Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 36 - The Attack

Chapter Thirty-Six: The Visitors

"So you're the ones who killed Doruni?"

The three Adjuchas had just arrived, and already they could tell the two Hollows in front of them had no interest in talking. One of them spoke up first.

"You mean that Adjuchas who looked like a gorilla?" Wayne replied with a cold sneer, working to get under their skin before anything else. "Yeah, we killed that piece of trash. What — you here to get revenge?"

"Silence!" The eyes beneath Gascard's Hollow Mask narrowed. His Reiatsu spiked without warning. "In the presence of Adjuchas-class like us, since when does a lowly Gillian get a say!" Two crimson Bala gathered at his hammer-like fists and came crashing forward, aimed straight at Wayne's face.

BOOM. BOOM.

Wayne didn't flinch. His large pale hand swung out and swatted both Bala aside in one motion. They shot off in opposite directions, hit the trees, and exploded.

"Oh?" The sight lit something up in Gascard. "You've got some skill." A beat, then the corners of his mouth curved. "No wonder Doruni ended up dead at your hands. A low-level Adjuchas and a Gillian on the very verge of breaking through — I see it now." He could feel Wayne's Reiatsu clearly, and it only made his fighting spirit climb. In his eyes, these two outsiders were already a satisfying meal waiting to be eaten.

"Good. I'd hate for this to be boring." He moved to step forward.

Varta's hand caught him first.

"Don't make a scene. We negotiate first." After probing the Gillian, Varta had already made up his mind. This one was not to be underestimated, worth pulling in alongside that antelope-form Adjuchas, if it could be managed.

"Forgive us." Varta stepped forward and bowed toward the two of them. "I apologize for my companion's behavior just now."

Varta was roughly the size of an ordinary person, an Adjuchas-class Menos, but one that barely looked the part. If not for the strange horns jutting from his Hollow Mask, he could have passed for a man in a mask. The bow didn't help that impression. Wayne filed it away: this one had probably been human once, before death and Hueco Mundo made him something else.

The faint pulse of Reiatsu rolling off him, though, made sure Wayne didn't get too comfortable.

"What do you want." Wayne had already read the room. These three came to negotiate, most likely to bring him and Nel under the Central Forest's rule. Sending three Adjuchas for a courtesy call made the subtext plain enough. Join, or we kill you.

"Ha. Your intelligence lives up to first impressions, so let's skip the preamble." Varta laughed, easy and unhurried.

"I'm Varta. The one behind me is Gascard. The one further back only joined us recently — his name is Yinfeng. New, but don't let that fool you.

I expect you already know why we're here. You and the Adjuchas-class behind you killed Doruni, the Lord of this territory. The Central Forest has come for an answer."

"Heh. That embarrassment was a Lord?" Wayne let the contempt sit in his voice. "Doesn't say much for the Central Forest. Three Adjuchas show up to intimidate us, Lady Nel, maybe we should just leave. The Hollows here aren't worth our time." He glanced toward Nel with a subtle tip of his head.

"Agreed." Nel smiled, cold and dismissive. She stepped forward, moving to stand ahead of Wayne. "A Lord that weak barely measures up to that oversized worm back in the Northern Forest. They're not worth serving." The shift in how Wayne had addressed her hadn't been lost on her.

Change of plan. Prepare to ambush.

The sequence was already clear. Wayne would push them with words until someone broke, then move fast, knock one down before they could respond, and run. The moment he said "Lady Nel," she knew her role.

Her current strength had outpaced Wayne's by a wide margin. But the conditioning ran deeper than that. The signals and cues he had wired into her during the early days hadn't faded with her evolution. They were bone-deep.

"Insolent!" Gascard's face twisted. "You know nothing of My King's greatness!"

"My King?" Wayne tilted his head. "So there's a master above all you worthless Lords? Figures. He must be blind, what else explains picking trash like you to run things. Look, if you two have any sense left, you'll pledge yourselves to Lady Nel right now. That's your only shot at walking away from this."

"You insect, I'll kill you!" Gascard's eyes went red. His Reiatsu burst outward in waves, rolling off him in pulses he could barely contain.

"All that provocation." Varta's Reiatsu stirred, quiet and controlled. The barrage had gotten to him too, Wayne could see it. But his reason hadn't cracked. "We came here in good faith. Don't you think this is a little unwelcoming?"

"Good faith." Wayne snorted. "You show up with three Adjuchas and call it good faith? That's a new one." The pressure behind the sneer was real. Gascard had lost himself to rage, that was manageable. Varta was the problem. He was still thinking. That didn't fit the plan.

And then there was Yinfeng, standing in the back without a word since the moment they arrived. Wayne hadn't gotten a read on him yet. That bothered him more than anything.

"Lady Nel." Varta stopped engaging with Wayne and turned his gaze toward her instead. "I come on behalf of My Lord to ask, would you be willing to join his forces?"

"If I join?" Nel's front hooves scraped lightly at the ground. Her voice gave nothing away. "And if I don't?"

"Join, and this territory is yours. You would be required to offer one hundred Gillian as tribute to My Lord each year, and to act under his orders." Varta's tone didn't waver. "As for refusing... Hmph."

"All that talk of goodwill," Nel said, "and it's just a threat with nicer words." She planted all four hooves and let her tail sway once, twice behind her. A signal for Wayne. She was ready. Attack on his word.

"You know, Lady Nel, I think Varta actually makes some decent points." Wayne kept his voice casual, locking in the target. "He's at least got more sense than that idiot Gas-whatever over there. When you think about it, we're still too weak right now, otherwise we'd just..."

HMMM!

The words never finished.

A near-colorless Cero tore through the air and detonated straight in front of Varta's face.

BOOM!

The explosion swallowed the space between them. Nel was already moving, she had launched the moment Wayne fired. The Lanzador Verde materialized in her grip and left her hand in the same breath, streaking toward Gascard across the clearing.

➤ Next: Sudden Change — Steel and Blood