Disclaimer: As you can tell, I don't own these characters or anything linked to Bleach, please worship Tite Kubo for his brilliant gift, if you don't already do so. And of course, no one would pay me to write this shit!
A Better Sense of Feeling
Chapter Four: Nothing Conclusive
She lay sleeping on his bed, wrapped up in the warm sheets, protecting her otherwise bare form from the cold. With every shallow breath, she exhaled a soft sigh- completely oblivious to his presence. The Arrancar gave in and approached his bed, crawling next to her above the sheets, trying and failing not to disturb her. The girl stirred at Grimmjow's intrusion and his sensitive ears noted her confused mumblings stifled by her long yawn.
"Grimmjow?" Orihime rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she turned to her side. Finally looking at him, she wondered why he appeared so amused. She didn't know how cute – stupid too, but still cute – she was when waking up.
The Espada assumed she had no intention of waking fully so he let her pull him down so she could return to slumber. Grimmjow expected her to rest on his chest and resume snoring quietly but was surprised when she left a tantalising trail of soft kisses along his jaw line to his ear while carefully touching the other cheek's mask fragment.
When he tilted her head up to claim her lips with his own, she shifted her body so she sat on his thighs. The Hollow opened his eyes soon enough to catch her coy smile as she pressed herself against him; he couldn't help but grip her waist tightly and pull her form close to his chest, slipping his eager tongue into her welcoming mouth.
The human pulled away for air before licking a slow path across his cheek to his ear, placing soft pecks in her wake. "Touch me," Blue eyes flew open at her hiss while her mouth continued paying his ear careful attention.
Grimmjow didn't need to be told twice. Hands that previously held her heated body against his now slipped across her stomach and up to her full cleavage pressing against his chest. He wasted no time and instantly stroked her twin nipples with his thumbs, gently caressing the pale mounds in his hands.
Her pleasured gasp reminded him of how aroused he was and he instinctively pushed his hips against hers, groaning at the surrounding warmth hindered only by his hakamas. He felt his heart rate increase as Orihime's hand dragged from his neck, down his torso towards the barrier between them.
The direct eye contact between azure and ash only heightened the anticipation but Grimmjow couldn't keep his eyes open when her confident hand wrapped itself around him. He felt her body move above him slightly while she rearranged his hakamas; his lids remained closed while he waited for her exquisite heat to envelop him...
The dreams were getting worse ... or better depending on your point of view. Although each vision became more and more intimate, they always faded away just too soon; always leaving him wanting much more.
He groaned in frustration, knowing he wasn't going to be getting back to sleep any time soon, not if he just ignored the need in his hakamas. For the third night in a row after waking from such teasing dreams, he wrapped his hand around his erection, roughly pleasuring himself to distant memories of visions and reality. He forced himself to release, gasping for breath in the wake of tranquillity, knowing it wouldn't last.
The sense of calm Grimmjow felt immediately after self satisfaction seemed to last less and less, either leading to immense frustration or mind-numbing pain.
The Espada hadn't seen the girl since ... that time. He didn't think he'd be able to take another outburst like that, or simply seeing the fear in her eyes. So Grimmjow tried to avoid her, much like she was most likely doing to him. That didn't stop him from needing her, however.
Grimmjow figured that the longer he spent away from her, the greater the ache became. Without the girl's calming presence, the throbbing magnified at an exponential rate.
Knowing this didn't make it any fuckin' easier, though.
He needed to be near to her, but every time the Espada got close, she retreated in fear. He wasn't sure what would have been worse: staying clear of her in a silent downhill spiral or feeling the brief moments of calm followed by torture.
After several miserable days, Grimmjow couldn't bring himself to continue the former; the desire was too great; a desire which just grew and grew with every passing night.
She hadn't seen him in a few days and the changes within her were noticeable. Orihime had become less weary and had reverted back to confidently venturing around the halls but without paying much attention to her surroundings. But it took more than a falling down couple of flights of stairs to dampen her spirits.
Other residents noticed that her curiosity had once again returned and often found her roaming the corridors unaccompanied. Two pairs of eyes watched her from a distance occasionally, the light pink pair filled with hate but the green pair merely judgemental.
Loly was determined to find out what was so special about the princess but all she had seen so far was that the human was incredibly clumsy and apparently stupid. The Arrancar gritted her teeth, just thinking of the way Aizen-sama looked at her, as though there was something exceptional about her.
Menoly edged away from her partner ever so slightly, feeling the seething spiritual pressure emanate from her. She knew exactly how crushed Loly had felt when Aizen had spoken down to her, treated her like a servant – Loly had forgotten over time that that was all she was to him. Menoly knew Orihime had simply reminded Aizen of that fact but Loly held the prisoner entirely responsible for the way Aizen had acted towards her.
They followed her closely, always a just a corridor or two behind her, and Loly snickered about how pathetic the girl was that she didn't even notice them. They scanned the immediate area for other reiatsus and when they found none, Loly indicated to close in on their prey.
I'm gonna fuckin' rip her hair out! The black-haired Numero was about to turn the corner to the hallway where Orihime stood but a sudden strong grip on her shoulder halted her run.
Loly turned around scathingly, but her complexion paled when she saw that is was the Sexta Espada grinning down at her, his hand still locked around her shoulder.
"Wha ... where did you come from?" She spluttered desperately as she tried to free herself unsuccessfully.
"Che, it's pretty pathetic that you didn't even notice me, huh?" Grimmjow scoffed, throwing her previous remark back at her. He tossed her arm, hard enough to cause her to fly to the floor, before kicking her back along the corridor. He gave the other half of the duo a threatening glare, laughing as he watched the blonde Arrancar scamper after her twin.
After the girls had put as much distance between them and the Sixth Espada as possible in two seconds, Grimmjow examined the spiritual pressure around him, realising that the human had also left. Despite the empty pain that coursed through his veins, the Arrancar realised he could ease at least a portion of that agony by keeping her somewhat safe.
She had felt the two reiatsus following her for some time now, but Orihime ignored them seeing no need to run from them. It was obvious one of them despised her and Orihime could see that her heart was laced with jealousy, but she had no idea why.
They had decided to advance, but Inoue gave no signs to being aware of it: if she couldn't cope with the bullies of Las Noches, she didn't have much hope of surviving anything else, did she?
She was ready to find out just what they had against her but then she felt the spiritual pressure that she had managed to forget about. He was irritated, and pretty excited about it. Orihime darted to the end of the hallway, only just feeling the two inferior Arrancars' presences flee in fear.
She kept running, not paying any attention to where she was going but suddenly felt the floor drop from beneath her feet. The girl fell momentarily before landing one or two stories below the corridor, in one of the older hallways beneath the new ones. She looked up the vent, not even seeing any ladders on the side while she tried to stand.
Her left ankle gave as she tried to put weight on it; evidently she had sprained her ankle when she landed none too gracefully. They could at least put barriers up there. With that thought, Orihime realised that she probably still would have fallen down even if they'd put neon sign posts up. She healed her ankle quickly while trying to think of how to get out.
Orihime was just about to turn into the underground corridor to find a vent that actually had a ladder on it when she heard someone call down.
"Oi, y'alright girl?" Orihime looked up, instantly recognising the azure hair of the Espada she'd been running from. Her eyes flew open in fear and the distance caused her to completely miss the concern in his blue eyes.
"I'm fine," she bit back, hoping he'd leave her alone.
"Need any help?" Orihime frowned at that, totally bemused as to why he of all people would offer her assistance.
"No, I'm fine," she repeated curtly. She turned to investigate the main tunnel but two hands on her waist stopped her. Grimmjow had flash-stepped down to the girl's level, with every intention of returning her to high ground before she found some of the Hollows he knew lurked within the older passages. Orihime gasped in shock but before she could turn around, Grimmjow had placed her back on the ground floor and was already walking away.
The girl didn't stick around to stare after him, and after deciding against catching up with him just to tell him to leave her alone, Orihime turned to head back to her chamber.
It turned out that keeping the girl at arm's length whilst trying to keep her alive wasn't as easy as you'd think, as two day's worth of trying proved. She was constantly getting into trouble and Grimmjow couldn't stop worrying. Wait, worrying? What the fuck? Even if she wouldn't talk to him, for some reason his more instinctive persona needed to keep her alive.
It didn't look like he was going to figure that out any time soon and so – for once – he decided to actually carry out an order from Aizen to sort out one of the colonies of Adjuchas that thought Aizen didn't notice their resistance.
When killing things and fighting was all you lived for, living wasn't particularly trying. But now it seemed that his animalistic nature – the conscience of Pantera – wanted more. The Espada destroyed without taking any interest, he didn't even notice the total massacre of the Hollows around him.
When he returned, Grimmjow knew he wasn't really going to get anywhere with a confrontation with the consciousness of his Released state. Hell, he didn't even know it had a bloody mind of its own before all of this happened, he just didn't think when he released his sword.
Picking out the girl's reiatsu had become second nature to him now and when he realised it was pretty close to another Espada's, Grimmjow headed in their direction, knowing exactly who was with her.
She had turned her face from him, unable to stop him but refusing to look at the Arrancar towering over her. Grimmjow watched as Nnoitra dragged a pale hand down her cheek while his other rested on her hip, moving closer to her while she backed into the wall of the hallway.
He didn't think twice, completely disregarding his rank; he punched him in the side, sending him flying. Grimmjow didn't see what Nnoitra saw, the hints of a much greater spiritual pressure, he just didn't question why the Fifth left without retaliating.
Grimmjow turned to look at the girl, lifting her chin to see if Nnoitra had left any marks and before he knew it, their eyes met, immobilising him and terrifying her.
"A 'thanks' would be nice, girl," Grimmjow eventually muttered, tearing his cyan eyes from hers.
"What?" Orihime demanded exasperatedly. Before the Espada could respond, however, she continued. "Do you honestly want thanks?" When he merely frowned at her, Inoue couldn't stop herself. "It just reminds me that no one stopped you."
She didn't cry; there was nothing to cry about anymore, the girl just stormed past the Arrancar, anger flooding her senses.
Ulquiorra waited silently for the scientist to emerge from his laboratory. The white door opened but Szayel didn't step out, instead he walked back into the workshop without looking at the Fourth.
"You might as well come in, Ulquiorra. This isn't going to be quick." The Octava invited as he sat back down at his work station while Ulquiorra entered.
"Did you find anything significant, Grantz?" The green-eyed Espada demanded flatly.
"Yes." Szayel replied seriously. He selected a document and flicked to the summary before handing it to his superior. "I performed extensive research and although it is uncommon, the occurrence which you mentioned does happen."
"And what were the results?" Ulquiorra asked while he scanned the file quickly.
"Well, you see," the pink-haired Arrancar began rummaging through the stack of papers absently while Ulquiorra waited for him to continue.
"What?" The smaller Espada insisted.
"The tests were inconclusive," as he said this, a light rouge tinted the honey-eyed Hollow's cheeks, embarrassed to admit he had no answers.
The dark-haired Espada continued to read the file, seeing the scientist's print become illegible as irritation disrupted his writing. "What do you mean, 'inconclusive'?"
"There were results, yes, but no consistency." Szayel explained, as if he'd been telling himself the same over and over again. "And I couldn't examine anything stronger than the lowest levels of Arrancar, let alone anything I could compare to an Espada."
Ulquiorra stared at the Eighth silently, before eventually asking, "Can anything be established from your data?"
It was plain to see that Szayel was insulted. He turned back to his pile of documents, trying to remind himself that this was the only failure against thousands of successes.
"Yes, there is something," Szayel eventually responded curtly. "Every specimen experienced some form of increase in spiritual pressure eventually. I'm not certain of the biological or psychiatric cause of this or how long it takes – the reaction time for each example differed greatly."
"Is there any way to establish how strong the subject will become?" Ulquiorra asked, masking his mild trepidation.
"No." Szayel took the document back from Ulquiorra to turn to one of the many graphs drawn from his research. "I marked the percentage of reiatsu against initial levels and there was no correlation."
Ulquiorra nodded; the scatter graph may have well been left for spiders to crawl over it for all the good it was.
"What is your theory, Ulquiorra?" Szayel asked curiously.
"The girl; it's all to do with the girl," Ulquiorra's muttered response surprised Szayel.
"You suspect she is the cause?" The Octava questioned; his eyes wide.
"Yes. But I suspect nothing more. Until now, I was unaware that the psyche of a Resurrecćion could separate from the Arrancar's." Ulquiorra replied evenly.
"It is an odd phenomenon, I'll admit. I was aware of it; in fact, I'd assume that the mind of every Arrancar's released state differs at least somewhat from that of the Arrancar. The oddity arises when the two consciences finally unite again."
Ulquiorra stared at the scientist, hiding the shock he felt. Realising he'd learned as much as he would, the Cuatro stood to leave.
"I'll conduct some more tests, Ulquiorra, and I'll inform you if I discover anything new." Szayel assured as he placed the file of his experiments back on his desk.
"Thank you, Grantz. Do you remember what I said the other day?" Ulquiorra enquired threateningly.
"To not inform another being in the fortress? Including Aizen? Yes, I think I remember." The Eighth replied sarcastically as the Fourth left the laboratory.
Ulquiorra headed towards his own chambers, thinking over everything he had learnt today and everything he had noticed previously. Just as the Octava had found nothing conclusive, Ulquiorra could only establish that the Sexta Espada would have to be monitored very closely.