Red rust dripped from the end of culvert, but it was lost in wet orange tangles. Beyond the opening, rain fell in sheets so torrential that water gushed as high as the young man's calves when a few hours ago it had been just a trickle. There was no braving that onslaught, it could kill, and likely had already killed any poor souls that had gotten caught in it.
He stepped back into the protection of the culvert and drew a tin can from his pocket. He'd been saving it, but now that he'd reached his destination he was sure he could find more food when the rain let up.
Tin scraped past tin, eager fingers dug into the pâté of meat, expired but not yet so rank he couldn't stomach it. He sucked his fingers clean then stuffed them back into his coat pockets to keep warm. Bare knees poked through ripped jeans when he huddle into himself for warmth. His coat and shirt stuck to his right side where an old rag did little to stop blood oozing from a wound. He ignored it.
He might as well sleep now since no one could come for him when the rain fell like this.
As always, his dreams took him back to other times, before the world had come to this, before he'd been reduced to living in culverts and shadows. He saw faces behind his eyelids he hadn't seen for years.
Then the nightmares got the best of him and he woke again. The rain had ended, though the sky was still dark. He stood at the sight of the looming city that became clear to him now, and made his way to the mouth of his shelter.
So this was it—the apocalypse. Never in a million years would he have thought it would have turned out like this. But here he stood as the rust rained down on him, beholding the silver sandy dunes that surrounded the bases of plazas and skyscrapers. Two worlds clashed together into one: a nightmare of his waking eyes. Darkness covered much of the city, but here and there he saw flashes of light, neon signs and blinking billboards.
It was the new age. The last age.
He stepped out under a moon he wasn't even sure was his anymore, and walked back toward the civilization he'd left four years ago.
Ichigo Kurosaki was home.
Water dripped from grey stone onto a floor puddled with worse liquids. Ichigo trudged straight through them, heedless of any stench or filth after the life he'd been living since the world officially ended.
The tunnel opened up into the large room surging with people. The sweaty, screaming mob blocked his view of the arena at their centre. Above the ring a fat man yelled obscenities, fist full of cash. Other more wealthy people were also in higher positions built up on wooden stages or on protrusions in the stone walls.
At ground level it was a mess of bodies, all shouting out their bets and waving bills. Ichigo worked his way through to the front, not enough to be seen clearly but enough to make out the figures fighting for their lives in the ring.
He had to make sure it was him, before he made his move, but the picture that had been flashing across one of the still functioning megatrons on the corners of two broken streets had been accurate. The headliner of the night had certainly made a name for himself in the dark corners of the surviving cities and Ichigo now watched him break skull against cement and the whole crowd roared in approval of the act of murder.
Grimmjow Jaggerjaques rose from the body of his opponent, bare back glistening with sweat and the wrap on his hands soaked in blood. Someone grabbed his arm and raised it up in a sure sign of his success. The fat man threw a wad of cash at the victor's feet. He picked it up, stiffed it in his pants, and left the arena, the crowds and the dead body behind.
Ichigo waited at the back door for half an hour before Grimmjow emerged, dressed and already flicking a lighter to get a cigarette going. He passed the hooded young man without a second glance.
"Not interested," he dismissed and continued walking up the bank of sand to where pavement poked through from an old overpass that joined to a main road.
"Grimmjow."
"I said-"
"It's me."
Boots came to a stop on the pavement. The interchange rose up out of the sands before him. He stood with eyes fixed forward on a tower of lights on the other side of the bridge, apartments where people still took refuge and managed to maintain some power.
"It better not be you."
"It is."
"The boy who didn't save the world, huh? I thought you'd disappeared for good."
"I left to find my sisters, not to run away."
"Well you should have run. Everyone knows who you are. Vandenreich will kill you on sight, and half the humans will too if they recognize you."
"Trust me, I know." Ichigo put a hand against the wound at his ribs. "I guess you can't be forgiven when you promise to save people and don't follow through."
"Guess so." Grimmjow took a last drag and flicked the butt into his sand. Finally he turned. "So then why are you here, Kurosaki?"
"Your name's been on billboards in every community from here to Tochigi."
"So you followed me?"
"It took me weeks to catch up to you."
"Well you've caught up to me. What do you want?"
"What do you mean? Grimmjow you're it, the only one."
"The only one what?"
"That I can find! The only other person who was in the war, who really understands."
"Oh I think everyone on this shithole world understands this is the end. We've just accepted it and decided to spend it how we like."
"Fighting to the death each night like an animal? You aren't invincible anymore."
"And neither are you!" Grimmjow skidded back down the sandy pavement and grabbed hold of Ichigo. "None of us are and that's the whole fucking point, isn't it? We're already dead."
"We're not dead, we're human."
"We're not human. We're displaced souls in a world that was never meant to be." He let him go and gestured to the mounds of sand all around them. "Hueco Mundo and the world of the living smashed together into this hellhole. Two days ago I was in an outpost of Las Noches. A year ago I saw the remains of the Vandenreich palace. So tell me what's left to do but go out smashing skulls and fucking women."
"I don't know, Grimmjow, but I'm not done fighting yet."
"Yes you are! Fouryears, Kurosaki. How long will it take for you to realize it's over? The Vandenreich fucked up everything. Soul Reapers were supposed to protect the balance but they failed and now this—four worlds smashed together in a puzzle. Not a single soul with any spiritual pressure in this damned universe. And nowhere to go when you die. The cycle is broken. No more lives to be had after we use these ones up. It's the end kid, and there is no fighting that."
He was right. The cycle of life had broken that day when too many souls had been lost and with them, the balance of worlds. Urahara had always warned them that if they didn't stop the quincies, this would be the consequence. Ichigo just hadn't expected to wake up after the cataclysmic event of the universe imploding.
Instead of existence vanishing, it smashed together and all worlds landed here, on Earth. Most notably, the sands of Hueco Mundo had drowned much of Japan, and consumed Karakura entirely. There was nothing left of Ichigo's hometown. He'd lost his father in the war, but his sisters had been here. He'd searched the world for them, but for all he knew, they'd been killed the day of the Clash—the day his life ended.
Now, shambles of the rukon district could be found interspersed between million dollar mansions in surviving districts of Tokyo. Las Noches had landed on a mountain, broken apart in a million fragments but half a dozen pillars still rising out of bare rock. And most importantly, millions of souls that were supposed to be spread out over four universes were now forced together in a single sphere. There wasn't a hint of spiritual pressure left in anyone, just souls—human all of them. Even Grimmjow had no hole in his stomach nor hollow mask. And yet, they weren't really human either, because humans were supposed to have an afterlife. None of them did now. If there was no Soul Society, no reapers and no spiritual pressure, then there was no place for them to go once dead. This was it, this was the end. When they died, as so many already had, that was it. Not to mention there hadn't been a pregnancy for four years. Life itself had come to an end.
"So you done arguing?" Grimmjow still stood on the higher ground looking down on Ichigo. He had barely changed, despite no longer having the mask. His features were as cold and hard as ever, hair the blue mess it had always been. Ichigo couldn't say the same for himself.
"Are you happy, Grimmjow? Letting them treat you like an animal? Eventually they'll throw a match so they can win big, you know. You'll die, and there will be nothing waiting for you."
At this, the former espada laughed. "It's a fucking relief, kid. All I had waiting for me was Hell, now at least I don't have to worry about that."
Ichigo hadn't considered that. Grimmjow may have teamed up with them when they'd found him during the war, but Ichigo always knew he'd only done so out of hatred for the Vandenreich and not because he wanted to save existence.
"Word of advice, don't hang around Tokyo." Grimmjow nodded back the way he'd been headed. "Those jumbo screens still flash your face at least once a week."
Ichigo followed his gaze to the blinking light several blocks away. Yes, humanity had come to know the teen soul reaper when the war had spilled into their world and he'd been all that had stopped its complete destruction. A million youtube video of a fight he'd had while in human form had made him a hero in seconds. The ensuing message to the world he'd given to a reporter while covered in blood had given people hope.
And he'd let them all down. Humanity was not very forgiving.
"Come with me," he said almost desperately, when thinking of turning back to the long windswept desert between civilizations on his own, the hunger and cold nights. The wild men and women who lived in burnt out cars and collapsed buildings that had survived the weight of sand that had landed on them.
Grimmjow barked out a cruel laugh. "You say they treat me like an animal. Kid, when's the last time you looked at yourself in a mirror? I ain't joining you to live in squalor until we fucking starve to death."
"Then, take me where you're staying. Just for a night, please."
"No way. They see me with you and they really will kill me."
"But—"
"Listen Kurosaki, things turned out rotten for you, but this world doesn't have room for sympathy, okay? Go find someone else to be your friend."
He started to walk away but paused when knees hit the sand at the base of the rising highway. He let out a long sigh before looking back to where Ichigo had collapsed.
"Don't you understand?" Ichigo breathed through his hands, everything in him letting go. "I've been walking around this damn planet for four years and I haven't found anyone—ANYONE! Until I saw your face on the arena poster. So I chased you like a ghost, knowing you would be like this, knowing you'd walk away, but I had to try because you were the only soul left I knew wouldn't kill me on sight! Isn't that pathetic? Isn't that the most ironic fucking thing you've ever heard?"
He fell forward until his head was against the dirt.
"You think if you cry I'll give in?"
"No." His voice was trembling but there were no tears in it. "I haven't cried in four years."
Ichigo sat back up slowly, hand still around his middle. Grimmjow noted the dark stain in his filthy shirt that glistened under the moonlight. He hadn't noticed the smell of blood after spending hours in the blood soaked arena.
"I guess it's all just sort of catching up to me." A calm settled over Ichigo. He knew Grimmjow was going to leave, and he knew he didn't have the strength to go back out into the no man's land between civilizations. So he just lay back on the slope and stared up at the sky. He wasn't sure when the stab wound from two nights ago had reopened but it was drenching his stomach and hip, warm and wet. He could feel sleep coming, and he thought of all ways, this woundn't be the worst way to die.
"So you giving up then?" Sand crunched next to his head. Grimmjow stood above him, watching his slowing breaths.
"I don't know," he admitted.
"Fine, die then." But he didn't move away. His cold eyes continued to stare down on the young man while the world became fuzzy. "But you are an idiot."
Ichigo frowned.
"What? Why?"
"I'm not the only one left from the war."
"I know the Vandenreich are north of Japan."
"Not those assholes. Geeze kid you've been scouring the world for old friends and you walked right past them."
At this, Ichigo fought back the dark. He blinked hard and sat up. "Wait, what? What are you talking about?"
Grimmjow shrugged. "Turns out the Soul Reapers weren't all massacred in those first weeks."
Most formerly spiritual beings had been attacked or killed by humans, and many had been killed by the band of surviving Vandenreich who now ruled the northern islands of Japan. So any word of survivors was welcome news to Ichigo.
"You've seen them?"
"I've talked to them. You ain't the first one who's come to find me."
"Who?" Ichigo pressed his hands into his knees and tried to stand. He had done well up to now but it seemed exhaustion, malnutrition and his wound were winning out. His hands slipped and hit the dirt again. He groaned long and loud before face planting.
"Yo," Grimmjow nudged him in the ribs with a boot and Ichigo let out a hiss of pain. "You dying or something?"
Ichigo tried to answer but his breath was far too thin and strained.
"You'll die if you stay out here. Scavengers or the rain will get you," Grimmjow reminded with little concern in his voice.
"Ugh." Ichigo lifted himself on his elbows. "Shit..." He got himself sitting again. "Just tell me Grimmjow, who did you see?"
"Friend of yours, I have a message to pass along to you, actually, from Rukia Kuchki."
"W-what?" Icihgo's heart thrummed in his chest. He looked up to the man standing over him but all he could see was the small warrior woman he'd last seen in the war. He felt his breath choke off and tried to ask Grimmjow more, ask him what the message was, but the world tilted sideways and he fell forward again, into the dark.
Oh man, I've been excited about publishing this story! Internment was actually born from a scene in this. The story itself was inspired by the song "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons (I was listening to it and could totally picture Grimmjow kicking ass in a fighting ring). Anyway, hope all the exposition didn't kill this first chap but I was trying to set the scene of this new, apocalyptic world. Hope you'll follow and review!
Riza