"A scientist?"
Rangiku stood at the front, neither retreating nor drawing her sword.
She stared at the thing that had crawled out of the Hollow's belly.
A white robe, long pink hair, half a mask, and branchlike tentacles swaying slowly behind him.
There was a smell in the air.
It was like laboratory chemicals and specimens soaked in preservative, mixed with a sickly sweetness, like rotting fruit.
The feeling this fellow gave off... was wrong.
Hollows were either savage or cunning, but their eyes always held something bestial.
Hunger, bloodlust, or pure madness.
This one was different.
His eyes were calm, and a smile hung at the corners of his mouth, but there was no emotion in it, only a sense of observation, analysis, and assessment.
"I've never heard of Hollows being able to communicate," Rangiku murmured, more to herself than anyone else. Behind her, Kyunnan Shiro tugged at her sleeve.
"Rangiku," Kyunnan Shiro said, his voice so low it was almost a whisper, "I'll use Shikai to hold him off. Get the others out first."
He deliberately hid behind Rangiku, exposing only half his face, his eyes fixed on Szayelaporro as he calculated distances and angles.
But that would only buy them a little time.
Kyunnan Shiro could feel how powerful his opponent's reiatsu was. Not just somewhat powerful, but absurdly so.
That oppressive presence was no weaker than Captain Kensei's.
In other words, he was at least captain-level.
He was not someone they could handle.
Rangiku did not look back. She only shook her head slightly.
"Don't rush, Lieutenant."
Her right hand hung at her side. Her fingers shifted, slipping into the sleeve of her Shinigami uniform and finding a hard object: cylindrical, metal-cased, and palm-sized.
The Ninth Division's exclusive signaling device, the Piercing Cloud Arrow. Rangiku never