Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 343 - The One Who Moves the Pieces

Chapter 343, The Chess Player

Wayne turned his attention away from Soul Society and returned to Tsukishiro.

"Lord Wayne." The moment he touched down, Nel and the rest of the Hollows surged around him, along with the Shinigami who had taken refuge inside Tsukishiro. Every gaze carried the same unspoken question: what exactly had happened out there?

"Yhwach's true body has been sealed by Zero Division, but I've locked countless avatar bodies inside the Garganta. I need each of you to go in, find those avatars, and destroy them. Leave nothing behind — we cannot allow Yhwach to make a comeback. All Hollows, hear my command. Adjuchas advanced stage and above: enter the Garganta and hunt down every last remnant of Yhwach's body. Eliminate them all."

No preamble. No wasted words. Wayne spread both hands wide and tore open the Garganta. In an instant, hundreds upon hundreds of rifts split open across the air. The Hollows didn't hesitate for a second. Each chose a rift and dove in.

"We're going too." Shiro-chan drew the Zanpakuto from his back and leaped into a rift without waiting. That single act of trust was all the other Shinigami needed.

"I don't know what happened out here in such a short time... but right now, the only choice Soul Society has is to trust you."

Shunsui Kyōraku pressed the brim of his hat down and stepped to the edge of a rift, Nanao Ise at his side. "See you on the other side."

With the Captain-Commander leading the way himself, the rest of the Shinigami stopped wavering. One by one, they chose their Garganta and filed in.

The crowd that had filled the space just moments ago vanished without a trace. Only Wayne remained.

"Close."

He clenched both fists. Every Garganta passage snapped shut at once.

"Phew... finally got rid of all of them." Wayne let out a long breath and casually reached out, rippling the spatial force. Several new rifts tore open before him.

The inheritors of the Laws stepped through one by one and gathered in front of him.

"Luring the tiger away from the mountain?" Starrk had only been halfway through his search. He took one look at the scene and understood immediately. The rest of the group caught on a beat later, expressions shifting as the same realization hit them all.

"Knew it." Baraggan let out a low laugh. "How could you possibly leave a prize as big as Soul Society sitting there without taking a bite?"

Wayne had used his own power to push every Shinigami in Soul Society into his Garganta space. Soul Society's defenses were now effectively zero. If not now, when?

"Tsuki-chan, are we really going to... go occupy Soul Society?" Yagami China had been a Shinigami once. She had become a Hollow and chosen to stay at Wayne's side, but the idea of invading Soul Society still sat uneasily with her.

"Do you want to be queen of Soul Society?" Wayne reached out and lightly flicked her nose.

"As if." Yagami China puffed out her cheeks at him.

"Then there you go." Wayne smiled. "I have no interest in Soul Society. Now that the three realms have no more enemies, there's one last thing we still need to do. The most important one."

No one spoke. They waited.

"Back to Hueco Mundo. We're going to meet the Dominator of Hueco Mundo."

Before long, Wayne's spatial power carried the group back to Hueco Mundo.

He stood once more on that barren white desert. A disorienting sense of déjà vu settled over him, like looking back across the span of lifetimes.

Once upon a time, the Wayne who first arrived here was nothing more than a weak creature scraping by on lesser Hollows. But as time passed, comrades began to gather around that frail figure, lower Hollows first, then Gillians, then Adjuchas, then Vasto Lordes, until at last he had arrived here: King Hollow, and beyond even that. The true king of Hueco Mundo.

"...Hah." A long breath out. Wayne pulled all those surging feelings back into his chest. Every obstacle on the road this far had already been left behind under his feet. And behind him stood the support of countless comrades.

Only one barrier remained.

"Dominator of Hueco Mundo — we have come."

He called out toward the crescent moon hanging bright above. If the Sovereign could look down over all of Hueco Mundo, then the only thing that could gaze back over this entire land was that moon.

He had been thinking about it for a long time: where exactly had the Sovereign stored her power, her body? The answer had come to him during his time as a Shinigami, when his Zanpakuto awakened. Everything had to have begun on that moon.

His words fell into silence. For a moment it felt as though he had simply spoken something extraordinary into the open air. Then, softly, a wash of moonlight began to pour down from above.

With it came a voice, gentle, feminine, settling over everyone at once.

"Welcome back, children."

The radiance enveloped every Law inheritor present and drew them all into a spiritual space.

"So this is the Dominator of Hueco Mundo's inner world." It was Harribel's first time encountering the Sovereign directly. She had inherited a portion of the Elemental Law, but clearly had never possessed the aptitude to become a King Hollow.

"I've only been here once myself." Ulquiorra's voice was quiet, unhurried. "And yet every time I enter this space, there is a faint... sense of safety."

"Hmph." Baraggan said nothing else. As the previous King Hollow, he was no stranger to the Sovereign, though the two of them had never had much real interaction.

"The enemy has been sealed." Wayne reached into the Hollow Hole at his chest and withdrew the Hōgyoku. "What remains is my promise."

He held it out. "This holds roughly half of the Soul King's power. Dominator of Hueco Mundo — you know what that means."

"To be honest, Wayne." The Sovereign spoke his name, the first time she had ever truly addressed him directly. "I never imagined that someday I would receive your help as a friend. Nor did I ever imagine you would truly obtain power this great and use it to help me reclaim the Soul King's strength."

"I never imagined I'd actually get my hands on the Soul King's power either." Wayne smiled. "But as an exchange — could you withdraw the soul power you placed inside my body?"

"Hmm?" A faint note of surprise. "What are you talking about?"

"There's no need to deny it." Wayne tightened his grip around the Hōgyoku. The atmosphere sharpened with his words.

Every inheritor present let their Reiatsu rise, just a trace. One wrong move and the Hollows would strike. Even inside the Sovereign's spiritual space, with enough combined force, this space could be shattered.

"Not long after I first entered Hueco Mundo and made contact with you, you left a golden soul imprint inside my body." Wayne's tone was even. Unhurried. "Back then, what you actually intended was to use it to take over my body, either after my death, or once my power grew strong enough. Wasn't it?"

Silence. The Sovereign said nothing and simply listened.

"Unfortunately, I had barely stepped into the Vasto Lorde rank when Aizen killed me. Because of my Zanpakuto's nature, my body ceased to exist, and your plan fell apart. But you quickly noticed the anomaly inside me, two souls sharing one body. So you used the power that had been meant to take me over to resurrect me instead, left the imprint in place, and waited for the day I could return to Hueco Mundo."

"Time means nothing to you, so you could afford to wait. After just one period of slumber, I had already grown from a weak soul into a warrior with captain-level Reiatsu. My Zanpakuto awakened. My Hollow beast power came back. You had treated the whole thing as little more than an experiment at first, and then you watched me grow anyway, step by step, fulfilling your wishes. Helping you reclaim the Soul King's power. Rebuilding your body. Or, if the battle had gone badly, taking the opportunity to seize my body and resurrect yourself."

Wayne let that sit for a moment.

"All those tens of thousands of years without a body, that must have been a long time to bear."

Silence.

It stretched on. Then the Sovereign's voice returned.

"I have to say, Wayne, you are very clever." The confirmation was in those words alone.

"Indeed. From the moment I encountered you, I sensed your anomaly. Your way of thinking, unlike any ordinary being. Your extraordinary constitution. The ease with which you adapted to the power of the Laws. And two souls in one body, able to perfectly accommodate the power of two Laws at once. In all the tens of thousands of years I have spent in Hueco Mundo, you are the Hollow with the greatest potential I have ever encountered. The finest vessel I could have chosen."

"But at that time, you were too weak. I needed you to grow stronger before you could bear the Law power within me. I will admit, your growth exceeded my expectations. The path was full of detours, but in a mere hundred-odd years, you had already grown to the point of overawing all three realms. And you even obtained the Soul King's power."

"Just as you said, stripped of my original body, existing as pure spirit, I have been alone for far, far too long. I had planned to lay everything bare before you after you defeated Yhwach. But you are clever. You brought every inheritor of the Laws here with you, making it impossible for me to move against you. Even from where I sit, I cannot simply erase all of you, the balance of the three realms would fracture."

"But there is one thing I do not understand. You already possess nearly half of the Soul King's power. With your familiarity with the Hōgyoku, erasing the soul imprint I left in your body should no longer be especially difficult. So why say it out loud? Why tell me to my face?"

"Do you remember what I once told you?" Wayne turned the Hōgyoku slowly in his hand. "What I want isn't power. It's freedom. In that, you and I are the same."

"Above King Hollow and below Sovereign, only with the strength I have now can I truly say I have no rivals left. Within Hueco Mundo, within Soul Society, including Zero Division and the Soul King as they stand today, there is no one I fear. And you, Dominator of Hueco Mundo, are the last barrier left standing before me in this world."

"To be free, I either defeat you and erase the imprint completely, or you defeat me and I become your new vessel. But..." He paused. "You have watched every step of my growth. So why must we be at odds? Why can't we reach a real agreement at the very end and move toward our goals together?"

"If you have a way," the Sovereign said, "I'm willing to hear it."

"Do you know that in ancient times, there was once a primordial Hollow who routed Soul Society, and was ultimately sealed inside a Zanpakuto?"

"You mean... Ikomikidomoe?"

"That's the one. Sealed by Ichibē Hyōsube, with its name altered." Wayne nodded. "Its power is already at the King Hollow level, and that's while sealed. Its ability is similar to the Quincy trait of absorbing Reishi. Over these thousand years, the power it has accumulated must have reached a terrifying scale. If we break the seal on that Zanpakuto and let it recover its original strength, couldn't you take up residence in its body?"

"From where things stand now, that is indeed a viable method. But that Zanpakuto..."

SHIIING!

Mid-sentence, a Zanpakuto shimmering with a strange, shifting radiance appeared before Wayne.

"This is..." Surprise entered the Sovereign's voice. "When did you..."

"I took it from the Royal Palace." The corner of Wayne's mouth curved. "When Yhwach was on the verge of destroying the Royal Palace, I quietly slipped into Ōetsu Nimaiya's Phoenix Hall and took it out. I used the Law of Causality, the Law of Illusion, and the Law of Space to hide myself. It makes sense you didn't know."

"You child..." A quiet note of exasperation came through in the Sovereign's voice.

She had always believed herself to be the one moving the pieces on this board. She had not imagined that her piece had long since become a player, one who had been drawing her into his rhythm all along.

"But Ikomikidomoe alone still isn't quite enough to serve as a vessel. His power is still slightly lacking."

"Isn't that what the other half of the Soul King's power is for?" Wayne tossed the Hōgyoku upward into the air. "It's all yours."

"You..."

In that moment, the Sovereign truly believed him. From the instant he let go of the Hōgyoku, everything was proven. He could have absorbed all of the Soul King's power and erased her, made himself the absolute ruler of everything. Instead, he threw it away.

For her.

"Very well. Then let us begin. As a gesture of sincerity." The Sovereign's voice went soft. A radiant light fell over Wayne, and a trace of golden luminescence rose from his forehead and dissolved into the air.

The last threat inside Wayne's body was gone.

"Phew..." Wayne exhaled and felt the difference immediately. A smile spread across his face. He squeezed his fist once, then reached up and caught the Zanpakuto that sealed Ikomikidomoe within it, raising it high.

"Then — break the seal. Everyone, prepare for the final battle!"

"Yes! Our King!"

➤ Next: Battle Against Ikomikidomoe