Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 316 - Zanjutsu of the Dying Flame (Patreon)

Chapter 316, Zanka no Tachi

"What the hell is with his attack power?" Cang Du pressed a hand to his chest. Ransotengai activated, threads of Reiatsu slowly stitching the wound closed. "My ability can't be broken. Just what are you—"

"Ignorant." Wayne's face was blank. He raised his blade horizontal before his eyes.

Shadow Step.

He vanished. Before Cang Du could even register the movement, Wayne was already on him, driving the sword straight through his heart at a speed no naked eye could follow.

As a King Hollow, Wayne's Reiatsu suppressed him completely. There was no room to counter. Piercing the heart wasn't enough. Wayne pulsed his Reiatsu outward and shattered the organ outright, denying Cang Du any chance of repairing it with Ransotengai.

He pulled the Zanpakuto free and watched Cang Du fall, disbelief frozen in his eyes.

"Absurdly strong." Shiro-chan's brow furrowed. It was hard to wrap his head around how monstrous his older brother had become in a single year. Forget catching up, if they compared Reiatsu right now, he'd be crushed outright.

"Did you learn it?" Wayne sheathed his blade. "In short: basic Reiatsu control, combined with the precision and agility swordsmanship demands, targeting vital points to deal damage as efficiently as possible."

"If Hyorinmaru tried to fight that way, it'd be taking the long way around." Shiro-chan glanced at his blade, then at the fallen Cang Du.

"Hyorinmaru's ability is ice, but that doesn't mean you always have to freeze everything. Focus the freezing on something specific — legs, joints, the brain, even just the eyes. Each target puts the enemy in a different state. Then you follow up by exploiting whatever condition you've created. It conserves Reiatsu, and it produces an unexpected, decisive effect." Wayne crouched, picked up the medallion from Cang Du's chest, and crushed it. A wave of cold Reiatsu surged toward Shiro-chan's Zanpakuto.

Within three seconds, Hyorinmaru released Shikai on its own. Shiro-chan had his Bankai back.

"Brother, what about the Captain-Commander's side—"

"He threw me out." Wayne spread his hands, then turned his gaze toward Sokyoku Hill. It was still a sea of red. "According to him, he won't need my faction to step in until Seireitei itself can't hold. I have no idea what he thinks he's proving."

"He probably just doesn't want to owe anyone a favor." Shiro-chan looked toward the hill as well. "The Captain-Commander is the longest-serving Soul Reaper alive. He's fought Hollows more times than anyone can count. Asking him to accept help from a Hollow, he'd find that very hard to swallow. Well. Present company excluded, of course, Brother."

"Come on, don't be upset, Captain." Rangiku looped her arm through Wayne's. "He's the Captain-Commander, you can't expect him to think the same way ordinary members like us do. He's personally led campaigns against Hollows hundreds upon hundreds of times. Asking him to accept help from a Hollow right now, the old hardliners of the Four Great Noble Clans would never stand for it. And Central 46 would bite their tongues off over it."

"Tsk. If they're all dead, what tongues are left to bite." Wayne shook his head, then had a sudden thought. "Want me to just go massacre Central 46 right now? Save everyone the trouble of them stirring things up later."

"Aha ha ha, please don't do that, Captain." Rangiku swung his arm back and forth. "That would only make things even harder for the Captain-Commander."

"Speaking of which, Brother, aren't you going to help somewhere else?" Shiro-chan steadied himself and began treating his own injuries. "I plan to head out and reinforce other areas once I'm patched up. Every minute right now, Soul Reapers are dying somewhere inside Seireitei."

"If the old man agreed, I could send my army in to fight directly." Wayne rolled his neck. "Unfortunately, his side hasn't been decided yet. Moving around with that hanging over me means fighting with one hand tied. Not worth it. You go if you want. I'll head over to Sokyoku Hill to watch in a little while..."

HUM!

Wayne's words hadn't even finished when the blazing orange vanished. The flames that had nearly set all of Sokyoku Hill alight disappeared without a trace in an instant. The next second, Wayne felt the temperature across all of Soul Society climbing fast. The ice and water vapor Hyorinmaru had created nearby moments ago began warming, melting, evaporating.

"Is that..." Shiro-chan looked toward the hill. "Did the Captain-Commander activate his Bankai?"

"With a temperature spike like that, there's no mistaking it." Wayne exhaled. "Take care of yourself. I'm going to have a look."

"You be careful too, Brother." Shiro-chan nodded. "Matsumoto, we're moving out. Let's go reinforce the others."

"Yes, Captain."

Wayne watched them depart. His expression turned serious. Reiatsu spilled from his body, and the luminous aura of his Space and Illusion laws shimmered into existence around him.

He concealed his form and Reiatsu, then teleported high above the Sokyoku Hill battlefield.

On the hill below, both Genryusai Yamamoto and Yhwach bore wounds. Even so, neither man's combat strength had diminished in the slightest.

"Bankai, Zanka no Tachi." Old Man Yamamoto gripped the blade in his right hand. What had once been a sword of fire was now scorched utterly black, veins of blazing crimson light flowing through it. A heat shimmer rose from the blade's surface, the air itself had been seared beyond its limit.

Yhwach stared at the blade in the Captain-Commander's hand and could not help but exclaim. "A sword of raging fire that seals all flame within the blade, a single swing means annihilation. Everything it touches, incinerated without exception."

"I see. I remember now. A thousand years ago, you witnessed this blade's Bankai." Old Man Yamamoto flicked the sword edge and assumed his attack stance. "Then, a thousand years later, come experience for yourself just how different this blade is from what it was back then!"

BOOM!

The moment the words left his mouth, he planted his feet, tracing two trails of flame across the ground, and charged straight at Yhwach.

A diagonal slash, Yhwach dodged aside, the blade edge slicing through his cloak. Then a vertical cleave, Yhwach sidestepped once more, and the sword tip struck the earth. An enormous fissure a thousand meters deep split open across the ground.

"This... he's concentrated every flame into the sword edge?"

"Correct." The old man pressed his pursuit, but Yhwach understood clearly that he could not let that blade make contact. He could only stumble out of the way.

"Zanka no Tachi, 'East': Kyokujitsujin." The old man raised his long blade horizontally. "All of the flame's thermal energy is focused to the sword tip. It does not burn. It releases no fire. But everything it touches will vanish without a trace." He swept the blade high and brought it down in another vertical slash. The sword tip grazed the earth, and another chasm a thousand meters deep opened amid the ruins.

"Hmph! So what!" Yhwach drew his own long blade. In the instant he evaded the old man's attack, he swung a horizontal slash directly at Genryusai Yamamoto's brow, only to have it effortlessly dodged.

Not only that. The blade edge that had been razor-sharp a moment before melted away entirely the instant it came into contact with the old man.

"This — what is this?!" Yhwach instinctively leapt backward, opening distance between them.

"I told you a moment ago." A layer of scorching flame ignited across the old man's body. "That was Zanka no Tachi, 'East.' Where there is East, there is naturally also West. And what melted your blade just now is..."

BOOM!

The flame held within the blade suddenly surged up in an explosive blaze, enveloping not only the sword but wrapping Genryusai Yamamoto's entire body in a raging inferno.

"Zanka no Tachi — 'West': Zanjitsu Gokui."

"What?!" Yhwach's eyes went wide. Staring at the old man consumed within that blazing heat, he felt for a moment as though he had been thrown back a thousand years, back to his battle against that ferocious figure.

"Fifteen million degrees. A temperature that can incinerate all things. Yhwach, how do you imagine your blade could ever reach me?"

"A temperature rivaling the sun. At such heat, it should by all rights be invisible to the naked eye. But the old man's Reiatsu is seething outward, and that overflowing Reiatsu envelops the outermost appearance of the flame, giving it the visible effect of burning." Wayne, suspended high above, furrowed his brow. "This is essentially dragging a miniature sun into Soul Society. If the fight isn't resolved quickly, won't all of Soul Society end up burned to ash?"

Wayne was struck by the power of the old man's Bankai. A temperature like that was already enough to incinerate all of Soul Society. At the same time, he found himself thinking: if he truly came to blows with the old man, with the old man's Bankai active, could he hold his own?

He thought it over. He arrived at an affirmative answer regarding his own strength.

Genryusai Yamamoto was far from without weaknesses. His dependence on his Zanpakuto was not dramatically less than Shiro-chan's. The difference was that the old man was versed in all four disciplines, Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Hoho, and Kidō alike, and on top of that, he possessed absolute knowledge and mastery of his own Zanpakuto. If the day came when Shiro-chan's familiarity with Hyorinmaru reached the standard Old Man Yamamoto had set, then Shiro-chan's power would rank among the top ten in all of Soul Society.

The old man's weakness, however, was this: once he lost his Zanpakuto, his attacks would no longer pose a threat to Wayne. In terms of Reiatsu level, Wayne had long since surpassed him. Without his Zanpakuto as support, Kidō aside, holding his own against the old man in the remaining three basic disciplines would be no problem. But if the Zanpakuto entered the picture, Wayne would perhaps need his third-stage Resurreccion plus Bankai to have any real chance of defeating him.

"Heilig Gesang!" Just as the old man was preparing to burn Yhwach to nothing in the state of Zanjitsu Gokui, Yhwach raised his right hand and released five arcs of light. Immediately after, several beams of blue light connected into a ritual formation that enclosed him within it, shielding him from the scorching heat. "Kirchenlied Sankt Zwinger!"

"Oh?" The old man, who had been surging forward, came to a halt. He had clearly seen this technique before.

"Hmph. This is the greatest defensive Quincy spell, combining both offense and defense. Step inside it, and you will be torn apart instantly by the light of God!" Yhwach held the sacred ground in place and shouted at Genryusai Yamamoto.

"The howling of a defeated dog." Wayne's brow remained creased. From a Reiatsu standpoint, with Kyokujitsujin active, the old man had more than enough force to shatter that sacred ground with a single strike. Yhwach's declaration was nothing more than bluster, aimed at disrupting the old man's momentum.

"But knowing the old man's temperament, he shouldn't be stopping. Can that sacred ground actually tear him apart? Tear apart the old man wrapped in Zanjitsu Gokui?" Wayne was puzzled, but quickly arrived at another possibility. "Using Zanjitsu Gokui for too long might drain his strength, or perhaps switching to a different technique could conserve some Reiatsu."

He did not intervene. He chose to keep watching.

"Foolish! I said it would be useless!" The old man flew up to the edge of the sacred ground and drove his long blade deep into the earth. The searing solar heat of Zanjitsu Gokui began to recede from his body. The temperature in the air dropped by a few degrees.

"Corpses, the ash of those who died burning in my flames. Lend me your strength, and let yourselves taste the joy of battle once more. Zanka no Tachi, 'South': Kaka Jūman'oku Daisōjin!"

CRACK, CRACK CRACK CRACK!

Countless black-red corpses burst up from beneath the earth, all skeletal, fragments of hair not yet fully burned away still faintly visible on their skulls.

One, two. Ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand!

The corpses that burst from the ground not only shattered the formation of Kirchenlied Sankt Zwinger, but surrounded Yhwach in layer upon layer. The ranks of skeletons swept over him like a wave, hindering even his ability to move.

"This, what on earth is this!" Yhwach had clearly never seen a technique like this before.

"Kaka Jūman'oku Daisōjin, upon the ashes of those I have slain in the past, I bestow the heat of my blade and awaken them. Those who are awakened become my hands and feet, hunting down whoever I designate as my enemy, until that enemy returns to dust."

"Hmph! The leader of the Soul Reapers is actually raising the dead, how utterly laughable! This really does live up to the Shinigami's infamous reputation, doesn't it, Shigekuni Yamamoto!" Yhwach's tone was scornful, dismissive. But his eyes had visibly taken on a trace of tension. "Don't think for a second this rabble can stop me!"

Kirchenlied Sankt Zwinger shattered. Yhwach leapt free from the sea of skeletons in one bound, gripping radiant energy tight in his hand, and charged straight at Genryusai Yamamoto, only to be blocked in place by countless skeletons just as he was about to reach his target.

"Your eyesight seems to be poor." The old man's face was expressionless.

"This..." Yhwach fixed his gaze. The skeletons rushing at him one after another suddenly transformed into his subordinates, subordinates who were already dead.

"Do you see those subordinates you killed?" Genryusai Yamamoto's lips curled in contempt. "Does it fill you with regret that you didn't seize my Bankai the moment you arrived? No, it's not that you didn't seize my Bankai. It's that you had no way to seize it, isn't it. That method of yours for stealing Bankai, you must first understand the Bankai, analyze it, and only then can it be stolen. That's correct, isn't it? Heh heh. What a shame. Even a thousand years ago, I never fully revealed my true strength. So this unfathomable thing cannot be stolen, that is a very simple matter of logic, is it not?"

The Zanjitsu Gokui receded. The old man gripped his long blade in a forward hold once more. "Then, let me put an end to you."

At this moment, Genryusai Yamamoto's Reiatsu surged to its absolute peak. Flames burned black as char wrapped around every part of his body.

The blade cleared its sheath. The old man leveled his final Bankai technique at Yhwach.

"Zanka no Tachi — 'North': Tenchi Kaijin!"

➤ Next: Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto, Falls