Angry sounds of battle, metal clashing together and loud yells prodded Grimmjow awake. There was a momentary lapse of confusion before memories of his defeat against that effeminate snake-smelling man made him open his eyes.
He blinked at the dark wood surrounding him and stared at the thin haze of spiritual energy floating around his face. Noticing an odd lingering sensation in his mouth, he moved his tongue around and frowned at the taste of foreign mixed spiritual energy in his mouth and the back of his throat.
Spiritual energy that matched what was floating around his head. He traced the energy's trail backwards with his eyes and saw it rising from an unconscious human. Grimmjow sniffed and recognized the scents of the two male brats he'd wanted to kill.
Both brats were unconscious.
But their high and unique spiritual power from before was almost non-existent. In fact, it was worse than the two humans he'd killed in the forest earlier.
Grimmjow stood, ignoring the throbs of pain that signalled his injuries still hadn't healed, and followed the diminishing trail of spiritual energy to a spot on the black-haired boy's neck. He shuffled closer and stared at the small tattoo there, intrigued that it was actually spewing something alongside the spiritual energy. He assessed the energy, wondering how he'd unconsciously separated the spiritual energy from that and absorbed it.
Grimmjow couldn't recall ever having done anything like that before. Then again, he couldn't recall much of his mundane daily life before becoming an Arrancar in Aizen's army.
He growled when he recognized tiny traces of the snake-man's energy swirling above the tattoo.
Between the spaces of the tree roots, Grimmjow saw movement but he concentrated on the unconscious boys, wondering why they felt so different. So weak.
Hardly worth killing and eating, if their weak spiritual power readings were anything to go by.
A flash of bright colour from his legs made him look down. A red strip of cloth coiled around his leg all the way down to his paw. He leaned down, sniffed at the red cloth and caught the familiar scent of forest and too much life. Noticing the lack of irritation and itching around his wounds, Grimmjow realized that the person who'd bandaged him had also cleaned out his wounds.
He turned and stared at the various make-shift bandages crisscrossing his back, hiding his wounds from sight. Grimmjow scrutinized his own spiritual power, noting that less than a quarter of his entire spiritual energy had been replenished, and calculated that he'd been out for a few hours at least.
An angry scream roused Grimmjow from his musings. He scoffed at himself, irritated at ignoring a battle to think about non-battle related things.
Grimmjow looked beyond the two boys, through the small gap between the tree roots and saw a bunch of humans fighting. Although he couldn't detect the snake-person's presence there, Grimmjow had no intention of ignoring the fight.
He jumped over the two unconscious bodies and walked out through the small opening in the tree roots just as a red clad body flew to his side and slammed against the tree roots.
Grimmjow stared at the girl curiously. She was bruised, beaten and looked even more like Syazel with her shortened pink hair as she forced herself to stand. But Grimmjow concentrated on her torn red clothes.
He looked down at his leg and the red cloth tied around it with an irritated resignation before looking up and examining the pink-haired girl's attackers. Two of them, a girl and boy, stood directly opposite him while a third hunchbacked one stood off to the side. All three, who'd paused in surprise at his appearance, wore dull clothes with matching snake-patterned scarfs around their necks which immediately brought back memories of his loss against the snake-man.
Fuelled by his anger, Grimmjow pulled his spiritual energy and roared at the two attackers directly in front of him. The girl flew back without any resistance and slammed in to a tree. The wood cracked behind her and blood trickled out of her mouth. But the spiky-haired boy who'd been beside her just laughed and stayed in his place.
Grimmjow tilted his head to the side. "Looks like you'll be interesting before you die, at least." He pooled some spiritual energy in to his paws and jumped. He covered the large distance with a single jump and knocked down the boy who'd been about to retort.
The boy fell back with a yelp of surprise, but immediately raised his hands.
The was a clash of metal behind him and Pink-hair, a name that Grimmjow thought was conveniently suitable, yelled, "I won't let you!"
Grimmjow snorted and looked down at the boy he was holding. He moved his large paw and pushed down on the boy's right hand. Bone snapped and splintered easily.
The boy gasped but defiantly raised his other hand to Grimmjow's midsection. Grimmjow barely registered the increase in spiritual energy before a strong gust of wind pushed him backwards and off the boy.
Grimmjow landed a few feet back and studied the boy, who was pushing himself up, curiously. He noticed the small metallic hole in the boy's palm. "So that's how you're manipulating the wind."
The boy just snarled back, raised his arm and released a stronger gust of wind.
Grimmjow forcefully pulled a large amount spiritual energy and roared. His energy collided with the gust of wind and both attacks cancelled each other.
"Dosu, don't interfere! Just deal with the Uchiha." He gasped heavily and raised his uninjured hand again. "We mustn't fail Orochimaru-sama."
Grimmjow roared again, pouring his spiritual energy in a specific way, and huffed when the boy fell back with large bleeding gashes all over his body.
"Zaku!"
"This is boring," Grimmjow said and jumped forward. "I thought you'd be more of a challenge." He crushed the prone boy's throat, maintaining his grip till the boy's spiritual energy spiked and he heard the rattle of a soul chain.
Skipping his usual victory celebrations, Grimmjow hungrily pounced on to the newly freed soul. He swallowed the soul, revelling in the slight increase of his spiritual power level and looked around, searching for the other two attackers.
The hunchbacked boy, who was heavily bandaged, picked the unconscious girl and looked at Grimmjow with barely concealed anger. "We'll leave your team. You can have our earth scroll."
"Wait!" Pink-hair came forward, grabbed the scroll that had been thrown and stood beside Grimmjow. "Why did Orochimaru give Sasuke that mark?"
"I don't know," the boy said, "We were just ordered to kill Sasuke. But since he hasn't woken up by now, we're probably not even necessary for that job."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
He just shot her a look, grabbed his dead teammate's body clumsily and disappeared from the clearing.
Grimmjow growled, ready to tear after them, but paused when his body strained to move. He assessed his spiritual power and groaned. Even though he'd only used weak attacks, the little spiritual energy he'd managed to replenish was gone.
Pink-hair turned to Grimmjow, her eyes more grateful than afraid as she glanced back at the little hideout beneath the tree roots.
"We're even now, stupid brat," Grimmjow said.
Because that's what she was, a stupid weak brat, who'd cleaned and bandaged his injuries instead of leaving him to die. Grimmjow turned, heading in the direction where he smelt other humans hiding in fear.
"Wait!" Pink-hair yelled.
He turned back to her with a snarl as the hiding humans took the chance to run. "What?"
She flinched. "Your wounds... you won't be able to take care of those. So you can't just leave." She seemed surprised by her own words.
Knowing that his regenerative healing had kicked in, even though it was absurdly slow, Grimmjow turned away once again.
"Don't... don't you want to know about that man from before?"
Grimmjow paused. He had actually been interested in finding the snake-man. But since the brats were alive, the snake-man was most probably dead.
The girl seemed to gain some courage. "He's not dead."
Grimmjow repeated in confusion. "Not dead?"
"The person you... killed here. He was sent by that man."
Grimmjow turned to side just as a tree branch creaked.
A boy stood and looked down at their clearing, but he just looked down angrily. Another human, a girl with an odd hairstyle, crouched beside him on the same branch and said, "Lee!"
She jumped down and moved towards a spot of green that Grimmjow hadn't noticed before and pulled up an unconscious boy who had no noticable spiritual energy.
Pink-hair moved forward shakily and said, "His eardrums were ruptured by the sound-nin's attack."
The new girl looked in their direction in confusion. "Sound-nin?"
"They won't pass this test. They've lost a team member."
"I see." The girl shot a look to the boy who still stood on the branch and then shook the green-clad boy vigorously. "Lee! You idiot, wake up. Just how long do you plan on keeping Neji and me waiting?"
Amazingly, the boy actually woke up. "Tenten? What…Oh no! Sakura-san."
Pink-hair moved forward and bowed. "Lee-san, thank you very much for your help."
The boy looked at his hands sadly. "I don't think I did much to help you."
"No! You did, really..."
"For fuck's sake!" Grimmjow growled, annoyed by everything he'd had to go through since ending up in the forest. Nothing made any sense.
Pink-hair turned to him with barely concealed panic.
"Tenten, Lee, we've wasted enough time. Let's go." And with a slight huff, the boy on the tree branch turned and jumped away.
Grimmjow watched them leave, wondering if he should have just killed them and eaten their weak souls. "Stupid Aizen, sending me to this fucked up forest without..."
"Err..." Pink-hair interrupted him, her voice soft and fearful. "You're not attacking anyone."
"Killing weaklings is a waste of energy. I only want the strong ones now." Grimmjow stared at her. "You know about that snake-guy from before."
She nodded.
"Then if you lead me to him and other strong people I can kill, I'll spare you weaklings." He eyed the scroll in her hand and said, "Does that scroll lead to strong people?"
"Ah! We need to get two scrolls so that we can get out this forest and pass this exam." Pink-hair explained about the exam to get promoted as they walked back to the tree roots.
"Fail if you lose just one teammate, huh?" Grimmjow snorted in amusement.
She turned to him. "Did you..."
"I'm sure I killed two that belonged to the same team before." Grimmjow laughed when he smelt her fear returned as they entered the space under the tree roots.
After she checked on her teammates, Pink-hair said, "Do you have a name?"
He looked at her, wondering if she was being serious.
"I'm Sakura."
Grimmjow snorted. "As if I care."
"This is Sasuke-ku... Sasuke," She pointed to the black-haired boy who had the curious mark on his neck. "And this is Naruto." She pointed to the blonde. "We're Team seven."
Even though he wanted to ignore her, Grimmjow huffed. "Seven? You're so weak?"
The girl blinked. "It's not our rank. It's just our name."
"Shitty name since it sounds so weak," Grimmjow said blandly. "But it suits you three weaklings anyway. Even more reason not to waste my time eating you."
The girl frowned at him, her cautious fear of him seemingly replaced with irritation. Then she looked at the two boys and herself and wilted.
Grimmjow stretched his tail, glad for the silence as his body struggled to heal with the little spiritual energy he had.
The girl interrupted the silence. "So, don't you have a name?"
Grimmjow didn't answer and pointedly ignored her, hoping she'd shut up. She opened her mouth once again, and Grimmjow opened his own mouth, ready to threaten her but the blonde boy, fox-brat, sat up with a large gasp.
He looked around wildly for a moment, relaxed as he caught sight of the girl. "Sakura-chan, you're okay." Then he drowsily noticed Grimmjow. "Hungry cat?" And his blue eyes widened. "Hungry cat! You're alive!"
Grimmjow tackled the boy angrily, pushed his front paws on the boy's chest and glared. "Who the fuck do you think you're calling hungry cat, you stupid brat! My name is Grimmjow."
The boy blinked up at him, his eyes still sleepy and said, "You're really hungry, huh?"
Pink-hair yelled, her voice high and fearful. "Naruto! You idiot."
Grimmjow growled and unsheathed his claws drawing blood from the brat's cheeks. The boy yelped. Grimmjow sniffed at the brat's orange jacket critically. "That snake-guy really made you weaker as well. Eating you now would be a waste when I know what you were originally like."
Fox-brat looked confused. "As well? What..." He turned, noticed the unconscious black-haired boy. "Sasuke? Sakura-chan, what happened? Your hair and..."
The girl stayed silent.
"What does it look like, retard? You brats lost."
"We lost?" Fox-brat turned to Grimmjow. "Even you?"
Grimmjow growled in annoyance.
"Naruto! He was injured even before that fight with Orochimaru."
"Orochimaru?"
The unconscious black-haired boy groaned, opened feverish looking eyes and scratched at the mark on his neck. The two brats immediately rushed to his side, held his arms away from his neck till he calmed down and asked them what happened.
Pink-hair immediately explained everything that had happened with the snake-man and the team he'd sent after them.
Grimmjow stared at the black-haired boy critically. "That mark was supposed to make him powerful?"
All three brats turned to him, looking startled that he had spoken. But Pink-hair nodded, "I think so."
"That's stupid. He feels weaker than before." Grimmjow huffed. "If he had become stronger, I would have eaten him."
Bratty-black -Grimmjow took great pleasure in naming the Ulquiorra-wannabe that- frowned but looked at the other two seriously. "We need to move."
The other two just nodded, helped his up and within minutes they were out of the clearing.
Grimmjow wondered why he was following the brats. A part of him just wanted to kill them, eat their weak souls and hunt other humans till he had the power to open a Garganta back to Hueco Mundo.
But he'd felt their initial spiritual power and it really would be a waste to eat them when they were weakened.
Plus he had to deal with that snake-man, Orochimaru.
When they stopped by a flowing river, Grimmjow shuffled down and watched the brats for a few minutes until he closed his eyes in boredom. Grimmjow frowned when a large silver fish fell on the gravel in front of him. Fox-brat grinned and placed the remaining fish by their small crackling fire.
Grimmjow opened his mouth to explain that he didn't need to eat actual food. But the smell of the fish permeated his senses tantalizingly. Curiously, he bit the fish and ripped it's flesh up viciously. With a few chews, he swallowed the meat wondering why he felt less irritable even though his spiritual energy was still low.
"About that," Pink-hair's voice reached his ears. "Grimmjow killed two genin from a single team. There's a chance that their scroll is still on their dead bodies."
"That's highly unlikely!" Bratty-black said, "Their remaining team-mate could have had the scroll. Or the examiners took it when they disposed the bodies. Other teams could have already found the dead bodies and searched."
"We should still check. We aren't in the best shape for any fights. Besides it's still only the second day of the exam."
Grimmjow snorted loudly.
The brats turned to him in wary confusion.
"You've lit a fire and you're cooking food," Grimmjow said, "I thought you were purposely calling challengers here to fight them."
The three brats looked at each other and then stared at the fire.
"I guess we need to move?" Fox-brat said. "Let's split up and..."
"We're not splitting up," Pink-hair said, her face serious as she looked at them.
"But Sakura-chan, we'd waste time..."
"We're going together and that's final," she said, her spiritual energy rising enough to make Grimmjow pay attention. Then she flinched, pinched the bridge of her nose and got rid of the spiritual energy. "Grimmjow, can you take us to the place where you...the sooner we get out of here, the sooner you can find Orochimaru, right?"
Her team-mates stared at her.
Grimmjow snorted and turned away, searching for and following the old dim scent of salty water. He ran forward, wondering yet again if it was really necessary to stick with the brats. Sure they provided him with information in this unknown place. And staying with them improved his survival rate until he regained his energy.
Grimmjow sighed and ran faster, not bothering to check if the injured brats kept up, and reached the clearing where he'd first ended up. The bodies were still there, covered with loud buzzing insects as dried blood decorated most of the clearing.
A tree branch creaked, signalling one of the brats had kept up with him. There was a muffled gasp and a puff of smoke. "Tell Sakura-chan and Sasuke to wait. I'll search for the scroll," Fox-brat said.
Grimmjow turned back just in time to see another Fox-brat salute and head back the way they came.
Looking rather pale, Fox-brat jumped down and searched the bodies. Minutes later, he pulled up a blood-stained scroll, stared at it in disbelief before smiling and jumping on to a tree branch. "Let's get out of here."
The other two brats looked at the scroll in equal disbelief for a few minutes before they relaxed and headed towards the centre of the forest.
Other than a few giant insects, their long trek through the forest was uneventful. They travelled slowly through the night with few breaks and reached the tower at daybreak.
They entered the building through one of the doors, only to find it empty.
"I think we need to open the scrolls," Pink-hair said after staring up at the large paper on the wall.
Grimmjow watched curiously as both the scrolls spewed out smoke and wondered if that signalled another fight.
"Naruto, Sakura, throw those scrolls away!"
The scrolls clattered noisily as they fell to the far side of the room and covered that entire area with smoke. Then a sandled foot stepped forward out of the smoke.
"Iruka-sensei?" Fox-brat grinned.
The man in front of them smiled but blinked in confusion as he caught sight of Grimmjow. "What..."
"He's our new team-member."
"Like fuck I am," Grimmjow said.
Fox-brat actually laughed. "He's just hungry, Iruka-sensei!"
Grimmjow pulled his spiritual energy and roared at the boy, thrilled when the boy fell back with a pained grunt but annoyed that his own spiritual power dropped even lower. The man flinched and turned to the other two brats worriedly.
Bratty-black shrugged but didn't protest or move away from Grimmjow's side.
Pink-hair just said, "Naruto! Stop irritating Grimmjow. You know he's injured."
"He's not the only one." Fox-brat sighed. "Did we pass Iruka-sensei?"
The man nodded. "Yes, and it's only the third day. You three did really well."
None of the brats seemed to believe him as they stared at each other.
"I'm surprised you three aren't asking me about the scrolls and the meaning of the words up there," he said and pointed to the large paper stuck to the wall.
Grimmjow tuned out the man's lecture and assessed his spiritual energy yet again. It was still uselessly weak leaving him in no position to fight.
Pink-hair's voice cut through his irritated thoughts as she asked, "Can we see Kakashi-sensei?"
The man looked slightly worried. "Since the exam doesn't officially finish till the day after tomorrow..."
The three brats shared a look.
"But I'm sure I can get him here as long as you keep his visit a secret," he said, looking enthusiastic all of a sudden. "Come on, I'll take you to one of the free rooms where you can rest up."
Fox-brat kept a steady stream of chatter as they walked through empty hallways and climbed up rickety metal stairs.
When they stopped, the man pushed open a metal door and ushered them all in to a small room that had a large bed and a chair. "No one will disturb you here. Try to get some rest, okay? I'll send Kakashi-san up here as soon as I can."
When the brats stood by the door uncomfortably, Grimmjow jumped on to the bed and kneaded the mattress with his paws until it felt right. With a slight huff, he dropped down and closed his eyes, eager to fall asleep completely sure that the brats wouldn't attack him.
"Grimmjow?"
Grimmjow opened one eye wearily and looked at Pink-hair, wondering if she was going to bore him with more talking.
"I have to change your bandages."
Grimmjow growled at her in irritation.
She didn't seem intimidated. "It's not like you'll have to do anything. I'm not even asking you to move."
Fox-brat climbed on to the mattress beside him and said, "Grimmjow, are you afraid of bandages?"
"Naruto!"
Grimmjow opened his other eye and glared at the boy. "I'm not afraid of anything."
The boy stared at him with wide blue eyes. "Really?"
Grimmjow raised his head as he felt a tightly reigned spiritual power appear beyond the door. The brats around him tensed at his movement and eyed the door cautiously.
A tall man, with grey hair and a covered face that only left one eye visible, opened the door and examined all three brats.
Fox-brat yelled with relief. "Kakashi-sensei!"
"So you three passed." Then the man turned to Grimmjow and assessed him. "And..."
"Kakashi," the black-haired brat interrupted the man, pulled his shirt collar down and pointed to the black mark on his neck. "Some creepy bastard put this on me and it's making me weak. Fix it."
The man in front of them blinked. "That…what?"
Fox-brat sighed. "Sheesh, Kakashi-sensei, we haven't even told you about the other stuff that snake-guy did to us."
"Orochimaru," the pink-haired girl said. "The man who attacked us was Orochimaru."
The man seemed at a loss for words. "What else did he…Orochimaru do?"
"He did something to my chakra," Fox-brat hesitated. "Grimmjow said I'm weaker too because of whatever he did."
"Grimmjow?"
All three brats sighed in annoyance.
"Why are you concentrating on Grimmjow? He's not the one that attacked us!" The girl said.
Grimmjow closed his eyes again and snorted in amusement. He wondered how the brats had conveniently forgotten that he'd wanted to eat them when they'd seemed powerful and useful to improving his spiritual power level.
"Right." The man coughed awkwardly. "So Sasuke, you don't want that mark on you?"
Bratty-black scoffed and his chair creaked noisily. "Haven't you been listening? I don't want something that's weakening me. Get it off of me."
"I'm just making sure I heard you correctly."
Grimmjow absently wondered why the man sounded so incredulous.
"Okay Naruto, now what exactly happened to you?"
Fox-breath shuffled noisily and the mattress dipped slightly. "Orochimaru hit me here, it burned and I passed out..."
Their teacher sucked in a deep breath. "Have you felt any different?"
"My chakra is acting funny."
"And Sakura?" the man said after a few minutes.
Pink-hair hesitated for a moment and her hands shook slightly as she tied the bandage on Grimmjow's back. "I'm fine. Orochimaru didn't do anything to me."
"Sakura..."
She sighed. "When Sasuke and Naruto were both unconscious, some genin said that Orochimaru had ordered them to kill Sasuke. But because of Lee-san and Grimmjow, things turned out all right."
"I see." The man sighed. "Now, about Grimmjow..."
The girl interrupted the man as she tied Grimmjow's final bandage. "He wants to eat Orochimaru."
There was a long silence before the man sighed heavily and said, "Of course he does."
Grimmjow snorted and drifted asleep, idly realizing that no one had commented about his hollow hole, even as the mattress dipped again and the fox-brat loud voice filled his ears.