Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 295 - Final Form

THUD. The blade retracted. Wayne stood motionless, still gripping Aizen's arm. Blood poured from both of them at once, from Wayne's chest, and from Aizen's heart.

"Was it worth it?" Aizen looked at Wayne, whose face had gone white with exhaustion, and let out a cold snort. "Throwing yourself away just to kill me. Besides, I'm not so easy to kill now that I've tamed the Hōgyoku."

To Aizen at this point, the Hōgyoku was tantamount to invincibility. It would autonomously repair its master's wounds. No injury too severe to mend, and unrivaled power provided to its host at all times.

"Is that so?" Wayne tightened his grip on Aizen's arm. "Did you really think we were planning to end this with just one cut?"

"Captain Aizen." Gin Ichimaru flash-stepped forward. "I did tell you once, didn't I. I'm a snake, and my Zanpakuto..."

"Cut the damn theatrics and move!" Wayne didn't let Gin finish. He cut him off flat.

"Ah... what a killjoy." Gin's mood deflated. He pointed to the notch on Shinso and recited the incantation.

"Shoot to kill, Shinso."

THUD!

With Aizen's heart as the epicenter, his chest began to cave inward and dissolve.

"This — this is—!" Large-scale dissolution spreading across his chest. For the first time, panic broke through those strange blue eyes.

Faced with an unknown ability, and having lost control of Gin through Kyōka Suigetsu, this had already exceeded every damage scenario Aizen had predicted.

"Poison... is it?" He identified the source quickly. But the dissolving force was moving at a speed that even the Hōgyoku's regeneration couldn't outpace.

In mere moments, a massive void had been eaten through Aizen's chest. No blood flowed, the flesh near the wound had been consumed entirely by Shinso's poison before it could. His Reiatsu, so full just an instant ago, dropped a full level in a single breath. The cavity in his chest laid bare the Hōgyoku, pulsing with a faint violet glow. As the hollow space expanded, his gaze lost focus. His body toppled slowly backward.

"All that talk about not Hollowfying, and you still ended up with a hole in your chest, Captain Aizen." Gin stood without moving, brow furrowed, watching Aizen's body come apart. "I suppose this counts as getting what you wanted."

"Are you just watching?" Wayne snatched the Hōgyoku out of the air and turned to glare at Gin. "What the hell is wrong with you, waiting for him to make a comeback? Keep hitting him!" He roared it.

The truth was, Wayne still couldn't understand how most people in this world fought. Enemy down, they don't even check if they're dead, they just turn and walk away. Did none of them understand why you finish the job?

"With a hole that size in his chest, there's no way he could possibly—"

"Less talking, faster!" Wayne suppressed the pain tearing through him and forced out the words with the last of his strength. "Finish him! Use every last drop of Shinso's poison!" As he spoke, he tore open a spatial rift and threw the Hōgyoku into it.

"...Shoot to kill, Shin—"

BOOM!

Before Gin could finish the incantation, the Reiatsu inside Aizen's body detonated.

At the gaping void in his chest, the Hōgyoku reappeared, no one knew how. It flickered with soft violet light, as though expressing displeasure at its master being critically wounded and resentment at being discarded. But its actions were faithful. It continued repairing Aizen's chest, bit by bit.

"Damn it!" Wayne snarled. If Gin hadn't hesitated, if he'd driven a dozen more strikes into Aizen while he was down, it would already be over. And he hadn't anticipated this, that even across a spatial breach, the Hōgyoku could snap back to Aizen's side in an instant.

THUD!

Gin had felt it too. He drove Shinso forward immediately, and with the augmentation of Butō Renjin, slammed dozens of Zanpakuto fragments deep into Aizen's body. On the other side, Wayne struggled to seize the Hōgyoku again, but the white Reiatsu membrane that had formed on its exterior was rapidly reconstructing Aizen, and getting a grip on it was no simple matter. Even invoking Spatial Law made no difference. For this moment, Aizen's body had become the battlefield where Wayne and Gin fought together against a single enemy.

"No other option. Nel!" Wayne swept his hand outward. A spatial rift tore open, and Nel leaped through. She'd regained consciousness after a short period of rest and treatment. Through Timd's relayed message, Wayne already knew the state of everyone inside his space.

Injuries stabilized across the board, but those capable of fighting were few. Aizen's Fūshi Suibaku had targeted everyone present, and high-combat threats like the old man, Kenpachi, and Kyōraku had received the most concentrated treatment.

The lieutenants had come out somewhat lighter by comparison.

"Use your absorption — take in as much as you can!"

He gave her no time to read the situation, no time to recover from the injuries Fūshi Suibaku had left behind. The order came direct.

Nel didn't look at the battlefield. When Wayne gave orders mid-fight, she never asked a single extra question. She opened her mouth and began drawing in the energy the Hōgyoku was releasing.

"Store it, then convert all of it into a Cero and blast him!"

Wayne fell back. Drained as he was, staying in front of Aizen right now would only get in the way. At the same moment, a humanoid Hollow wearing a rat mask leaped out from the spatial rift. It Sonídoed straight to Wayne.

"My King." Timd stopped in front of him and, without a word of hesitation, pulled off his own mask and held it out.

Having absorbed fragments of the Law of Life, Timd had not only advanced to Vasto Lorde, he'd gained a far more powerful life force to go with it. The Timd standing here now was one of his clones, a clone whose Reiatsu had reached the Vasto Lorde tier.

And this Vasto Lorde-level Timd was willingly giving up his mask so Wayne could heal, even knowing it would leave him unable to recover that Vasto Lorde-level power for a very long time.

CRUNCH!

Wayne took the mask and bit down. The power of the Law of Life suffused through him. Not just Reiatsu recovery, his wounds began to close.

"Thanks, Timd." Wayne finished the mask in two or three bites. Timd lowered his head once in acknowledgment, then disappeared. Wayne looked back toward the battlefield.

After dozens of Shinso piercings, Aizen's body had been nearly eaten away entirely. What remained was half a skull and a torso riddled with enormous voids. His limbs were gone. The Hōgyoku was still working on him, but even with only half a face left, Wayne saw no flesh or blood at the severed edges. The Hōgyoku had patched everything over with a membrane of violet Reiatsu light, and new cells were continuously budding from it.

"He still won't die?" Wayne stared with fury. That one remaining blue-violet eye had been gazing vacantly at the sky. Then, in the next instant, it snapped back into focus. It drifted down and fixed on Wayne. Pure contempt filled that eye. The corner of the mouth curled, as if everything Wayne had done was beneath acknowledgment.

"Ichimaru! Stop playing! Full force, now!" Wayne kept recovering, and on Ichimaru's side, Shinso was already riddled with holes. He'd pushed nearly all of its internal poison into Aizen's body. And Aizen still hadn't died.

"Is this all you two amount to?" The words came out of Aizen's mouth, almost lazy, and a pillar of blazing violet Reiatsu erupted into the sky.

With the Hōgyoku's support, Aizen rose. Not standing, his entire body was floating. The white membrane coating him began to rapidly divide and spread. In less than a breath, the body that had been all but consumed rebuilt itself whole. Limbs restored. Only his head was different. The skin of his face appeared to tear apart, and a wraith-like shadow figure crawled out from within.

No pupils. No nose. Only a pair of chilling white eyes and sharp teeth. When it opened its mouth, the voice that came out was unmistakably Aizen's. "If this is all you have, then you've truly disappointed me." With the black anomaly's emergence, Aizen's back burst open, and several pairs of wings spread behind him, some like a butterfly's, some like a hawk's. His voice grew distorted and sharp with the transformation.

"Hollowfication?" Wayne watched and couldn't help wondering. "No, that's not Hollowfication. Is this the Hōgyoku's doing?"

Aizen's sudden eruption had coincided with the relentless assault of Ichimaru and Nel. The window had been brief, but under both of them pressing down at once, Aizen's body had been destroyed beyond its own recovery threshold. So the Hōgyoku had taken over, reconstructing him according to its own will. This transformation was the Hōgyoku expressing itself.

"Do you see? I have won. The Hōgyoku chose me. Even if you move it somewhere else, it comes back on its own. I have already completely tamed it."

THUD!

The newly risen Aizen crossed to Gin and Nel at near-instantaneous speed. One hand swept a half-arc. Two blades of Reiatsu flashed, and two sprays of blood burst across the space in front of them.

"So... strong." Gin's silver-blue eyes snapped wide open, and his Zanpakuto fell back from Bankai. The strike wasn't fatal, but it was enough to leave him gravely wounded. In this moment, a pang of regret hit him. If he'd gone all-out with that very first slash back then, maybe the curtain would already be closing.

But he had pushed his Bankai to its absolute limit. And still hadn't managed to kill Aizen. Worse, he'd allowed Aizen to fuse further with the Hōgyoku.

"Thank you, Gin. Wayne." Aizen's voice was unhurried. "Without you, I would never have learned that fear is an essential part of the evolutionary process, especially that kind of fear at the very edge of total annihilation. That was the most crucial step in my metamorphosis. Thanks to you both, I have finally become an existence that transcends both Soul Reapers and Hollows."

"Wayne... my lord..." Nel was badly hurt. Her last glance went toward Wayne in the distance.

"Tsk..." Wayne's eyes hardened. He tore open two spatial rifts and let Gin and Nel fall through simultaneously.

"You don't need them to die with you?" Aizen made no move to stop him. He simply stood, quietly savoring the power he'd just acquired. "Very well. After fighting so many Soul Reapers to the end, it really is the battle with you that I find most entertaining." He strolled toward Wayne. "The power of both Soul Reaper and Hollow rests in you alone. Though your evolution is different from mine, when you draw upon both at once, I can acknowledge it. You are an existence far above every Soul Reaper and every Hollow beast."

"What about the Visored and Ichigo Kurosaki?" Wayne said it with a mocking edge. And your eternal lapdog Kaname Tōsen, while you're at it.

"They are the foundation stones my path of evolution required. Without them, I could never have come this far. But foundation stones are still foundation stones. Keeping Tōsen and Gin around, that was to see how far each of them could ultimately go. From the very beginning, I knew you would all eventually betray me. I only wanted to see which method each of you would choose." He raised his Zanpakuto and pointed it at Wayne.

"Of the three, I have to say, the one who surprised me most is still you, Tsuki. Yours was the only method I did not see coming. A soul that obtained rebirth, wrested its own power back from the Hōgyoku, and broke through to your current level all in one stroke. You gave me the greatest amusement and the greatest surprise." Aizen's pure white eyes narrowed slightly. "A pity. The time you have left to amuse me ends here."

The Zanpakuto in his hand shattered. Broken fragments scattered and were still. "Do you see? The Hōgyoku has told me, I no longer need a Zanpakuto. I will use this new power to crush you completely, then go to the Jūreichi and forge the Ōken. A pity you won't be around to see any of it."

"Done with the monologue?"

Wayne's eyes hadn't moved from Aizen.

"Oh? You still intend to keep resisting? With the Reiatsu you managed to scrape back in that brief window, barely enough to reach early-stage Vasto Lorde?" Aizen let out a low scoff. "When we first crossed blades, your power was roughly at that level. And today I have already undergone my metamorphosis. So what exactly gives you the confidence that what you have right now is enough to beat me?"

"Heh." The corner of Wayne's mouth pulled into a disdainful smile. "What gave you the idea that what you're seeing right now is all the power I have?"

"Hmm?" Aizen's pale eyes twitched.

"An Arrancar's Resurrección instantly restores their full state, you know that, don't you?" As he spoke, Wayne's body began to change. Strand by strand, Reiatsu coiled around him.

"A Resurrección still requires Reiatsu to sustain it. In your current state, even if you released it, reverted to your Arrancar form, and re-entered Resurrección, there's no way you'd recover to your peak."

"True." Wayne's voice stayed level. But that's for ordinary Hollow beasts. His Reiatsu began to surge. "A Resurrección brings an Arrancar back to their complete state, and yes, that requires sufficient Reiatsu to support it. My Segunda Etapa works the same way. The difference is, right now I'm in Segunda Etapa with my Reiatsu exhausted, but I haven't hit the point of near-death that would force me to release it on my own. Fortunately, Nel and Ichimaru bought me the time I needed." The Reiatsu around him thickened, rolled, and rose. "Now let me show you something you have never seen before."

"Tercera Etapa!"

"!"

➤ Next: Third-Stage Resurrección, Cero Destructo