Chapter 11: White Sand

Bloody and exhausted the body of Ichigo Kurosaki fell through fog and past rocky cliffs. His cleaver slipped out of his hand as he fell and twisted in cool air for what felt like forever before hitting cold sand too fast; his shoulder dislocating on impact. He quickly fainted at the new fresh pain, his limp body tumbling down sand dunes like a large ragdoll.

Hours later he awakened with a cold moon illuminating his pale, blood smeared skin and mask-less face. Groaning loudly and rolling over on his side, Ichigo curled his legs together. He wailed as he cradled his hurting shoulder and felt burning pain ache from every part of his battle wounded body. He heaved a painful sigh before opening exhausted eyes and groped after his trusted weapon.

Instantly he tried to locate his main defence, but failed. He looked around himself, eyes darting back and forth and he fumbled in the sand stupidly, as if his cleaver had been buried beneath it.

"Z-za… Zangetsu!" He burst out, hints of desperation in his voice. His trusted cleaver was gone. Gone.

He rose from the sand, his entire being protesting at his actions, but his stubborn mind worked against it. He refused to lie back down. He took a few shaky steps forwards, sand blowing around him as his feet sank deep into the sand. His breath picked up and for a second he thought he was going to fall through the sand like it was water, but soon it stopped moving beneath his weight. He took another couple of more steps forward carefully, each times having to stop so he wouldn't sink.

The boy held his functional arm out stretched, trying not to fall back into the sea of small stones as he heaved himself over large dunes of sands. Once he was, after a lot of slow-motion struggle, on top of a bigger one, he looked up just too see hundreds more piles of sand, rippling the surface like a white frozen sea. The wind howled like wolfs at the moon and clawed at his clothes harshly from where he now stood; almost ripping the torn rags open even further. He scanned for something that could be something other than sand. He saw nothing and clenched his hand into a fist. Where had his cleaver gone! He was already getting desperate, fear eating at his soul.

Suddenly Ichigo gasped as he spotted something glistering and in a rush of relief he ran the fastest he could through the sand to what he knew was his sword. He ran and almost fell several times, his feet and legs sinking deeper with each step and his hand grazed the sands surface. He pushed through it and as he got closer, losing sight of his weapon several times, he knew he would soon be safe. He had seen it, right…? He began to doubt.

But as he thought he had finally reached his destination and a faint sign of a smile tugged at his dry lips, he stumbled and fell, rolled down a large dune with a yelp and no control at all. He slid to a stop at its base only to open his eyes again to see what he had thought had been Zangetsu. A tree.

Ichigo growled in frustration and slammed his fist into the grey, dead looking plant. But it caused next to no damaged, as no energy remained in him and he was getting dizzy, his body acing with the need to rest.

"Zangetsu!" He cried out again from where he laid, his hoarse voice hardly carrying his call very far. He felt weaker than ever, and alone. The weapon had been his only other object that he had had as company in solid form. The loss of it rendered him so utterly defenceless. He was at loss, he wanted his cleaver now! He wailed loudly to the cold moon that hung over him, like a white blind eye that saw nothing, not even his suffering.

He rested heavily in the sand, which still seemed to want to swallow him up and away from the cool air around him. It snaked around his fingers and legs as if it was alive. He had to wriggle free from its grip every now and then, even if that little effort was draining him further.

The teen's breath was becoming shallow and his mind woozy. He tried to get up, but quickly slumped against the ground again. His vision was starting to blur, the moon becoming a white scribble in the sky. Dust in the air quickly stuck to his skin, his eyelashes and lips, moving into his mouth making it even harder to breath than before. Ichigo coughed loudly, his mind tired but still desperately longing for his weapon. But soon even those thoughts slipped from his mind as it was engulfed into darkness.

Once again the boy woke up with a start, but this time not on his own. Someone was kicking him in the side, hard. Ichigo forced weary eyes open and his blurry vision met with something tall and moving.

Ichigo gasped, sand filling his mouth and he wrenched his body free from layers it that covered his body before struggling to his unsteady feet, the world spinning around him. Hissing at the blurry mass was all he could do as he had nothing else to defence himself with expect for one hand. He could smell it was another hollow creature in front of him, a foul stench filling his nose.

"Hey! Hey! No need to get aggressive, shinigami!" The tall figure said, sounding most amused. "But that's not really what you are, are you?"

Ichigo rubbed his eyes with his good hand and tried to keep himself standing while his vision cleared. It was hard, but once he got a steady stance on the ground he quickly recognised the figure as the 6th Espada Grimmjow. He had fought against the man once before in his home town. Ichigo backed off, but fell into cold sand again when he did. His arm and shoulder howled in pain and he couldn't suppress a scream.

"What's wrong, shinigami?" Grimmjow smirked at Ichigo and pushed him over into the sand after the boy had struggled to his feet again. Ichigo cursed and growled. Grimmjow laughed.

"Don't call us shinigami!" Ichigo hissed in anger as he twitched in the rough desert sand.

Grimmjow crocked an eyebrow at the comment. "Why not, brat?"

"You said it yourself, we're not a shinigami."

"What's with the 'we'? I only see one person here." Grimmjow asked, looking around carefully, almost anxious that he had marched into an ambush.

Ichigo growled and struggled back to his feet, mumbling. "You would never understand…"

"Try me."

Ichigo fell silent; breathing harshly through his nose, eyes narrowing as more sweat prickled down his forehead.

"Heh." Grimmjow laughed with a cruel smile as he turned around. "Come with me, brat." He ordered as he figured it would be a good move to bring the boy to his master Aizen, since he hadn't been on the best of terms with the man. He also knew that Aizen had a certain interest in the boy, now he could easily see why. "Trust me."

First off, he knew the kid had a hollow mask, second, now it seemed like he thought of himself as two people, third, he seemed to have developed a hate toward shinigami and forth, let alone he now he had a gaping hole of a hollow in his chest. Interesting indeed.

"Why would we? Hell, why even talk to you at all, arrancar? You're the enemy just like everyone else," Ichigo's frown hardened and he clenched his only hand into a fist. "I was cut down by the people I trusted and cared about. Not only once but for weeks, month, hell I don't even know for how long! You can't expect me to come with you, or even trust you enough to do so, fuck, I can't even believe I'm hearing you saying it! I will never trust you or anyone for that matter! I've run out of trust." He turned around shakily, careful not say 'we' this time even as he spoke for his inner hollow as well.

He faced away from Grimmjow, angry at the human-like monster before him, not wanting to say another thing to it. He was still at the edge of fainting and he touched his still not yet fully grown out hand and grimaced, it didn't hurt, but his shoulder burned as it was still dislocated.

"We don't need your help." He spit at the arrancar and started waking away from the blue haired man, anger boiling beneath his skin.

Ichigo sank deep into sand as he did, slipped and cursed loudly when he noticed that the arrancar was easily following him. But he kept going, pushing himself through the white sand that seemed to want to devour him whole.

He didn't know for how long he struggled until he collapsed in the sand again. It was hard to breathe, sand kept getting into his lungs through his hole and he kept coughing it up until he forced himself to stand. He was getting dizzy and woozy again, fainting creeping closer.

"Not doin' too good, are yah?" Grimmjow taunted, grinning at the orange haired boy.

"Don't follow us…!" Ichigo spat back angrily, but it didn't hold as much force as he had liked. It sounded more like a pathetic squeak to him.

"I'll keep following you until you come with me or faint, which with the looks of it is going to be soon. Then I'll just carry you."

"Shut up!" Ichigo growled and flash-stepped away, the effort so tiring and he instantly fell once he landed. He gagged on sand, felt it stick to his open wounds and doing its best to creep into his eyes.

"You're not getting away that easily!"

"Shit…" Ichigo cursed under his raged breath as Grimmjow easily followed him with an echo-movement, the hollow version of the flash-step. But the stubborn boy pushed on, determined to get away even if it meant to crawl. Why couldn't he be allowed just a moment of solitude and rest?

Ichigo dragged his fragile arms and legs over the vast sand that never stopped to try and suck him down. He pulled and pushed. He closed his darkly rimmed eyes and kept going, his body sinking deeper and deeper.

"Leave us alone!" He shouted as his temper flared when he Grimmjow had easily walked up next to his slowly moving form. He pushed himself up again on unsteady legs and swung around with a fist that collided with Grimmjow's mask covered jaw.

They both grunted, Ichigo from the effort and cutting his fingers on the sharp teeth and Grimmjow from the unexpected attack, even if it hadn't been painful since there was on power in the blow. But soon enough the teal haired arrancar clenched his own hand into a fist and swung it toward the shorter orange haired one.

Even in his beaten state Ichigo managed to dodge the onslaught by mere centimetres and he quickly got up from the ground to counter attack with another angled fist directed toward Grimmjow's abdomen. Everything was moving unsteadily and becoming fuzzy to his eyes, but he did his best not to loose the battle against unconsciousness.

His arm was easily stopped right before it hit its target, Grimmjow obviously much more alert and stronger. He leaned closer to Ichigo's face when the boy struggled to release his only functional arm from the others tight grip. Grimmjow had no trouble holding the kid down, the boy weaker than ever.

"I told you I ain't leaving until you come with me, brat." Grimmjow whispered, his voice threatening.

"Well, it ain't happening, arrancar." Ichigo growled back weakly but determent, mimicking the Espada's words.

"Tsch… Let's see about that!" Grimmjow suddenly yelled, a grin spreading over his face and before Ichigo had the chance to do more than let his eyes widen, was his battle worn body thrown with immense strength across and through sand.

Ichigo's half strangled scream echoed over the sand and his shoulder crunched loudly as he landed on it. Heaps of sand filled his lungs and he desperately shoved his hand into them, groping after the small rocks, anything to be able to breath. He tried to get up, sand spraying out his of mouth as he coughed. But his new enemy was already upon him and Grimmjow's boot soon pushed into the empty space that wasn't supposed to be between Ichigo's arm and body. Ichigo quickly collapsed onto the sand again and saw spots flash in front of his eyes.

"Get off!" Ichigo gasped through strangled coughs, muffled screams and hints of a growl escaped him before Grimmjow's hand pushed his face beneath the sand.

The arrancar put more weight on his foot he had placed on the orange haired boy's shoulder and landed his knee in the space between the shoulder blade and spine of the other arm. He quickly noticed Ichigo's half missing hand and grabbed it, crushing the tender skin and bone beneath his own strong one.

The muffled scream from the weakly struggling boy increased, his body squirming furiously in a try to get way and sand sprayed violently from his chest, he was draining every drop of energy he had left, desperate to get away.

"You're almost out of strength, brat. You were half dead when you came here, bleeding out your last drops of blood… I'm surprised you're still sane enough to talk instead of raging like a beast. Because that's what you are beneath that beaten up skin of yours isn't it? Just waiting to bust out at any second… I can clearly smell it."

Grimmjow felt the boy stop struggling as he had listened, but at the mention of the beast within the twitches returned to its former strength.

"Shh, Shh… I'm not going to tell a soul. I just know it because evil knows evil. It's as easy as that." The Espada purred in the others ear before he put even more weight onto his foot and knee. He pulled Ichigo's face out of the sand.

Ichigo screamed and spat sand at him. "I told you to get off!" His face was almost instantly slammed back into the sand.

"Come with me and I will show you how to tame that beast of hunger without plunging a sword through your real face!" Grimmjow growled in Ichigo's almost sand filled ear, hinting the last part at Ichigo's bone mask that he knew lucked somewhere beneath the boy's skin. The struggling abruptly stopped and a few seconds later the boy's head was pulled out of the sand again.

"What does the beast say…?" Grimmjow asked. "Or should I just knock you out like I said I would?"

Ichigo didn't answer, only his eyebrows dug deeper into his forehead and his eyes moved frantically back and forth in their sockets, as if his mind was racing, unsure on what to believe, say and do.

"It's time to decide, boy!" Grimmjow snarled, not liking to wait and slammed Ichigo's face beneath white sand again, deeper than before. He put all his body weight on Ichigo's shoulder and it too started to disappear in sand.

It hurt. It burned as all nerves in Ichigo's body screamed that his shoulder was receiving damage. Ichigo kicked furiously behind him, but the arrancar was sitting too far up on his back for him to reach and his kicks held little strength, spots appearing in front of his closed eyes, his mind still swaying.

Grimmjow noticed lack of furiously moving limps and wrenched the boy up by his hair. He slammed his own hand on the boy's back to help him get the sand out of his lungs, so he could talk. Soon however his hands snaked their way around the boy's thin neck instead.

"Well!" Grimmjow hissed again, his patience running short.

"No…!" Ichigo tried to pull free, kicked at the Espada with little strength, tried to pry away the fingers around his throat. "Let… go…!"

"I don't think so." Grimmjow growled back. "Not until you come with me." His fingers gripped tighter around the flesh, deeper into it. Ichigo struggled harder, kicked more furiously, he wasn't suffocating, but it hurt nonetheless and it was so very hard and strange to breath right into his open lungs.

"I… won't go without… gah… Z-Zangetsu…!" Ichigo stuttered through sharp breaths.

"So that's what you where screaming! I could hear you for miles! Who's that? Your mother?"

Ichigo growled, his mood too pesky and his body much too tried for cruel jokes. "No, my soul cutter, idiot…!"

"Haha, you dropped it!" Grimmjow's grin returned. "Fuck, you really are clumsy, aren't you!"

"S-Shut up!" Ichigo quickly snapped back, his nails pushing into the others fingers, trying his best to get away as more and more spots joined the others in his view.

"You really want me to knock you out don't you?" Grimmjow's snarled, fingers only tightening around the boy's tender neck. "You will come with me!" He suddenly shouted; his voice much more angry and demanding than before.

Grimmjow's fingers clenched so hard that skin stood out between his fingers, turning the skin blue and the arrancar shoved his other hand right into the boy's lungs, fingering at the tender insides. Ichigo's eyes widened in bewilderment and he couldn't breath. He tried to scream but no sound managed to escape him.

"F-fine…!" Ichigo gasped through his compressed neck as the clawing hand inside of him drew back. But when he could see Grimmjow smirk in the corner of his eye, he quickly landed a hard kick in the taller mans gut, making Grimmjow release him. When Ichigo landed he swung his leg again, kicking the man on the ground across the face.

"Don't strangle us!" Ichigo growled through desperate gasps for air and he wiped his lip, where he had accidentally bitten himself. It stung with sand before his legs collapsed under him. His breath was hard and ragged, the burst of power draining him even further. His lungs burned and he cradled his chest the best he could, bending forward with his forehead in the sand. He tried to still his breath, as breathing hurt now, while slowly rising to move away from the arrancar, even if he hardly could keep his eyes open.

Grimmjow only laughed on the ground while grabbing his jaw and massaging it slightly before he got up again and easily marched up next to Ichigo, who hadn't managed to get far.

"And who are you to make threats seeing you where the one drowning in sand just a few moments ago…?" Grimmjow asked while leaning down toward Ichigo.

"The one turning into a beast." Ichigo grunted, his voice rough now and liquid bone was starting to make its way out of his eyes, but he swallowed whatever came up his throat. He wiped the bone away from his face in a try to hide it coming. He was loosing it again; the consequences of lack of blood starting too show and the spots never faded from his gaze.

"Well, well…!" Grimmjow burst out laughing, his pissed mood gone at the sight. He moved around in the sand, to get a better look at the face that Ichigo was obviously trying to hide. "Haha, don't be afraid, it's not like you need to hide. It's like I said, evil knows evil."

"We're not evil." Ichigo mumbled. Grimmjow only laughing harder at the answer, knowing full well what it meant to survive with nothing but a shell of a soul left.

"Whatever you say, whatever you say…" He mumbled, more to himself than the boy as he slowly started heading to the left, feeling the boy's gaze upon him.

"Where you goin'…?" Ichigo growled weakly. He didn't like the idea of being left alone in an endless desert anymore, not now when he was loosing his sanity once again and with no fresh soul in sight. Grimmjow was losing colours in a disturbing way.

"I told you to come with me didn't I? Or did I hit your head too hard…?"

Ichigo growled again at the answer but started to follow the Espada after forcing himself up with energy he didn't have. He followed the best he could over the dunes, his greying world getting less sharp as time went on.

He was having a hard time breathing and focusing, the liquid form of his mask that he kept swallowing forming sick lumps in his stomach. When he had spit it onto the sand, it had only moved after him like a demented slug before swivelling into nothing. The teen's tired legs kept sinking deeper into the sucking sand with each step and sand clung to his sweaty skin, make it itch terribly. Plus, he was loosing sight of Grimmjow fast. For some reason the arrancar didn't sink into the sand at all.

"Your arm kind of sucks there." Grimmjow called after he suddenly appeared on top of a large dune after Ichigo had lost sight of him again. He eyed the teen's shoulder. Ichigo's arm was pushed upwards now; the shoulder wasn't connected with the rest of the body at all anymore, thanks to Grimmjow foot. Ichigo grabbed at it carefully.

He only glared at the man and growled in anger, white matter flying from his mouth as he did and he grimaced in pain. The mask had already hardened over his left eye.

The 6th Espada slid down the dune he was upon; sand blowing up behind him. He grabbed Ichigo's injured arm, but Ichigo tried to shove Grimmjow's hand away with his good one. "Don't touch it!"

Grimmjow ignored the objection and told him to keep still before grabbing the injured arm again. He squeezed it slightly before twisting and pulling down hard. A loud sickening snap and a bone chilling scream was heard.

"What are you doing!" Ichigo screeched, his voice changing more and more into rough growls as time passed. He didn't notice that himself, but Grimmjow did.

"I'm not a doctor!" Grimmjow snarled back. Ichigo's arm was still dislocated, but now downwards. It hung limply within the scarred and bruised skin.

"You don't say! Shit!" Ichigo complained loudly to the sand, knowing the arrancar wouldn't listen. He closed his eyes and sucked in air harshly through clenched teeth. It hurt badly, more than before as the pain and feeling had started to dull off in that area.

"Don't complain, brat." Grimmjow shot back, grabbed Ichigo's remaining good arm and pulled it after him. "Let's go already before you faint or go insane."

"Ahh!" Ichigo yelped as he was dragged through the sand roughly. He kept loosing focus but was slapped back into the present by a rough hand. He also kept collapsing from exhaustion and sinking deeper into the sand as well as they went on, but Grimmjow pulling him back out and complaining every time.

"Learn to walk idiot!" Grimmjow growled through gritted teeth at the panting teen.

"I'm trying!" Ichigo gasped back almost soundlessly and struggle on. He tried his best to keep up with the pace of the violent arrancar, tried not to fall to the defeat that crept ever closer. It rose like waves against the sore and sent painful throbs through his sore skull, making him groan loudly with each gasp for breath.

Ichigo couldn't stop his white bone mask from creeping across his face anymore and a nauseated feeling swayed over him as it hardened over his entire face. Everything around him lost the little colour it still had and with a gigantic throb in his chest a roar bellowed from the core of his soul as everything inside him was replaced with a much stronger cold and tight feeling than it held before. In a powerful jerk of desperation Ichigo pulled the closest thing to something living in the surrounding area with bony spider-like fingers close; Grimmjow.

The arrancar was the one to yelp in surprise this time, the roar startling him more than the tug and teeth sinking into his muscled arm. He turned to face the boy that was trying to devour his body; the mask covering Ichigo's demented features completely.

Grimmjow pulled back, but the boy was attached to his arm like a leech and he could feel the slick tongue lick at his flesh. The boy had been so close to fainting, where the hell had all this power come from?

But he had no time to wonder as black nails tore his skin, exposing his meat as Ichigo's dry mouth covered his entire hand and kept going deeper. Grimmjow began to fret.

He tried to swing around, to throw the boy with him in the momentum, but Ichigo's body had turned to iron and would not budge, he only kept pulling the arm further down into the depths of his soul, looking for the blood that would resurrect his starving body. His eyes narrowed as his body shook with aspiration for something that never seemed to come. Ichigo growled, a roar almost escaping him again.

Grimmjow kept pulling, but as before nothing happened and he swung a fist into the head of the wild teen. He only got a growl and deeper sinking teeth and nails in return. As in no better idea on what do, Grimmjow shoved his finger deep into the closest and easiest weak spot he could reach; Ichigo's eyes.

The teen's mouth flew open as he screeched, his twisted voice echoing over the desert. Grimmjow took no chances and wrenched his arm out as soon as he could and round-house kicked Ichigo across the head. Ichigo face met with the sand instantly, the small white rocks scraping against his mask, knocking him out cold instantly.

"This is as far as you go conscious!" Grimmjow spat with a growl at the boy before stomping his foot into Ichigo's solar plexus, just to be sure the boy was down. Grimmjow groaned and grabbed at his own arm, the lower muscles torn to shreds, his fingers barely responding to his movements.

The arrancar moved the hair out of his eyes along with sand before he tore off a piece of garment from the boys already badly tattered clothes to wrapped it around his own arm, keeping the flesh together before he heaved the scrawny body of the teen over his shoulder.

The teal haired man cursed, he was not the one to fall for such an easy attack, such clumsy, blind instincts… His guard at been too low, he had underestimated the boy by far he knew it. The sudden steel strength in those muscles showed that there was more than just bone beneath the skin. He snarled and carried the weight of the body across the frozen sea of white sand.

Eventually the white palace Las Notches towered behind a large dune. The dome it formed was massive, the towers at its side seemed to never end and its stone and white marble surface gleamed in the ever present moonlight, speaking of nothing but power.

End of Chapter