Chapter 10: From the West They Came Like Demons
...
Grimmjow lay adrift in blood and fire.
Great tides of Ichigo's blood bore down upon him, sweeping his feet from under him and thrashing him head over heels in boundless waves sized for gods, not men.
Ichigo's death played in his mind without end. Grimmjow had felt each of those thirteen blades in his heart as surely as Ichigo had felt them in his flesh. Zangetsu the great sword had fallen—Ichigo the protector was slain, and now, so too would be those once under his protection.
There was no help for Grimmjow. At the final instant when he could hold his breath no longer, blood rushed in to fill the void in his lungs and choke him from within. It burned like fresh embers all around him, searing skin and hair, flesh and entrails. The heat threatened to consume him alive. Grimmjow could not see, he could not hear, he could not—
—breathe.
Grimmjow woke gasping, and in the twilight between sleep and awareness it was as though his dream had followed into the waking world. He clapped a hand over his mouth, coughing in violent spasm that rocked his whole body. Ash and smoke dried his tongue and filled his throat.
He could not breathe.
His skin was sweat-slicked yet warm to the touch and the air itself shimmered in rippling heat. Grimmjow staggered to the window. He pushed it open with frantic strength, and though air from outside rushed in, he found himself robbed of breath once more as he stared into hell itself.
The main street of Selae was a river of fire. Its houses, its shops, its roadside stalls…everything as far as his eyes stretched burned. The merry lanterns of the festival lay crumbling in the road, and it was as if their flames had escaped to engulf all of creation. Smoke blotted out the dark sky, even as the blaze lit up the night like day.
Screams both near and far reached his ears, and Grimmjow's heart seized when he saw the armed figures running through the smoke.
The city's walls had been breached. He did not know how, or when, but these questions weighed little as Grimmjow darted back to the sleep mat. Flames swallowed the doorway, and the pillars of black smoke they sent up obscured all in sight. Grimmjow fell to hands and knees to rummage for Pantera, and found the smoke thinner near the floor. His foot kicked something soft and warm.
"Oi!" Grimmjow shouted, and he kicked the bundle again. The boy sharing his sleep mat did not rouse, so Grimmjow kicked him harder. "Get up!"
No answer. His searching hands fell upon the familiar cloth-wrapped hilt of his sword. Grimmjow seized it, and with an arm covering his nose and mouth, kicked the window wide and leapt through.
He stepped into chaos.
The roar of fire and shouts of men surrounded him, oppressive as the thick black smoke that reached for the sky and weighed heavy on his breath. At the end of the street he glimpsed Shawlong, leading a small group of Grimmjow's warriors against the invaders, but in the next instant a wide plume of ash and flame billowed out in his line of vision and he lost them.
Chaos and smoke made men out of shadows and a threat out of every sound. It was impossible to guess how many invaders there were, but Grimmjow judged them to be more numerous than his own men.
There were so many of them. So many he was free to unleash upon.
He straightened to his full, impressive height. At his side, Pantera radiated heat, thrumming in its sheath and eager to be drawn. Grimmjow breathed deep, and the scent of destruction so thick in the air brought his blood to sing and his heart to soar. With a smile that stretched his hunger from ear to ear, he unsheathed Pantera and drew two fingers across the sword's edge. His skin split apart and the first blood Pantera tasted tonight was Grimmjow's own. The pain brought his excitement to ever-greater heights, bringing his vision to focus and his hearing to sharpen.
And from his tongue uttered an invocation to his god that seemed more battle lust than prayer:
"Ichigo. See how I shall grind them to dust."
...
He sought first a sturdy-looking warrior in the crowd, one who rivaled him in height and had the look of strength about him. The man was bent on cutting down a pair of villagers fleeing from him and, brandishing Pantera, Grimmjow opened wide his flesh from shoulder blade to hip to gain his attention.
"You are looking the wrong way!" he laughed, as the man faltered in his step and turned. "Come on! Strike at me!"
The retaliating blow rattled Grimmjow's sword, but he only grinned wider and parried it. These western warriors were not like other men, he had learned long ago. They did not know pain, or they did not care. They fought like the demons beneath the earth and stopped only when dead.
To Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, the man people whispered was touched by Kenpachi, they made the prefect sport to cut down.
Grimmjow feinted to the side, and when the man lunged for him again, he raised Pantera and brought it down in a wide sweep. He clutched the hilt tight against the jarring grate of Pantera cleaving through flesh and bone alike, separating head from shoulders. The massive body hit the ground with a useless thud.
Grimmjow stood over him while blood darkened the ground and stained his sandals, annoyed and disappointed.
"Che," he spat. "You looked tougher."
"Grimmjow!"
Coming from behind, the ryoka arrived bearing the plain sword Grimmjow had given him in his camp. He glanced over the captain from head to toe, searching for evidence of torn flesh or spilt blood and not noticing how the warrior looked over him in mirrored scrutiny.
"Did your boy escape?"
"Hm?" Grimmjow paid him only half a mind as he searched the pandemonium for his next fight.
"The one you went home with! Did you get him to safety?"
Oh.
With careless glance over his shoulder at the smoldering den he had escaped from, Grimmjow scowled. "Do not bother me with worthless questions. Can you not see I am busy?"
Following his gaze to the burning house, the ryoka's face went slack. "You left him to burn?"
"Che." Grimmjow turned from his accusing stare, not liking how his belly twisted at the ryoka's horrified expression. But when the man spun on his heel and made for the house, his heart dropped like he had missed a step going down. "Oi! What are you doing?"
The ryoka disappeared through the broken window, and Grimmjow cursed after him. "You stupid fuck! You will be buried in there!"
He followed as close behind as he dared, but the heat from inside hit him like a wall just before the window and pushed him a step back. Grimmjow covered nose and mouth with one arm, and squinted into the inferno within. He could see nothing.
"Oi!" he shouted. "Get your hero ass out here, Ryoka! You yet owe me a rematch, so I will not forgive you dying now!"
There came no answer, and Grimmjow cursed once more. He stretched senses as far as they could go, keen eyes focused with single-minded purpose of piercing the smoke, ears strained for sound of voice or movement. "Ryoka!" The seconds slowed to minutes, the pulse of his heart loud in his ears and heavy like the weighted steps of an old man.
Deaf to all else, Grimmjow counted his heartbeats. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen—
Two shapes burst through the window, tumbling to the ground and rolling to a stop at Grimmjow's feet. The ryoka lay panting atop his burden wrapped in a blanket meant to shield from smoke and flame.
Lip curled in hastily arranged disdain, Grimmjow drew his foot back and kicked the ryoka square in the ribs. "You fool," he seethed. "If you wish to die, let it be by my sword in a duel and not by your stupidity."
Brown eyes looked up at him through a curtain of orange hair. Coughing and cradling bruised ribs, the ryoka grinned wide. "Did you fear for me, Grimmjow?"
White encircled the blue of Grimmjow's eyes, nostrils flared in ephemeral fury or shock. His mouth opened once, twice, but no words came.
Meanwhile, the ryoka lifted his burden once more, hurrying it away to deposit in the alley between two stone houses that did not burn. He lifted the blanket away from its face, and held his ear to the boy's nose.
"He still breathes," the ryoka sighed, before covering the face once more. To any passersby, the body laying here hidden beneath ash-darkened blanket would appear as nothing of significance. "He will be safe here, for now."
Grimmjow was not listening. Satisfied that the ryoka had not killed himself in the fire, he turned now to the battle awaiting him.
Pantera soon ran red.
It was no wonder, to any who looked on, why Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez's name had become one with his sword's and known to all. Through each thrust and parry, the man bore his weapon as though it was part of his own body. Each turn and twist of the blade as graceful as though he were born with it at his side, cleaving in two all men who stepped before him. Grimmjow fought like one of the great cats that stalked the grasslands—light of foot despite his size, with sharp bite and not above using his own body for a weapon. There were few in this land more masterful with the play of a sword.
He struck down one man and then another, turning back to strike the first once more when he saw the man rise again with an arm hanging by a few ribbons of flesh. These western men really were like demons, Grimmjow thought, though the ghastly sight no longer surprised him. Grimmjow cut him twice more before he fell at last, and turned to welcome more.
He laid waste to them all, carving his way through walls of flesh and leaving in his wake rivers of blood. Grimmjow stood above them all, ankle deep in blood-soaked mud, and howled his laughter to the sky. He trembled, in neither fear nor fatigue but exhilaration, his eyes wide with the thrill of it, the sting of his injuries a cleansing burn to goad him onwards.
"That's it!" he cried, his voice a manic scream of animal lust. "This is what I want! My name is Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez! Remember that while you die, and tell it to the demons you meet below!"
Pantera was sticky beneath his fingers, the blue-wrapped hilt stained dark red, the color of Zangetsu's brightest star before its breaking. Grimmjow grinned deep and hungry, and now in the corner of half-lidded eyes he saw his beloved god at his side, his orange hair a bright spot of color in the periphery of Grimmjow's vision.
His presence was a comfort, imagined though it was, and Grimmjow would fight believing the eyes of his god upon him, fight to sate himself as much as to honor the god with his skill. It was for this reason that he invoked Ichigo's name before each battle, and gave a prayer of thanks for his protection at the end.
But this time, when Grimmjow turned, the vision of his god did not vanish as it always did. It stayed in place, bearing a real sword and wearing real flesh. For a moment, all else faded around him—the roar of fire and clash of swords dimmed to murmurs, the length of a second stretched to infinity—and Grimmjow forgot to breathe.
Dimly he felt the touch of new rain upon his skin. The ground rumbled in mirrored growl to thunder somewhere above the false ceiling of smoke, and the deep sound pulled Grimmjow from his trance. Time sped up once more to normal pace.
It was not Ichigo standing there. The ryoka fought with his back to Grimmjow, and this time the warrior had new reason to stare.
He had always thought himself a masterful swordsman. From the moment he had laid hand upon his first sword as a boy of ten winters, Grimmjow had surpassed all others in natural talent and fighting instinct.
But this boy was magnificent to watch. Grimmjow did not recognize the style of his swordsmanship and it was no technique taught in these lands, but the patterns of his motions were beautiful nonetheless. He wasted no movements, each form bleeding into the next in seamless union, the tail of one strike arching around into the start of another. He stood outnumbered by two, and yet moved between each opponent so swiftly Grimmjow's eyes struggled to follow. His feet were light and never still, moving in rhythm of grim dance. The number of dead sprawled around him exceeded Grimmjow's own.
Grimmjow understood now how this ryoka boy as nameless as the blade he wielded had brought him to his knees upon their first meeting. He understood now how this boy claimed a named sword, absent now though it was. The gods favored the strong, and the ryoka had strength and skill to spare.
The ryoka turned now towards Grimmjow, sword raised, and with a jolt to his gut, Grimmjow lifted Pantera instinctively to defend himself. But the ryoka's eyes were not on Grimmjow, and his sword clashed with another above the captain's head.
Ducking away with a curse, Grimmjow turned and found the ryoka sword-locked with a blade meant for his head. The one holding it was a brute of uncommon size—he must have outweighed the ryoka by fifty pounds or more—and yet the smaller man held his ground with surprising resilience.
So certain of his own strength was he that he turned his gaze from the man pushing against his blade to Grimmjow instead. Those brown eyes were narrowed in grim decisiveness yet calmer than any he had seen in battle before, and Grimmjow was reminded of his own fight against the ryoka. He had been eerily calm then too. What kind of man stepped into battle touched by neither fear nor excitement?
"Do not lose your focus in battle, Grimmjow."
Grimmjow was unharmed, but his pride was not. He scowled but swallowed all retorts and insults, knowing he owed now a debt of gratitude for his lapse in attention.
With a mighty heave, the ryoka forced his opponent back a step, and as the man fell victim to his own weight and shifted balance, he brought the blade down across bared throat and opened there a gaping red mouth.
He lifted and turned the sword again so quickly it was a blur, to hold over his back to block a strike from behind even Grimmjow had not seen coming. Despite his recent admonishment, Grimmjow could not help but stare, for surely this man possessed a sight or sense beyond the usual. He fought as though aware of everything in all directions, predicting the motions of the enemy before they occurred.
With a wretched screech of steel on steel, the ryoka lifted away the attack at his back and engaged him. But Grimmjow was no longer watching him, fixated instead on the man behind them bleeding out from the throat.
The rain was falling harder now, blurring much in sight. Water dripped through Grimmjow's hair into his eyes, and yet he knew he was not mistaken as he saw the dying man's arm rise to clutch his fallen sword.
Impossible.
Grimmjow forgot bloodlust. He forgot breath. He watched a man rise with throat split open so wide he saw white bone within, who should have no strength to breathe let alone stand.
The ryoka suspected nothing yet. The dull patter of rain drowned out all but the loudest noise, and his attention was on the opponent before him, not the one behind presumed dead.
Grimmjow leapt between them, bracing Pantera with both arms to block the attack intended for the ryoka's back. All trace of joy had drained from the warrior's countenance, his face slack with shock even as he stood inches away from a vision as impossible as it was grisly. His eyes were wide like coins, and his mind stuttered at what they saw.
The fiend bearing down upon him stared at him with dull eyes like a fish, but the unnatural strength he pressed against Pantera was far greater than that of any common man, let alone one who should be a few breaths away from his last. Grimmjow's arms trembled with effort. He feared Pantera might break.
Some men believe our enemy fights with more than mere muscle and steel, the chief's words from their first night in Selae echoed unbidden in his head, and this time Grimmjow had no taste for ridicule or humor. They say the invaders have been blessed with divine strength.
Grimmjow's strength failed. His arms buckled, his knees folded, and his feet slid back in slick mud.
Shit!
And then, the tip of a blade erupted through the neck, cracking through bone and spine and stopping inches from Grimmjow's face. He fell back with a start, and standing over them both was the ryoka. Grimmjow had not seen him move.
The dead man's body sagged like a puppet with cut strings, and the ryoka cast it aside before stepping closer to nudge the corpse over onto its back and gaze upon its face. For the first time tonight, Grimmjow saw the stamp of anger or horror in his eyes. The hand not holding his sword lifted to touch his own throat in a gesture that made little sense to Grimmjow.
But there was no time to exchange words. The ryoka came to Grimmjow and offered him a hand up. "On your guard," he said, and this time the reminder did not rankle Grimmjow as before.
Already there were men coming to replace the one just fallen, and with new eyes, Grimmjow saw in them greater threat than before. He shook himself off, squinting against the rain, and held Pantera at the ready. Behind him, the ryoka likewise took his position, and Grimmjow realized with a start he had hesitated not a second to trust this man with defending his back.
"Remember you owe me a rematch with your true sword," he told the ryoka. "Do not rob me of the pleasure."
"Be careful too, Grimmjow."
Grimmjow flinched as though struck, then scowled. "Che."
Back to back now, they stood as two lone boulders against a surging tide.
Never before had Grimmjow fought with an equal at his back. Unmatched in skill, he fought alone even when surrounded by allies, defending no other and expecting no aid in return. But this ryoka boy he had known for such a short time already had his trust and his respect.
He had no time to contemplate this at length. Though these men before them did not yet show the same gruesome resilience as the one they had just defeated, sheer weight of numbers alone demanded all of Grimmjow's considerable strength to keep them at bay.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a sword coming towards the ryoka, and to great alarm, the boy made no move to parry it. Grimmjow stayed the oncoming blow with Pantera and beat it away before glancing over shoulder with reproach ripe on tongue.
"Were you not the one to tell me to focus—"
His words died. The ryoka had faltered, one hand clutching his throat even as the other still swung his weapon. Grimmjow's heart froze, fearing the worst, but when he looked closer he found no blood, no wound on the ryoka's neck or elsewhere on his body.
But Grimmjow had not the luxury to stop and ask what ailed him; no sooner had he beaten back the first attack than did two more take its place. Gritting teeth, the warrior fended off all blows aimed at both himself and the ryoka's open right side.
"Collect yourself!" he demanded, fearing the next blade to slip through his defenses would impale the boy where he stood.
Sweat beaded on the ryoka's forehead. His eyes narrowed under deeply notched brows, his teeth bared whether in pain or anger Grimmjow did not know. The hand clutching his throat returned tremulously to his blade, and for a time Grimmjow breathed easier.
It did not last long. For several minutes more the ryoka labored on, beating back the men who would see them dead, but Grimmjow was not deaf to the sounds that belied his condition. Little gasps and ragged breaths, though uttered quietly, registered to Grimmjow's ears as plainly as his own cries. Grimmjow dared to turn his eyes from his own fight to look behind.
His companion had fallen to his knees.
Though still clutching his sword, he had not even the strength now to defend himself from a well-placed kick to his gut that forced him to the ground. The weapon fell from his fingers, and the ryoka cried out now as a muddy boot stomped his chest and meaty fingers closed around his slender neck.
Grimmjow's blood caught fire.
Just as when the village boy had played with his orange hair, the sight of another man putting his hands on the ryoka stirred deep some emotion Grimmjow could not name, and in answer, rage guided his hand.
The ryoka's attacker gurgled a wet noise as Pantera impaled him through the neck. With a disgusted grunt, Grimmjow kicked the heavy body off the ryoka and, remembering the man with the slit throat, swung Pantera once more to sever head from shoulders for good measure.
Still clutching at his throat, the ryoka did not rise. "Grimmjow…" From his tongue spilled the rasp of dry leaves, and Grimmjow sensed some unspoken plea, but for what, he could not guess.
There was no time to wonder. Standing in low stance over his fallen companion, Grimmjow looked now to the men surrounding them. The ryoka, once so mighty in his strength, now lay at his feet paralyzed, and for the first time in longer than Grimmjow cared to remember, it was not elation for battle that seized his heart, but fear. He gripped Pantera tighter, the blade now red from hilt to tip, and with eyes wide and wild, roared his challenge to those who dared still approach:
"You want me dead?" His voice rose above rain and thunder in a howl more terrible than the wind. "Then come make it happen! I will tear apart every last one of you!"
The enemy warriors halted so suddenly and so simultaneously they seemed of one mind. Grimmjow faltered, and for the briefest moment wondered if perhaps his shout had somehow cowed them all.
Then one of them began to groan. It was a strange, watery noise more suited to spirit than man, and it brought Grimmjow's hair to rise on end. He stared as the man clutched his chest, as the sounds uttering forth from his throat rose in terrifying crescendo to wails and screams. It was no man making these sounds, but a monster wearing man's skin, Grimmjow thought with dread certainty.
All around, the others had joined in eerie harmony—and not only those immediately surrounding Grimmjow and the ryoka. He heard them near and far, and knew then that every one of the invaders in Selae had stopped in their tracks with voices pitched together in macabre symphony.
Blood began to drip, first a trickle and soon a stream, from nose, and eyes, ears and mouth and then one by one, the afflicted men fell to hands and knees, weapons forgotten and still howling that awful, unnatural noise.
Grimmjow stood stricken in the midst of a nightmare. His grasp on Pantera wavered now, his resolve faltering as for the second time tonight, he watched the impossible unfold before his very eyes.
By the stars, what is happening?
Men with swords did not frighten Grimmjow. Fire, and blood, and even death did not frighten him. But this display before him, which defied all logic and everything he knew about the living world, awoke in him primal fear rooted deep in the minds of all men.
This was the work of power he could not cut down, not with Pantera nor with any other blade in this mortal world.
One by one, the western men ceased their struggles and their screams, falling to the ground and rising no more. As quickly as it had begun, the nightmare was over.
In the wake of those wretched screams came silence so thunderously empty even the sounds of wind and rain could not fill it. Rainwater dripped down Grimmjow's face, washing the blood from his skin and cleaning Pantera's blade. At his feet, the ryoka still shuddered, but was quiet as he too stared at the mass of prone bodies surrounding them.
Grimmjow swallowed fear. He shook off leaden limbs and approached a body, still bearing Pantera with great caution. With one foot, he nudged it onto its back, and recoiled at the sight of blood-clotted eyes and gaping mouth. A shudder of revulsion took him by force.
"They are dead," he said, but he felt no relief. Whatever had just transpired to deliver Selae from ruin was no blessing, he was sure.
"Grimmjow."
The ryoka lay in blood-churned mud, sword forgotten nearby, long hair sodden with rain and blood. Grimmjow cursed, forgetting the dead men, and dropped to his knees at the boy's side.
He brushed away the ryoka's hands from his neck, expecting to find there some grievous wound. But the flesh was unbroken, marred only by scratches from the ryoka's own nails. He stared dumbly. Tonight, it seemed, was full of things Grimmjow could not understand.
"There is nothing…" he began, but his words soon died. The ryoka's jaw clenched tight, the cords of his neck flexed taut like rope, his knuckles white. He shook and writhed in tortuous manner painful to watch. Though there was no wound Grimmjow could tell, the boy was suffering greatly.
"Grimmjow, please—!"
The ryoka stared up at him, pleading with his eyes what his tongue could not. What did he want from him? Grimmjow clenched his fists uselessly. "I do not understand! What? What am I to do?"
A terrible groan of pain fluttered from the boy's mouth, and Grimmjow's very heart stuttered. "I will fetch you a healer," he decided, for helpless as he was, this was all he knew to do. He gathered the ryoka into his arms and lifted him. Selae was still in chaos, and Grimmjow bit back dread and fear for he knew not where even to find a healer in this mess. "A healer will know what is wrong with you—"
The boy in his arms went slack. His cries ceased, and Grimmjow's blood ran cold.
"Ryoka!"