Grimmjow smirked at the pristine black coat decorated with the stylized red cloud. "You're not running away this time?"
The dual-coloured plant-freak snorted.
"And you look liked you healed up since our last fight three years ago." Grimmjow purred obnoxiously, intent on making the plant-freak angry. "Regenerating prey is always so much fun. Even if they have shitty fighting skills, you can take your time and kill them slowly."
Plant-freak crouched and growled. But he spoke with a soft voice, "You seem to be mistaken, you're the prey here."
Grimmjow tensed in preparation as energy- which he reminded himself was chakra- flowed out of the plant-freak and into the earth just as three spots on the ground liquefied and rose up. Bits of dirt, sand and grass flowed up and somehow solidified in to smooth white humanoid shapes that had sharp-toothed smiles. "Clones? How thoughtful of you." Grimmjow chuckled. "You've learnt a new trick to give me an interesting fight."
"This will be more than just interesting," Plant-freak said, "Since it will be your final fight."
"I can't wait to beat that shitty attitude out of you." Grimmjow leaned forward, making sure his spiritual energy was easily accessible.
"Since you like new tricks so much, let me give you another little surprise." Plant-freak smirked smugly. His three white copies mirrored the expression as more chakra flowed into them from the plants, the ground and even Plant-freak.
Even though Grimmjow could only feel and track the spiritual energy aspect of chakra, he felt a mixture of different chakra flowing all around him. Just as he recognized something familiar within the mixture, the chakra separated and filled each white clone. He watched, slightly wary, as the white 'skin' bubbled grotesquely and peeled away to reveal three familiar human forms.
Grimmjow stared at each face in front of him feeling slightly cheated. From the glossy tips of their outrageous hair to their posture and even their individual spiritual energy, everything about the transformed clones in front of him mimicked the three brats perfectly. "You've got to be fucking kidding me..."
Plant-freak chuckled and said in a hoarse voice, "Something wrong kitty?"
Grimmjow raised a paw and cautiously swiped his claws through the air, pushing forward a little bit of his spiritual energy.
The seals on his body, which usually stopped him from attacking the brats, didn't even twinge.
"Perfect!" Grimmjow laughed, relaxing at the inactive seals. "I've wanted to make these damn brats bleed for years."
Grimmjow ignored Plant-freak and jumped on to the nearest replica, a dull-faced Naruto. The instant he bit down on the replica's arm, a strong punch hit his side and dented his armour. He let go of the arm in surprise and jumped away only for a spark of lightning to buzz uncomfortably close to his jaw.
"They can use the brats' actual moves?" Grimmjow leaned a little to the side, whipped his long tail down low and tripped the Sasuke-replica that had gotten too close. Unfortunately, the replica flipped mid-fall and landed in a graceful crouch, eerily similar to how the real Sasuke moved.
"The same moves," Grimmjow said to himself as he ducked another punch from the Sakura-replica and jumped back. The Naruto-replica, instead of creating an army of clones, threw a barrage of weapons at Grimmjow distracting him enough to let the Sasuke-replica to get closer with his sword drawn. Grimmjow jumped up only to have the Sakura-clone already waiting for him with her arm pulled back ready to punch him.
"Too much co-ordination," Grimmjow huffed in annoyance and he sonido-ed behind the Sakura-replica. "The real ones don't have that." He turned mid-air, pounced on the replica and bit the back of the neck even as he dragged his energy coated claws across it's spine.
Instead of the satisfying crunch of bone and taste of blood, Grimmjow tasted something relatively earthy. He gagged and jumped away, watching as the Sakura-replica shifted back into the white clone and fell to the ground.
"That's it?" Grimmjow said, disappointed when the replica didn't get back up, and lazily ducked another barrage of weapons from the Naruto-replica only to see a sword tip rushing towards his eye.
Grimmjow roared, sending out a wave of spiritual energy that knocked the blade off course, and swiped his claws through the air.
The Sasuke-replica, whose irises had somehow changed into a familiar red, ducked Grimmjow's retaliating claw strike and slashed it's sword around again. The metal screeched unpleasantly as it scratched against Grimmjow's armour. Ignoring the faint vibrations reverberating through his armour, Grimmjow wrapped his tail around the sword and pulled it away from the replica's grip with a firm tug. With a careless flick, Grimmjow tossed the sword at the Naruto-replica's location and wondered if the Sasuke-replica would finally do something interesting.
As far as he remembered, the real Sasuke had never lost his sword in a fight.
He even ignored the steady rise of chakra coming from the Naruto-replica's direction, just so that he'd finally have a fun challenge of some sort.
Much to Grimmjow's disappointment, the Sasuke-replica just covered his hands with a very weak crackle of lightning. From previous experience, Grimmjow knew that a little electricity wouldn't do much damage. But he also knew that even the slightest bit of electricity had the annoying ability to make his nerves tingle unpleasantly and distract him.
Not something he needed to deal with in the middle of a fight.
Even if the fight was rather pathetic.
Grimmjow couldn't help but wonder why the replica hadn't bothered to use any fire attacks. That would have been slightly more interesting that the dull consistent use of lightning.
Huffing in annoyance and not bothering to use his sonido, Grimmjow jumped forward and landed a little to the Sasuke-replica's right. He roared at the replica, using enough energy in his attack to push it from it's stationary position. When instead of counter-attacking, the replica tried to anchor itself against another roar, Grimmjow wrapped his tail around the replicas neck and released his tail spikes in obvious. "Should have kept attacking like the real one."
The Sasuke-replica stilled as patches of white appeared all over it's body. In the next second it crumbled to the ground in a shower of dirt and plant matter.
Grimmjow finally turned to the last replica left.
The one that hadn't attacked him in a while.
The one that stupidly stood there, a sword sticking out of it's thigh, still trying to do something with the large amount of chakra that was being condensed in it's hands.
It wasn't even looking at him.
Even the real Naruto wasn't that stupid. Grimmjow huffed in annoyance and poured out his spiritual energy, making sure it surrounded the chakra in the replica's hand.
Carefully going through the motions of a technique that he'd recently perfected, Grimmjow forced his spiritual energy to invade the gathering chakra. The instant it messed up the delicate balance of spiritual and physical energy within the chakra, Grimmjow pulled all the spiritual energy towards him lazily.
As the replica looked at it's empty hands in confusion, Grimmjow gathered the newly collected spiritual energy, condensed it into a weak cero and watched dispassionately as the Naruto-replica burst into chunks of white matter. "That was pathetic."
Any joy he'd felt at being able to hurt the three brats, even if they were just replicas, vanished completely as he realised just how truly pathetic the fight had been. The real brats would have put up a much better fight. One that wouldn't have lasted less than ten minutes. And knowing their personalities, they probably would have offered some interesting verbal banter too.
Grimmjow grimaced as he realized that he was complimenting the three of them.
Suddenly remembering the Plant-freak, Grimmjow looked around and twitched in annoyance when he found himself all alone. A quick check with his pesquisa informed him that the plant-freak was no where near him.
"Damn it," Grimmjow said as the torn pieces of white crumbled away into dirt, leaving no trace of the clones. He glanced around, checked the area with his pesquisa again and tried to salvage the situation. "At least no one will ever know about this shitty fight."
Grimmjow widened the range of his pesquisa until he found three familiar blimps of spiritual energy locked in battle with strong opponents. After a bit of thought, he sonido-ed to the location where two of the brats were. Unfortunately, he arrived just in time to see their strong opponent fall dead.
"Seriously?" Grimmjow snarled in frustration. "What the fuck is wrong with this shitty day? Why couldn't I get the interesting fight?"
Sasuke turned, gasping in obvious weariness, and stared at him in surprise. "Who did you fight?"
"Some pathetic clones of you brats," Grimmjow said as he eyed the dead body for a moment before he looked back at Sasuke. "Out of breath fighting one opponent? That's pathetic."
"Shut up." Sasuke stared at him with narrowed eyes. "I had to fight with less chakra than usual because I've been keeping your proximity seal open."
"So?"
Sasuke twitched. "So, I had to deal with an S-class ninja with half my chakra."
Grimmjow tilted his head to the side, feeling his earlier frustration slowly turn into amusement. "So basically, you were useless and had to depend on those two?" Grimmjow motioned at Naruto and Kakashi who crouched by another dead body.
"No! I dealt the killing blow."
Grimmjow flicked his tail through the air as he looked around the ruined area and scanned it with his pesquisa. "What's the problem, then?"
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Don't pretend you don't understa..."
Grimmjow jumped away from the boy and ran towards the flicker of spiritual energy that meant that a human soul was somewhere near. He growled in appreciation when he found an angry and distracted soul hovering close to a large crater. Not even questioning why the soul was so far from it's body and shouting at nothing in particular, Grimmjow swallowed it without much fanfare.
Irritable the he hadn't been able to kill anyone and unwilling to be surrounded by humans he couldn't kill, Grimmjow didn't sonido back to the brats. Instead he walked slowly, even when he felt them move to a new location, and detonated a Cero every so often to destroy anything in his path.
He would have continued doing so, except he felt a surge of spiritual energy somewhere in front of him. A surge that quickly shifted into something that felt like a dimensional rip.
Not exactly a Garganta, but definitely a dimensional rip that served as a spiritual pathway of some sort.
Grimmjow hesitated for an instant before he shot forward in a burst of sonido. He landed beside Sasuke just in time to see the redhead, who had definitely been dead before, wake up.
-x-x-x-x-x-
"You knew!"
Grimmjow stared at the girl.
Sakura seemed to wilt under his gaze for a second before she gathered her courage and said, "You knew that Naruto had the…that he's a..."
"Moron?" Grimmjow supplied helpfully.
Sasuke snorted. "She's talking about the tailed beast."
"Naruto is a tailed beast?"
"No!" Sakura said in exasperation, "He's got the nine-tailed demon fox in him."
Grimmjow kicked up some sand and blew on it, watching it rise higher. "Demon? I wonder if eating that would make me sick..."
"Is that all you have to say?" Sakura asked.
Grimmjow walked past the two of them and climbed the stairs of the village walls. When he finally reached the top of the wall, Grimmjow stretched up high and looked out at the sprawling empty desert beyond the village walls. The cool night wind seeped down between interlocking plates of his body armour and chilled bits of his skin beneath.
"I never heard of a desert cat before," Sakura said after a few minutes.
Grimmjow didn't acknowledge her even when both brats stopped by the wall.
"You seem so comfortable in the sand," Sakura continued in the ensuing silence. "You're a desert-born creature, aren't you?"
"Born?" Grimmjow snorted. "I wasn't born in a desert."
"But you lived in it. You must have, because you're not bothered by all the sand and the wind and, you must have been..."
"Lived? No, I thrived in it." Grimmjow scratched his claws against the stone wall in amusement. "And given time, I would have ruled over it."
"So then, there's more of your kind out there," Sakura said softly, "hidden in the desert."
"No," Grimmjow said as he scratched a thin line in the wall. "I'm the only one here."
Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed that both brats shared irritatingly unreadable looks.
"I'm sorry."
Grimmjow snorted. "If you want to fucking apologize for something, then apologize for the damn seals on my back."
Sakura looked away from him. "I'm sorry about that too."
"I'm not forgiving you until these shitty things are removed," Grimmjow said. "And definitely not until I make you brats bleed."
Sakura glanced at him solemnly, with sorrow and curiosity but without any trace of fear.
Grimmjow turned away and scratched the wall with his claws even more viciously leaving deeper gouges. The vibrations that shot up his limbs every time his claws dragged through the stone sated his angry blood lust just a little.
It was a pathetic way for him to calm down.
Then again, it was pathetic that he actually had to calm down and not hurt the brat because of a seal painted on his body.
"Who's Aizen?"
Grimmjow hissed. His tightly controlled spiritual energy snapped outward and the stone under his claws exploded in to tiny flecks dust, leaving behind a hole. He sneezed as he inhaled the dust particles and turned to Sakura with narrowed eyes.
"He was human, wasn't he?" She looked between him and the destroyed portion of the wall. "And he did something to you, something that took you away from your home and left you alone."
Grimmjow wondered what had brought this on. Had he blabbed about Hueco Mundo after drinking all the sake the other day?
"It's obvious, you know. The way you hate humans can only mean that a human did something to you," Sakura frowned heavily and clenched her fingers in to tight fists. "Made you hate humans. So, who is he?"
"Why the fuck are you asking me all this shit now?" Grimmjow growled. "After three years."
"Because when we entered the desert," Sakura stared out into the desert. "You looked like... you were home."
Grimmjow scoffed. "Have you been drinking like that old hag you stupid brat?"
Sakura didn't rise to the bait. He knew that she wouldn't. But he was still surprised when she said, "Would you return to…wherever you home is if you didn't have the seals on you?"
Grimmjow looked out in to the desert, irritated because he couldn't answer that question.
"Was Aizen your former owner?"
"For fuck's sake, why are you so damn chatty?" Grimmjow growled but said, "I was never owned by anyone."
Sakura stayed silent for a few minutes. "We don't own you either, you know. You're our team-mate."
"Nobody could ever own me," Grimmjow stated, yet again cursing the seals that prevented him from hurting the brats.
"Of course."
"And just who the fuck are you calling a team-mate?" Grimmjow growled as he went over their words.
Sakura laughed obnoxiously and ran while Sasuke just stared out at the desert.