Chapter 55: The Hunter-King
Darkness was creeping in around the edges of his vision.
Blinding jets of hellfire and torrents of pressurized water sliced apart the battlefield as the fighting went on without him, but rather than the expected, ear-splitting cacophony that should have accompanied the devastation, all he could hear was static.
He chuckled weakly. "Guess you couldn't... pass on that title after all," he muttered, bloodied lips stretching into a grin. A woman's silhouette blurred in and out of view. Her face, framed by strands of ebony, remained placid, yet her eyes were filled with regret. Maybe even disappointment.
He deserved as much, he supposed.
"Get out of here." With his remaining arm, he reached out to push her away, breaking off her attempts at reattaching the lower half of his body. He squeezed her hands with what little strength he had left. "Find someone who… won't let you down the way I did."
She frowned, her lips thinning as she looked down at their joined hands. Then she closed her eyes and, in the next moment, stood upright, letting his hand slip away from hers to thump to the ground.
His grin softened. "...Just go."
She did.
Though he saw her lips moving, he was unable to even hear her last words to him. Accompanied by the soft chiming of bells, the back of his head hit the scarred earth as whatever strength he'd still had left abandoned him along with her. The sense of contentment he'd expected to feel at this point was strangely absent. This was exactly the kind of death he'd been seeking out his whole life, wasn't it? A warrior's death; felled at the hands of the greatest opponent he'd ever faced. So why? What was he still dissatisfied with?
The stars in the sky had no answer for him. His brow wrinkled as he watched the darkness swallow them up, too.
...Maybe he'd stick around a bit longer. Just long enough to figure it out.
'Yeah…' he thought to himself as his eyes slipped closed. That… that seemed like… a good idea...
"…-jow-san! Grimmjow -san!"
Startled into wakefulness, Grimmjow batted away the hand shaking his shoulder and rummaged through tangled bedsheets to try and locate his sword. He was spared the effort when the blurry figure at his bedside voluntarily held Pantera out to him, and by then Grimmjow was awake enough to recognize said figure as the Shopkeeper.
"The Hell do you want?" Grimmjow uttered groggily, clumsily freeing himself from the ensnaring fabrics and swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
"We are out of time."
Grimmjow froze while he was in the middle of brushing his hair back and out of his eyes. "Fuck," he swore. "What's happening?"
"Simply put, we've exhausted our forces." Urahara swallowed thickly. "All of them, excepting those present in this very building."
Grimmjow met his gaze, his own eyes widening in surprise when he saw the state the man was in. Thick lines of stitching ran criss-cross over just about every inch of visible skin, as if those lines of thread were all that were keeping him from literally falling apart right then and there.
"As we speak, Harribel-san and Head Captain Yamamoto are forming a rather unlikely united front against Angra Mainyu as they attempt to delay the Hollow God for as long as possible." Grimmjow's disbelief must have shown on his face, since the Shopkeeper smiled wryly. "Not by choice, I assure you. It was simply a matter of them being the only ones remaining who could still offer any form of meaningful resistance."
Urahara trailed a finger along one of the many wounds marring his features. "Every other Captain-level fighter—myself included—has been incapacitated in one way or another over the course of the night." The look he sent Grimmjow's way was half apologetic, and half self-deprecating. "To our credit, we were actually holding up rather well... until the two Kenpachis were defeated, that is. Once they fell, our entire defense collapsed with them, and Angra Mainyu made painfully short work of the rest of us."
"So, we've still got—what?" Grimmjow cast his Reiatsu senses outward, doing a quick tally. "Seven people worth a damn left?"
"...Including Kurosaki-san, yes."
Grimmjow breathed out heavily through his nose. "...Is he-?"
Urahara shook his head. "I'm afraid there has been very little change so far."
Grimmjow balled his hands into fists. Fuck.
Appearing oddly hesitant, Urahara opened his mouth to try and say something, but Grimmjow shot to his feet before he could, sliding his sword scabbard into his belt in a single, rushed movement and then heading straight for the door without sparing the man so much as another glance.
"Grimmjow-san!" Grimmjow heard Urahara following after him, the successive thumps against the floorboards indicating that the man was using his sword-cane as an actual cane for once. "Where do you intend to go?"
"Out there, obviously." He grabbed onto the door handle, looking back just to sneer at Urahara. "I can't let that thing get to Kurosaki before he wakes up." With that, he yanked open the sliding door and charged out into the hallway, only to slam chest-first into a brick wall.
...Or at least, something painfully similar to one.
"You're right. We can't let that happen."
Staggering back into the room, Grimmjow looked up at Chad, who hadn't so much as flinched during their collision. A single, massive hand plopped down on his shoulder, and Grimmjow's knees came a lot closer to buckling under the force than he cared to admit. To add insult to injury, Chad hadn't even been using his transformed arm.
"Which is why you won't be going out there alone," the teen went on calmly, oblivious (willfully or not) to Grimmjow's discomfort. "We'll go with you."
"Who the fuck is 'we'?" Grimmjow demanded, finally succeeding in removing Chad's hand from his person with far more effort than was healthy for his pride. He managed to glimpse down the hallway behind the large teen just then, and spotted the merry band of morons that had lined up there. "…Oh, not you assholes."
Starrk grinned a lazy grin that managed to be all teeth, even as Abarai raised one tattooed eyebrow at him. The Quincy Brat just let out a deep, mildly despairing sigh.
"Believe me, this is not the highlight of my day, either," Ishida grumbled. "Now can we please stop wasting time? While personally, I do not particularly care whether any more Shinigami were to meet their end while we stand around arguing, Urahara-san and myself did go through rather a lot of effort to weaken Angra Mainyu to this point. I would prefer not to have him begin replenishing his stock of souls."
"Well then!" the Shopkeeper piped up, waving his paper fan around with his single functioning arm. "In that case, I'll hold down the fort, and keep you all apprised of any new developments while you're out there. Good luck, and do stay on your toes!"
A muscle just underneath Grimmjow's right eye jumped when he realized he wasn't being given much of a choice in the matter. "To Hell with all you fuckers," he griped loudly, then shouldered his way past the whole lot of them. He didn't need to look back to know that all four of them were following right behind him. In an oddly nostalgic sort of way, it felt sort of like having a Fraccion again, except this time, it consisted entirely of Di Roys.
None of them seemed to have even realized that Takahashi's sword had been missing from the table Abarai left it on.
He'd had his heart set on just ignoring them all right up until they reached the scene of the battle, but couldn't resist taking a quick peek into Ichigo's room as they passed it by. When he did, every one of the Four Stooges promptly crashed into his back one by one when he froze up mid-stride. Urahara, the only one of the lot who had managed to avoid becoming a casualty of the human traffic jam, gingerly made his way to the front of the pile-up and followed Grimmjow's gaze.
There probably weren't many people who had ever gotten the chance to see Urahara Kisuke go utterly slack jawed, some distant corner of Grimmjow's mind supplied, when he noticed the man's expression from the corner of his eye.
"I—I checked up on him less than five minutes ago!" The man stammered out, in a voice several octaves above its usual intonation.
While Grimmjow somehow managed to keep himself from laughing aloud, he failed entirely to prevent his lips from stretching into a grin so wide it showed off all his teeth. "Fucking Kurosaki," he breathed out, shaking his head. While he wouldn't describe what he was feeling as fondness, per se, something a lot like it was definitely in there amid the mix of relief and excitement welling up from the pit of his stomach.
From Ichigo's bedside, Kuchiki shot him back a grin of matching ferocity, whereas Orihime's smile, while a tad less vicious, was at least equally exuberant.
In between the two girls, Ichigo lay enshrouded by a haze of golden light; the Reiatsu he emitted so dense—so alien—that it appeared to the naked eye almost like a shimmering haze of flame. It was an apt enough descriptor, Grimmjow supposed, given how it appeared to be in the process of rather literally burning away the black mark of corruption on Ichigo's chest.
With one last huff, Grimmjow wrenched his eyes away from the scene and resumed his march toward the exit, leaving a stumped Urahara for what he was and forcing the other four to trail behind him if they didn't want him to ditch them as well.
"Oi!" Abarai called out as he jogged to catch up. "Aren't you gonna—I dunno; stay with him for a bit?!" he demanded. "He was three-quarters dead not five minutes ago and now there's this weird-ass Reiatsu coming out of him—or at least I think there is 'cause I sure as shit can't sense it—and you're not even gonna see what the hell's going on?!"
"Kurosaki does weird fucking shit all the time, Abarai," Grimmjow shot back, still unable to stifle his grin in any way. "You've been around him longer than I have; fucking learn to keep up already." Abarai sputtered indignantly, and if it hadn't been for the threat of the literal End Times looming over them, Grimmjow probably would have laughed in his face. As it was, he settled for a far less satisfying sneer.
"Speaking of keeping up," Ishida cut in, just as Grimmjow was about to wrench open the barracks' front door. "Try not to be too shocked at what you're about to see. I fear we don't have the time to wait for you to process it."
Grimmjow had less than a half-second to parse that statement before the door flew open and the Seireitei's night sky came into view. "Holy fuck," he breathed out, accidentally blocking the doorway when he stopped moving again out of pure shock.
"Guess you must have missed that, while you were out," Abarai grumbled sourly, pushing him onward so that they could all keep moving. Grimmjow batted away his hand on instinct, yet still couldn't tear his eyes away from the view looming overhead. When he'd gone to sleep, that hole in the sky had still been a hell of a lot smaller. By now, however, it had widened into a gigantic, yawning chasm that offered a vague, blurry glimpse at what could only be the Royal Realm.
"Bastard hasn't exactly been sitting on his ass while you were out," Abarai said, pointing out the obvious.
"According to Urahara, we are down to a mere three barriers separating Angra Mainyu from the Soul King... and thus the worlds from annihilation."
"I thought Hime stopped him from doing that shit?!" Grimmjow protested, even as he redoubled his pace. "What the fuck was the point of her risking herself like that if it didn't even work?!"
"It did work," Chad insisted, green sparks flickering around his body as he called upon his Fullbringer powers to keep up with the rest of them. "She stopped him in his tracks for nearly three whole hours. Angra would have already reached the Palace by now if it hadn't been for her."
"Even now, he's still making slower progress than he was before Inoue intervened," Starkk added, before frowning. "...Though even Urahara-san doesn't seem to have an explanation for why that might be."
"Any chance it's got something to do with whatever fuckery's going on with you?" Grimmjow demanded gruffly, vaulting over a pile of rubble without slowing down. Flashes of light were becoming visible in the distance as they approached the scene of the still-ongoing battle, and Grimmjow silently prayed Harribel hadn't bitten the big one just yet.
He had no intention whatsoever of taking charge of the pack of morons currently under her leadership.
Starrk met his gaze for a moment, then looked away. ..."I don't know," he admitted. "I'm completely cut off from Angra now, but my energy reserves still keep getting replenished somehow. Hell, I can even use my Demon Aspect, still." He shook his head, mussing up his hair in a nervous gesture while he did. "Frankly, I've got no clue where I could still be drawing all that power from."
Great, Grimmjow thought. One more big 'unknown' to add onto the pile. As if this whole thing wasn't enough of a crapshoot already, what with them basically placing all their hopes on Kurosaki and his tendency to do the impossible right in the nick of time.
Just ahead of the burning crater that Takahashi's final spell had gouged into the earth, Grimmjow spotted a figure wrapped in a blood-soaked Captain's Haori lying on the ground, unmoving. As they got close enough for them to feel the shockwaves of the ongoing clashes between Angra and the last handful of defenders ruffle their hair and clothes, the fetid stench of rot, death and decay hit Grimmjow's sensitive nose so strongly he had to resist the urge to gag. At his back, Abarai let out a strangled gasp when the fast-putrifying body became just barely recognizable as a beaten and savaged Zaraki Kenpachi, and he broke ranks with the rest of them to hurry over to the man's side.
Obvious injuries aside, the man looked completely different from the last time Grimmjow had laid eyes on him, however briefly. His skin had turned bright red, and something a lot like two small, nubby horns were jutting up out of his forehead. The shattered remnants of an axe bigger than Grimmjow was tall littered the earth around his fallen body.
Grimmjow looked away with a grimace. Both the guy and his Zanpakuto were in literal pieces, his rotting guts spilling out onto the ground like a nest of black-and-red vipers. He was past saving, and going by his dour expression, the Quincy knew it too. There was only one thing they could do for the man at this point, and it didn't involve trying to stitch him back together.
While Abarai was busy tiptoeing in between Zaraki's scattered entrails, Grimmjow kept right on marching until he reached the lip of the crater, and had his breath catch in his throat at the sight that awaited him at the bottom of it.
The nightmarish apparition that was Angra Mainyu grinned at him through a smile like broken glass; black fangs peeking out from behind shriveled lips and torn skin. "Grimmjow Jaegerjacques. The last remaining King; returned just in time to witness the moment of my victory."
In front of the creature, back literally up against the crater wall, lay Yamamoto. His brittle-looking Bankai was straining to hold back Angra's right arm, which itself had transformed into a gigantic curved blade; whereas the Demon's left now culminated in five wicked black claws. Without breaking eye-contact with Grimmjow, it began to move those claws closer to Yamamoto's stomach, heedless of the all-consuming sunfire that the man's Bankai enshrouded him with.
Even though the flesh of Angra's fingers blackened, sizzled and even popped when the heat made its skin burst open, the Demon remained unbothered and slid his claws into the old man's flesh inch by agonizing inch, forcing a scream from Yamamoto's lips. From behind it, Harribel made a desperate charge to try and save her ally from his grisly fate; driving her Resurreccion's massive, solid bone blade into the small of the Demon's back. She cried out in shock however, when the weapon's tip slid straight through its therefore-impenetrable armor like it wasn't even there, and black veins subsequently erupted from Angra's body and surged up along the length of her weapon before invading even the flesh of her arm. Her back muscles quivered as she struggled to pull her weapon free, but it was only absorbed further into the creature's body; the veins advancing toward her shoulder.
Grimmjow swore under his breath. The fucking thing was eating her; right in front of him! With his heartbeat pounding in his throat, he drew Pantera to go and intervene, only for the agonized screams of the Shinigami and Arrancar's leaders to make him flinch.
Angra's left hand was now inside Yamamoto's abdomen all the way up to the knuckles, and the Demon twisted it around with deliberate slowness, dark red blood gushing out from between its claws, even as Harribel began tearing at her own arm in a last-ditch effort to keep herself from being devoured.
It was baiting him, Grimmjow realized; preying on his recklessness to get him to charge in and get himself killed. That knowledge was the only thing keeping him rooted in place, no matter how much his instincts were screaming at him to go and kill the fucking thing.
"Grimmjow."
Chad met his eyes, the teen's gaze remaining firm and focused where Grimmjow's own was wavering with rage and indecision. "Use us." At his side, Starrk and Ishida nodded their assent, even as a grim-looking Abarai rejoined their line-up. His dark expression alone was a clear enough indication of how he felt on the matter.
"...Fine then."
Power erupted from every pore on his body, and Grimmjow braced himself even as he was still mid-transformation; the claws of his Segunda Etapa's leonine form digging into the earth in preparation for his attack. He sensed portions of his Reiatsu getting syphoned off to his allies; intermingling with each of their own unique energy signatures, and in an instant a plan of attack took shape within Grimmjow's mind.
As soon as his body had finalized its changes, Grimmjow charged down the crater wall at full tilt; beaten to Angra Mainyu's location only by Abarai's whip-sword, which coiled itself around the Demon's arm in a noose of interlocking blades. Abarai pulled, yanking Angra's claws back out of the old man's gut just before Grimmjow himself arrived on the scene and sliced Harribel's weapon in two with a single, quicksilver-swift stroke of his Fang. Harribel gasped in response—whether out of shock, pain, or relief he couldn't have said—and sank to her knees, freed.
No sooner had Grimmjow done so, than Angra spun around in a blur of black and white, forsaking its ongoing struggle with Yamamoto in favor of stabbing Grimmjow in the back, and did not even react when Yamamoto was subsequently free to carve a burning path halfway through its torso with a single slash. With the tip of Yamamoto's smoldering blade sticking out of its chest, Angra lashed out with its greatscythe, appearing bemused when Grimmjow managed to halt its advance with his own weapon.
...Or rather, weapons.
"Two of them?" Angra uttered, in a patronizing tone that indicated the Demon found Grimmjow's acquisition of a second, identical Shikai gauntlet a mildly amusing curiosity, at best. "Just where did you manage to obtain a second blade, Arrancar?" it questioned, Grimmjow's twin Fangs trembling as he struggled to hold his own against the Demon's might.
"None of your goddamn business," he ground out, his voice and blades both shaking from the strain. He gritted his teeth as he was slowly pushed backwards in spite of his best efforts, his claws tearing grooves into the hard rock that made up the crater floor. Tiny blue sparks involuntarily began to crackle around the base of both Fangs when Grimmjow upped his Reiatsu output, and Angra's black eyes widened ever so slightly.
With a single, mighty push and a great grunt of effort, Grimmjow put every ounce of his Segunda Etapa-enhanced strength to good use and shoved Angra's blade away from himself, the scraping of their weapons sending chills down his spine as the far heavier greatscythe slid down the length of his own metal pikes before smashing into the ground. Continuing the motion, Grimmjow pivoted on his heel and backed away from Angra just enough for Starrk to have free reign to bombard the Demon with a non-stop barrage of Ceros.
A somewhat dazed-looking Harribel was staring up at him in disbelief when he came jogging over to her while the damned thing was occupied. "Grimmjow, what was-?" she began to mutter, only for him to cut her off. They didn't have the time to argue.
"Get out of here," he ordered gruffly, reaching down to grab her by the arm and forcefully yank her to her feet. "You're only gonna be in the way from here on. I'm not having you die on me just yet." She tried to cover up a wince when the movement agitated her many injuries, but she wasn't about to fool him and she knew as much. Her lips narrowed into a displeased, flat line. "...Very well. But Grimmjow, that blade—!"
"Go!" he snapped.
With one last, worried glance at his newest armament, Harribel gave in. She blurred out of sight; the limp in her step clearly not bad enough to prevent her from using Sonido, at least, and then Grimmjow was down to just a single liability he needed to worry about.
"Foolish whelp!"
Speak of the devil.
Chad, who had taken advantage of the commotion to circle around, had finally made it down the slope and was now busy scraping the badly-bleeding Yamamoto off the ground, even if the old fart didn't sound happy about it.
"I can no longer fight!" the man wheezed out, for the first time looking and sounding as frail as his age would suggest. "Do not waste time and energy on an expended asset... when the very fate of the worlds is at stake!"
Grimmjow couldn't help but wonder if obstinate self-sacrifice had somehow been hardwired into every Shinigami's DNA. For people who called themselves Death Gods, they sure seemed oddly suicidal at times.
He fucking hoped it wasn't a Shinigami-thing. He had quite a bit of Shinigami in him himself now, after all.
"If it eats you, then we're definitely fucked," Grimmjow sneered at Yamamoto. "If you wanna die so badly, go drag your withered carcass over to some quiet little corner and bleed out there for all I care! Shit's bad enough as it; there's no way in hell I'm fighting that asshole if it has your firepower backing it up!"
"Which is why you should have had the Quincy destroy my soul as soon as you arrived!" Yamamoto spat back, making Grimmjow's eyes widen from incredulity. Forget suicidal; the old coot would let himself get erased altogether if it meant denying their enemy an advantage. From the way he spoke, he considered it a matter of course, even. There was commitment to duty, and then there was outright fucking insanity.
Just as Chad was about to climb back out of the pit carrying an alive yet displeased Yamamoto in his arms, a series of deafening, reverberating cracks caught Grimmjow's attention. His head swiveled around as he sought out the source of the noise, and he looked straight upwards just in time to see the seventieth barrier between the Royal Realm and the Seireitei disintegrating all at once.
"...Were you under the impression that you were delaying me with this charade?"
A pulse of pitch-black energy emanated from Angra's position and sent Grimmjow staggering back. Chad, having been much closer, was knocked right off his feet and slammed into the crater wall, his back taking the brunt of the impact when he curled around Yamamoto to minimize the damage to the old man's already-battered body. Starrk's barrage of Ceros was disrupted as well, and he ceased his assault when the scattering energy blasts made the risk of accidental friendly fire too great.
Not having moved an inch under the torrential rain of Ceros, a grinning Angra Mainyu stood. "On the contrary. The less I need to divide my attention between breaching the Palace and entertaining its… great defenders, the sooner I shall reach the King."
Up in the sky, the blurry image beyond the final two barriers sharpened enough for Grimmjow to make out five enormous, disk-like structures and a single, cocoon-shaped building floating in the center of them.
Grimmjow's expression tightened. Their ultimate failure was looming far too close for comfort now.
With an almost casual disregard, Angra lifted its free hand and wrapped it around the tip of Yamamoto's sword where it was still sticking out of its breast. Then, heedless of the angry hissing its armored flesh produced upon touching the blade, Angra snapped it with a flick of its wrist, one final burst of flames and searing heat escaping the blade before it crumbled to pieces entirely.
"All that pain and sacrifice. All the lives lost," Angra mocked, crushing several shards of Ryujin Jakka into dust between his fingers. "How does it feel to know that all you have accomplished tonight served only to delay the inevitable?"
"We've held you off for this long already," Grimmjow groused, his fingers twitching inside his gauntlets. "And I'll bet that getting shot and losing a huge chunk of souls wasn't exactly according to plan, either. You ain't nearly as unstoppable as you're making yourself out to be."
The hardened ridges on Angra's brow that served as its eyebrows climbed just a fraction of an inch higher, while the Demon's gaze lowered to look upon the charred circle burned into its breast. Its expression smoothed out for just a moment… before that horrible grin returned in full force, even more vicious than before. "...Is that so?"
Before Grimmjow could think to move, Angra ripped its arm free of Abarai's Shikai and blurred into Sonido, reappearing directly behind Chad. Quick reflexes were all that managed to save the teen; both Chad and the burden he carried rolling out of the way just in time for Angra's scythe tip to dig into the crater wall, rather than go tearing through flesh and bone.
"Ishida Uryu!" Yamamoto cried out as Angra made another swipe at himself and Chad. "You must not allow the creature to gain any more power! Shoot me down now!"
Angra raised its blade one more time, and just before it could bring it down, a streak of steel-blue light tore through the air with pinpoint accuracy and forced it back, chipping the edge.
"...While I care not whether you live or die," Ishida spoke, his tone positively arctic, "I will not lower myself to playing executioner to a stubborn old fool."
His first arrow was then followed by an entire salvo of Pantzerbrechers, each of which met their mark unerringly and peppered Angra's chest with armor-piercing shots until spiderweb fractures littered the Demon's front, and Ishida's quiver had been fully emptied. "Now be silent and stand aside, so that we may perform the duty you failed to uphold," the young Quincy intoned sternly, as if to punctuate his assault.
Grimmjow grinned wryly. It wasn't nearly as bad as whenever it had happened with Takahashi, but there was still something about agreeing with Ishida that made his hackles rise up.
By now, Chad had finally managed to climb all the way up the crater wall with Yamamoto in tow, and as soon as the violent impacts stopped knocking the Demon off-course it made to pursue them once more, only this time, it found its way barred.
The impact of Angra's scythe slamming home into his twin Fangs once more left the bones in Grimmjow's arms feeling like they were about to shatter under the force, but he managed to endure thanks to pure willpower, as well as a decent helping of stubbornness. "Y'know," he grumbled out from between clenched teeth, "I'm getting real fucking sick of watching people throw their lives away for bullshit reasons."
His Reiatsu output rose, then abruptly spiked; the tiny blue sparks that had been crackling around the base of his Fangs intensifying into full-fledged arcs of azure lightning.
"I've had about enough of it." The tendrils of electricity arcing between his two blades shifted in hue until they were no longer a bright azure, but a stunning shade of teal, instead.
The color of Grimmjow's estigma.
The color of sky blue and neon green Reiatsu combined.
"Bankai."
The metal of his blades began to warp and expand, and he heard Abarai's breath catch in his throat all the way back up on the lip of the crater.
"Byakkō." [White Tiger King]
It didn't even hurt this time; invoking Bankai alongside Resurreccion. Both halves of his powers were perfectly balanced now, after all.
A high-pitched keening rang through the air as Grimmjow's twin blades carved through Angra's greatscythe, and with a shower of sparks, half of the wicked black scythe went spinning through the air. It embedded itself into the earth five feet away, smoke trailing from the red-hot, perfectly-straight surface of the cut Grimmjow had made.
"You were wrong," Grimmjow began to say in the quiet that followed. "When you called me 'Arrancar' earlier." Slowly, he allowed both blades to dip back down until they were at hip-level. They didn't look anything like Fangs, or even Claws anymore. Instead, attached to the gauntlets covering his forearms were two sleek, curved blades of silvery-gray metal; their lustrous sheen lending them an elegance that belied the savage power they contained.
Grimmjow bared a mouthful of wicked sharp fangs. "...Don't think I really qualify as one anymore."
With a clinical sort of detachment ,Angra Mainyu observed the smoldering stump that used to be its forearm. "...This is unexpected," it eventually admitted, regarding Grimmjow with renewed interest. "That lightning you produced was no result of any Soul Reaper spell, despite all evidence pointing to your innate element being Metal. And yet… no mortal soul could hold two entirely separate elements without tearing itself apart."
Once again, the monster's lips pulled back, and peals of deep, throaty laughter spilled out from between black teeth. "...No one soul, that is. For all the effort you and yours have expended to keep me from sating my hunger, you seem to have had little moral qualms with devouring the leftover scraps of Takahashi Katsumi yourself."
Grimmjow bristled. "As if I'd let any part of that gangly freak get near my mouth," he sneered. "I earned this power. Takahashi left me with the one thing he ever created that didn't turn to shit, just so he'd get to shove his sword up your ass from beyond the goddamn grave."
Angra seemed none too concerned over the prospect. "I see," it mused, calmly striding over to the severed half of its greatscythe and pulling it free of the earth with its remaining hand. "Voluntary assimilation, rather than forced subjugation. In fusing his Bankai with your own, your Shinigami aspect grew powerful enough to balance out its Hollow counterpart. Your polar opposite natures as Visored and Arrancar must have facilitated this process."
Angra chuckled as it turned around again with blade in hand. "He used his own demise not just to give the Quincy a chance to wound me, but to allow you to become whole at the same time. Truly, a ploy Samael could have orchestrated. For all his flaws, I have always been forced to admit that his methods procured results... often to my detriment."
The hairs on the back of Grimmjow's neck stood on end as he listened to the Demon speak. Wherever the hell it was going with this seemingly never-ending soliloquy, Grimmjow was pretty fucking convinced it wouldn't be anywhere good.
No sooner had he thought so than black veins broached the confines of Angra's flesh and invaded the greatscythe's blade; the broken weapon beginning to engorge like a leech growing fat on demonic Ichor. "I believe I shall now repurpose one of his… cleverer feats to suit my own needs."
"Those things came from you?!" Grimmjow blurted out, as he watched the broken scythe reform itself into a far larger, pitch-black greatsword. "Those fucked up 'Relics' your band of lunatics were carrying around were pieces of yourself that you just… carved off like you were some giant pig roast?!"
Angra's horrible smile grew strained; the flesh of its cheeks tearing further. "...Not I," the Demon corrected Grimmjow; the look in its eyes almost intense enough to make him take a step back. "Contrary to what you may believe, I have had very little autonomy throughout these past millennia. Before today, I was Samael's greatest failure and most powerful weapon both. A mere tool to be used... and ultimately discarded. His arrogance may have proved to be his undoing in the end, but not until I had already endured more than two thousand years of his… 'experiments'."
That last word was spat with such vitriol and cold hate backing it that Grimmjow couldn't help but flinch.
"And for what?" the Demon sneered, brandishing its newly-created weapon. "To tame me? To master his stolen power?" It laughed darkly. "Despite his great intelligence and obsessive pursuit of his goals, pale imitations of my divine might were all that Samael's studies managed to produce."
In a matter of seconds, Grimmjow watched a brand-new forearm sprout from the stump on Angra's arm. Only the hole where its heart used to be refused to heal, still.
"Allow me to demonstrate what a God is truly capable of," Angra intoned, running its hand along the flat of the broadsword. Tendrils of dark, Eldritch energies began to crackle atop the weapon's surface as it did, and once the entirety of the blade was covered in a black haze Angra lowered it so that its tip was an inch away from touching the ground.
A tiny patch of compressed earth was wiped from existence as Grimmjow watched, and then he knew exactly what was about to happen. He jumped back, using his powerful leg muscles to launch him all the way back up to the lip of the crater to land next to Abarai, but he shouldn't have bothered.
He'd never been the target to begin with.
Grinning, Angra swung its blade; not at Grimmjow, but straight up at the sky, instead. A pulse of energy so utterly devoid of color that 'black' didn't even begin to do it justice cleaved through the air and slammed home into the center of the second-to-last-barrier sealing off the Royal Realm. Upon impact, that barrier simply ceased to be.
Angra laughed, the sound echoing between the crater walls as Grimmjow and his allies helplessly watched even the final barrier begin to dissolve as well; black corruption spreading like patches of rot along its surface. Just when all hope seemed lost, however, the spread of corruption slowed, and then stopped altogether. Angra's laughter, too, petered out. An unnatural sort of silence descended upon the battlefield in its wake, and Angra's eyes narrowed. "...What is this?"
Grimmjow nervously looked around the clearing, a distinct feeling of trepidation coming over him like a brick plummeting down into his stomach. The fur on his arms stood on end, and even his tail curled around his left leg in an instinctive, involuntary response. His fingers curled and uncurled several times over as he waited for something—anything, to happen.
He didn't have to wait for very long.
"What the hell…?" Abarai murmured under his breath, in a voice so small that even Grimmjow's ears could barely pick up the sound.
One by one, the stars illuminating the night sky were extinguished, leaving total darkness behind in their wake. All around Grimmjow, the shadows on the ground elongated, spreading like ink on paper, until he could barely see more than fifty meters in any direction in spite of his perfect night vision. As he looked up again, even the wafer-thin, badly-damaged final barrier and the window into the Royal Realm beyond were hastily obscured beyond a veil of night.
It was as if that crater and the eight people in and around it were the only things remaining in all of existence; impenetrable black surrounding them on all sides.
Just them, and a bright, golden crescent moon hanging low in the night sky. It only seemed to glow brighter with every successive star that winked out.
Grimmjow couldn't tear his eyes away from it. That golden moonlight seemed almost… familiar. With that thought fresh in his mind, something much like Reiatsu began to press down on Grimmjow and the others; as if the sky itself was trying to crush them beneath its titanic weight.
Except… no. Not them.
Only Angra Mainyu.
"This cannot be," Angra hissed, its teeth audibly grinding together when it clenched its jaw. Grimmjow jumped when the Demon swung its blade once more, sending another crescent of Eldritch energies up into the sky, only for it to be harmlessly swallowed up by the inky abyss overhead.
Grimmjow couldn't help himself. His earlier trepidation dissolved all at once, and Grimmjow threw his head back and laughed; the sound of his deep, baritone voice reverberating all along the clearing.
Slowly, and with its every muscle pulled so taut Grimmjow considered it a miracle they didn't burst straight through the Demon's leathery skin, Angra Mainyu turned to face him. "What could you possibly be laughing about at this stage?" Angra gritted out, its entire body gone stiff with fury. The look in its eyes alone suggested it wanted to pry Grimmjow's skull open just to try and find whatever pathology had made him think this amusing.
It only made him laugh harder. "You still don't get it, do you?!" Grimmjow crowed, in between peals of laughter. "You're fucked!"
The shadows surrounding them began to shift as something lurking within their depths stalked closer.
"You should have never left that tower!" Grimmjow went on, seemingly unable to stop himself. "Hell, you should have just stayed a fucking corpse to begin with!"
A pair of glowing, golden eyes became visible in the dark.
"Impossible…" Angra hissed out. "No neophyte godling could wrest control of this world from me!"
"I didn't."
Grimmjow's laughter subsided right away when Ichigo approached; the shadows seeming to cling to his body as he moved. "I'm not trying to take control," Ichigo explained. "All I'm doing is helping this world defend itself from you."
The shadows parted at last, and Grimmjow openly gaped at what he saw. If his new Bankai blades hadn't been attached to his gauntlets, he probably would have dropped them.
"You understand what that means, don't you?"
At the bottom of the crater, Angra was forced to look up at Ichigo as he stood tall atop the lip of the crater. The Demon's teeth were creaking; its entire frame quivering with white-hot fury.
"Angra..."
The shadows surrounding Ichigo moved at his command when he held out his arm, consolidating into a blade of midnight-black steel. His golden eyes burned bright, not so much as a speck of mercy to be found within their depths. "This world's rejected you," was Ichigo's ice-cold, steel-clad verdict.
"Now get the hell out."