Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 171 - Welcome Home

Chapter 171, Welcome Home

The killing blow sent Yagami China's Reiatsu crashing to nothing. Wayne snapped a Sword Gleam out with one hand, a sharp, quick arc that forced the Adjuchas back just long enough, and caught China with the other before she hit the ground.

Pale green Kaido light wrapped around her the moment he did.

"Moon... -chan." The warm current pulled her back to consciousness for a moment. But the blood seeping freely from her wound told Wayne what he needed to know. This was a last flicker. The candle going out.

There was no saving her. Not without Retsu Unohana, Captain of the 4th Division, standing right here. Without that, Yagami China was beyond saving.

"Moon-chan... don't... waste any more... Reiatsu on me..." She lay limp in his arms, smiling anyway. "I know... my own body..."

"Why did you have to be so reckless." Wayne held her close and fell back hard, but the Adjuchas behind him matched every step, pressing tighter.

"Hehe... I don't know." Her voice came out soft. By the time she'd understood what was happening, her body had already moved on its own.

"Idiot." Wayne's brow pulled together. "Stop talking. I'll find a way to save you."

"I can't... if I stop now... I'm afraid there won't be time." China reached up and looped her arm around his neck. "Moon-chan... do you know? The first time we met, I really did want to bring you into my clan as a retainer. My family needed someone like you — a genius who could change our fate. But then we found out you had no Kidō talent. That might affect our bloodline, the elders said. So they gave up on the idea. But still..."

"The more time we spent together — even without much real conversation between us — I kept finding myself drawn in. Your talent. How seriously you trained. I wanted to invite you to my succession ceremony. Let everyone see the power you'd show the moment you awakened your Zanpakuto." A pause. "I thought... maybe the elders would have a change of heart."

As she spoke, her fingers drifted across Wayne's left hand, the one holding his Zanpakuto.

"But it looks like you never did awaken it. Maybe that's just fate."

"Save the talking, you need to stay alive." Wayne's expression didn't shift. He was still turning over every option. He'd left Matsumoto behind in the Deadwood Forest; he and China had drawn the Adjuchas away. He could only hope she wasn't unlucky enough to cross another Hollow on top of everything else.

"Moon-chan... I don't think I'll get another chance to see your awakening." China's voice had gone quieter. "So let me be selfish just this once. Let me stay like this, holding onto you. Hehe, and if you want to sneak a little kiss, I wouldn't say no."

Thrum...

Wayne's steps stopped. He came to a halt in front of a dead tree. The Adjuchas behind him stopped too, a short distance back, wary of what he might do next.

"Hah..." He let out a long, slow breath. Then he lowered China to the ground.

"Moon-chan?" She tilted her head, not understanding. Why had he put her down? Did he not want to hold her? Even now, even at the very end, was he still unwilling?

"Didn't you want to see me awaken my Zanpakuto?" Wayne reached out and ruffled her hair. "I'll show you right now."

He removed his sunglasses. Turned. And walked toward the Adjuchas.

One step. Two steps. As he moved forward at a steady pace, his nearly depleted Reiatsu began to ripple, small, spreading rings disturbing still water. No more hesitation. Wayne drew his Zanpakuto and drove the blade into his own chest.

THRUM!

The world froze at that single thrust. Everything fell silent. Wayne's vision blurred, and when it cleared, the great Adjuchas was gone. Yagami China, resting against the dead tree behind him, had vanished too. There was nothing here but an endless sea of sand and a thin crescent moon overhead.

His Inner World. The realm of his Zanpakuto spirit.

He turned around.

There on the stone dais sat the spirit, the one he'd encountered multiple times before. Lounging easily, two clawed feet dangling and swaying. The dim yellow mist that had always hung over this place was completely gone. What remained was unmistakably humanoid. Bone spurs like armor plating jutted from the shoulders. Long, pale-gold hair drifted behind him, stirring without any wind. In his left hand, a broad-bladed greatsword glinted with cold light.

Wayne knew this form. He knew it the way you know yourself, every preference, every habit, every small motion, even the shape of its thoughts.

"I never expected this." Wayne looked at the spirit, finally clear and unobscured. The corner of his mouth curved up. "My Zanpakuto spirit, and it turned out to be you."

"What do you mean, 'turned out to be.'" The formerly hoarse voice was gone. In its place was something close to Wayne's own, magnetic, with a faint softness beneath it. "You should have figured this out long ago. I am you. Not your Zanpakuto."

"So it's as I thought." Wayne exhaled slowly. "What you needed wasn't my Reiatsu. It was the Reiatsu of Hollows. Wasn't it?" A faint smile. "I'd love to hear you explain exactly how all of this works. But I don't have much time right now. Let's deal with what's in front of us first."

"Ah — of course." The Hollow-form Wayne nodded. "Then I'll leave the outside to you."

"Wait. You still haven't told me your na—"

The words stopped. The human-form Wayne looked at the puzzled tilt of the Hollow-form Wayne's head, and laughed despite himself.

"I think I just asked a very stupid question."

"Heh~" The Hollow-form Wayne stepped forward and extended his bone-bladed hand. This time when their hands met, there was nothing between them. No separation. No barrier. Their palms came together cleanly.

"A question like that needs no asking. You are me. I am you. We are one." The Hollow-form Wayne's voice was steady and certain. "Now I place the Hollow's power into your blade. Use it freely, this is our strength."

"Yeah." Wayne gripped the hand back. "I will."

He withdrew from the Inner World and returned to reality. The Zanpakuto that had just been driven into his chest was back in his hand. He opened his eyes.

Pale-gold Reiatsu bloomed within them.

The Adjuchas was already charging. Wayne ignored it. He set the Zanpakuto upright and drew his free hand slowly along the flat of the blade. Then he spoke, his release chant, and no one else's.

"One body, two souls, death and rebirth entwined. Wherever the blade points, only ash remains!"

The Reiatsu inside him began to climb. Pale blue bled into pale gold, the color shifting and deepening with every heartbeat. The Adjuchas closed the distance. Its strike was a half-second away.

Wayne's Reiatsu hit its peak.

"Welcome back, Wayne!"

BOOM!

Pale-gold Reiatsu detonated skyward. Every dead tree in the Deadwood Forest was hurled into the air. Even Yagami China, behind him, felt the force of that Reiatsu hit her like a wall, something she had never felt anything close to before.

The pale-gold radiance held for a long moment. Then it faded.

Wayne stood where he had been. In his hand was the Sky-Rending Greatsword. Around his body drifted a pale-gold Hollow Projection, the bone spurs of the Hollow-form had become armor, solid and absolute, orbiting him in a slow, steady ring. An impenetrable guard.

He raised the Sky-Rending Greatsword and leveled it at the Adjuchas across from him.

His sunglasses were gone, obliterated in the surge. A pair of pale-violet eyes stared forward, cold and empty, as though the next moment would be the moment he tore his enemy to pieces.

"Moon-chan... you really are something." Behind him, Yagami China watched with a smile on her face and something deep moving behind her eyes. "Heh~~ I knew it. The person I chose would always be the best."

If the Hollow's corruption had never taken hold of her. If she had managed to hold on until the succession ceremony ended. If this brilliant young man had shown his Zanpakuto awakening before everyone's eyes.

Would she have had a chance, a chance to be with him for the rest of her life?

"China. Wait for me." Wayne rolled his wrist in a short sword flourish and dropped low, charging toward the Adjuchas in the distance.

"Shattering Slash!"

The blade blazed with a violent surge of Reiatsu as he brought it crashing down on the bone spike the Adjuchas raised to block. One sharp crack, and the spike shattered.

Shadow Step. Wayne flickered to its flank in an instant. Before the Adjuchas could turn, the blade had already punched clean through its ribcage. Wayne drove forward on the momentum and carried it all the way into a boulder before the motion stopped.

Lightning Strike!

The greatsword blazed vivid blue. Lightning crackled and snapped around the blade in a dozen jagged arcs. When Wayne drove it into the Adjuchas's chest, the thunder that rang out was the sound of a life being collected. The Adjuchas let out an agonized wail.

"A shame." Wayne exhaled. "A Hollow killed by a Zanpakuto can't be eaten."

He leveled the greatsword flat. Swung.

"Air — Slash!"

WHOOSH!

A massive blade of compressed force tore the ground apart for nearly a hundred meters, carving a deep ravine through the earth. The Adjuchas was split cleanly in two. The light went out of it instantly, and then it dissolved, scattering into a wisp of ash that faded into the sky above.

"Phew..." Wayne let out a long breath, steadying the Reiatsu still surging through him. Then he used Shunpo and appeared at Yagami China's side.

Her gaze had nearly lost its focus.

"I'm back." He crouched down and looked at her, pale, worn through, beautiful in the way things are when they're almost gone.

"Moon... -chan?" China summoned what strength she had left and reached up to touch his face. "Your eyes... can you see now?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "Come on. I'll take you home."

"Okay~" She gave a small nod and worked hard to shape her face into the best smile she could manage. She let Wayne lift her onto his back without resistance. And as he walked, she kept murmuring softly, her voice growing thinner with each word.

"I'm so glad... my Moon-chan, you really awakened. My Moon-chan... he accepted me. My... Moon..."

"Hah..." Wayne felt the warmth of her fading with every breath. There was nothing to say. He didn't try. He carried Yagami China's now-silent body on his back and moved in the direction of Rangiku Matsumoto.

Rangiku's location wasn't far. As long as no other Hollows had found her, she should still be alive.

Roughly a quarter hour later, Wayne found her lying unconscious. He gathered her into his arms and headed toward Kitagawa.

Four of them had started this. Wayne was the only one still conscious.

He found Kitagawa Sawa, set Rangiku and China down, and began treating Rangiku. It took a long while before she came around.

"Mmm..." A soft sound. She blinked. What happened... where am I?

"You got knocked out." Wayne said it flatly.

"Huh?" Rangiku shook her head and took in the scene, Kitagawa beside her, breathing hard; Wayne, covered in wounds; and behind Wayne, Yagami China, who had already stopped breathing.

"China-chan... she..."

"...She's gone." A quiet exhale. Wayne said nothing more about how it had happened. "Rangiku, open the Senkaimon. We're going home."

"...Okay."

She looked at his face, no grief, no relief, nothing readable at all, and found she had no idea what to say to that. She raised her Zanpakuto in silence and drove it into the air. A traditional sliding door drifted open before them.

And so Rangiku, together with Kitagawa Sawa, Tsukishiro Hinamori, and the body of Yagami China, returned to Soul Society.

---

At the same time, somewhere in Hueco Mundo.

"Hmm?"

A quiet sound of puzzlement.

"Oh? Is something the matter, Lord Aizen?" Gin Ichimaru asked at once.

"No. It's nothing." Aizen shook his head. "Two Adjuchas have been cut down. But I didn't sense any Reiatsu fluctuation at the Captain level."

"Maybe it was a lieutenant?" Gin scratched his head.

"Hard to say. But it doesn't matter, what's in front of us deserves our full attention." Aizen's gaze moved to the distance, where Isshin Shiba was still holding off a swarm of Hollows. "Our final test subject is almost ready. Silver, go and make your presence felt."

"Understood, Lord Aizen." Gin Ichimaru dropped from the high platform and moved toward Isshin Shiba. This was one of the stepping stones to his captaincy of the 3rd Division, a stepping stone Aizen had personally laid for him.

"I wonder who it was." Aizen turned and looked out toward the horizon.

---

Elsewhere, in a strange structure floating in the vertical airspace directly above the Seireitei, a powerfully built man with a pompadour and a pair of sunglasses sat at a table sharing drinks with a large, broad-shouldered monk.

"Hm?" The two had just clinked cups when the pompadour man paused.

"What's wrong?"

"The Asauchi I made." He took a small sip. "One of them just underwent an anomalous change."

"Oh? How so?"

"Its blade name was forcibly erased. Out in Hueco Mundo."

"Nani?" The monk looked mildly surprised. "That's rare. The last time a name was forcibly erased like that was when we sealed that fellow away."

"Ah. True enough." The pompadour man nodded. "You don't think someone's been sealed into a Zanpakuto again, do you?"

"That king-level being, there were only nine others in Hueco Mundo who could match his power. And after that great battle, the remaining eight all went into hiding. Badly wounded, or dead. The odds of another one surfacing now, let alone getting sealed into a blade, it's not possible."

"Fair point." The pompadour man didn't press it. Asauchi undergoing strange changes wasn't unheard of. This was probably just another one of those cases. Though, it had happened in Hueco Mundo again, same as before.

He turned his cup slowly in his hand.

"Who knows what's been going on down in that world. I can only hope everything is alright."

➤ Next: Debriefing