The Artificial Sun Also Sets

Chapter 25: "A Harder Shade of Blue"

Orihime peered out at the crescent moon through the barred window of her private chamber, clasping her hands over her heart. She redirected her eyes down to her hands, opening them to reveal a small piece of bone fragment laying in the palm of her hand. She gazed at it with a mixed look of longing and determination. A moment later, she knelt down and placed the fragment on the concrete floor…

"Shuno, Ayame…"

..............................................

Several hours later, she continued kneeling on the ground, next to her healing shield. Inside it looked like the reversal of a human evaporating into nothing. White skin, dagger-like black nails, and long blue hair all made up the image of someone once gone, but not forgotten. He lay on his back with his eyes closed and claws twitching, as he began to wake from unconsciousness.

"Orihime?" he said, raspy, nearly inaudible and confused.

"Grimmjow," she replied, softening her eyes while giving him a goofy grin.

"This shield…" his eyes popped open. "Your healing shield. I'm alive because of you?"

She didn't verbally respond, but her half confused, half happy expression revealed that she wasn't sure whether he was pleased, or not. She glanced away from his face.

"Umm...Thanks," he said to his own chagrin. She whipped her head back to peer into his blue eyes. She smiled slightly to realize his words seemed honest enough. "Hey, I had no intention of being killed by that guy."

He winced as he tried to prop himself up onto his elbows and hands.

"Don't move! You're not all healed yet!" she shouted.

"No, I think I am. You can release me now." She reluctantly recalled her fairies back to her hairpins, wishing she could heal much more than what Aizen had done to him during their fight. "Seriously, woman, you're not going to make me into a saint, got it?"

Orihime puffed out her lower lip and turned her head away a bit frustrated at him. But, it passed a second later. Grimmjow, still in his Pantera form, sealed himself back to his normal appearance. His zanpakuto suddenly appeared in his right hand.

"How long was I gone?" he asked, scratching his head as his tousled hair flopped around.

"Uh…almost a week," she said, softly.

"That's it, huh? I was afraid there for a second that it had been a lot longer, because that could have meant some big changes might have happened in that time…"

She peered down at the floor again, narrowing her eyes.

"What's wrong?" he asked, turning to look at her as he stood up on his feet. "Hey, stand up, will you…" He reached down to grab her arm, lifting her off the ground as though she were a plush toy. Immediately, he pulled her into his bare chest and placed his hands on her lower back, as if he'd only just been with her an hour earlier. Shocked, she pushed him away.

Grimmjow furrowed his eyebrows at her as the wheels of suspicion turned in his mind. "Tell me what's up," he echoed.

"Well…" she started, begrudgingly, almost like a guilty kid caught with her hands in the cookie jar, "Well, some things have changed…"

"Like what?" he asked, roughly as he talked to her back.

She squirmed around, looking every other direction but at him, stammering to confess, but her words were too inarticulate to be understood.

"Orihime, what are you getting at? You couldn't mean what I think you mean… No way."

She nodded at him, her eyes pained with fear of his reaction.

"That can't be! You married Aizen already!" he shouted, practically jumping in place with split-second reaction time.

"No! It hasn't happened, yet!" she yelled back, weakly and still pained.

"But, it will?"

"Y—yes…" she stuttered as she nodded slightly at him.

"That's it! This time, I'm really gonna let him have it!" He began stomping over to her door.

"Wait! No, Grimmjow! You don't understand!"

"What don't I understand?" he asked sternly as he turned back to her.

"I…I…Uh…" She stammered, beads of perspiration breaking out all over her face. "I agreed to marry Aizen-san!"

"What?"

"I chose to..."

"What the hell?!" he yelled, baffled. "Woman, have you completely lost your mind? He must have said something to you, didn't he?"

Again, Orihime peered down at the ground, clasping her hands together behind her back.

"He is so dead this time…" he stated, gritting his teeth. He resumed his storming to the door until he was all the way out, as Orihime trailed him, running as fast as she could, screaming after him.

"Where is he?" he growled through his gritted teeth. He found himself in a huge, empty hall, sparsely lit, with the typical vaulted ceiling of Las Noches. He slowed his pace until he came to a complete stop, Orihime winded as she tried to keep up with him.

"I know you're there! There's no mistaking the stench of your reiatsu, so come out already!"

"Glad to know your sense of smell is still functioning well…Grimmjow…" said Aizen, as he stepped out from behind a very wide pillar in the hall. "How wonderful it is to see you again, my dear friend…"

Grimmjow spat emphatically on the floor, as if the reflective concrete under his boots had been Aizen's face. He tugged on the hilt of his sword hanging off of his left hip, smirking with a crooked grin.

"This time..." he said lowly with great definitive articulation, "will be different..." His smirk grew wider as his eyes intensified, their color enhancing to a higher shade of brilliance. He started moving toward Aizen with each elongated step very purposeful and confident.

"Wait, Grimmjow!" screamed Orihime, suddenly appearing right in front him as she wedged herself between him and Aizen, her hands out to her sides to make her blockade seem wider. Grimmjow stopped and blinked at her, bewildered.

"What are you doing, woman?," he barked, as his incisors began to resemble fangs more than regular human teeth. "Why are you trying to protect this guy?!"

"Isn't it obvious, Grimmjow," said Aizen, narrowing his own ultra confident laser-sharp eyes at his. "Orihime is on my side now..."

"Bastard! You brainwashed her! That's cheating, and you know it!"

"Of course I know that would be unfair, but I've done nothing of the sort to her," said Aizen, his hands resting loosely in his outer jacket pockets. "She is perfectly sound in her mind. She is acting of her own accord."

"Grimmjow, please," begged Orihime, with tearful eyes, "don't do it. Don't attack Aizen-san!"

"You've got to be kidding me...Ha-ha-ha!" he cackled, throwing his head back as his mouth gaped wide open. He continued a sonorous laughing fit until his stomach became sore. Orihime peered down at the ground, frowning while hiding her eyes from him.

"Why are defending him?"

"I don't want you to get hurt!" she yelled, using her might to convince him. "I had to work very hard to bring you back, and I don't want you to throw your life away, again. Please, Grimmjow...Just don't confront Aizen-san so you can stay safe and live on..."

Grimmjow's smile shrank into a serious glower as the luminescence of his eyes began to dull.

"You should listen to her, Grimmjow," said Aizen, "Orihime brought you back out of the goodness and purity of her heart. Besides, I've already killed you once—I have no desire to do it, again." Orihime turned quickly to look at him behind her.

"You mean, you're not angry at me for bringing him back?" she asked, her round eyes shocked and full of concern.

"Of course not, my dear," he said, fixing a soft, approving gaze upon her, "If you want Grimmjow alive again, then that's what I want, too."

Grimmjow started laughing out loud again. He found a nice view of the vaulted ceiling in the large hall above his cackling head. "Now I know this has to be an act..."

"It's no act. I have no need to be insincere with Orihime. She has taken to me all on her own. It is you who cannot accept that fact, so you jest in order to obscure it. But, you already know that your jeering will do nothing to change what you see so clearly before your very own eyes, Grimmjow..."

Grimmjow sneered at him, gritting his teeth. He peered down at Orihime, who was still standing in front of him, shivering from fear of his threatened explosive tendency. His brows narrowed at her as his mounting anger became evident.

"If you leave Las Noches now, I will not allow anyone to harm you," reassured Aizen from behind Orihime. "Simply never return here again, and everything will be fine." Grimmjow glanced at Orihime one more time, as the expression in her face told him that she wanted him to comply with Aizen's suggestion. He shoved his fists into his roomy pants pockets and turned away from them, scuffing the floor with a small kick.

"Muh...Whatever, man. You two are jacked in the head..." With that, he strutted away at a slow pace, each step ringing out in each distant corner of the hall.

"Grimmjow!"

He stopped and turned his head slightly in the direction behind him, cocking his ear toward the call without looking back. "Thank you..." said a sweet, small voice, full of grace. He turned his head away, bowing it to the ground, as his eyes slowly closed shut...

(...Continued in Chapter 26...)