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In the maze like caverns that wind through the foundation of the palace, large sections have been taken over by a massive garden. This Garden was grown by Arbutus Menziesii, the ancient arrancar. The plants that grow in this area have many properties ranging from poisons to remedy's. strewn among the carefully cultivated plants are many voracious and carnivorous plants placed there as defense against intrusion and to guard the tunnels that lead to various areas of the palace.

Here resides Arbutus himself and his fraccion Salte Pichi. Salte is an adept in healing, thus a section of the forest is a safe haven used to treat almost any malady. Often a spot despised by other arrancar as having to visit it confirms their moment of weakness, they are none the less grudgingly grateful for its presence as the healings are often quick and potent.

The forest that grew in the caverns that twined beneath the palace had begun to overtake the available space. Water pooled along the bottom of the rifts in calming eddies, overall a rather mystical environment. A single shaft of light pierced the misty gloom.

The light flickered as a group moved into the garden. A tall old man led four young arrancars in. He stood a moment and took in the scene. Lichens glowed on the celiling, vines spanned the drops, and greenery was everywhere. His chest swelled a bit with pride. "welcome my friends, to my new garden!"

"WHOA!" cried salte, her voice echoing off the walls, "It's huge!" Arbutus held a hand in front of the energetic girl. "Remember your lessons dear, this is not a tame garden, as was the grotto before." Salte looked up at her grandpa and nodded before bouncing into the greenery leaping about from place to place, disturbing the plants and playing tag with the whipping vines that tried to snare her.

Arbutus shook his head. Salte knew these plants well. She was playing to find the best routes across the landscape just as she had in the stones. "Keep to the clearer areas friends," he cautioned and walked along the trails that wound through the foliage.

"There are plants here that can be used for all kinds of things, poisons to remedies." He turned to Adan, "I know its a bit bigger than your garden, but these are not plans from the human realm. These take little effort to maintain. So I apologize if it appears that I am trying to out do your efforts." Arbutus was not sure Adan was even listening yet, the three were still gazing around the area. The old man closed his eyes and inhaled the scents of the forest. It was such a nostalgic and calming feeling.

Arbutus did not miss the frosty tone. Marta Nicole was reminding him of his failure. Despite having been buried in spirit draining stone for a year, she had not forgiven him. The boys seemed back to normal, but they never were as blessed with brains as Marta Nicole.

Arbutus was not about to beg forgiveness from Marta Nicole. The family bod they had shared once needed to be tempered if any of them were to survive this place. He may be seventh in line, which meant at least six individuals stronger than he excluding the Ternary. Without a word more, he led the trio to the heart of the garden.

At the heart, which was by no means in the middle, a single massive tree grew against one side of the cavern. The tree had an odd disfiguration in its bark that looked like a mask, evidence of its origins. The tree's roots ran out into the sea of greenery. What was interesting about this tree was single cluster of fruit that hung just above the mask about midway out in the shelter of the branches. It glowed with a soft blue light, shaped something like pear, but bundled in three like a grape cluster.

Arbutus smiled at the fruit, already it was almost ripe. It was not a food or medicinal thing. But this was one of the old man's techniques of sharing knowledge itself. He had engineered this one to hold all his memories since the battle that had seperated him from his grandchildren. "Friends, do you recognize this fruit? I have grown this with the knowledge and experiances I had while I was alone. This is my greatest plant, the tree of knowledge. Some say its a cursed thing, some say its a god given gift."

holding the fruits for a moment judging their growth he plucked them from the tree. He knelt and held the fruits out to Marta Nicole. "I do not ask forgiveness for my actions. But if you accept these, they will show you that I never stopped my search for you. Perhaps they can make up a little of the time we missed together."

Salte bounded off the ceiling and landed in a tree nearby. She watched Grandpa give the blue fruits to Marta Nicole and wondered what they were for. She had not seen him grow any such fruits before. Something tickled her mind and she looked behind her into the forest. What had changed? she saw ans sensed nothing, and nothing in particular had caused her to look. She frowned, turning back to watch the others. She must have been imagining things, and promptly forgot whatever it was.

Salte had no idea what was going on. Just whatwas going on between the two Espada? The boys acted weird,almsot like they had ceased tobe three people and merged into one. Then Adan tagged her and the boys were off. Grinning like a cheshier cat, she dissappeared in her own sonido after them. They wanted to play cat and mouse did they? She let off a gleeful cry as she cased after the boys.

---

Arbutus had watched the entire preformance. Like the fruit of knowledge, it was something that had not happened in an age or more. When the threebecame one in action, the were most sincere and deadly. Oddly they only partook of a portion of the fruits. The significance was not lost on him, but he wondered how that would effect the memory transfer. As the boys left taking Salte along with him he stood. "Aye, that is a wound far more dificult to heal. And one I do not want forgiven." he held up a hand, "The past may not matter any longer, but it serves as a stark reminder. I will not make the same mistake twice."

And with that, Arbutus dropped the matter. This was not a point he would win on, nor did he want to. The battle, long in the past, was finally over. With a wave of his old hands, a plant molded into a seat. A second sprouted for Marta Nicole, while the Old Man fell into his. For a moment, the old man looked weary. Tired and spent,worn from fierce battles of the body and mind, Arbutus looked like his title. He shut his eyes, listening to his breathing and the soft wind that carried through the underground forest. Salte and the boys could be heard down one of the tunnels,water below gurgled on its way.

Then the moment passed and the man's face was carved stone. "I wonder what I am to do now exactly. Your boys have their experiments, yet I have no reason for my garden yet," his eyes twinkled, "Except as a playground it would seem. You and the boys are free to come and go here. The plants will not bother you if you stay on the paths. Walking through them would be a hazardous choice. I assume Cillian wanted me as I am a curiosity as well as old and experianecd. What warpath dose our dear leader tread? Almost all the Cero's of Las Noches have an agenda."

Arbutus stroked his beard, that was an od turn of events. The Lord Cero was fighting against boredom? That was a powder keg to say the least. And to think that he would toss away anything that ceased to intrest him was a worry. Someone with an agenda agains the reapers would value strength, the best leaders cultivating it or pitting their own in constant battles to prove who was fittest. But boredom? That was a foe he knew all too well. He had found solace in tending his plants, but the younger generations needed something more upbeat.

"I would hope he would come by and not leave me in the basement," Arbutus laughed, "I can produce all manner of chemical distractions if he wants, but that may not be the healthiest way of going about it. I have quite the ground work set up down here. It would be good to start production on a store of remedies, as well as a toxin store house. A good stock will save time in producing anything he might need or want." The old man let his mind wander the catalogs worth of things his plants could make or provide ingredients for. It was quite the list. "Perhaps I should catalog into a written form a guide book the Lord Cero could use to order such things. That would keep me occupied for a time."

Arbutus' mind was busy formulating his thoughts into something he could write up, like some form of horridly demented cookbook. It was a restful place this, this garden where he sat with friends as others played. He chuckled as he glimpsed Salte grasping for Zyne's ankle before they both vanished again off on their game.

---

Salte was fast, but she was having trouble keeping up with the twins. Each would help the other to keep just out of her reach. They pinballed across the ravine walls, over the criss crossing bridges, enjoying the thrill of the high speed chase. Several times Salte had been stuttering her steps during her sonido. She was catching on to what her body was trying to do, by timing the steps differently she could actually alter her course during flight! Instead of more or less teleporting from point to point.

Concentrating on the trajectory of the mop of red hair in the distance she sprang forward into the trademark blitzing move, changing her path mid transit as Adan launched himself away. Coming out of sonido at high speed she arced over his head, tapping him on the noggin. "Tag!" she said before leaping away again.

"how tedious, not unlike raising Adan's plants." Arbutus said with a sigh. This was going to be a tricky deal. Just how much would he need to do to 'stay interesting'? It was not like he needed much to prepare any of his concoctions. He knew where everything was. The plants could tell him. And he had lifetimes of experiences he could feed out.

Looking to one side he gestured with hand. In the vegetation rich area it was a parlor trick to grow some thing. Plants and vines began to carefully adhere to the a wall of the cave, construction the framework of a dwelling. In time it would be a suitiable house grown entirely from organic material. Brifely the three playing alighted on points of the construction before blasting off again. Arbutus shook his head.

"It seems that they are getting along well enough. I keep forgetting how mature Salte really is. Her personality makes things difficult to read. What do you think of her speed? This is a fine place for high speed chases," Arbutus thought it funny they were comparing children like horses of earth. "As long as they dont crash" he added darkly. Children or no, damage to the garden was not acceptable. No mater how easy it was to fix. His small family would be the only ones he could fogive if something of the sort happened as they knew better. An intruder on the other hand....

---

Salte spring boarded of something that had not been there the last time they had passed this way. Looking back she saw that a new structure was growing up along a wall, a distraction that allowed Zyne to tag her arm. "Hey! No fair!" she said laughing. Their game became faster and faster, each pushing their sonido footwork to extremes. Plants burst under the impacts of their velocity. A fact that drew a small growl from the Old Man.

Wood groaned as he gripped the armrests of his chair. Slowly standing up he flared his power just enough to get the boisterouse childrens attention. The wave of reiatsu flooded the chambers snapping thier attention to him. "SETTLE DOWN" he commanded his voice echoing off the walls.

Salte looked back at Grandpa and trembled. The cold fury in his eyes scared the pants of her. Meekly she hopped to the broken plants and began healing them, ignoring any of the thorns or whipping vines that slapped at her. Arbutus locked eyes with each boy for a long moment. After he was sure his message was clear his face soffened, "Lets keep this to a dull roar please?"

"Sorry Grandpa!" Salte called from inside of a carnivorous pitcher plant. She slipped out of it quickly, moving to fix the damage their play caused. She knew her punishment was being held for later, in a less dangerous fashion. Grandpa had only slapped her once and it had been quite the message. Almost half her bones had been broken and it had taken a week for her regeneration to fix it.

Arbutus sat heavily in his chair sealing up his power again, before chukling wryly. "Ah kids..." he remarked. Salte was tryuing to make up for her mistake and he would remember it. The boys, well, Marta Nicole would deal with that if she wanted to. "cant wait till the first of the arrancars tries to break in here. Lord cero aside, I might have to forcefully remind a few of the rules." he contemplated leaving signs near the entrances. That might work, even intrigue the occasional upstart"

Arbuts remained quite as he pondered Marta Nicole's response. He would need to stretch his secrets then. His Garden would provide a fair amount of distraction as she said. This was Cilllian's turf now, he may have been polite to them in the stones merely because that was Arbutus' land and for the odd intrigue he had presented. Here Cillian might just do as he pleased, which Arbutus would have to watch carefully and gauge how to go about things.

"About our fellow Espada, what do you know about them? Aside from the toxic ones meltdown, and the new ice user, I do not know much about any of our fellows. Should I be aware of any of their motives? The loudmouthed ice man is one of us though, not that he was interested in anything but Cillian."
---
Salte had finished fixing the plants and began to fix her own wounds. The plants were an ungrateful bunch, all spiky and whippy. "It's too bad the plants took over all the tunnels. Wonder if Grandpa can make a training room like you guys have." She said returning to the twins. "The tunnels were a good place to run, but we cant hurt the plants again." Salte winced, they had gotten carried away, but the fact that her impacts had caused the plant matter to tear apart from the impacts gave her ideas on how to use her speed.

It had started as a faraway spark, a flickering flame being blown left and right by the numerous spiritual beings that scuttered around the halls of Las Noches, but, before long, the two presences had moved closer until they had stepped foot in the Septima's domain. With a Pesquisa scan, the room's occupants would be able to recognize the two newcomers as Corrona Blanca and Elyssia Masriera de Casa, respectively the Primera and Segunda.

The latter was barely clinging onto life and, from the way their presence were almost intermingled with one another, it was safe to assume that the Segunda was being carried by the Primera who was advancing at an uncharacteristic urgent and uncertain pace. When they finally bounded into sight, it would be no surprise, in fact, it was a real miracle the Primera had even made it this far into Las Noches and the Gardens without being taken down.

Elyssia was unconscious and covered in blood, her lower body almost completely gone. Her high-speed regeneration was making feeble attempts to closer her gaping wounds, but from the steady trickle of blood pouring out of them, it was a lost cause. She was barely clinging to life and it would appear that Corrona wasn't much farther behind.

The usually poised woman was hunched over and panting, straining under the weight of the Segunda who she had slung over her left shoulder, her only remaining shoulder. Her clothes were in tatters and her hair appeared to have been burnt off in patches and ripped off in places, a stark contrast to Corrona's usual pristine appearances. A gaping hole had been dug into her side, one she could not heal as she did not possess the same gift as her fallen comrade.

"Where is the Lord Cero?" she asked the small group of Arrancars even as blood dripped down from her bleeding lips. Still, despite all her injuries, she still spoke with relative calm and acceptance. Her single eye was as dull as ever, without a trace of fear or pain, for a doll did not feel such things even as the last sparks of her life was slowly starting to fizzle out right before the Ternary and the Septima's eyes.