Renji drug Chad forward through flashstep. They came to an abrupt stop and the Fourth division and Renji let go of his hold on the teen.
"Wait, Renji what are you doing?"
"You should be safe here, and no doubt Orihime will be coming this way. Stay here."
"No. Ichigo is my friend and so is Uryu. I'm going."
"Then you're going to have to catch up, sorry." Renji disappeared before him in the direction of Ichigo and the Head Captain.
Renji knew leaving Chad behind would only keep him out of the fight for a few minutes, but at least that would give them a few more minutes to end this before Ichigo killed one of his friends. He arrived on a scene of chaos. He nearly landed on Rukia. She was on her knees next to a very bloody Ikkaku. Beyond her, Captain Soifon was dragging a naked form to one side and draping her captain's robes over it. Yoruichi. Even farther he saw some Soul Reapers restraining Uryu who was not without injury himself.
"This is chaos." He breathed. There was a massive clash of power and he crouched to cover Rukia and Ikkaku. He looked up in the after math. This was bad. The Head Captain was losing. Their commander, their captain, and Ichigo was ripping him to shreds.
Not to say Ichigo hadn't sustained injury, but he had much less blood on him than the Head Captain. Renji stood up.
"Renji you don't have a chance." Rukia warned. He looked down a her and gasped at the terrible long cut down her small face, those bangs that always hung in her eyes were shorn clean off and blood drenched her perfect features.
"Oh Rukia."
"I'll be alright, but facing him head on isn't the solution."
"Then what?"
"I don't know."
"Dammit, where are Grimmjow and Captain Hitsugaya?" His question was answered by the roar of explosion and a yellow light flashed over them all. Renji barely kept his footing in the wake of.
"Dammit!" He spun at the cry from the hollow Ichigo. In a flash he knocked the Head Captain flat and Renji had to duck to not be struck as the demon flew past them.
"Oh no, this cannot be good."
Ichigo landed on the scene. He saw his mistake at once- the small soul reaper alight with the power of the Hogyoku. It had been more awake than he thought, and now that they were so close to it's original master, it was only becoming stronger. The only thing more enraging were the two on the ground a few feet away.
"You need to be strong enough to fix him." Grimmjow said to the human girl.
"Fix me?" Ichigo questioned, coming up behind Grimmjow. He saw the visible cringe in the espada. But then those human eyes struck him. So filled with emotion at seeing him, an inseparable mixture of pain and love that was ripping her heart in two. But she swallowed it down and starred past his white face and black eyes. She was not looking at the hollow before her, she was looking at the human within.
"I will save you."
Ichigo's whole body lurched and he clutched his stomach.
"Stay back." He cried to himself, "You are trapped, Ichigo! No point struggling."
"ICHIGO!" Orihime got to her feet in a flash. "Ichigo, fight him!"
"Stay back, Bitch!" Ichigo's hand flew through the air. It came to a dead stop in Grimmjow's grasp.
"Ichigo." Orihime cried faintly at his back.
"Ichigo I need you to fucking win this." Grimmjow growled into that scarred face.
He and Ichigo were locked together, arm against arm but another voice pulled both their attention away.
"Am I so easily forgotten?" Toshiro hissed out, and Grimmjow already saw it was too late. Urahara was on the ground several feet away and Toshiro had his hand outstretched. There was no time to counter this one, the ball of light released and he waited for it to consume them.
He fell flat when the pressure against his arm disappeared. Orihime cried out and he followed her gaze to the two figures. Ichigo had moved faster than he could track and his own hand was sealed around Toshiro's. Toshiro shook, unable to release the power, the energy building between their palms. Ichigo grimaced in the pain of it, but in one swift move he drove both their palms into the ground.
The explosion rocked the ground beneath them. The area was already unstable from the continuing explosions of the Twelfth division. With this added impact, the ground around them gave completely and all Grimmjow had time to do was throw his arms around Orhime before they were surrounded in suffocating darkness.
Renji found Chad already there when he arrived. He was staring at a patch of ground, churned up dirt, and marks of an explosion beyond. He saw several bodies, among them Urahara, though he thought his chest was still moving and not far away Rangiku was unconscious.
"This was the point of the explosion right? Where are they? What happened?"
"They're gone. I was just arriving. The whole area caved in."
"What? Oh no."
"Orihime was with them."
"What?"
"She was standing right there." Chad pointed. "I heard her scream and then she was gone."
It was dark. Grimmjow tried to breath and choked on dirt. It was all around him, pressing down on his shoulders, trying to consume him. He felt desperate movements beneath him and knew it had to be Orihime. She was only alive because he took the weight of the earth. Between their bodied was a small gap, but their pocket of air would run out soon. She was already wheezing.
"Grab onto me." He instructed. He felt her hands slip around his waist. "And pray this works." he couldn't really move his arms, they were stuck too deep in the dirt, he formed a cero and let it fly in the direction his hand was already pointing. It didn't really matter, his chances of hitting an open space were equally bad in all directions.
He sodinoed through the gap he created. Just before earth could cover them again he sent another cero. It took three before he burst into an open space. Orhime gasped and slid away from him. He clutched Pantera and looked around, not knowing where either of their two friends- turned-enemies might be.
"We have to find them." Both their voices sounded in the dark simultaneously and they looked at one another. Orhime wanted to find Ichigo so badly and she saw her desperation matched in Grimmjow's eyes. He needed to find them both- one because he would do anything in this world to save him, the other because it had been his fault all of this started.
"You've changed."
"What?" Grimmjow questioned as the girl rose with a sad sort of smile on her face. "I have my memories back, I knew you a long time ago in Los Noches, when I was much younger than I am now."
He eyed her. "Younger, you're what, Kurosaki's age? He's just a kid."
"It may only have been a couple of years, but so much happened to change me. When I got my memories back, I was relieved, but at the same time, I grew up all over again. It's like everything I was used to doing, at school, with friends, seemed so childish when I knew the truth."
"About the spiritual world."
"About everything. People. The world. Good, evil, the prices we pay."
Grimmjow didn't know what to say. But he did have a question. "You said you met me in Hueco Mundo? You were a prisoner, weren't you?"
"Yes, Aizen made me a guest there once. He did it to lure Ichigo out. You two fought, it was so violent. It was the last time I saw you before the cataclysm."
"Listen, I'm sorry about whatever happened back then but-"
"I don't need an apology Grimmjow, like I said, you've changed. You changed for Toshiro. You found someone who needed protecting and you grew up, just like I did."
He balked a little at this. "Listen, I may not look it, and I may not remember it, but I am pretty old compared to you. I don't think meeting Toshiro made me grow up."
"Of course it did, because you don't really grow up until you love someone more than yourself, you love someone so much you would die to save them. That's what knowing Ichigo did for me. That's what happened when he burst into Hueco Mundo to find me. He grew up, and when I thought he might die, I grew up too."
Grimmjow nodded and smiled, "so what you're saying is-"
"I'm going to save him even if I die doing it."
"Okay good." Grimmjow said and took her hand. "Because I don't think our chances are great, but the Hell I ain't giving it my all right to the end. Now keep close and keep sharp, because I don't know who we're going to find down here."
She held tight back, and kept just behind him. He held Pantera out almost as if it was a shield, ready for whatever hit them. It took some time to distinguish where they were. At first they thought they were in the lab, and they may have started there, but it seemed they had moved on to some side tunnel. It was in tact but in rough shape and they had to squeeze through some places.
"Where are they?" Orihime whispered after about half an hour of struggling onward.
"Ahead, I feel their spiritual pressure, both of them."
He helped her over a large hole in the tunnel but then quickly jerked her back behind him.
"Oh, it's you." came the laboured sarcasm. Orhime peered around Grimmjow to see and gasped.
"Ichigo!" she pulled away from Grimmjow and ran toward him. He was propped up on a stone outcropping at the mouth of a cavern, his whole arm dripping blood and large wound in his stomach. Blood spurted freely out the corner of his mouth. "Stay back." He held up his better hand, Zangetsu's tip swinging dangerously close to Orihime. Grimmjow pulled her back.
"But I can heal you." she protested.
"Yeah, turn me back into your boyfriend you mean. No, I don't think so."
But he was not much of a challenge in his state, Grimmjow guessed.
"Did Toshiro do this to you?"
Ichigo smiled through the blood. "If you mean the hogyoku then yeah, figured out my plan to get rid of its master when I was done with him. Didn't like that very much."
"Where is he?"
"In there, somewhere." he indicated the cavern behind him. "He's not doing too well himself. We're in a bit of a stand off, see."
Grimmjow peered into the darkness. It seemed a wider cavern opened up into a chamber of sorts, old. It was quite bare, except for some chains on the wall.
"This was a prison cell." Grimmjow deduced. He stepped in, letting go of Orhime. "Don't go near Ichigo, he still might be dangerous."
"Of course I am." he sputtered and jumped down. Grimmjow turned back but Ichigo was making no threatening moves. "But now you two aren't my biggest concern. I have to kill him before he releases his master and the two of them make me their breakfast."
Grimmjow eyed the hollow human. "You can take his power away. Unbind the hogyoku and the threat is eliminated."
"I can unbind it from his body, but he will have to unbind it from his soul."
"He will, I know it. Now are we doing this or not?"
Ichigo smirked. "Guess so."
They moved in slowly. Orhime followed after.
"Stay out there." Grimmjow repeated.
She didn't heed him, keeping right behind, "I thought we were on the same page."
"We are but he wants to kill you, you're just a target."
"I know." She shot back under her breath and Grimmjow looked at her sharply. Bait. His eyes narrowed in the half light be he nodded. She moved ahead of them.
"Nice try."
Grimmjow nearly jumped out of his skin at the dark voice the struck him, just a foot away. He couldn't turn in time to counter and felt the stab through his shoulder.
"Damn." he fell to the ground, Ichigo countered the next strike and Orihime rushed to Grimmjow. "I'm fine," he muttered, "Be careful." he got back up, his shoulder drenching the rest of him in hot crimson but he ignored the pain and sliced Pantera straight at Hyorinmaru. He forced his weight onto the boy when their blades collided and grabbed his wrists the second they were close enough.
"Now!" Grimmjow yanked his arms away from his chest and Ichigo dove to release the hogyoku. The effect was much less than what Grimmjow had hoped for. The bindings fell away but the blaze of fire in Toshiro's eyes just flared all the stronger.
"Nice try, but he's mine now."
Grimmjow reeled from the head butt and landed on the floor. Ichigo cried out and staggered back and the next instant Toshiro was gone.
"You alright?" Orhime asked, pulling Grimmjow up again.
"Shit. Where'd he go?" Grimmjow ignored the girl and looked at the hollow.
"To free Aizen. Look where we are. Aizen is being held deep underground. We are deep underground. Toshiro just has to blast a hole in a wall down here somewhere and it's all over."
"Where? Do you know where?"
"Of course. Can't you feel it? The one spot in this whole tangle of metal and stone that is completely void of spiritual presence."
"A seki seki chamber." Yes he felt it now.
"Yeah, so less chatting and let's go. Looks like missy here might have to use her powers on the kid to pull him back. And don't you dare try them on me, bitch."
Ichigo grabbed Orihime's arm and flashed away. Grimmjow bolted after.
The three fell out of sodino before they could reach Toshiro. The whole underground world was shaking violently and they had to dodge crumbling stone and cave-ins.
"Better hurry." Ichigo ran forward again dragging Orihime and Grimmjow fighting to keep up behind. More dirt rained down on them, a chunk of rock caught him in the shoulder and he swore, clutching the already bleeding wound. They came upon the scene after a couple more close calls. Toshiro was hammering away at a wall of white stone with his balls of energy. It was already deeply dented, another hit and they saw the cracks of an opening.
"TOSHIRO STOP!" Grimmjow cried. "You've been in this situation before, you can beat him."
"Don't make me laugh," the harsh voice bounced back at them, he didn't even bother to turn to face them.
"That's rude." Ichigo shot forward. Toshiro's last blast went wild, striking Seki Seki but also the other stone, destabaliznig them even more. But even as the world shook around them, Grimmjow and Orihime were fixed on the two figures grappling before the crack in the white stone, before the monster that lay in wait within.
"What do we do?" Orihime asked.
"I say, wait until one has pinned the other and get them both in one go. Can you do that?"
"I'll damn well try." The curse sounded foreign on her lips, but Orihime set her jaw, and her eyes were determined.
"Okay, then be ready, as soon as it happens we'll be on them." He gripped her shoulder and she held her hands aloft, at the ready.
It happened so fast. Grimmjow kept his eyes on them the entire time, but the power of the hogyoku was just too great. Ichigo took an elbow in the face and fell back. Freed, Toshiro stood up and flashed forward at a speed so fast, Grimmjow didn't even feel what was wrong until the small captain was back and flicking the blood off his sword.
"That takes care of that annoyance." the golden eyed, silver haired boy said and turned back to his work on the seki seki. Grimmjow finally sputtered, feeling what was wrong. His hand shot to his throat, it was already slick with the onslaught of blood pouring down and his fingers did little to stop it. Hyorinmaru had sliced through his jugular before he even knew what happened. His shocked eyes were stuck dead ahead, but he met equally stunned black ones. Ichigo was staring back, mouth agape, but not at him. Slowly azure eyes forced their way around to the girl beside him.
"Ichi...go." she reached for him before she fell. Grimmjow dropped to his knees, still clinging on, but why, he didn't know, it was over now. Orihime had seconds left, her shaking fingers doing as much good as his own around her wound. The front of her blouse was already fully covered with her blood. Her eyes were still wide, brimming with tears. Grimmjow was transfixed by her death, even if he was also dying, her own was just so tragic.
A pair of feet came into his field of vision, stopping just before Orihime. The hollow voice rippled down to them. "I heard you two talking. She said she 'grew up' because she knew she could die to save him. Well, here she is, except she doesn't look grown up to me. She looks like a kid."
Ichigo squatted down next to her, his face unreadable, mostly past the scars but also because Grimmjow felt he was seeing the boy of old. It wasn't him though, that boy would be screaming now, sobbing. This was still the hollow, and yet he reached out and closed his hand over her throat. "I used to hate you." he whispered to Orihime as he raised her head and held her in his arms, still keeping pressue over the wound in her throat. "Because he loved you so much, because he kept throwing everything away for you. But whatever he feels in his very core, I feel it too, whether I want to or not. If Ichigo was here right now, all he would be able to do is watch you die."
And a smile came over his marred features. "Lucky for you, I'm here instead."
He bent down and sealed his lips over hers. Grimmjow's vision was starting to go, but he saw her eyes flare open and her chest heave. Ichigo fell back. He had transferred some of his power into her, healed her. She watched him fall back and then looked to Grimmjow. She reached up and touched her own neck. But there were no time for questions, she had to save Grimmjow.
Her legs gave out when she tried to rise and she fell down completely. She had still lost so much blood, her head swam and she knew she was going under.
"Grimmjow..." She reached out past the darkness trying to take her, past the distance that separated them. For a few brief seconds the tiny winged creatures held their glow over him and then they vanished. Orhime went limp entirely.
Grimmjow lifted a shaking hand to trace the wound, it was gone, she had managed that much, but he had lost as much blood as the unconscious girl. He, however, had his espada strength, and he gripped onto the wall and fought his way up. He stumbled past Orihime, past Ichigo. He fought not to fall when Toshiro crashed another ball of energy into the wall and chunks flew past him. He tried not to falter when he heard the laugh of victory.
Just as Toshiro was finally in his reach, the last hunk of wall fell away and he could see into the dark pit. He could see the man strapped to a chair in the centre, a black band shining out prominently around his wrist.
"NO."
"Yes." Aizen said back calmly. "You've found me." he said to his Hogyoku.
"Yes." the Hogyokyu hissed back. Grimmjow did the only thing he could and launched himself into him. He wrestled Toshiro to the ground and pinned him there.
"Yo kid, you in there? I haven't got anything left, it's up to you now, please." He stared down at those eyes, trying to see past the blaze of fire in them, to see some hint of silver light. But only the Hogyoku smiled back at him.
"No." he bucked Grimmjow off and sent him spinning into the cell. He rolled to a stop not far from Aizen.
Grimmjow felt the seki seki stone, broken as it was, sapping what was left of his strength, but it didn't seem to be slowing the Hogyoku down any.
"No." he groaned from the floor as Toshiro raised a hand, reaching out toward Aizen.
"Yes." The bound beast hissed in anticipation of his freedom.
"Toshiro, remember what he did." Grimmjow got to his knees. "Remember how long it took us to defeat him."
"He does, but there's nothing he can do to stop me now." Golden eyes smiled and Grimmjow caught his kick straight in the jaw. He fell back, head pounding in pain and he just clutched his face for a few seconds before venturing to his knees again.
The Hogyoku looked to him, exasperated. "Just stop."
"I'm going to save you, kid."
Toshiro sighed. "I'll finish you when I'm done here." He turned back to Aizen.
"Do it." Aizen ordered, "set me free."
"Idiots." The voice came strained from the other side of the room. Ichigo slid over the threshold, barely standing. "Aizen will kill us all, so why didn't you just kill him first, Grimmjow?"
He stumbled forward. The earth was still shaking, this whole place was unstable, loose dirt collapsing here and there all about them.
"If it was that easy, don't you think the Soul Reapers would have done it by now?" Aizen challenged.
"They're Soul Reapers. I'm hollow, and I know secrets not even you could discover when you violated our universe. Now, why don't you move on to the next one. Let me know how Hell works out for you." He raised his hand. Toshiro reacted. Grimmjow took the opportunity to throw himself on his young companion once more. An explosion hit the far wall. Ichigo dropped to his knees and Grimmjow heard Aizen laughing. A thunderous roar sounded behind them, everything was starting to crumble. He wasn't sure what happened, but Ichigo had not been successful and he was fading again. But Grimmjow couldn't give it any more thought. He had to focus on the boy beneath him.
"You let him go." Grimmjow demanded, and before the Hogyoku could make any snide comment or flip him off, he closed his hand about the golden object and Toshiro's expression instantly turned to one shock mingled with pain. "Toshiro, you push, and I'll pull!" He yanked back against the force attached to the boy captain.
He felt it's power torn between their two beings, the two beings besides the one strapped in his chair next to them who could have any measure of control over him. He felt it's soul, burning in Toshiro, fighting not to be dragged out of his body, but tempted to leap over to the next. But there was no chink in Grimmjow's armour. He was not the one who had suffered from the Hogyoku's memory, he had not been at the epicenter of the shockwave that had rippled across worlds and stolen the lives and memories of countless souls, living and dead. He was just one more victim of it's power.
But that didn't mean he was no threat, because he was Grimmjow Jaggerjaques, and he was going to save his friend.
Toshiro drifted from the dreams of tortured memories, to that floating verse between awareness and unconsciousness. All around him the Hogyoku swirled, leaping out at times, brushing past his ephemeral form and tormenting him. He caught flashes of his whereabouts in the physical world. But it was so dark and faint and he was deaf to the voices of his friends. He felt the lurch in his body, when the bonds were cut, but it was far past that point now. The Hogyoku was no longer attached to him because Ichigo had forced it on him, now it was attached to him because it had decided to own him.
He felt despair for being so useless and so used. How could this be happening again? How could his body be the vessel for such evil? Why was this fate befalling the two of them all over again? What deity had they so pissed off before the cataclysm that their lives thereafter were only suffering?
But in the midst of all his screaming thoughts, he felt a cold clamp around his heart, forcing back some of the burning, that pure gold rush that filled his body. He felt that steady presence and heard the voice telling him to push.
"Grimmjow." He shut his eyes against the torrent of the Hogyoku's soul and reached out for that hand. Reached out as if he could reach past his own body into the world above. He felt the blinding pain when he connected with the Hogyoku's spirit. He felt it's pure and utter rage at him, at Grimmjow, at the world it had failed to destroy. He felt its desperate need to rejoin with the body strapped to the chair next to him. He saw all this, felt it burning him up, but it only made him more determined not to let it happen, not to let this object win.
"I cut you in half in that desert. You ripped my soul into a million pieces. But I would do it again in a heartbeat to save them- to save everyone I loved then and I love now."
He screamed in his own furry, his own passion pitted against it's contempt. Will against will, love against hate. He felt it blinding, tearing, burning, overwhelming, but all he had to do was push, and then, in one last gasp, it was gone. The heat of its anger cooled away and the ice dragon reclaimed it's domain.
"Gotcha!" Grimmjow yelled as his hand finally pulled away from Toshiro's chest and the golden object clattered from his burned hand. It had seared into him in protest but there was nothing it could do to make him let go. He let it roll along the grate a meter away, where it lay steaming and useless, and turned back to the boy in his arms. The gold aura about him was gone. He was cold, and when his eyes blinked open they were silver for an instant before fading back to aqua. As his breath formed briefly in the air and he sighed.
"Hyorinmaru." He said with a deep sigh of relief, then he blinked up and noticed Grimmjow. The espada had moved off of him and now waited to see what state he would be in. "Grimmjow, help me up." Grimmjow pulled him to a sitting position but Toshiro couldn't stay up and collapsed against him.
"I got ya." Grimmjow held him close, trying to shield him from the constant rain of dirt and more dangerous, stone.
"We have to get out of here."
"No kidding." but as much as Grimmjow would have liked to pick up his young friend and carry him to safety, the seki seki had drained most of what he had left, not to mention the strain of the Hogyoku. So he could only sit and hold onto Toshiro and try to protect him from the worst of it, until the end.
"Ichigo." They turned. Orihime was crawling, Grimmjow felt Toshiro stiffen at the sight of her- all that blood staining her throat, her clothes and now her hand and knees torn up in her effort to reach the pale form just a couple of feet from them. She collapsed across him and was still.
"Shit." The hollow moaned, not moving, just staring straight up at the dome of Seki Seki.
"Was it worth it?" Aizen said, almost forgotten, "Everything you all did, just to die down here, with me? The girl who can't let go of a crush. A beast who thinks just because he gained power through my Hogyoku, that he knows more than me when he doesn't even know what he really wants. A boy who is too afraid to take back his memories and become a man. And a man who is too afraid to live without a boy. You all came here out of a longing for something you can never have or never hold onto. And now, you will die for it."
"Spoken like a truly, lonely man." Toshiro said, his voice strong and much like the captain again. He couldn't move much, but his eyes, those eyes that communicated everything, shone triumphant, even as the world collapsed around them. "You could never understand, Aizen, any motivation other than selfishness."
"That's right." Grimmjow added, and his eyes strayed to Orihime. "You never grew up."
Toshiro nodded. "And that's why you were defeated by Ichigo Kurosaki, by me, by Grimmjow."
"None of you defeated me, I am still alive."
"Living is not victory if you have no one and nothing to live for." The hollow voice was soft. "They're right, you couldn't defeat Ichigo because you didn't understand that his motivation was more powerful. His will to protect will always be more powerful than any selfish desire. That's why I can never win. Even with the Hogyoku I couldn't win, and now he's coming back, he's almost here." He sat up, holding Orihime like Ichigo would, but his voice was still cold like the hollow. "But before he gets here, I have one last thing I need to do. Don't think I've gone soft, I just don't want Aizen thinking he won."
He shifted Orihime's weight from him and reached a hand into the air as if he was reaching for something or someone far away. Then he stuck one finger out and drove it against the ground. Quickly he moved his hand through the soft dirt, spelling something out, but his features strained as if he was using all his power to do so. When he finished, he collapsed next to the indistinguishable words and smiled though the sweat on his face. "You can all thank me later."
High above, slouched in despair as he sat on the edge of the devastation of the twelfth division, Uryu suddenly felt that cold connection of Ichigo's hollow power and his hand snapped up in the air. The Soul Reapers near by and Chad at his side watched his hand clench into a fist and prepared to restrain him again, but then his index finger popped out and he pressed it against the earth.
"Uryu..?"
"I don't know." he hissed, watching his hand trace through the dirt. Renji stepped closer and Rukia gasped as she began to see the words Uryu was spelling.
We're in Aizen's cell. Save us you Soul Reaper bastards
Alright, so since it took me super long to update this time I made the chapter twice as long as normal-well, also because I didn't want to lose the momentum of the action. So as I have been saying, though this might seem a bit like a climax, there is still PLENTY of story left, this isn't even half way. So if you are enjoying it then that is good news for you! Thank you for the very kind support from reviewers, some very good points were made by you all in the reviews to last chapter, and some questions asked will become clear as the story goes on!
Thanks for reading,
Riza
