This is my first UlquiHime fic and I've very excited/nervous about it. I'm going to have an interesting time writing it, and I hope to those who read it that you have a fun time as well. I have the feeling that it's going to be a little dark, so be prepared.
Enjoy!
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The palace's abandonment had been sudden, and the effects of the mass exodus before the shinigami invasion were permanent. No one returned, Hollow or Adjuchas or Espada. Halls scraped and scarred and doors hanging by threads to their jambs or missing altogether. Dejection and anger hung over the frowning doorways guarding the way inside, skittering any thriving spirit away from the heavy stare. Large dunes rested against the mighty face of the westward wall where the final stand lasted a night's width. The blood was long gone, but the windless dessert never righted the wronged landscape. Foul sand, blackened by hate, shaped where Aizen Sousuke had at last fallen.
It was a bittersweet story pockmarked with victories and defeats on both sides, Soul Society and Hueco Mundo. It was a story that was never told outside the circle of those who lived, and survived, to remember the tale. It was a story Grimmjow Jeagerjaques loved and hated; loved because of the position it landed him in the months following Aizen's Fall; hated because Las Noches always loomed on the horizon, stinking of death—stronger than the rest of Hueco Mundo, and a fact that made his companion laugh to herself at the irony. The Espada hated, more than the man who was in fact not indestructible, that which could not be done in: Aizen's legacy that stood proud, silent, and tall on Grimmjow's own lands.
"This place gives me the fucking creeps," the blue haired man complained, eyeing the towers stabbing into the sky. "I fucking hate this place," he half-glared at the woman beside him inspecting Las Noches with a highly critical eye.
"I do too," Nelliel Tu Oderschvank agreed, not correcting his callous language. "But this can't go unchecked."
Grimmjow scoffed, slamming his foot into the nearest crystalline "tree" sprouting from the lesser lands, the Menos Forest, below. It snapped when he ejected a slight force of spiritual energy through his foot. A roar sounded, seeping through the thick layer of sand.
Nelliel said nothing.
"Then let's get this over with," Grimmjow suggested tightly. He started, heading round the broad closed gateway.
"Where are you going?" Nelliel inquired lightly, though shifting to go after him.
"To break a wall in," he answered, not waiting for her to follow, "It'll take forever to get that damn door down, and even longer to wander those damn halls."
He had a point. Nelliel smirked.
"If we can find a spot close to the source," she suggested as they began the long trek around the entire palace, "then you can break the wall."
"Damn straight."
The ground throbbed, shifting the sand under their feet. They halted, both shivering despite the warmth of the surge.
"That's impossible," Nelliel breathed, stepping forward to palm the rough white wall. It was cold. "Did its power increase from an Adjuchas to Espada?"
Grimmjow's jaw tightened and flexed. His briefly concerned glance confirmed it: they had no idea what they were dealing with, only that its power increased nearly one hundred-fold in a matter of minutes. Select few in history could climb the charts and break them in record timing, ignoring the glass ceiling of youth, inexperience, and humanity itself.
"I swear," Grimmjow growled, "if that asshole Ichigo became a fucking Hollow, I'm going to kill him. Right now. No questions."
Nelliel pursed her lips. "Grimmjow, that's impossible. We've already discussed this. He was a substitute shinigami—"
"So he was technically already a shinigami in spirit," Grimmjow completed the phrase with her. "Yeah? What about that Vizard shit? He had a Hollow mask," he growled with a heavy pause before brazen blue eyes locked on Nelliel's sea green ones. "Either way, I still don't like you sticking up for his sorry ass."
A small childish smile graced her lips. "Well, I just can't help it."
He grunted, turning his head away and said no more.
An hour of walking and the steady pulse of power never neared, or grew farther away. Grimmjow tucked his hands deep in his pockets and stared upward, watching for the form of Nelliel on one of the lower rooftops on the palace. He had tossed her up there nearly ten minutes ago, and was quickly readying Panthera to release and get himself up after her. But there was no need. Just as he opened his mouth the yell Nelliel appeared and leapt down. Instinctively Grimmjow caught her deftly in his arms. Nelliel smiled, but also raised a brow in mockery. He only sneered, setting her feet right before letting go. She made a point, for his sake, to not notice the brush of his fingers across her waist when he sulked a few strides off.
"That didn't help," she sighed, glancing up. "But I got the sense that the crux is somewhere in the higher levels near the southern end." She pointed, indicating more walking. Grimmjow wasn't going to start complaining though. Yet.
"Alright. Then we can move a little faster," he said, shooting off with a sonido.
They halted when the moon was at their backs, staring at the back side of Las Noches. Here the windows were more numerous than the three other rounded tower-wings mostly because Aizen feared no invasion. The sand guardian had watched this end passionately in his time, as per instruction.
Nelliel was correct in her assumption. The energy warmed the stone now, as she discovered. The tingle running through her fingers, as she frowned thoughtfully at them, was strange, and the spiritual aftertaste was faintly familiar.
She faced the waiting Grimmjow. "Now you can break the wall," Nelliel assented.
A wicked grin broke his lips.
Drawing Panthera Grimmjow prepared to use his sword after years of having that aspect of his power mostly dormant when the ground trembled violently. He jammed the blade into the sheath, cursing and belligerently flinging an accusing finger at the structure.
"It's not the building itself," Nelliel assured rather sarcastically before Grimmjow could speak. "Just get us inside, please."
He snorted, drawing the blade once more. The ground bucked again.
"What the fuck?" Grimmjow bellowed, red swirling about his palm in a cero. A good section of the wall's face vanished with the impact. Dunes leaning against unharmed sections around the gaping hole slithered back into the surrounding sands when Las Noches continued to rumble and complain of the abuse. "Ah, now we pissed it off!"
Nelliel gripped Grimmjow's sleeve, dragging his reluctant mass inside. Grimmjow's irritated cero had blown clear through twenty or more creepily familiar interior walls, which he smugly appraised. Whether if the memories escaped him or he just ignored the chill that had skittered down Nelliel's spine the moment she saw the doorway down the bared hall to the basement Grimmjow walked now with resolution and ease. The deeper into the mouth they traversed, however, the warmer the usually cool Hueco Mundo atmosphere became. Both slowed considerably.
"Did you notice that?" Nelliel asked softly, turning to her companion, and slapping his broad shoulder for not paying attention and staring inside an old boiler room it seemed. He complained. "There's a difference in the pressure again," she ignored his protest.
Grimmjow took to listening and feeling about for spiritual presences, something he did surprisingly well considering his renowned short attention span for most things. Sure enough the signature of this Espada-level creature was absurdly unique, and expanding. As they stood, both Espada witnessed the addition of two then three, five, six new, separate, and much weaker spiritual marks. Nothing since the time of Aizen and the Hougyoku, and quite possibly before, had been created and gained power so fast.
"I really don't like this," Grimmjow muttered. "Really, really don't like this shit."
"Yeah," Nelliel nodded, prodding him forward as he fussed again. Cutting a green glare silenced him. "We have an obligation here," she informed him sternly, "I don't want to be here just as much as you, but we can't go running to Soul Society—"
At that Grimmjow scoffed, condemned Soul Society and every shinigami within its boundaries before hurling himself onward with a renewed vigor. Nelliel shook her head. He was very predictable.
The unnatural warmth flared, blasting the immediate area with a brief but hellish wind. Grimmjow stumbled backwards, blinded by three flashes of golden-copper light. "Shit," he swore, swerving from the whistling arch of a knife edge. At its hilt was a big, broad man, heavy in the face and hand, for the miss extended and imbedded into the floor. To this man's left came a lanky second man, and to his right landed a slender young woman.
"We can't let you any nearer," she warned with a slight toss of her shoulders.
Each of these three had a mask covering some portion of their face. The big man appeared to have an overlarge and jagged bottom lip that extended nearly to his nose, but actually it was his mask that extended so far. The other man had a single eye covered with the rest of the mask enveloping a thick strip down his cheek and up to his head, where it enveloped his bald head nearly completely. The woman's mask stretched across like a visor, twin oval cutouts exposing her lively purple eyes. The mask fit then around her ears like a pair of glasses. Only she appeared to find humor in the situation.
"There something funny?" Grimmjow demanded of the strange woman.
"No, not really," she answered.
"We would ask you to please leave," the thin man suggested with unstrained courtesy.
Grimmjow barked a laugh. "Really? Do you have any idea who I am? Get that sword out of my face!" he snapped at the silent, Yamy-sized man, who was obviously more intelligent than the former Espada since he did withdraw his blade.
Curiously Nelliel, hanging behind Grimmjow for the moment, noted the lack of weapons on the two smaller beings. The sword the big one held was broad and gold, the hilt a mixture of light and dark green. The clothing they wore—an interesting fact since Nelliel recalled her nakedness at her reformation by Aizen's Hougyoku—was simple and outlandish and coordinated with the sword's coloring perfectly. Copper-gold shirts and pants fitted each to their own style with jade green threading and a single broad patch of dark emerald embroidery somewhere on their person in a similar single flower-petal design.
"We have no business with you," said the thin man.
"You're on my territory," Grimmjow growled, "You don't have business with anyone else."
"Please leave," he repeated.
"Grimmjow," Nelliel said, unheard.
The blue haired Espada advanced.
On cue all three newcomers outstretched their right palms, the big man placing his upon the flat of the sword. Without further warning a bright, transparent copper wall exploded between them and the Espada.
"Put that shield down and fight fair!" Grimmjow demanded, snapping Panthera out with a flick of the wrist.
Nelliel called him back. "We have what we need!" she yelled over the increasing weight of the heaviness in the air. Slapping a palm against a broken pillar Nelliel hollered for the obstinate man over and over. A whistle, shrill and pitchy, warbled behind the trio where the warmth emitted strongly. They took a step back, taking the thick shield with them. A hole between it and the ceiling cracked.
"Don't run!" Grimmjow challenged, bringing Panthera to play against the stronghold. The shield deflected his weapon with infuriating ease. At Grimmjow's second onslaught a wiry figure slipped between the shield tip and roof, falling quickly with triangle shaped wings bent for a dive. His clothes were the same colors but darker in shade than the others, and his weapon was swift and keenly sharp. Grimmjow, struck by the sudden arrival, parried with feline pupils barely focusing on the swift movements of his opponent.
"Watch yourself, dipshit," warned the new man as he rested momentarily atop Grimmjow's sword clashed with his own.
The Espada roared, flinging the man away and hurtling insult rather than steel. "I do whatever the hell I feel like! I'm the fucking King!"
Hard, unforgiving eyes, black like his wings and hair, glared at Grimmjow, and the third man scoffed from his perch atop a large stone block, "Even kings bow to gods."
"Grimmjow," Nelliel hissed. "We need to go!"
The four watched Nelliel and Grimmjow carefully, not moving or speaking as Grimmjow turned grudgingly to do as his woman bid.
The woman behind the shield peered behind her, looked to each companion in turn, and nodded. "It's time."
They closed their eyes, each taking a deep breath, and exploded into spirit particles. Swirling like a vortex they shifted, taking up smaller debris and so much dust that sight became impossible. Nelliel, even at the distance which she stood, dropped to the ground, resisting the crushing press to comply with the heaving winds, and crawled. Even through the heaviness settling between her shoulders as a child would sit and demand a ride Nelliel rebelled. Grit buried under her dragging fingernails and the wind howled warm and cold at once. Her spirit energy, her life-force and power, slowly ebbed out Nelliel's toes, sucked into the deadly twirl of sand and energy above and behind her. She curled the little, numbing appendages. The sensation of weakening didn't stop. It wormed thickly up her claves. The vortex broadened and grew taller, and the winds whipped dirt and cement slices across her face. She couldn't remember when she started screaming, raging against the sudden yank of death on her heels. With a final pull Nelliel momentarily broke the concentration fixated on her from whatever forces beckoned her demise, and rolled over and over unheedingly of the battering and bruises.
And then it stopped.
Eerie silence of Hueco Mundo collapsed around her ringing ears as Nelliel quickly scrambled from the dark of the wall of sand sparkled with copper lights flickering on and off within. She remembered Grimmjow and shuddered, biting her bleeding lip to keep from wailing. A low moan of agony poured from her throat, burning her eyes.
Stupid, stupid man.
With a blink to rid the humiliation of tears Nelliel gasped at the instant pristine face of the land. Not a misplaced particle of sand lay outside the convincingly old grey-white structure blended into the background of dunes. Had Nelliel not stood before it, it would have gone unnoticed. Curled roof edges suggested ancient style, therefore, mistakably, age. Whitewashed gates were decorated with precision carvings of a great battle between angelic figures with feathered wings and hauntily perfect faces downcast with weighty sorrow, and demonic men with horned heads and whipping tails and depressed eyes surrounded by various disturbed expressions.
Entranced by this awesome scene Nelliel found herself brushing a hand against the firm wood, smooth like marble and smelling like freshly felled trees. Impossible in this desert place, however distinctly true under Nelliel's scrutiny. How she recalled the thick smell of newly felled trees didn't cross her marveled mind. The building was by no means enormous like the obnoxious Las Noches, but held true to a household of a powerful and royal being. Who it belonged to, now, Nelliel had to question seeing as everything prior to discovering this immaculate home had skipped her mind. She furrowed her brows, stepping slowly to the joint of the gate and stone wall, touching the cool metal jamb.
If Grimmjow had been inside the vortex, he was surely inside now.
Then it clicked.
Nelliel backpedaled, clutching her sword.
"Good afternoon," a chipper voice called from above. Nelliel looked up into a friendly face of a weaker Fraccion-leveled woman with hardly a mask covering any portion of her simply pretty face. The woman smiled. "Is there something I can help you with?"
Nelliel swallowed, but schooled her features, adopting the same respectful tone she reserved for Aizen. "I would like to see the…owner here, if you would let them know please."
"Of course!" the woman called, turning away.
The one gate housing the frozen angels opened, and Nelliel walked timidly but resolutely inside without meeting an escort. She could not sense that powerful aura from before, nor the slightly familiar ones of those four with whom Grimmjow instigated a fight or even Grimmjow himself. And she feared greatly and suddenly for herself and the curiosity of the empty courtyard before her.
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I really like GimmNell, and a Hueco Mundo setting is the perfect place to weave them in the plot!
Is it a little too late to mention Grimmjow's mouth...? It's a little dirty. But we love him anyway!