A cry of agony rang out from within the fire dragon. Hearing that voice, Momo's heart nearly burst from her chest, that was her big brother's voice, a scream torn from him because he couldn't withstand the inferno.
"Give up!" Yagami Kina called out. "If you don't surrender, you'll burn to death!"
"N-No... way!" Wayne erupted his Reiatsu across his entire body, slashed open a gap in the violet fire dragon, and Shunpo'd out at full speed, then crashed to the ground.
"Big brother!" Seeing Wayne collapsed on the ground, his body covered in burns, his clothes charred, his hair singed and curled, Momo was so horrified tears nearly spilled from her eyes.
"Hmph. Still stubborn." The corner of Yagami Kina's mouth curled upward as she regarded him like prey. "In that case — let's see how you handle this." She swung her Zanpakuto Tsukiruri, and the glass crescent moon at its tassel flashed with a seven-colored halo that enveloped her. Then her voice rang out again.
"Bakudō #61: Rikujōkōrō!"
"Bakudō #62: Hyapporankan!"
"Bakudō #63: Sajō Sabaku!"
Three Bakudō in the sixties locked Wayne firmly in place. Yagami Kina swung her Zanpakuto again, the seven-colored halo reappearing. What followed was a long incantation.
"Walls of ironsand, a priestly pagoda, shimmering ironclad fire, resolute and unwavering until all falls silent! Bakudō #75: Gochūtekkan!"
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Five thunderous impacts in succession, five enormous iron pillars plummeted from the sky, slamming squarely onto Wayne's head and four limbs, pinning him ruthlessly to the ground. Utterly immobile.
"A Bakudō in the seventies?!" The crowd was stunned. Even the captains on the highest observation platform were visibly moved.
A sixth-year student who could chant and use a Kidō in the seventies, even the top ten seated officers of the Kidō Corps would be hard-pressed to match that.
"Hah..." After using a Kidō in the seventies, Yagami Kina's complexion had turned noticeably pale. Clearly, it had drained her considerably.
"Are you... still not going to surrender?" She panted, asking him word by word.
"Hmph. Bakudō can only bind me, what comes after?" Wayne stubbornly lifted his head, but the iron pillar forced it right back down. The pillar wouldn't crush his skull, but its sealing and suppressing force was more than enough to keep him pinned.
"Hmph... now I'm angry!" Seeing the man before her still refusing to yield, Yagami Kina swung her Zanpakuto once more. The seven-colored halo flowed out in an instant.
"Lord of the Throne! Mask of flesh and blood, all creation, fluttering wings, one who bears the name of man! On the wall of blue flame, engrave the twin lotuses, await the abyss of great fire in the distant heavens. Hadō #73: Sōren Sōkatsui!"
Two white flame lotuses bloomed in her hands and surged toward Wayne, enveloping him.
BOOM! Searing flames swept across the arena as the white lotuses detonated, sending scorching ripples surging outward in waves. The Soul Reapers guarding the observation platform had no choice but to release their Reiatsu and form protective barriers to shield the students in the stands. The captain of Squad 10, Isshin Shiba, who was responsible for security, leaped down from the high platform and raised a hand to suppress the flames about to surge onto the observation deck.
A Hadō in the seventies was enough to collapse half the observation platform. If the captain hadn't stepped in, the lower-year students would have been in serious danger.
After a long moment, the white flames at the arena's center gradually weakened, revealing the ruins within. The five iron pillars that had imprisoned Wayne still stood in place, now glowing red-hot. Beneath them, Wayne was nowhere to be seen. The only thing left behind was a katana not yet fully melted into molten iron.
"BIG BROTHER!" Momo's tears burst forth. She never imagined the battle would escalate to such a brutal state.
It wasn't that no one had ever died in the Ranking Tournament, but the odds were very low. With referees and a full roster of captains present, especially with Captain Retsu Unohana of the 4th Division here, the probability of someone dying was exceedingly, exceedingly slim.
But what was happening right now? Those blazing flames had burned her big brother into nothingness. What were the referees doing? What were the captains on the platform doing?
Momo couldn't understand. She could only let her tears flow freely. This big brother who had suddenly appeared in her life had only been with her for a few months, but his presence had long since woven itself into her daily life, and now Momo was screaming herself hoarse. She wanted to rush onto the stage, but Kira held her back. The flames hadn't fully died out yet. If Momo went up now, she would very likely be burned as well.
"Hah..." Yagami Kina exhaled deeply again. Her pale face regained a bit of color after several breaths. But her dark brows were tightly knit. She, too, couldn't understand why the referees and captains hadn't intervened, why they had simply allowed Wayne to be burned to death by her Kidō.
By her own reckoning, the moment she unleashed Sōren Sōkatsui, a referee or captain should have leaped onto the stage to help Wayne block the flames and then declare her the victor. Yet neither the referees nor the captains had done so. They had merely watched as the white lotus surged toward Wayne and ultimately burned him to nothing.
Puzzled, Yagami Kina turned her gaze toward the highest observation platform to her right. She saw the dozen or so captains all watching her direction with impassive expressions, but their focus didn't seem to be on her. It was on... behind her.
"Huh?!" Yagami Kina's pupils abruptly contracted, as if she had suddenly realized something. She whipped her head around, and saw a severely burned figure materialize out of nowhere. His terrifyingly fast right hand shot toward her chin, and with an upward palm strike, he sent her entire body flying backward.
The next second, that scorched and blackened hand seized her ankle mid-flight and yanked her back. His left hand hammered down in a crushing blow, slamming viciously into her lower abdomen. In an instant, the searing pain and the spasms in her stomach nearly robbed her of consciousness.
BANG!
Yagami Kina's body crashed heavily into the ground, forming a spiderweb of cracks. She could no longer hold onto her Zanpakuto, it was forcibly ripped away by that afterimage and, in the end, stabbed into the ground less than three centimeters from her neck.
Lying on the ground, Yagami Kina couldn't even react to the blade's edge piercing the skin beside her neck. Only after a long moment did she finally make out the figure less than half a meter away, Wayne, leaning on her own Zanpakuto and gasping for breath.
By now, Wayne's hair had been burned considerably shorter, and his entire body was covered in charred black and the angry red of burn wounds. The sunglasses he'd worn were gone, having perished together with the white flames from before. His pale violet eyes were unfocused, yet seemed to be staring straight at her. The faint furrow of his brow only made those eyes appear even clearer.
On Wayne's body, the top of his academy uniform was gone, revealing his robust physique underneath. Only the hakama on his lower half remained, burned now into shorts. He looked utterly ragged. And yet, he still loomed over her like a proud, fierce tiger pinning down its prey.
"You... lost." After catching his breath briefly, Wayne uttered the words.
Snapped awake, Yagami Kina finally came back to her senses, she had been closed in on and taken down in hand-to-hand combat by Wayne in less than three seconds.
The blade she had once known so well was now poised beside her neck. The slightest carelessness would send blood gushing from the already broken skin.
"How... did you do it?" Though she couldn't comprehend it, she still wanted to ask. She was deeply unwilling to accept this loss, or rather, she was lost, because she had absolutely no idea what had happened in that instant.
"Hah..." Having finally steadied his breathing, Wayne stood up and pulled her Zanpakuto from the ground. "Your Zanpakuto's ability is quite good. It's a support-type, isn't it?"
"Eh?" Yagami Kina was stunned. Her Zanpakuto's ability had been revealed to the world for the very first time. And yet the man before her could accurately identify its type.
"A track-type Zanpakuto. Support-class. Though I don't know the specifics, it can at least help you recover Reiatsu." Wayne flicked the glass pendant tied to the hilt. The glass crescent moon was now dim and lusterless, as if it had lost its spiritual essence.
"Judging by its current state, the number of times it can fully restore your Reiatsu probably doesn't exceed three."
"Yeah." Yagami Kina, still lying on the ground, nodded slightly. "But how did you escape from my Bakudō?"
"Utsusemi." The one who spoke was not Wayne, but the captain of the 2nd Division, Soifon, standing on the observation platform. "A common escape technique used by my Stealth Force. Hmph, I imagine some 2nd Division Shunpo instructor gave him private lessons."
"Well... that's about right." Wayne continued from where Soifon left off. "The reason I let myself get tangled up in all your Bakudō without moving was that I wanted to see your Zanpakuto's ability. But once I realized you were just using it as a battery, I wasn't worried at all. I used the Utsusemi technique to slip free of the Bakudō restraints, and before the Kidō flames could completely ignite me, I escaped into the sky. Then I used Shunpo to get behind you. And as you know, what happens when a Kidō specialist gets closed in on by a close-combat fighter."
"So that's how it was... Heh. It seems I still underestimated you." Having understood the entire sequence, Yagami Kina smiled with a trace of regret.
"Well then, Miss Yagami Kina, you can surrender now." Wayne straightened up and extended his hand toward her, still lying on the ground.
Yagami Kina's cheeks flushed slightly. She reached out and placed her hand in Wayne's broad palm. Looking into his pale violet eyes, she said with a gentle, smiling tone, "Fine, fine. I surrender."
"Semifinal, advancing from four to two — the victor: Tsukishiro Hinamori!"
OHHHHH!
In an instant, thunderous cheers resounded throughout the entire arena.
A first-year student, relying on his extraordinary strength, had charged all the way to the final match of the sixth-year Ranking Tournament.
If he won the next match, he would firmly secure the position of the academy's number one.
And he had only enrolled just over a month ago.
➤ Next: The Decisive Battle