Author's Note: Reviewers. Incredible. As always.

Quick note to all those who read 'God Complex', pamianime has been kind enough to share her amazing fanart with us in her depiction of the 'bathroom' scene! So if you haven't already seen it, definitely check it out! (Link can be found on both our profile pages)

Chapter 9

A Warning to Heed

~8~

She was beginning to feel the first wave of nausea as the heat purged her of any hydration and the intakes of air was fast becoming insufficient in keeping away the dizziness. Her stomach clenched painfully, her skin felt clammy and she was beginning to see black nothings clouding her vision. Rukia breathed heavily as the sun glared unrelentingly on her hunched over back, doing her best to will away the black spots dancing in her vision despite the growing inability to stand. A trembling intake of air later, she felt the ground beneath her tip as the trees around her spun. Closing her eyes in submission, her mind surrendered to defeat as her body gave way to gravity.

Had Grimmjow not caught her in time, she would have landed head first onto the soil as her entire body fell limp. With one sturdy arm keeping her upright by the waist and the other hand wrapped around her small shoulder, Grimmjow waited until she gathered her bearings. With a gentle chuckle, Rukia peered up at him through thick lashes and hooded eyes before looking away timidly.

"It seems the heat has gotten the best of me." Her voice came out hushed and weak, "I'm sorry I have disappointed you." Her eyes were forced to close again as the dark spots continued to dance across her vision and the nauseating feeling of imbalance continued to assault her senses.

She found her small hands had come to rest against his broad chest when she realised her right hand had fisted his tunic. "Sorry." She mumbled again, this time tipping her head until her forehead rested against him, vaguely wondering why the effects of exhaustion were more amplified than usual.

She felt the reverberations of his chuckle as his hand patted her back before it retreated from around her waist. "At ease Tanaka." With both hands holding her firmly by the shoulders but making no move to push her off his chest, he asked, "Can you stand on your own?"

Though exhausted and weak, she lifted her head from his chest and looked up at him with a bashful smile, hands still resting against him and bodies still only an inch away, "Perhaps a moment?"

He offered her a nod before she closed her eyes and took in a slow breathe of air. As he held her sturdy by the shoulders he spoke, "Your progress has improved. Your focus is admirable, you have not disappointed me." He reassured her.

She opened her eyes slowly, but still only managed to look at him through half-lidded eyes and smiled, "My improvement is all to your credit. Had it not been you General, I doubt our training would come to fruition at this speed." To that, she gently rested her right hand atop his own on her shoulder.

"I see." He said to himself, revealing nothing of his thoughts.

In a fluid motion, Rukia swept her hair past her right shoulder exposing the nape of her neck to Grimmjow as she allowed the breeze to cool her skin down. "If I come out of this unscathed, I will have only you to thank."

He smirked at her, their bodies still within very close proximity, "And how do you intend to show your gratitude my Lady?"

Rukia laughed on cue as she turned her head to the side avoiding his intense stare and exposing more of her neck to him, "I'm not certain I understand what you are implying my Lord."

Grimmjow took a step towards her, effectively closing the gap between their bodies and he couldn't help his smirk at the sound of her small gasp. "I have some thoughts." He suggested as his hands dropped from her shoulders to her arms. Had her long sleeves not prevented direct skin contact, he would've felt the sudden goose bumps across the span of her milky skin, though the shiver that shook her body did not go by undetected.

In an instant, her cheeks reddened as she attempted to take a step back, "P-Pardon?" her entire demeanour shifting all at once as a slow panic started to settle in.

"Perhaps we could get better acquainted with one another." He was subtle, but the sexual innuendo was clear.

Unable to grasp her next step meant she had lost control of the situation and gradually, her composure only further disintegrated. "W-what are you saying?" Her tone and stance instantly turned guarded not unlike an animal cornered, "I can stand on my own now, thank-you." She replied curtly, her rigid body manoeuvring its way out of his grasp.

He folded his arms across his chest and reigned in the laugh that was threatening to escape him as he watched with delight at the petite girl regressing back to her usual awkward self. "How misleading m'lady, and here I thought you were trying to seduce me." He kept his voice neutral, but the telling smirk on his handsome features spoke knowingly.

"I-,"

"What with all the flattery, touching, feigned delight and your coy act, how very unlike the uncouth firecracker I am accustomed to."

Her shoulders sagged as she sighed in resignation, her air of dignified temptress dissipating into thin air, "When did you realise?"

"One does not 'realise' when one was never fooled." And then he frowned slightly, "Come, we need to get you under some shade." Whilst the feigned seduction was detected before the girl herself was consciously aware of her own ministrations, he saw that the fatigue was genuine, though the severity of it left him both perplexed and concerned.

"I am no good at it." She swayed on her feet and her speech slurred just a little before she changed the topic of conversation back to her current state of health, "This corset is too tight, I cannot breath." With fumbled hands, she reached helplessly to her back and attempted to undo the strings that kept her waist impossibly small, so small that Grimmjow often thought she would break during a more strenuous training day.

Her eyes were hooded again only this time, it lacked the seduction as the half-closed lids suggested to the increasingly concerned General that Rukia was slowly drifting in and out of consciousness. Fearing that a panic would only cause an unneeded surge of blood rush to her head, he kept up the banter but not before he hoisted her up as one would to a bride and stealthily made his way to any shade he saw.

"Disastrous." He commented offhandedly, all the while knowing that if the little bundle in his arms wasn't so fatigued, his ears would've been dealt a bashing for the way he was handling her, "Your concept of theory cannot be faulted, but your execution is transparent."

Upon reaching shade, he placed her down against the trunk of the tree and quickly made her look at him.

She paid little attention to the large hand that held her by the face, "You sound just like Yoruichi."

Her intakes of air were gradually getting deeper and whilst she was beginning to sweat profusely, her tone remained calm, and Grimmjow could only deduce from that, that Rukia hadn't yet realised something was wrong. As he had expected, her pupils had dilated unnaturally, her breathing was progressively more laboured and her skin tone was taking on a pale hue instead of the flushed red that would normally signify heat exhaustion.

These symptoms were longer those of fatigue. Something more sinister was at play.

The tension was palpable as Senna stood tall in her majestic deep red gown looking poised and regal. In that moment, Hisana could not help but resign herself to the thought that Senna had suddenly grown years beyond her age. Senna made no move to relent as her eyes betrayed the anger and misconceived betrayal she harboured in a mind that was fast mounting with paranoia.

"What heinous act did I commit to warrant this reception from you Hisana? You have bestowed upon me nothing but curt words. I have been patient, but you are trying me."

Senna stood just inside the room with her maid hidden in her shadows as she made it clear that this confrontation would not be an informal one. She watched with burning eyes as Hisana quietly bookmarked her page before resting the book across her lap from where she sat by the window.

"Senna," Hisana breathed dejectedly, "I do not wish to dwell on the matter. You know well what plagues my mind." It pained her to look at her younger sister for she knew of the glare that Senna was directing at her, an expression she thought made her sister look all the more foreign to her.

"I know well whom you side with." She bit back snidely, her tone so cruel Hisana had to refrain from showing the hurt outwardly as she wondered why Senna so wholly believed that she was the one entitled to this feeling of betrayal.

"I favour reason, something you need to be reminded of Senna. Your actions only made you look trifling." She made sure her tone bore nothing but rationality as her priority shifted from confronting Senna to tempering the anger that she seldom ever saw in her sister. Hisana couldn't deny how much it hurt to be on the receiving end of a wrath she didn't know Senna was capable of, and it frightened her how much the wheels of change were coming into effect.

"And I suppose you think it brought me great pleasure to in one instance lose the favour of many. But what choice did I have?" Senna hissed, her words laced with truth and pain.

Senna knew it was unfair to direct all her anger and unjust onto her frail sister, but the realisation that Hisana became just one more person who did not understand her made it too hard to bear. When Hisana outright attempted to override her words for the sake of Rukia that night of the play, Senna had done her best to maintain a look of indifference as her sister's actions spoke of the obvious favourability she, and a growing amount of people of court, harboured for the likable Rukia. It pained her to the deepest level at the thought that she had done nothing wrong, and it seemed that even rationality gave way to Rukia's growing popularity.

The initial anger Hisana had felt towards Senna was rapidly dissipating as she watched the bottled emotions the Queen-to-be was trying to oppress. It made her truly contemplate that perhaps she was not seeing this from Senna's perspective, still some words needed to be spoken, "A private discussion would have sufficed, but what you chose to do...that was cruel."

"Cruel?" She hissed. "And pray tell, what was cruel about my actions? I requested a toast from a sister, is that so wrong of me?"

Hisana's resolve was slowly breaking as guilt took a stronger hold over her emotions at the legitimacy of Senna's words. Had Senna requested a toast from Hisana, all would have been fine, but clouded by a preconceived notion of Senna's strained relationship with Rukia, Hisana had been too quick to jump to the conclusion that Senna had acted wholly out of spite.

Usually the rational one of the three, Hisana was quickly running out of words, "You are aware that Rukia lacks the common knowledge of Court etiquette-,"

"In what setting did you think I was asking her in?" Senna interrupted swiftly, sarcasm and venom quickly becoming dominant in her tone, unbelieving to the fact that Hisana was still trying to defend Rukia. "I did not mean to ridicule her if that is what you think of me. I did not ask for her to propose a formal toast in a crowd of hundreds. She does not require knowledge of Court etiquettes to show her happiness for her sister." Senna nearly spat out the last part, but the calm expression on Hisana's gentle features made her falter.

"Nevertheless, you had a hidden motive." Hisana's tone had lost all edge, now she merely wanted to understand how the situation had spiralled to this result.

"That does not make me the one in the wrong. Yes, I had a motive, but I did what I had to do, and now she understands." Senna's tone of aggression too was gradually subsiding, though her outward defensive appearance did not sway.

"By doing so you were willing to jeopardise your relationship with Rukia?" She asked sadly, only just noticing the overwhelming sadness that Senna was doing her best to mask.

"You are wrong. If I had confronted her and spoke my words, then any remaining bond we had left would be lost. Now that she understands her standing, I need not draw out the picture for her." Senna gazed past Hisana as she looked beyond the glass window and onto the gardens. Now that Rukia understood, however cruel they thought her actions may be, she and Rukia could go on pretending that it all never happened. Could no one see that it was the only way to preserve their relationship? Could no one see that had truer words been spoken, that there would be no turning back?

Hisana was hesitant to ask, she wasn't certain she wanted to know. "What are you saying Senna?"

The Queen-to-be directed her gaze back to her sister, only now, her eyes were clouded by oppressed heartbreak. "You are a woman too. You should know what could drive women to such dire actions."

Hisana had dreaded the implication but she had expected it for she was quick to warn, "Be careful of what you are insinuating sister."

At that Senna chuckled humourlessly, "Perhaps you should ask her yourself and see with your own eyes that she may not be as innocent as she would have you believe."

The Queen-to-be did not ponder whether her elder sister had anything left to say, but judging by how Hisana made no move to stop her from turning around and moving towards the door, she gathered that the eldest was taking in all the sudden revelations.

Halting in her step and tilting her face so that only her side profile was seen, Senna spoke in indifference.

"I know deep down you harbour the belief that it is I who wishes for her to be sent away. Believe what you will Hisana, I know now that my words are lost on you." She did not mean for her words to be callous, but even she couldn't deny how harsh it sounded when spoken. "You say you favour reason, I want you to remember those words when you ask Rukia of my message to her, and then I shall tell you whether you favour reason or your beloved Rukia."

Darkness hung heavily over the cold and desolate stone walls as each water droplet echoed eerily across the damp space. The stench that coated the thick air payed remembrance to the horrors the walls housed as the odour of decay served as a chilling memory to those who had wished they never survived. The black abyss played trickeries to the mind, descending many into madness as the darkness rid them their will to live. But when light came, from where - their fragmented mind would no longer have the ability to comprehend; they would beg for the return of darkness, and then subsequently, for the darkness to finally break them.

For when the light came, their horrors were brought to life and the visions would shatter any remaining thread of sanity, and they would know even in their psychosis that the torture would only worsen the longer they survived. Soon, they knew that the dried blood smeared across the walls would be painted afresh with their own, that the broken nails caught in the cement would be their final act of desperation as they would claw blindly against the stone walls, just screaming and screaming.

Some were lucky, some had the willpower and strength to bite off their own tongue, and the nightmare would end. But their corpse would remain untouched and unmoved, serving as a sign of warning and humiliation and most of all, as trophy to the Lord of the West.

And then, light flittered through the cramped cells and the subsequent scream of pain and horror followed naturally. The naked men and women never looked up, so terrified they only continued to rock themselves in the coldness as their mind refused to see the terror that surrounded them, the blood, the nails, flesh, bones... mangled corpses of comrades they once knew.

The echo of his footsteps as he walked along the bloodied footpath spiked a fear so strong that the confined space reeked of an added stench of vomit.

As he entered one of the cells, two men lifting the half-dead spy by his dislocated arms, he continued on unperturbed and uncaring. "The four Kingdoms swore oath to a peace treaty, and yet we have amongst us a spy."

Aizen circled the man like a predator before he spoke again, "Who sent you?" his tone darkening.

The man, whether due to fear or unimaginable pain, did not speak.

Aizen seemed unfazed as he continued, "How many more are left of you?" Having already murdered two spies, he could only deduce the possibility of more.

The man's severely burned chest heaved heavily before he threw up, and as he did, he aimed it at the King's feet.

Aizen breathed a calm breath before he held a death grip around the dying man's neck as he aimed to crush his soul as his final words. "Whatever Intel you think you may have gathered is all but useless. You will die in the name of your Kingdom but your Kingdom has abandoned you, forsaken you."

The man, though silent, held his gaze defiantly as though challenging the deranged King.

Aizen smirked, "Tell me who sent you and I may spare your life."

As a final spit in the face the man made a disgusting gurgling noise before his eyes rolled back and blood poured from his mouth. He had chosen suicide, a dignified death in his mind.

With dead eyes, Aizen released his grip and waited for the snide remark from the man behind him. When nothing came, he spoke first, "Your brother's men." He said it as a statement, but still he was seeking confirmation.

"The last of them."

Aizen smiled as he made a move to leave the death hole and into the dreary rain, "For now. Say, how is that Tanaka girl coming along?"

At that the albino chuckled.

Rukia still did not realise her symptoms were not those of exhaustion as she attempted to calm her breathing to no avail. She watched through bleary eyes as Grimmjow's mouth moved in speech, but her ears were failing to pick up anything beyond a buzzing noise. It was calming in a way, this silence and light weighted feeling. Had the numbness that was beginning to spread from her shoulders to her arms registered in her half conscious mind, she would've been alarmed with panic, but as it were, she merely sagged boneless against the trunk of the tree oblivious to her degenerating state of wellbeing.

"Rukia." Grimmjow ordered firmly from where he hunched on the balls of his feet, "Recite to me the steps Yoruichi has taught you." He was trying to keep her conscious and distracted but her eyes could barely focus and it didn't seem much was registering to her, otherwise she would have been able to detect the subtle dread lingering in his typically neutral voice.

Shaking her shoulders tightly he tried again, this time speaking much louder, "Rukia. What did Yoruichi say about your progress?" He made no attempt to mask the frustration that slipped into his words as the sudden turn of events had caught him off guard. As a renowned tactician, he couldn't help but take the fault personally having failed to prepare for the situation.

It seemed this time his words had reached her as her eyes focused in responsiveness and her lips parted to speak. As long as he could hear her voice he could be certain for the time being that she was in no immediate danger. His mind was cussing all sorts of foulness as he readied himself to pick her up again to seek immediate medical attention, but as her words dragged out, he noticed with dread that she was in actuality suffocating. This time really cussing out loud, he reached for her back as she fell limply against his front and in haste and impatience, tried to undo the intricate lacing of her corset. His eyes continued to flicker beyond the trees hoping to see a passerby so that Byakuya could be alerted, but he knew it was futile knowing that not many bothered to venture beyond the gardens let alone into the forest.

His adrenaline spiked as he detected the halting of her words as he quickly glanced at her paling face to see her brows knotted in concentration. She was breathing with a lot more effort now. In his lifetime, Grimmjow had bedded more women than he could count, but never once had he encountered the intricacy of a corset. He swore out loud again, effectively capturing the attention of the girl resting against his broad chest.

"What's the matter?"

As a General, he had seen death so many times that he could no longer spare any emotions for the tragedy of it in fear that it would one day destroy his sanity. Yet somehow, as he watched Rukia unknowingly fight to remain conscious, he couldn't help the feeling of anger and panic as he saw the haunting similarities between Rukia and that of an innocent child dying as a result of a war that was not theirs.

Realising it was futile to pull blindly at the strings; he resorted to ripping the corset.

In that moment a deep growl, primitive and raw unmistakably signifying certain harm, resonated through the emptiness of the forest. Trepidation washed over the general as he realised the familiarity of it. He knew well what his predicament looked like from a bystander's perspective but instinct refused to let him stop.

Turning his head to his right, strong hands still at work, he saw Ichigo standing some feet away from them. Any hope that the King would understand the situation all but left him the moment he laid eyes on said man. Never in their years of growing up alongside each other had he seen the expression that now took over Ichigo's entire being; unchecked, unhindered.. almost crazed.

Ichigo was livid with unadulterated rage.

In that instant, Grimmjow knew that all words had forsaken them as he readied himself to bear the fury of Ichigo charging at him.

~8~