Kapitel 286: In the Shadows

(3rd's pov)

The situation was bad. Very bad. Even that would be an understatement. Catastrophic would be a better word. Akio, Masaru, Yukima, and Rangiku were surrounded. They could see enemies from all sides, and their communication was cut off. The only light at the end of this dark tunnel was that they would need to survive for 5 minutes for Gin to send them back forcefully to Akio's lab.

Stalling the enemies through talking would be useless as they already attacked and would probably soon resume their attack. Was it confidence or arrogance? Maybe sadism, as they wanted to see fear on their victims' faces before they kill them.

No matter what it was, it was appreciated as 1 second is 1 second, and every second mattered at the moment for members of the Yuuki family, but they needed a plan. They were clearly outnumbered. 10 to 4, to be exact. At least 2 enemies for each of the Yuuki.

Akio and Masaru, the brains of the group, tried to think of some kind of solution that would let them leave this place alive.

Akio quickly glanced at his older brother to see his reaction to the enemies. His ability, Haki as their father calls it, would allow Masaru to somehow accurately judge the strength of his opponents. Reiatsu could be suppressed, after all.

Seeing Masaru, Akio suppressed clicking his tongue. His brother was hiding it well, but he was scared, which meant that their chances weren't the highest, although not impossible. Akio was a scientist, so he didn't believe in impossibilities, just really, really low chances.

Seeing 10 enemies, he quickly concluded that he and Masaru would need to fight 3 foes each so Yukima and Rangiku could fight as a pair against 4 that were left.

The reason why the brothers should fight alone was simple. Fighting in a group would hinder their abilities. Their Zanpakutos aren't ideal for fighting with allies.

"We are splitting up! Yukima, Rangiku, you two stay together. Me and Masaru will manage on our own." Akio barked out orders, but before he ran off, he said one last thing. "Please... don't die." He wouldn't be able to face his dad if he was the cause of his sibling's death. He had let him down too much already, but in this situation, he could only hope and trust in their abilities.

Akio ran off, and thankfully, after a small provocation 3, Quincies followed him.

Masaru almost immediately followed suit and attacked 3 random Quincies with some low-level kido to aggravate them, and he succeeded.

That left Yukima and Rangiku, who needn't move to another place for their fight, but it didn't make them any less tense.

---(With Akio)---

"Keh keh keh keh. You can try and run, but you can't escape my Love if my name isn't PePe Waccabrada, the letter L of the Sternritters!" A fat old man with a long white beard, wearing sunglasses, said as he was floating on a basket.

"Quit your foolishness... PePe. Love is nothing compared to fear." The tall, black-haired man said clearly, which was surprising as the lower part of his face was covered by a black mask.

"Stop it, you two. Our task is to eliminate intruders, not to bicker among ourselves." A short-haired man with a scar running downwards across his lips.

Akio used this short moment before a fight broke out to take out a small pill from one of his many pockets for a situation just like these and swallow it. This small movement wasn't left unnoticed by Cang Du, the short-haired man, and he narrowed his eyes at Akio.

"Sorry, need to take my medicine before we start, although I have a question, if you don't mind answering, little old me. What are Quincies doing in the shadows of Sereitei? I thought that all of you were living in the world of the living. No pun intended."

Akio tried to imitate his dad's way of speaking as he was trying to calm down and hopefully stall some time in the meantime.

Unfortunately, he was seen through by Cang Du, who narrowed his eyes.

"You are trying to stall us. Are you so confident in your companions that you would wait for them to win so they can assist you? In that case, you better abandon that hope."

Or at least partially seen through.

"Enough talking..." The creepy-looking guy called Äs Nödt said as he summoned thorns made out of Reishi that floated behind him and immediately shot them toward silvered-haired Shinigami.

Using his own version of prediction calculation, Akio dodged all of the projectiles. Using the distraction caused by his ally, Cang rushed at Akio, engaging him in close combat. Although most Quincies prefer to attack from a distance there are always exceptions and Cang is one of them as his primary weapon are Reishi claws.

Despite Akio being slower and overall weaker than Cang, he was keeping up with the assault... or at least for the first 15 seconds or so. Even with knowledge of his opponent's future movements, to some extent, his body can't keep up with his mind for long at high-level combat like that, and in a moment t like that, his arm was scratched by one of Äs' thorns.

One could see the glee in the long-haired creep's eyes as he awaited for his powers to show their effects, but unlike usual, when the fear would start showing on his victim's face, Akio's expression started becoming more and more expressionless to the bewilderment of Quincy.

"What!? How!? It's not possible to not feel fear! Every living organism feels it! It's the most primal of all the emotions!"

Cang Du, on the other hand, narrowed his eyes. "It's that pill that you took earlier." It was more of a statement than a question.

"Correct. You see, I don't have the best experiences with someone messing with my senses, so I worked to be prepared for it. Unfortunately, it didn't work on the intended target, but I got something equally valuable.

You see, the pill I took stabilizes my chemicals and hormones, and every time there is a change, be it from the inside or the outside, it normalizes it to the point that I don't feel much, and I can focus on my goal without any distractions. Although it takes a half minute or so until it starts working. It's a work in progress."

Akio then turned to Äs Nödt with his eyes hollowed of any emotions.

"Hearing you talk about fear that much, I assume that whoever is injured by your Reishi weapons will experience fear of some kind. I don't know what kind of fear it would be, but it won't work on me. It's true that fear is one of the most important emotions. It's a survival instinct at its finest, but it is still caused by chemicals in our brain."

Akio's talk was interrupted by Pepe, 'the love master' Waccabrada, who shot a heart-shaped laser that didn't cause any damage, but it wasn't supposed to.

"Khe khe khe. Fear can be caused by hormones and chemicals, but there isn't such thing as love chemical. Love is something that is above all that! And now you love me with your everything as all should." Pepe said with a disgusting smile, which quickly turned into a scowl as he saw no effect on Akio, who started explaining.

"You are correct. There isn't a love chemical, but there is something called a love hormone called oxytocin, which I assume your ability forces to release and target you as a target of your victim's affection. There are, of course, other chemicals and hormones that come together with oxytocin that create what you call love.

To be honest, I would be angry at you if I could feel something right now. I would also feel disgusted because I somehow agree with you. Real love is something that goes beyond a chemical reaction in your brain, but what you make feel other people isn't a true love, but it's unimportant because..."

Akio used Shunpo to appear in front of Pepe, surprising all three Quincies with his speed as it increased significantly. It wasn't exactly above their ability to perceive, but the sudden change made them act slower than usual.

"It ends now."

*SLASH*

---(With Yukima and Rangiku)---

Two girls from the Yuuki household were facing their four opponents, who seemed relaxed.

"Fuck! Why do we need to be stuck with these two!? We could be doing anything else or at least go after the black-haired one. At least he was easy on the eye. Do you think that's why Bambi went after him?"

Or at least most of them were. The light green-haired woman was clearly annoyed, and her off-hand comment annoyed someone else.

"Hey! That's my brother you are talking about! If you want to get to him, you need to get through me first!"

Yukima was in her overprotective sister mode, which she didn't have many occasions to showcase since her brother, Masaru, could take care of himself pretty well, and her other brother, Gin, was the one she needed to protect others from him, or rather his tendencies of creeping others out and he enjoyed making things as awkward as possible. She was still mad at Akio, but slowly but surely, she was starting to forgive him.

"Your brother? I don't see much resemblance. But don't worry, after I'm done with you, I'll send you dearest brother to you. Of course, after I'm done with him if Bambi didn't do that already." The Quincy said with a sadistic smile, which was confronted with a glare that could kill from Yukima.

"You are dead."

"Try me if you can. Candice Catnipp, with a letter T bestowed by his Majesty, is the one who is going to kill you."

And their battle started.

Meanwhile Rangiku didn't immediately support her adopted sister. She eyed the other three Quincies, who didn't jump to support their hot-headed ally.

"You don't need to be so on guard. We aren't going to attack your friend over there. Candice becomes unbearable when she gets like that. Also, it's too much hassle. We'll let Candince tire herself out, and hopefully, she'll take you on as well. Please be cooperative and don't double-team her. In that case, we would be forced to intervene."

The shortest of the four said with a lazy tone.

"By the way, I'm Liltotto Lamperd."

"It's my turn now?" The pink-haired woman asked as she put her finger on her chin. "Then you can call me Meninas. Meninas McAllon is my full name and I posses letter P."

"And finally, we can get to wonderful me~! Gisele Gewelle, but you can call me Gigi." The last girl introduced herself vigorously.

Rangiku, not knowing what to do, decided to introduce herself back.

"Rangiku Matsumoto."

But she didn't let her guard down, and while still keeping tabs on the three Quincies, she observed Yukima's fight. She wasn't that worried because her sister had a certain trick that she could use in times of desperation, but Rangiku was sure the moment she used it, the rest of the Quincy group would gang up on her, so hopefully, she wouldn't be too hot-headed and use it too early. Their goal is to stall for 5 minutes, not defeat everyone in their way.

Rangiku looked at Yukima, who seemed to be increasingly more annoyed at her opponent.

Hopefully, Masaru was doing better.

---(With Masaru)---

Masaru, in terms of firepower, was probably the strongest of his siblings, and if it comes to destructive ability alone, he is as strong if not stronger than his father, although to reach that level, he would need to do something reckless and be ready to lose his life. He simply didn't have perfect control over his Bankai, if at all, and was forbidden to use it without supervision, no matter the reason.

Despite knowing the risk, he was seriously contemplating if he should use it at the moment. That alone shows how bad of a situation the siblings got into, and Masaru, thanks to his Haki, was even more aware of that fact, but he wasn't one to give up despite his fear. If Akio, Yukima, or Rangiku were in immediate danger, he would use it to at least act as bait and hopefully take down a few of his enemies.

But for now, he'll need to focus on his 3 opponents, which included a slender young woman with long black hair, a man with ape-like characteristics, and a man with red hair kept in a long mohawk.

"You got some nerve attacking me like that and running away!" The hot-headed man yelled at Masaru.

"I'm pretty sure he just drew us away from others, Bazz-B, you idiot." The only woman said

"You also followed him, so what does it make you, huh!?" Challenged, now named Bazz-B.

"Unlike you, moron, I was aware of what he planned, but I played along, right girls?" She turned back to see that whoever she called wasn't there.

After a short silence, Bazz-B started laughing hysterically at the embarrassed woman. She was, in fact, so embarrassed or angry or both that she went completely red.

"Hahahaha!!! How high and might have fallen. Do you have any more great advice, Bambietta, or should I ask one of the girls that you just mentioned?"

"Shut up!!!" And so Bambietta exploded... literally. She used her ability to explode everything around her, forcing her allies and even Masaru to back away from her.

After slightly calming down but still breathing heavily after her meltdown, she pointed at Bazz-B and then at the unnamed Quincy.

"Both of you! The Shinigami is mine."

"So that's the famous relief I heard about. Huh ~" That comment flustered Bambi even more.

"W-where did you hear about that!?"

"Meninas. You would be surprised how little filter she has. We were talking about how we spend our free time, and she just mentioned it off-handily. I didn't even ask about you at all."

"...I'm going to kill her." The exploding girl muttered.

Masaru used their distraction to attack.

"Devour, Tsukihi!"

And so he unleashed the black fire.

---

END

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