Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 344 - Battle Against Ikomikidomoe

Crack crack crack... BOOM!

The moment Ikomikidomoe's Zanpakutō shattered, the Dominator of Hueco Mundo's mental space collapsed with it. The fight had to finish in the real world. When Wayne and the others snapped back to their senses, a colossal Hollow beast over a hundred meters tall was already standing before them.

Its torso made up roughly ninety percent of its entire body. It had no distinct head, or rather, its head was fused directly into the mass of its trunk. A pair of golden eyes sat at the center of its chest. At the crown of what passed for its skull, a plate of hexagonal scaled armor jutted outward like a crest. Two broad, thick arms hung from its shoulders, and the whole form radiated raw, crushing strength.

ROOOAAARRR!

An earth-splitting roar tore outward, and a surging tide of Reiatsu swept in every direction.

"Is this a King Hollow?" Yagami China raised a hand to shield herself from the pressure wave. "Its Reiatsu is so far above mine I can't even measure the gap!"

"This creature once forced its way into Soul Society and defeated even Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto himself. After that it entered the Royal Palace, where several members of Squad Zero wore it down piece by piece before it was finally sealed." Baraggan's expression was grave. He had known this King Hollow for a very long time. It was the earliest master of the Devouring Law, and every ability it possessed was bound to that law.

"Looking at it now, its power has been quietly building throughout these thousand years of sealing. Be careful!" Baraggan entered his Resurrección. The other Hollow beasts present surged their Reiatsu in turn, steeling themselves for the final battle.

Several pillars of light in different colors rose and encircled the enormous King Hollow.

"This is... Hueco Mundo? I'm free?!" A deep, aged voice rumbled directly into Wayne's ears.

"What — it still has its mind?" Wayne was stunned. Sealed for over a thousand years and its consciousness was still intact. What exactly had that bald monk Ichibē been doing all this time? Was he really not worried this thing would break loose again?

"These presences... the scent of Law Power... Life, Element, Soul, Space, Illusion... all of that concentrated in a single Hollow. Interesting... And Time as well... Hey — Baraggan, you old bastard. You're still alive? How did you get so much weaker?"

"Hmph. You're still kicking, so how could I be dead?" Baraggan held his ground, every sense on alert. He knew exactly how volatile this Hollow beast's temper was, especially after being locked away for over a thousand years.

"Me? If I die, I die after you!" The enormous beast stamped one foot, and the entire ground shuddered.

"I'm going to — hm?"

The colossal Hollow beast suddenly froze. "I'm going to... who am I again?"

"...Ha?" The corner of Wayne's eye twitched. What kind of turn was this?

"That bald monk Ichibē sealed away my original name. Now I don't even know who I am anymore. But why do I still remember you, Baraggan?" The enormous beast scratched its head with one of its equally enormous claws.

"That monk made me forget my original name and left me with nothing but that strange label, Ikomikidomoe. Because of it, I can't even access my true power. But it doesn't matter. Old Bai, you're here. As an old friend, just let me eat you. That way I'll definitely break through the seal and remember who I really am."

"You old fool. A thousand years of sealing and it clearly hasn't taught you a thing." The skeleton king Baraggan had become through his Resurrección leveled the Death Axe directly at Ikomikidomoe.

"Times have changed. You used to have the edge on me, but now, we are the ones who've come to bring you down!"

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" Ikomikidomoe threw its head back and laughed like it had just heard the funniest joke in existence. "If you'd said that a thousand years ago I might have at least listened. But right now you're as weak as a quail, where do you even get the nerve?"

"Heh. A wretch who's been sealed inside a blade for a thousand years, and you're making noise in front of us?" Wayne curled the corner of his mouth. "Since you have no name, Ikomikidomoe will do just fine. That name seems to hold some fond memories of your time inside a Zanpakutō."

He raised his hand and sent a Sword Gleam slicing toward Ikomikidomoe.

It vanished the instant it made contact.

"As expected, the power to absorb Reishi." Wayne's eyes narrowed. "Attack with Black Cero. Everyone else, use Law Power and physical strikes to harass it. Nel, contest the Reishi with it. China, Soul Possession."

"Yes, Lord Wayne."

"On it, Tsuki-chan~"

Every inheritor activated their Law Power at once. In an instant, a barrage of attacks surged toward the massive Hollow beast.

"Black Cero, is it. What a nuisance. To think you actually learned that from those brainless ancient beasts."

At this point Wayne's power was not inferior to Ikomikidomoe's, and the Black Cero he wielded posed the greatest threat of any attack on the field.

BOOM! BOOM!

Wave after wave of strikes hammered into Ikomikidomoe. Its massive size brought more than raw strength, it also meant slower attacks. Even so, Ikomikidomoe was thick-skinned and built to take punishment, and its defensive capability was genuinely formidable. Its misfortune was the team arrayed against it: the most elite fighters Wayne had assembled from all of Hueco Mundo.

ROAR!

Ikomikidomoe bellowed, and a black-and-red Cero shot directly toward Wayne.

The Cero of Annihilation, identical to the one Ichigo Kurosaki used in his Hollowfication state. Ikomikidomoe was the second Hollow beast Wayne had ever encountered who could use it. The first had been Ichigo Kurosaki.

With Yagami China's Soul Law blanketing the entire battlefield, everyone cleared the area the moment the Cero of Annihilation began to form. The strike found no targets.

"Hmph!" Ikomikidomoe let out a low grunt, then lifted one thick leg and drove its foot down hard.

The white sand erupted into a rolling wave. At the same moment, four tornadoes connecting earth to sky tore into existence behind Ikomikidomoe, another ability, it seemed.

In seconds, the battlefield became a storm of flying sand and debris. Harribel had been positioned behind Ikomikidomoe, hammering it steadily with water-element attacks. When the storms rose, she was close enough that her water was sucked straight into the nearest vortex. A sandstorm became a far more powerful waterspout in an instant. The sudden gale caught her and sent her spinning away. Fortunately, Ikomikidomoe's attention wasn't on her, if it had actually swung a full blow at Harribel in that moment, she would have been crushed on the spot.

"Watch yourself, woman." Ulquiorra, who had also been attacking from behind, activated his Segunda Etapa and pulled Harribel free at tremendous speed, hauling her back to the edge of the battlefield.

"Sorry. Thank you." Harribel's expression tightened. Every time she fought alongside Wayne, she was almost always the one falling behind. She ranked ahead of Ulquiorra among the Espada on paper, but it was obvious, ever since Wayne had tracked Ulquiorra down and brought him back, Ulquiorra had long since surpassed her.

"Stay focused. Lose this battle and you die." Ulquiorra said nothing more, conjured a Thunder Spear, and hurled it at Ikomikidomoe, keeping up the Black Cero harassment at the same time.

On the other side, Baraggan pulled back his Death Sigh and switched to his great axe for direct close-quarters combat. Death Sigh's particulate nature made it a liability in the storm, if it got swept into the winds and struck an ally, that was a problem. None of them would necessarily die from contact with it, but it would cause real complications. This was exactly why the Skull Emperor had never managed to bring this particular giant Hollow to a definitive end back in the day. It was simply a hard fight to win.

Starrk and Lilynette merged once more. The Infinite Cero that had once been blue was now black. If Wayne's Cero was the sharpest single point of pain, Starrk's Infinite Cero was an endless carpet of small, relentless damage. Each individual hit didn't hurt much, but the assault never stopped, falling like rain from every angle.

"You insects! Die!" Three tornadoes and one waterspout bore down on the group. Then, in the next instant, the black-and-red Reiatsu coating Ikomikidomoe's body surged into the vortices, and the violent suction of the storms ignited with searing heat. Even with Sonído, breaking out of the storms' range became nearly impossible.

"Negación Array!" Wayne's voice rang out. Every inheritor except Wayne was instantly enveloped in a wall of orange-yellow light. Wayne himself used his Spatial Law to step outside the storm entirely.

"Interesting." Ikomikidomoe studied the walls of light, its golden pupils narrowing. "But using something like that in front of me, aren't you a little too confident?" It raised both enormous hands and began tracing broad circles toward the sky. A massive black-and-red fireball, dozens of meters across, took shape high in the air.

Then it dropped.

It plummeted at tremendous speed toward Wayne's position. Along the way it punched straight through both Baraggan's and Starrk's Negación barriers like they weren't there. Both were strong enough to leap clear the instant they were hit, but even so, both came away with burns of varying severity.

"This creature is absurdly strong." Starrk shook the flames off and quickly used his Life Law to restore himself. "Our attacks on it are like tickles, and its regeneration speed is something else."

"Restrict its movements." Wayne flashed back in and began calling out assignments. "Mr. Starrk, left flank. Emperor, right."

"Understood."

"Mm."

The two Vasto Lorde-class Hollows shot off to either side.

"Little Ul — aerial harassment. Tia — use the water flow to reshape the terrain!"

"Yes!"

"Yes!"

Wayne deployed every asset at his disposal, assigning each fighter the role that suited them best.

The Negación barriers came down. Everyone threw themselves back into the fight.

With clear roles, the group attacked Ikomikidomoe with purpose.

Baraggan drew first blood, he corroded nearly half of Ikomikidomoe's right arm. Ikomikidomoe reacted instantly, severing its own arm at the point of corrosion and using its regeneration to grow it back almost immediately.

As a longtime rival, it knew Baraggan's techniques better than most. But right now it couldn't summon the storms, too many inheritors were pulling its attention in different directions. All it could do was keep severing and regrowing to weather the pressure.

On the other flank, Starrk's blasts detonated steadily across Ikomikidomoe's left arm. Not individually powerful, but exceptionally effective at restraint. Every time Ikomikidomoe tried to swing that arm, it felt a resistance it had never encountered before, making it impossible to follow through on any strike.

The white sand beneath its feet had become a white swamp. Something like a fly kept darting in and out of its face without stop. For a stretch, Ikomikidomoe was being driven into pure disarray by the inheritors pressing it from every side.

"Zero Style... Storm!"

Wayne flashed to Ikomikidomoe's rear and unleashed a technique he hadn't used in some time.

Reiatsu condensed into thunderclouds overhead. Sword light crackled through them like lightning and began spreading across Ikomikidomoe's body at tremendous speed.

"You pieces of trash!" Ikomikidomoe's Reiatsu surged and steamed off its skin. It drove a foot into the ground and launched its hundred-meter body skyward. Black-and-red shockwaves erupted across its form, and Ulquiorra, who had been harassing it from above, took the collision head-on and was sent flying. One of his prized black wings snapped at the blow.

"Its speed is incredible for something that size." Ulquiorra's expression didn't change. He tore off the broken wing and used Ultra-Rapid Regeneration to restore it quickly. "Speed like that, everyone be careful."

Ulquiorra knew how much speed determined in a fight. Among all the inheritors, only Wayne was faster than him. If even he couldn't dodge that hit cleanly, the others were in real danger.

"Still not enough. We keep wearing it down." Wayne conjured the Sky-Rending Greatsword and closed in again.

Unlike the fight against Yhwach, this battle with Ikomikidomoe actually felt somewhat more manageable. Setting aside the diamond-pattern armored plating on Ikomikidomoe's head, the rest of its body, even coated in Hierro, Wayne could cut through without much difficulty. The problem was the regeneration. Just now with Zero Style Storm, the moment Ikomikidomoe broke free, every wound had sealed itself almost immediately. It was plain that despite the extended barrage, none of it had dealt any truly significant damage.

"Void Slash!" Wayne sent a blade of sword energy forward, pouring the power of his Black Cero into the strike.

SPLAT!

A massive wound tore open from Ikomikidomoe's shoulder all the way down to its waist. Crimson blood sprayed outward in a torrent.

"You filthy trash, die!" Ikomikidomoe had taken a severe hit and didn't care. It swung its arm at Wayne with total abandon, black-and-red Reiatsu condensing into the blow, and a single punch sent Wayne slamming down into the white desert. A sand wave a hundred meters high erupted around the impact.

"Damn, I didn't hold it." Starrk cursed inwardly. Ikomikidomoe's sudden burst of speed had caught him off guard for just a beat, and that was all the opening it had needed.

"Wayne, kid!" Starrk called toward the crater.

"I'm fine, not dead!" Wayne exploded up out of the sand. Even so, that single punch had visibly caved in his chest. No need to think too hard about it, more than a few ribs had broken.

In under three seconds, Wayne restored himself. He put away the Sky-Rending Greatsword and conjured his Zanpakutō.

"You swallow Hollow power without any trouble. Let's see if you can stomach the power of a Soul Reaper."

His Zanpakutō blazed with light. The Soul Reaper power he had fully integrated into his body, Wayne ignited it once more.

"Bankai!"

➤ Next: Do You Know? This Life of Mine