Waking up attached to another being was certainly not something Grimmjow was used to, and no matter how many times he attempted to get the sleeping teen off of him Kurosaki just wouldn't budge, not even stirring from his sleep in the slightest. Figuring his best option was to find someone used to dealing with the leach, he somehow managed to untangle himself from the bed and stand to walk to the dinning room where he felt everyone else's reistu; not even having to worry about holding onto Ichigo because the boy clung so tightly.
He arrived in the dinning room to see a sight he'd never thought he'd see. Shinigami sitting around a large table, mingled with espada who wore mundane pajamas, eating breakfast as if it was an every day thing. To add to the freak show, Ulquiorra was sitting in some albino's lap. The ever alone, miserable fourth espada, cuddled up with a paper white devil.
"Yo, don't mean ta interupt the Brady bunch breakfast here or nothin, but anyone know where the 'detatch' button is on this kid?"
All eyes turned to the pair, Yylfordt shaking his head along with Ulquiorra while the white devil glared holes into Grimmjow's eyes. Just as Grimmjow was about to demand an answer rather than just disapproving looks there was a cooing noise from behind him as a large, boney, hand came around his shoulder to rub the sleeping teen's cheek.
"Ichi-baby, Kitty Cat don't want ya all over 'im like tha' righ' now. You can come sit with me, we got strawberries for ya today."
Unintelagible mumbles into Grimmjow's shoulder were given in responce to Nnoitra's attempts at detatching the boy. Sighing, the tall espada looked towards Starrk and nodded his head up, the other seeming to understand and throwing him a strawberry which Nnoitra placed at Ichigo's mouth.
"C'mon pet, you didnt eat at all yesterday. You know ya ain't s'posed to do that."
The teen opened his mouth to take a toddler sized bite of the berry, Nnoitra smiling and lifting him from Grimmjow's chest, to which Grimmjow sneered, unpleasant emotions arising from memories of dirty attacks and a slight displeasure for him actually taking the teen away. Nnoitra growled at him challangingly, and Grimmjow was about to take the challenge until Harribel spoke up.
"Boys, no fighting. Ichigo needs to eat. If you wish to fight give him to me and go else where."
Harribel's tone left no arguement and the two were fully ready to leaving the dinning room to duel it out but were stopped by a pathetic whine and out stretched hand of Ichigo's towards Grimmjow while the other had a death grip around Nnoitra's neck. It was safe to say that the two of them were going no where as they sat down at the table, Ichigo sitting in Nnoitra's lap and holding onto Grimmjow's hand as the teen picked at strawberries and even some chocolate chip pancakes.
Shinji looked suspiciously between the teen in Nnoitra's lap and person Ulquiorra was sitting on.
"Ya can stop starin', fairy boy. I'm King's other half that Ulqui told ya bout. I'm his hollow, and the name's Shiro." Shinji's eyes nearly bugged out of his head.
"How the hell did you two seperate?!"
"Ah, well, King wasn't like the rest o' ya vizards ta begin wit. He was born with me. Like havin a real person trapped inside ya mind, that multiple personality bullshit, ya know? I just got tired o' bein' trapped in there and it was wreckin' King's body and mental state, so I got out."
Isshin looked towards his son, who had taken to pulling Starrk's head into his lap amd playing with the man's hair in a very toddler like way.
"I find it hard to see how any of this has improved my son's mental state. He seems more like a toddler now than he was when he was three years old."
"Well that's hardly Shiro's fault," Szayel intergected, "The way Ichigo is acting has many factors to it. During the war he recieved rather seveire head trauma from multiple different events, such as being thrown around, being struck on the head, and being crushed under ruble. When we found him, Ichigo's body was much too weak but his mind was too stubborn to let Shiro take over, so they were on a constant battle that was drainimg Ichigo more and more by the second; so of course the first thing i had to do was extract Shiro from Ichigo's mind. After i accomplished that Ichigo went out like a dying light bulb, into a several month long coma. I wasn't too concerned, as having Shiro around gave us direct contact to Ichigo's health which provided us the knowledge that he simply needed rest. However, Shiro informed me that when the two were initially stuck under the ruble Ichigo lost the ability to breathe and it took Shiro several minutes to 'reboot' his system and get him breathing again, causing loss of brain cells. When Ichigo woke up it was touch and go for a while, seeing what he was capable of and how much damage had truely been caused. I managed to almost completely reset the loss, though Ichigo didn't seem to change any once I had fixed the problem. Soon after he began demanding for Grimmjow, so much so we'd have to sometimes sedate him from going on a suicide mission to find him. I have high hopes that now that Ichigo has Grimmjow at his side he will return to his old self."
Urahara nodded at the fasinating information. It seemed he would have to try to recruit this pink haired espada for future experiments. There was one thing he didnt understand, though.
"Why would Grimmjow make the difference? With so many other espada why not just make a contection with them and rid the need, or want, for Grimmjow."
"We thought of that as well, and for a while we tried pairing him off with Nnoitra, Starrk, Di Roy, Shawlong or even Harribel but he would absolutely not have it. After some thought Ulquiorra and I summerized that his need for Grimmjow wasn't just his beta instict demanding a mate, it was also the human, or possibly shinigami, part of him. Betas need an alpha of compatable strength in order to protect them, Grimmjow has that, while humans and shinigami look for personality compatability, certain characteristics that they find attractive, and my best guess is that Grimmjow also has that."
"Yes, I suppose that does make sense."
"So, uh, what do you guys do around here? I mean Aizen didn't exactly seem like the entertainment type of guy." Renji questioned and Szayel laughed.
"Oh trust me, he wasn't. Most of the time the Espada would just slaughter weaker hollows simply for the fact that it was something to do, but since Aizen has been gone we've remodeled quite a bit, collecting things from the world of the living over time. We have a whole room dedicated to a TV. I believe its called a home theater? The floor is completely covered with padded cushions, pillows thrown everywhere, its quite comfortable. Starrk enjoys that room. We also have one room filled with gaming systems and another one with gym equipment. Its all very nice, though i usually prefer to stay in my labs."
"And Ichigo? What does he do? Why didn't you send him home? Why didn't he want to go home?" Isshin spilled questioned. Harribel, who had been listening on the whole time, amswered his questions.
"Ichigo will generally sleep through most of the day and while hes awake he'll follow whoever he chooses around. As for your other questions, we couldn't exactly show up in Soul Society with him say 'Hello, we're all still alive and we've found this. So here you go.' and leave peacefully, we would've all been executed on spot. We couldn't send him back on his own, he was, and still is, too mentally unstable. We also couldn't send just him, Shiro is a piece of him that he needs but if we had sent them both that ran the risk of them being experimented on and seperated. All in all, it was simply more reasonable to keep him here. As for why he never asked to go home, I can not answer that for you."
So this is kind of short, sorry, but this is where i wanted this chapter to end. Next chapter to come will probably just be espadas every day life, maybe some grimmjow and ichigo time. Unedited