Oh. She'd struck a noble, then. Belkan chivalry didn't have a lot to say about that, but what it did was pretty clear: don't. Of course, to her admittedly incomplete recollection she'd never actually had cause to employ the portions of the code that dealt with proper social bearings (if you considered 'not smacking your betters' complex enough a concept to get included in that category). Generally anyone with any kind of power or position besides the master had been her enemy, at which point the code shifted to the much-more-agreeable stance that she should smite them with utmost puissance or some such.

She consoled herself with the thought that they probably both more or less counted as generals where they came from. Though in her case the title was a little misleading... she'd only had three subordinates. Two if you didn't count the one who would probably have broken the kneecaps of anyone who dared count her.

Oh well. She'd always been a pragmatist in her own way. Honor was important, but duty came first.

"Yes, about that," she started in response to his claim to have defeated the man. "What exactly did you do?"

If this Kuchiki's combination of authority and ignorance of their situation could divide the shinigami, and with them her army, so could their hatred for the man before her. Both were dangers that needed management, or at least watching.