Unexpected Help

Nnoitra's smile turned to look more like a smirk. "Look who we have here?" he said playfully.

Harribel, Hisashi and Cirucci managed to withstand the pressure without too much difficulty, but the same couldn't be said about Sung-Sun, Apacci, Mila-Rose, Dondochakka, and Pesche who struggled under the weight the pressure brought.

Harribel and Hisashi stepped forward taking the brunt of spiritual pressure Nnoitra was giving off.

It took Cirucci a little longer before she realised what was going on. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, but eventually she stepped forward too. "What are you doing here Nnoitra?" she asked him accusingly.

He shrugged carelessly. Despite his casual behaviour the pressure didn't decrease. "Nothing in particular," he said. He walked towards them the pressure increasing as he neared them step by step.

Hisashi was starting to question if he should unleash his own pressure to counter Nnoitra's and protect the others. He knew he had plenty of spirit power to counter Nnoitra's spiritual pressure. Not only that, but his spiritual pressure seemed to be more efficient than anyone else he had come across so far. It was like every unit of spirit power allowed him to put out more pressure than a single unit of spirit power did for everyone else.

Although he could he really would rather not. If he did, it would be very suspect. Being in Las Noches he could never be sure when Aizen was watching and even if he wasn't he wouldn't put it past Nnoitra to report him to Aizen to get back at them and weaken Nelliel's faction so he stood a better chance against her down the line.

Moments before he decided to act they were surprised when another wave of spiritual pressure crashed into Nnoitra's negating part of it and inflicting a pressure on Nnoitra too.

They could hear very faint footsteps approaching them from behind. After a few moments Grimmjow walked past the girls ending up beside Hisashi. He glanced over at Hisashi before his gaze settled on Nnoitra. "Don't even think about going after my prey. He's mine!" he spat out arrogantly.

Nnoitra tisked. He was still pretty confident in acting unruly even with Cirucci present. He looked down on all the others since they weren't even Arrancar yet, judging them as barely even above ants. He also knew he was more powerful than Cirucci herself. He had no clue that Hisashi was probably around the same strength as Cirucci already while he was underestimating the kind of power Vasto Lorde held due to their rarity.

Each of the Tres Bestias was on the level of an Adjuchas class Arrancar. This meant the situation was far less favourable than he liked to think. However now that Grimmjow, another Arrancar who despite not becoming an Espada yet definitely had the potential to become one, had appeared he no longer felt confident enough in acting as he pleased.

Nnoitra decided to give up for the day and walked off the spiritual pressure slowly decreasing on them as he did so causing the weaker ones among them to sigh in relief.

When he finally disappeared into the distance Grimmjow tisked. "You should be fine now, but just you wait. Once I make it to Espada you better be ready, because I'll be coming for you," he said glancing over at Hisashi with a gleam of challenge in his eyes.

All Hisashi could do is sigh. Not that he had expected any better knowing Grimmjow's competitive streak it was clear Grimmjow wasn't going to give up on challenging him until either he felt like he had regained his honour by defeating Hisashi or was beaten so hard by him that he would think he wouldn't stand a chance no matter what he tried.

Apacci crossed her arms snorting arrogantly. "It's not like we needed your help," she spat back at him.

Grimmjow didn't even deign to look at her. "Like I care what happens to you. Go run after him if you're so confident," he said dismissively.

Seeing him ignoring her she frowned. "Bastard," she murmured quietly.

Sung-Sun smiled awkwardly and patted Apacci on the shoulder. "Just ignore him. Although annoying he did help us this time," she said with a sigh.

Cirucci put on a smile. "Nothing to worry about. Between me and Grimmjow there was nothing he could have done," she said suddenly seeming much more confident now that Nnoitra had left. It wasn't hard to see that it was mostly just bluster as she had been more nervous than most of them when Nnoitra showed up. The other girls had full confidence in Hisashi and Harribel's ability to keep them safe. They had never let them down after all.

Harribel smiled, though it was quite perfunctory. "Thank you Cirucci," she said.

Cirucci crossed her arms below her moderate chest emphasising it unintentionally as she tried putting up a reliable front by puffing her chest. "Of course," she said doing her best to sound confident after she had just been terrified by their encounter with Nnoitra who was several ranks above her amongst the Espada.

Now that the excitement was finally over they all worked hard to pack up their old living quarters for their move. Given how minimalist most of Las Noches was it didn't take that long. To Hisashi's dismay even Las Noches the most developed part of Hueco Mundo with sentient Hollows around had almost nothing as far as decorations or entertainment to distract from the monotony of life.

Between his memories about Soul Society from his previous life and his experience in Hueco Mundo this life he felt confident saying that leisure and entertainment were quite unique to humans on Earth. Even the Shinigami despite being uncorrupted human souls and visiting Earth to hunt Hollow and purify souls allowing them to see the culture of Humans on Earth didn't bring any of it back to Soul Society and were still living as if it was hundreds of years in the past. The only exception was technology related to souls and combat which was far advanced.

It wasn't like he could do anything about it at the moment though. He hoped one day he could either bring some of it to Hueco Mundo or at least spend more time on Earth again in a humanoid form once he became an Arrancar. Hopefully he had built enough goodwill through Masaki for Urahara to build him a gigai compatible with Arrancar for him to use. He couldn't imagine it being difficult considering he had already succeeded in building ones compatible with the Visored.

-X-X-X-

If you enjoyed the chapter leave a power stone.

If you're looking for more content check out my patreon/subscribestar(15+ chapters ahead):

https://www.pâtreon.com/Prognastat

https://www.subscribestâr.com/Prognastat

Replace "â" with "a" and you should arrive at my page.

Writing Soundtrack: Call Me Karizma - Various Tracks