The pills. The vodka. The bathroom tiles. His tears, his cries, her vacant eyes.
Grimmjow's head snapped up sharply. He'd almost passed out. It was a half hour drive to the base and his arm was bleeding heavily under his coat. Fortunately he had enough of Rukia's blood on him to hide the fact it was actually seeping out the arm of his leather jacket. Ichigo was next to him, a blanket over his half naked form and Renji and Ikkaku in the front.
"You okay?"
He glanced at the teen. "Yeah. Just...been a long day."
"Yeah, it has."
"How about you?"
Ichigo nodded. "It's been a long day. Is she alright?"
"She's still breathing." Grimmjow had a towel held around her arm. He was pretty sure she would be fine. "Sorry kid, about everything. I should have let you bring her in sooner."
"I know why you didn't want to. I'm just glad we're safe now."
"Mmm." The car came to a stop. Ichigo knew this place well from his last stay but Grimmjow recognized it for much different reasons. It had been more than a year, but as they stepped inside and down the halls to the medical room, he felt a wave of nausea—powerful memories of pain and sickness washed over him.
"Grimmjow." Ichigo was at his side but it was Renji who turned and took Rukia from him, seeing the look on his face. "I guess you are remembering the last time you were here."
Startled to be so affected by the memory, Grimmjow just nodded. Renji looked him up and down, seeing all the blood. "Damn, are you hit?"
"No, it's hers," he lied. "Can I shower?"
"Yeah. Remember where it is?"
"Mhm." Grimmjow hurried from the room into a bathroom he remembered trying to kill himself in. Nowhere in this place seemed safe, his whole body shook and he told himself it was blood loss.
It was a lie.
He showered off the thick sheen of blood. The bullet had gone through the meat of his shoulder, he'd be alright as long as he got it patched up, but his options were limited without revealing his injury. The best he could do was to take some cloths and tie them on with the cord of a bathrobe. It was bulky but he hid it under his coat after he sopped up all the blood on the interior.
"You look like shit," Renji greeted him when he returned to the medical room. Ichigo was being tended to but Rukia was having an operation on her arm.
"Thanks," Grimmjow retorted.
"You should get checked out."
"I'm fine."
"You were hurt before we even got there."
"Nah, I was alright, it was Ichigo who got his ass kicked."
"Still-"
"Renji." Cold eyes turned on him. "I don't have the fondest memories of this place. I'm telling you, I'm fucking fine."
"Right." The red head took them from the room. "Then we have bedrooms upstairs and food in-"
"Why don't we cut to the chase? You want to debrief me."
Renji nodded. "It can wait."
"It can't and you know it."
"If you're up to it."
"I am."
"Then this way."
Grimmjow was feeling the tightness in his chest again. He wanted this over and done with as soon as possible. He wanted out of this place and away from these people. And the only way to accomplish that, was to kill Kisuke Urahara.
In fifteen minutes, he had his opportunity.
Renji had left him in a private room. There was a long table and several chairs with a projector in the ceiling; it was their debriefing room.
Grimmjow had paced for a few minutes before dropping heavily into a chair and holding his head between his hands, wishing he could get his heart rate to slow down.
Banging on the bathroom door. He stared up at the knob above him.
"Mom?"
Her muffled scream. Another bang. His heart thundered. The light around the door glowed like a beacon in the black of night.
A thud. The bottom of the door returned to black, something blocked the light.
"MOM!" He reached for the handle. Turned the knob.
The pills. The vodka. The bathroom tiles. His tears, his cries, her vacant eyes.
And Sosuke Aizen standing over her, dropping the last pills from the palm of his hand.
Grimmjow shot to his feet when the door opened. Too many memories invaded his head, the man before him was just a haze for several long seconds until he could remember why he was here.
"Are you alright, Grimmjow?"
Kisuke Urahara took him by the shoulders. He stared back at him. They were alone, the door shut, and now his prey was in reach.
"Grimmjow," he said again. "Why don't you have a seat?"
"No." He shook his head and straightened, running a hand over his chest, his fingers sweaty, trembling. He clenched his fist to hide his unsteadiness. "You're the leader?"
"Yes."
Grimmjow readied himself. He would get a hold of Urahara's face, cover his mouth and grip his chin in one motion, twist around him, and jerk his spinal cord too far to the left. It would be over in seconds.
"I must start by apologizing for my involvement in your creation."
Grimmjow froze, eyeing the man he meant to kill.
"What does that mean?"
"I mean the Hogyoku was my brain child."
He moved to take a seat. Grimmjow remained where he was. He'd come here to kill the leader of Interpol's investigation of his family—not someone who'd worked on the supersoldier program.
"It's true. It's why I head this investigation. I was the one to give birth to the drug that turned men into killing machines."
Grimmjow's muscles bunched. To Hell with this, what difference did it make if he had been involved? He was still going to die.
"But there was an ultimate flaw." Again, Grimmjow stopped himself.
"What flaw?"
"They were wild, uncontrolled, soulless animals. But you know that, don't you?"
Grimmjow set his jaw. "Don't remind me." He masked offence with despair.
"And their hearts exploded in their chests."
"What?"
"They all died. The first generation."
"The first generation?"
"Mmm. All but three, I should say. You father, myself and one other." Grimmjow watched him, eyes sweeping for traces of the drug in him.
"Don't worry, I no longer take it. I am human once more."
"I don't understand. You invented it with my father? And you both took it?"
"Yes. In small doses, over a long period of time. It proved the only way to make it work."
"How?"
"Because it changes you, to your very core Grimmjow. It changed our very DNA. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to test our theory, because I never had children."
"My father took the drug, so that we would be compatible?" Grimmjow put the pieces together. Aizen had always said he only trusted his children to give the drugs to, but maybe he had no other choice.
"Precisely. You were born with it already in you makeup. You were already stronger for it, but with added doses after you turned seventeen—when your body was just about finished going through its changes—you became the supersoldier we wanted to create twenty five years earlier.
"Twenty-five..." Grimmjow turned this over in his mind. "Stark is twenty five."
"The first of the children."
"No..." Grimmjow shook his head. "You're trying to tell me my father created us, just so he could continue his experiment?"
"Why else would you all have different mothers? It was the only way to produce enough, fast enough."
"You're lying." His words came out hot and uncontrolled. Urahara rose, watching his eyes carefully.
"Grimmjow, you escaped him twice now. I thought you understood by now, he is a terrible man. You are just his creation, his project, his soldier."
He took another step, Grimmjow stepped back involuntarily.
"Grimmjow." He met the blond man's eyes. "You must believe me. You must know. It's the only reason you haven't tried to kill me yet."
Silence reigned between them. Startled blue eyes watched him, saw only now that Urahara's hand was hovering at his side above his gun.
"Fuck you." His foot went for his knee. Urahara dodged and got out his gun but Grimmjow struck his wrist and it snapped free. He spun with it, and aimed for Urahara's face.
He fired.
Nothing happened.
"I guess a part of me knew it was best not to bring a loaded gun into a room with you."
Urahara side stepped a strike and elbowed him in the back of the neck. Grimmjow staggered into the table and another strike had him bent over it gasping. Urahara wrenched his arm up his back and leaned into him to restrain him.
"Did Aizen really think I wouldn't recognize the look in your eyes? That you're hiding a bullet wound when anyone else would have keeled over by now? But tell me this, Grimmjow, why were you so upset when I walked in here?"
"Gha!" Grimmjow made a move that threatened to dislocate his shoulder once more but he bore through the pain and unbalanced Urahara. He rolled up onto the table and kicked Urahara square in the face, blood erupting from his nose, and a tooth flying free. He used the opportunity to lunge on him bodily, forcing him onto the ground.
"Something happened, when you stopped and started the doses, didn't it?" Urahara continued through the blood in his mouth and Grimmjow's hands found his throat. "You aren't quite so soulless, so empty, this time around."
"SHUT UP!"
His shoulder wound had open up, Urahara used the injury to dislodge his hold and Grimmjow rolled off him, clutching his arm. He gave himself some distance. It shouldn't be so hard to kill him, even if he had traces of Hogyoku in him.
"I'm going to kill you," he hissed.
"Maybe you don't really want to. Maybe it's why you haven't already."
"RAHH!" Grimmjow kicked a chair right into Kisuke. It forced him backwards and Kisuke hit the wall from his punch. His fist came down again and again until it was caught and Urahara punched back straight into his shoulder.
"GHA!"
Kisuke struck two more times, blood dripped out Grimmjow's sleeve. Urahara tried to strike again but Grimmmjow head butted him. They both staggered back, panting and bleeding.
"Trust me, I want to kill you."
"No, I think you want answers more."
"Fuck you and your lies." He stomped on the chair between them and ripped the leg from it, holding it like a stake before him. "You die now."
He raised it and stepped into range.
"You remembered how your mother died, didn't you?"
Jagged wood stopped inches above Urahara's chest. Blue eyes met hazel ones. The air between them burned with their hot breath.
"What did you say?"
"You walked in when you weren't supposed to."
"Stop it."
"You saw him murder her, force those pills down her throat."
"I-"
"Sosuke Aizen murdered your mother, the woman who loved you and took care of you for the first six years of your life. Then he took you away, forced you to re-write the memory, forced you to believe she killed herself and he came to claim his long lost son. And then he spent the next thirteen years making you into a monster."
He raised a hand slowly, the situation so precarious, but his fingers found Grimmjow's neck, felt the erratic pulse. "And now he's about to make it permanent. He's making you give up even your heart, and there will be no going back."
He lifted his hand, took hold of the stake. "Let me help you, Grimmjow, while there's still time."
The stake trembled between their hands. In fact, Grimmjow's entire frame shook where he stood, poised to kill but not moving. He shouldn't care about any of it. It didn't matter, Aizen had given him power and strength. He didn't want to live without that anymore. He didn't want to return to the pathetic thing he'd been moping above a den of drunkards. With this strength, he shouldn't have to worry about emotions, he was above that. He shouldn't care about anything.
But he did.
Unfortunately, Urahara never got to see what choice Grimmjow would make. With the world's worst timing, Renji opened the door, startling them both, and drew his gun the moment he saw the what Grimmjow was doing.
"Drop it!" he shouted.
"Renji don't!" Kisuke warned.
Grimmjow snapped from his moment of doubt and whirled on the red head. Renji fired but he shot wide for fear of hitting his superior. Kisuke caught Grimmjow's arm but received a foot to the gut for it and doubled over. Then, in a swift motion, he was flipped onto the table. He lay momentarily stunned and thought Grimmjow was about to finish what he'd started but the young man leapt over him to land on Renji who lost his weapon and fell backwards into the door.
Grimmjow still had the chair leg and he brought the flat of it down hard on Renji's knee. It popped, Renji screamed. Grimmjow stood.
"Stop." He'd turned back to his original target but Kisuke was sitting with Renji's gun in hand. This one was loaded. "Grimmjow please calm down. We can help you, it's not too late."
"I'll die if I stop Hogyoku now."
"Maybe. Maybe not. But the one thing you know for sure is you won't have any choice very soon. You will become a pawn in Aizen's game. The man who murdered your mother."
"You have nothing to offer me. Even if you could stop my heart from giving out, you can't protect me from him. Now more than ever, I know he won't let me go. It took him nineteen years to make me, he won't throw that away."
"So you've resigned yourself to your fate."
Grimmjow lifted the stake back up. "No. I'm a survivor."
"You can be more than that now. I see it clearly, the Hogyoku isn't as effective. It didn't make you as mindless as before."
"Shut up."
"Some part of you is still alive, Grimmjow. If you really are a survivor, that's the part of you you should fight to save."
"I said shut up!"
Kisuke fired, the stake shattered in Grimmjow's hand and at the same moment Renji punched the back of his knee, sending him to the ground. There, Grimmjow returned the favour, striking Renji in the side of the head with an elbow but the door flung open and Grimmjow was square in the way. He took the full force of hinged wood to the face and fell back into the table.
He was struggling up when the new comer pushed in and grabbed him by the back of the neck, forcing him to remain face first on the table. Blood streamed down his nose, he was panting, and his bullet wound from earlier had drained him.
"Agent Zaraki." Urahara moved to his side, gun ever on Grimmjow.
"I was told you might need some backup. Just got here when I heard the shot. Good timing, I guess."
"Yeah. He's enhanced."
"Doesn't matter. I got him."
"Get the fuck off of me!" Grimmjow tried to kick back but the giant of a man had him firmly and got a tight grip in his hair to make sure he stayed down.
"I'll get a sedative," Urahara said. "Just hold him."
"Got it."
Kisuke paused only to check Renji was still breathing where he lay crumpled and then hurried to the medical ward.
"So you're Jaggerjaques, huh?" Zaraki stared down at him. "You're the one ol' Kuchki got himself killed over."
"You will be too if you don't let go right now."
"Is that so?"
"Yup." Grimmjow did two things at once: he twisted his head despite the hold on his hair and he brought one leg up to manoeuvre around Zaraki's and throw his balance. He didn't escape but he managed to flip himself onto his back.
In the next moment, they both tried to do the same thing. Grimmjow sat up, and Zaraki came down-each aiming to head butt the other. It was a draw as to who won, but since it was solid oak beneath Grimmjow, he got the double impact of the head butt to the front and the blow to the back. Zaraki had staggered back into the wall and Grimmjow was splayed out half limp on the table when Kisuke returned.
He didn't waste anytime moving between Grimmjow's knees and leaning over him, needle poised. He ripped the buttons of his shirt trying to bare a shoulder. Blue eyes trailed up to him.
"Don't..."
"We're going to help you, Grimmjow."
"It'll kill me if I stop..."
"Maybe not."
The needle went under.
Grimmjow sprung.
"Shit!" Urahara collapsed next to Zaraki. Grimmjow had gotten the needle out of his arm and plunged it into Kisuke's chest before either man could react. The scientist was motionless on the floor, but Zaraki kept his focus on Grimmjow who was trying to right himself on the table.
Zaraki caught him by the wrists and slammed him back.
"What?" Grimmjow panted, the agent leaning over him where he was sprawled. "You gonna kiss me?"
Whatever doubt had been in the teen earlier was washed away by a fresh swell of adrenaline—maybe even that device in his arm had pumped a little extra of the drug in his system. Now he stared up with a feral mocking grin, just as the door opened again and Ichigo and Ikkaku stepped in, drawn from the medical ward by the commotion.
"What are you doing?" Ichigo cried when he saw the position Zaraki had Grimmjow in. "Let him go!"
"Stay back," the agent warned and Ikkaku understood, hauling Ichigo behind him.
"Kenpachi...he's on Hogyoku, isn't he?" the bald man asked, seeing the destruction all around them. "Oh shit." He saw an inert Urahara, not even sure he was still breathing, and Renji was just coming to beside them.
"How did this happen?" Ichigo bent to help Renji sit but stopped when he saw his knee turned in painfully.
"I'm betting he's been on it this whole time," Renji said through gritted teeth.
"What? No..."
"Stop talking and someone put this guy out!" Kenpachi ordered.
It was too late. Grimmjow reared up, not escaping the vices around his wrists but lunging toward Kenpachi's face. It looked like he was trying to head butt him again but instead he opened his mouth and went for his neck.
"SHIT!" Kenpachi was forced to let go of Grimmjow's wrists in order to stem the tide of blood from his neck. Before him on the table, Grimmjow did a backwards summersault and stood in all his blood drenched glory—a mad man if any of them had ever seen one.
And he ran. His feet pounded over the table and he vaulted off of Kenpachi's shoulder. Ikkaku had his gun but he went down with a foot to the chest, smoking Ichigo on his way. Ichigo staggered but did not fall. An iron fist caught him by the shoulder and dragged him to the stairs.
"Grimmjow..."
The soldier didn't speak. He forced Ichigo down the stairs after him and to the main doors.
"Stop!"
Rukia stood still in her robe from the medical ward, one arm in a cast, but the other extended with her gun pointed straight at him. "Grimmjow, stop this now."
"Out of my way, bitch."
"Don't make me shoot you."
He eyed her shaking form, blood loss taking all the colour from her.
"Grimmjow please." Ichigo tried again to no avail.
"Let us help you," Rukia half whispered.
"Tried that once." Grimmjow let go of Ichigo and took a step towards her. "Didn't work out so good." He took another step and the gun pressed tight to his chest. "I said, get out of my way."
"I can't."
"Then I'll make you."
"Don't!" But Grimmjow had her disarmed and in the air in a second. She choked on his hold around her neck. "Put her down!" Ichigo cried.
Grimmjow complied. She staggered back into the wall, and the gun came up to Ichigo's head.
"Move."
He did. They went out the front doors, Rukia still choking behind them. The entire Interpol force had been brought down by a single man and he now shoved Ichigo into the car they'd arrived here in.
They drove. Grimmjow never looked sideways at the kidnapped teen. Ichigo had no idea what he was supposed to do or why Grimmjow had taken him with him when he could have made a clean get away without the added baggage.
Eventually they slowed. Ichigo didn't know where they were, he didn't really think Grimmjow did either but his left arm had gone limp in his lap, his head was drooping and he had no choice but to pull into the motel when he saw it. He looked at himself, blood smeared his face and clothes, then to Ichigo who'd been cleaned up in the medical ward.
"Get us a room."
"What are we doing?"
His fist tightened on the gun. "Just do it. And I'm watching you so don't try anything."
The both got out. Grimmjow followed him right up to the office door but didn't go in. He shoved a wad of cash in Ichigo's hand and let him enter.
Ichigo didn't try anything. His mind was racing a mile a minute trying to figure out how this had happened, how Grimmjow had turned into this monster and when, and why. And he frankly didn't know what he could try to do to escape. So he just got a room key and met Grimmjow outside. They didn't park by their door. Grimmjow took a bag from the back- supplies the Interpol agents kept with them- and then he drove the car to the edge of the lake the motel bordered. He put it in neutral and ordered Ichigo to help him shove it in. It sank in minutes, the lake surface bubbled a few times before settling again.
"Come on." Grimmjow shoved him inside the room and locked it tight, fitting a chair under the handle for good measure. Ichigo stood while Grimmjow went through the room taking stock of their resources. He stopped at the mini fridge and ripped it open. Ichigo watched him snap the cover off a pint of vodka and down it in one go. Then he finally dropped his gaze back to Ichigo.
"Go to the bathroom."
"What?"
"Go take a fucking piss."
Ichigo went. Grimmjow riffled through the bag and when Ichigo came back out he realized why he had been ordered to empty his bladder. Grimmjow was holding a roll of duct tape.
"Sit down."
"Grimmjow-"
He was shoved onto the bed. There really wasn't much he could do to stop his legs being bound together. He waited for the same treatment to his hands but Grimmjow stopped there and allowed Ichigo to roll onto his back and sit up.
"How's that hand?" Grimmjow had pulled a needle and thread from the bag but his eyes were on Ichigo's bandaged hand that had been sliced open in the alley.
"Not great but I can sew you up."
"Good."
He shrugged out of blood caked clothes. He was an absolute mess, his face was terribly cut and bruised from the door and fights. His torso was riddled with bruises and blood stained his entire left side. When he sat, he did so heavily. Even his enhanced body was struggling with this much abuse.
They were silent as Ichigo stitched him back together. It seemed like old hat now, except this man was not the same one he'd rescued in the clinic that night. He was seething with rage and his eyes held a coldness Ichigo didn't recognize.
He finished. It took alot for Grimmjow to get standing again, but he took the needle from Ichigo and shoved him face first on the bed again.
"I won't run." Ichigo tried when his hands were forced behind his back.
"Stop talking." His wrists were taped together. Grimmjow let him go and stood.
"How long have you been on Hogyoku again?"
"I said stop talking." He was throwing everything back in the bag.
"Since you came back? I'm right aren't I? But why? What was the point in pretending? What did you father-"
"SHUT UP!" Grimmjow hauled him up by his collar. Arms and legs bound, Ichigo was completely defenceless, and yet, he lost none of his nerve.
"What happened Grimmjow? What did they do to you?"
He expected a punch to the face, maybe even a head butt, but Grimmjow just dropped him back on the bed and stumbled a few paces into the dresser supporting an old bunny ears tv. His chest heaved, he held a hand over it as if some pain filled him.
"What is it?"
"Nothing."
"Something happened, back in the alley. What's wrong?"
Grimmjow's eyes were on the floor, he swallowed as if it might consume the pain. "My heart," he answered, softly, as if forgetting Ichigo was the enemy. "It's giving out."
"What?"
"Hogyoku...it's too much of a strain."
"You're dying?"
He shook his head. "I'll survive, because of the drug. It'll keep beating."
Ichigo understood. "But then you can never stop."
"Yeah."
"Grimmjow...you don't want that, do you?"
Blue eyes shot back up to him. "I'm not weak. I don't care."
"But then...why did you run here, and not back to your father?" He saw the light of anger overtake the pain and tensed when Grimmjow shoved back off the dresser. Still, he pushed for answers. "Something happened back there, didn't it? Something to make you doubt Aizen."
"Shut it."
"Did Kisuke tell you something? He did, didn't he? And now you have no one, not Interpol or you fath-"
Grimmjow struck him with a full fisted punch to the face. He didn't stop there. Ichigo coughed harshly into the musty bedspread when the same fist found his gut, once, twice, three times until he was gagging. Every muscle strained in him when his head was dragged back by his hair at a terrible angle and Grimmjow leaned in close, his word dripping with rage.
"When I tell you to stop talk, stop talking." He dropped him back to the bed spread. "And don't ever talk about Sosuke Aizen again."
The bathroom door slammed shut. Ichigo heard the shower turn on. He lay where he'd been left, blood oozing from is nose, stomach throbbing.
All I can say is "fewf." That was a lot of action. If you could give me feedback on the fight scene in particular, that would be greatly appreciated. I find it hard to write such a scene without overusing "he" but then when I add their names back in I feel like I'm using their names too much so I guess I was just wondering how it read to you and if too many "he" this and "he" that made things ambiguous or confusing. I would say this is one of the biggest challenges to action scenes and I am always trying to improve as a writer. Thanks for your help,
Riza