Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. Tite Kubo does.
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The door to Don's little "game room" opened and an elegant arrancar glided in. It was Marguerite Armelle, the segunda espada. She took one angry look at the chess board.
"I don't get why you spend time playing games with the freak that wants to off you," Marguerite whined, then switched to a totally carefree and cheery voice, "Let's go drinking!"
Nevar just stared back with a totally passive look, the kind he knew that she hated. As perceptive as she was, she had never been able to understand why Don spent so much time with him. She didn't understand the fun of the game. Then again, she had never been one for tactics. She was lazy, drank all the time, and cared more about how she looked than most other things, but few were stupid enough to get on her bad side. As easygoing as she was, once upon a time, an espada had called her ugly. The punishment had lasted an excruciatingly painful two seconds and there wasn't so much as a corpse or any trace of anything of the like. Afterwards, Don had just shook his head and asked her to refrain from blowing a hole in Las Noches in the future. Gran Rey Ceros did that kind of thing.
"Go on. We can continue this later," Nevar said, waving Don off. The primera hesitated, unsure how good an idea it was to walk off without learning more. Figuring that he'd get nothing more out of his slippery opponent since he probably wouldn't be nearly so giving if they did continue, he got up and walked out after Marguerite. In any case, that which was already in motion was going to go into motion, regardless. All there was to do was sit back, wait, and see just how things were going to play out.
--
In the living world, the espada known as Tsubaki stepped out of a garganta. Though the espada in general didn't tend to go hunting there, preferring to stay in Las Noches, the fact that three captains had been spotted there was too rare a meal for him to miss. Though he was the quinta espada, he was hardly given the respect that usually came with such an esteemed position. In general, it boiled down to a few small reasons. He was pale. He was skinny as a stick. He was a power freak. He was a little kid compared to the rest. At only 15 years old, he was by far the youngest espada and never earned the massive following he desired so much. In fact, the rest had laughed at him, saying that he was going to get whipped until Samuel Hedorah, the cuatro espada had offered to accompany him. It was pathetic and sad. He deserved much more than that. He was strong and he was getting stronger. Let's see if they would laugh when he became the primera.
Right behind him stepped out Hedorah Samuel, the much more esteemed, lizardlike cuatro espada. Though his respect took some hits due to his stalker mindset and his appearance, his combat prowess and extreme patience in battle were another story. Like Tsubaki, he dreamed of being the primera and ironically, each viewed the other mostly as a tool to achieve that same goal.
Within a minute of the entrance of the arrancar, the three shinigami captains entered the living world as well. Without hesitation, Samuel faded into the background, masking both his reiatsu and his body using his chameleon like abilities. Tsubaki released a fair amount of reiatsu, bringing himself to the center of attention of the three shinigami. Kohaku spoke up first.
"Why don't we just ignore him? Then we can get some sake and get on with things," she suggested to Howie, making a shooing motion with her hand at the arrancar in front of them, "It's not like Mr. Anorexic going to do much."
Tsubaki's eyebrow twitched. Samuel bit his lip to keep from laughing and giving his position away as he crept along the side of a house, trying to position himself for a surprise attack.
"I will not be ignored!" Tsubaki thundered, charging up a cero and firing it off at the three captains. Without a moment of hesitation, Kohaku waved a hand at the arrancar.
"Hadou 54: Haien."
A purple flame shot out and cancelled out the cero. A defensive spell would have resulted in damaging the surroundings. Hearing the familiar swish of a slicing sword, Raven dodged to the side as a zanpakuto struck him in the back, going through his torso and coming out the front. With a flick, he was hurled into a nearby building. Whirling around, Howie used a quick kido, one that not many upper level shinigami used but was extremely useful for locating things due to its general area attack.
"Hadou 9: Geki!"
A red light engulfed Samuel, breaking his camouflage and paralyzing him momentarily before he shook it off. That was of course came a bit late. Kohaku had already fired off a silent byakurai with deadly accuracy, piercing the center of Samuel's tongue, cutting it off and more importantly separating him from his zanpakuto which was clenched at the tip, dripping with blood. Hissing angrily, Samuel retracted what was left of his tongue as it regenerated. As far as he was concerned, though, it was still a favorable outcome. One captain was down and eating just one would be more than sufficient to call it a victory.
"Grow, Tsurukusa."
Tsubaki may have disliked doing things himself, but it was another matter when the enemy was distracted. Bony white vines grew out of his body, shooting at the two remaining captains, sending a few to fetch the fallen one for later consumption. Kohaku glared daggers at him and unsheathe her zanpakuto.
"Blow your winds, Kakera no Kaze!"
As Kohaku swung, her zanpakuto transformed into a hand tessen with a painting of a geisha on it. A slicing gale came from it, dicing all the vines that Tsubaki had sent in her direction. Angry at missing a second helping but not wanting to risk losing what he'd got, Tsubaki snatched Raven up in his other vines and began to sonido off to get enough space to safely create a garganta and escape with his winnings.
Meanwhile, Samuel was very much on the run from Howie who wasn't letting him get anywhere near his zanpakuto or get enough peace for him to concentrate and use his camouflage to get any distance. Firing off balas didn't do much good as they'd just been dodged without too much effort. How odd it was to find a captain who fought based on instinct. Glancing off to the side, he noticed Tsubaki trying to run off with the winnings he'd earned. Changing directions, he sonidoed off after the little snake. A whole captain's worth of strength wasn't something that he was just going to give up willingly.
On the end of Tsubaki's vines, the thorns had given Raven a rather rude awakening, the painful and poisonous kind. Arms bound, he responded in the only way he really could.
"Bakudo 73: Tozansho!"
Gathering some reiatsu in his hands, Raven brought up a pyramid shaped barrier around himself, effectively cutting the vines around him and earning himself some breathing space. Unfortunately, that didn't help with the poison that was already spreading through his body.
"Kohaku, recover Kanzaki and send him someplace safe!" Howie called over to Kohaku. It may have been against Secret Mobile Corps mentality, but she didn't like thinking that way. It wasn't like she was going to put them all at risk here. Kohaku shunpoed over to Raven. It was then that everyone discovered one of her… downfalls as a person in a military organization. She lurched and hurled at the sight. In short, she was hemophobic. Tsubaki almost fell over.
"A captain afraid of blood?!" he laughed hysterically. Kohaku didn't find it amusing at all as she was still puking her guts out. Sighing, Howie held up her zanpakuto.
"Destroy the flesh, shut down the body, Meimyaku."
Howie's odachi shifted shape into a pair of scythes, one with a white thread and one with a black thread attached to the ends. Turning to Tsubaki, she hurled her left scythe at him, grabbing onto the white thread to keep hold of it. Dodging to the left, the arrancar surrounded her with a new set of vines. Samuel took the break in attention towards him, diving down and snatching up his zanpakuto before shoving it down his throat.
"Spread, Veneno."
Samuel's zanpakuto lit up as he became even more like a chameleon than he already was. A white set of armor came over his body and his entire face changed, elongating itself like a lizard's. Eyes on the sides of his head and flexibility increased now, he was granted a true lack of blind spots. Reaching into his mouth, he pulled out a short spear. Watching Tsubaki dodge the scythe, he shook his head. Greedy, slimy worm. He'd get his just desserts soon enough. There were many advantages to being older that he'd understand soon enough. Soon enough was defined as right about now as Tsubaki wrapped his vines around Howie who to his surprise actually grabbed onto them with little to no concern at all, merely shrugging off the pain from the thorns and yanked on her white thread. The scythe that had flown past Tsubaki came back, lodging itself in his back. Then pulling the vines, she shunpoed forward and slashed him across the chest with her right scythe. See? Age and knowledge of some of the captains really did wonders sometimes. Any of the seasoned arrancar knew that Howie was entirely immune to venoms and toxins. That wasn't something that boded in either of their favors, but not realizing that she was immune was usually not a good mistake to make and tended to be pretty costly. Oh well. None of them really liked Tsubaki anyway. How unfortunate it was that Don would probably destroy him if he ate the annoyance. Historically, Don had run the espada in a manner no other primera had and as ruthlessly effective as he could be, he had never liked the idea of arrancar against arrancar. Even in the events where one arrancar challenged another for rank, the killing and eating of the loser was forbidden except under very specific circumstances. The last time it had happened, he'd eaten the victor just to make a point. It had worked very well as an incentive to follow the rule. On principle, eating other arrancar dwindled their own numbers, something Don didn't want. Instead of doing something that would get the primera after him, Samuel settled for making use of Tsubaki and going for the less combat ready pair of captains. First would be the one that was puking. The other had already been infected with Tsubaki's poison so he'd go down with time, regardless and he wasn't going to recover right now. As he jabbed his spear down at the captain, he was met with a rude interruption.
"Hadou 1: Sho! Bakudo 75: Gochuutekkan!"
Samuel was thrown back by an invisible force, getting a glimpse of Raven braced up against a wall with an outstretched hand before five massive iron pillars fell on top of his head.
Seeing the wounds he was receiving and the fact that his only ally had just gone down, Tsubaki angrily cut his vines and sonidoed away from Howie, earning himself another wound as the scythe in his back was unceremoniously yanked out. Tapping the air behind him, he made a garganta and stepped through before he received any more wounds than he already had, ditching Samuel without so much as a second thought. The other espada, not liking the odds one bit formed a garganta beneath him, falling through it and dropping back into Las Noches with the iron pillars right behind him. Seeing both of the arrancar leave, Howie turned to check on the other two. Raven still had the initial wound plus a number of minor lacerations. Pretty pale, it was fair enough to guess that those vines had been poisonous. Kohaku on the other hand had recovered just fine, finished with her hemophobic session. Dropping down to ground level, she took note of a human that was looking on. How odd. This one didn't look shocked at all the see the damage done to the surrounding area. It looked like a typical teenage girl with strawberry blonde hair. She was wearing a light blue crop top with long bell sleeves and tight dark blue low rider jeans with white converse, not too odd for a girl in the living world. The only odd thing was her eyes, one a bluish silver, the other gold but odder things had been seen before. Then the girl walked straight over to Raven and began bandaging the wounds. Now that was a bit odder. Upon second inspection, a white glove with blue markings on the girl's right hand stuck out, a sanrei shuto. Without any pause, Howie walked over to her.
"You should probably leave," Howie suggested, "Shinigami have orders to kill quincys on sight."
"Why can't we just be friends?" the girl asked, "You haven't tried to kill me yet and you seem like a nice person. I'm Osaki Sanyu."
Howie was a bit unsure of how to respond. Being friends with a quincy wasn't something she horribly objected to but the idea in itself could cause a lot of problems. Finding no better answer, she decided to end the conversation there.
"I'm sorry to cut things short, but one you're bandaging up is poisoned. I need to take him back to Soul Society for treatment," Howie told the girl, taking Raven from Sanyu who let go reluctantly.
"Okay. Come back soon," Sanyu told the three before running off to go find her vizard friends so they could go drinking. Kohaku opened a senkaimon gate and the three stepped through. Back in Soul Society, Howie brought Raven over to the 4th and took a blood sample so she could get busy making an antidote. She couldn't help but think how convenient this was. They'd managed to totally avoid the vizards entirely for a completely legitimate reason. Kohaku prepared a hell butterfly with the events of the mission to the first division. It wasn't long before a wave of Kazuya's reiatsu washed over the Seireitei, nothing that the captains couldn't handle or were intimidated in the slightest by but certainly enough to display his outrage.
--
Nevar looked on in amusement as the pair of espada crashed back into Las Noches. Poor things. Perhaps it would get them to rethink the misplaced pride they had just because they were espada but he doubted it. Nevertheless, it was all going to plan. Don would most likely not be surprised at the results either. After all, it was simply the opening act and opening acts were for the most part predictable. Nevertheless, the pieces were in place and it would soon be time for the game to go from just beginning to getting interesting.
In a lounge Don had had installed in Las Noches, he and Marguerite were happily drinking away. The crash was heard and Don just sipped his sake. So it would seem that all had gone as predicted. All the espada had grumbled at first when he had claimed that he had no plan to take down the shinigami. In reality, that had only been half true. He wasn't going after them but he simply didn't need to, just have the arrancar strong enough to handily defeat the shinigami when they made the aggressive move, a move that was undoubtedly going to come. That would not be just yet, though, ideally. There was no sense in rushing in when you could wear them down first. Harry the enemy and tire him out, then move in for the kill. It was a simple rule of battle.
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Sorry for the long wait. I've been really busy. Since the focus is going to move to the living world a lot for a while, the vizards will be showing up next chapter after a far overdue wait.