Chapter 3: The Past; Grimmjow's Promotion
After several weeks of training and improvement, Ciara kept her promise by praising Grimmjow's skills to Aizen and how he deserved a promotion. However, he didn't seem all too interested, and the idea simply went over his head. Two months after training Ciara, Grimmjow started to question her. Did she really tell Aizen about him? If so, how long would it take before he got his promotion? He didn't want to be wasting his time training this woman for nothing. She wasn't a pain to work with, but he wasn't one to give other's his time unless he owed them something. And at the moment she still owed him a promotion.
A couple months later, Aizen took the suggestion into consideration. He called Grimmjow to a meeting privately with him and Ciara. The both of them stood before Aizen, there heads slightly bowed.
"Grimmjow, Ciara has told me good things about you, and I will raise your current rank from nine to six if you can complete a task for me."
"What kind of task?"
"Its a mission, I want you and Ciara to retrieve something from somewhere."
"What?" Both Grimmjow and Ciara exclaimed in unison, glancing to each other then to Aizen.
"But Aizen, why do I have to go?" Ciara questioned in a whining tone. Grimmjow was the one who wanted a higher ranking, why would she need to assist him with his mission?
"Yeah, I would rather take my own fraccion than this woman." Grimmjow exclaimed, jerking a thumb to the woman beside him.
Ciara narrowed her eyes. "Oh so your fraccion are so much better than me huh?"
"Tch, I though that was pretty obvious princess. First of all they've got much more experience out in the field and secondly they're men."
"Grimmjow you're such a sexist hot-headed b-"
"Silence, I have already decided that Ciara will be the one accompanying you. I was told you have been training Ciara, so I want to see you two display your skills for me by completing the mission. Afterall what she has learned is what you taught her, unless you've taught her wrong. Do you accept the challenge or would you rather just stay at your current rank?"
There was no way Grimmjow was going to give up a chance like this. "What if I fail the mission?"
"Then it means you didn't make it back, which simply means you died on the mission and someone will fill in your rank. On the mission, besides bringing back what I desire, the both of you must come back alive. Do you hear me Grimmjow ? If you comeback alone you will not receive your promotion, so make your decision, do you wish to complete the mission?"
"I accept."
The corners of Aizen's lips turned up into a small smile. "Excellent, the two of you will depart tomorrow morning."
Right after they exited the throne room Grimmjow and Ciara bursted out into another argument.
"This is all your fault! Why do I have to bring you? You'll only get in the way!" he exclaimed. Sure he had been training Ciara and she had gotten better, but she was still no where near the level of his fraccion. The woman had potential, but at the moment she was still weak. He'd rather take Shawlong with him since he'd listen to all his commands and they'd actually battled side by side before.
Ciara put both hands on her hips, "Excuse me? If it weren't for me, you wouldn't even be getting a promotion!" How dare this bastard blame her, if anything he should be thanking her.
"Says who!?"
"Me!"
Their bickering came to a halt when Ulquiorra appeared in the hallway.
"Ciara, Aizen has informed me about your mission with Grimmjow. You two should stop arguing and prepare for tomorrow. The mission can take a couple days, maybe even up to several weeks depending on your speed."
"No one asked for your advice Ulquiorra, so fuck off," he growled.
Ciara glared at Grimmjow for being so rude to her espada, then gave him a slight bow.
"You're right Ulquiorra, but do you have any advice for the mission?"
"Be careful and don't die." he simply stated and walked off.
"No shit" laughed Grimmjow. Ciara was hoping for slightly more useful advice, but decided to wait and ask him later when Grimmjow was gone.
The next morning Grimmjow and Ciara left for the mission. Before they left they were given a sack containing a map, a compass, and a scroll. Inside the scroll looked like some type of hieroglyphic writing, it seemed like some sort of decoder.
"Why in the world would we need something like that?"
"Beats me, Aizen never told us exactly where we were going, I guess we should just head North East and try to find the place."
Travelling to their destination with sonido speed took them practically an entire day, and when they arrived there lay some ancient ruins with a pyramid in the centre.
"Do you want to take a rest first before we go in?" Their journey there hadn't been difficult, a few hollows here and there, but nothing that they couldn't handle.
"Fine, we'll get a couple hours of shut eyes before heading in."
After several hours of rest and sleep, Grimmjow decided it was time to get on with the mission. The faster they finished, the faster he could get his promotion.
At the entrance of the pyramid, there were a few lit torches, other than that it was pitch black inside with unlit torches along the walls. They grabbed one and started walking through the long hallway. It was almost an hour later until they got to a dead end.
"It looks like there's suppose to be a door here, but it's closed."
"Tch, a door? Just stand back and I'll blast it open."
"No Grimmjow, are you crazy! You can't go blasting walls around here like you do in Hueco Mundo. We're inside an ancient pyramid, if you break any of the supports the whole thing will collapse on us!"
"Well Mrs. know it all, I don't hear any ideas coming from you."
"Let me think..." Dragging her hand against the wall she felt around, hoping to find some sort of secret button. She couldn't find any trigger, but she did feel something on the wall. She felt something engraved on the door, it felt like letters. She closed her eyes and moved her hand along the wall, yes, there was definitely something here. "I think I found something, pass me the torch so I can get a better look."
She brought the torch up close to the wall while she brushed the layer of dirt and sand off the wall. Long and behold there were a bunch of hieroglyphics carved into the wall.
"What the fuck? How are we suppose to read that?"
"In the bag, Aizen gave us the paper with the hieroglyphics, it explains how to translate it."
"Are you fucking kidding me..." Grimmjow grumbled more to himself than to Ciara as he rummaged for the paper. "This is going to fucking take forever."
Ciara wanted to roll her eyes at him and call him an impatient baby, but he was right, this would take some time. It wasn't too hard to translate the hieroglyphics, but being stuck in a dark, cramped pyramid made her feel exhausted.
"What the fuck does it say?" he asked impatiently.
"It says: Forget about the guiding light and let darkness be your path."
"What's that suppose to mean? We're arrancar's, we're already full of evil and darkness."
"True, then maybe there not referring to darkness as in evil, but as in when you have the lights off."
"So what?" he grumbled. Couldn't this woman just get to the point.
"I think we have to put the torch out."
"Why would we fuckin' do that? It'll we pitch black in here and we won't be able to see a thing!"
"Well I'm pretty sure that's what the Hieroglyphics say, do you have a better idea?"
"Tch, fine, but don't get what putting out the light will do."
Grimmjow took the torch from Ciara's hand and blew out the fire.
For the first few seconds nothing happened, both of them were just standing in the darkness together. Grimmjow was about to yell at Ciara for her stupid idea, but then something happened. Parts of the wall started to glow.
"It's some sort of limestone that only glows in pure darkness." Ciara whispered, fascinated by the scene before her.
The door still wasn't open, but there were two set of glowing lines along the wall that led several meters back, one pointing up into the ceiling, the other pointing to the side of the wall.
Ciara walked over to the side of the wall. "There's some type of switch here, Grimmjow check the spot on the ceiling."
"Yeah, there's one here too."
They pressed it at the same time and held in the switch, they could soon hear the sound of the door opening and a lit path on the other side.
Door after door they translated the set of hieroglyphics to open the door and into another hallway. As they got deeper into the pyramid, the hallways grew smaller and the ceiling lower.
"Fuck, my back is killing me," Grimmjow complained as they continued to unlock more doors. The ceiling was only about 5'5 now, so there was no way he could stand up straight.
"I guess there are some benefits of being short, lucky me. You know you could always crawl on your paws like the cat you are," Ciara teased.
"Bitch." he spat.
Each riddles on the door grew harder and took more time to solve. They had probably taken a couple days already. After about the twelth door, it finally opened to reveal what looked like the chamber of the pyramid. The room was fairly large and was well lit. At least now Grimmjow could stand up straight without the worry of hitting his head.
In the middle of the room was a pedestal with a shiny golden object.
"That must be the thing Aizen wants."
"Are you sure? It just seems too easy."
"Well Aizen said to take him back whatever is hidden in the chamber. It already took us a couple days to open all those fuckin' doors. If you ask me it was a mere test of patience and wits."
Nicara let out a small snort. "Yeah, I guess that's why Aizen wanted me to go, if it were you and your fraccion you guys wouldn't have made it past the first door."
Grimmjow gave a growl at her antic but nonetheless headed towards the pedestal and placed the object into his sack.
"Let's get back to Hueco Mundo, Woman."
Ciara nodded, and they both headed back to the door they came from, that's when they felt an unknown presence enter the room. They looked back to see what looked like an adjuchas.
"So you two are the intruders, and you taken our most prized possession, now you shall both die!"
Grimmjow tossed the bag to Ciara, "I'll give you a head start woman, but don't run too slow cause it won't take me long to take care of this guy." Ciara nodded, and headed down the hallway while Grimmjow faced the adjuchas. "You know what adjuchas, you've caught be in a good mood, I've been waiting for a decent fight."
Ciara sonido through the dark passageways and smiled in victory when she saw the moonlight radiating just outside. When she stepped out into the light, she was not free as she hoped, instead she was greeted by two adjuchas and a swarm of gillians.
"You dared to enter our territory, prepare to die!" it roared.
"Fuck, " she muttered under her breath. She quickly leapt into the air to dodge an attack only to find herself fully surrounded by the enemies. Her heart began racing and panic set in, there was no way she could take down all of them at once. Stay calm, she told herself. Now what would master Ulquiorra want me to do in this situation besides staying focused?
"Hang on, I don't want to fight. You guys want back the thing we took? Here, take it." Ciara offered, throwing the contents of the sack onto the sand and letting them spill out.
When the two adjuchas directed their eyes to the bag's contents, Ciara used this opportunity to fire a cero at them. From the corner of her eye she saw the colour blue emerge from the pyramid. Just in time.
She knew the cero would cause the adjuchas to split apart, one to the right, the other to the left. From the reiatsu she could sense, the right one was weaker, so she had a better chance of killing that one while Grimmjow could take care of the other. After she fired her cero, she followed to the right of it and attacked the adjuchas while it was dodging the cero.
The adjuchas tumbled into the sand, hissing from the pain. "You little bitch!"
Ciara went in for another kick, but the adjuchas dodged just in time causing her to released the blow directly at the ground. The adjuchas took this opportunity to claw against her leg, leaving a large gash across her thigh.
"Haha! Got ya!" it sneered.
Ciara sonido several yards back, but looked at the adjuchas with skeptical eyes. "You really think a scratch on my leg is going to take me down?" she half demanded. Did the adjuchas think she was that weak? It was an insult to say the least.
The adjuchas grinned, "Oh, but it's not just a scratch, can you feel it yet? The poison running through your veins?"
Ciara's eyes widened. Shit. She was going to have to finish this adjuchas and get healed quickly before it was too late.
X
After Grimmjow had finished killing the adjuchas he quickly flashed out of the pyramid to catch up with Ciara. When he reached outside there were a bunch of gillians and two adjuchas who were in the middle of dodging a cero. He saw Ciara go for the arrancar to her right. I guess that leaves the other one to me.
This adjuchas seemed slightly stronger than the one he battled inside the chamber, but it still wouldn't be much of a challenge. He toyed with the adjuchas by landing a couple hits, but eventually got bored and took out pantera to slice the hollows across his mask.
"And here I was hoping you'd be more of a challenge," Grimmjow said to the dead adjuchas. "This mission turned out to be more boring than I thought." Once he finished off the adjuchas, he noticed the swarm of gillians head to the direction where Ciara was battling.
From what Grimmjow could see, Ciara was about a hundred meters away, but it looked like she had defeated the adjuchas, but then she slowly collapsed onto the sand as well. Several gillians reached for her body, lifting it into the air and charged a cero.
Grimmjow quickly sonido towards her and cut off the gillians hands, causing Ciara to fall midair. Before Grimmjow could catch Ciara's body though, someone intercepted the catch and snatched her body away. It looked like an Arracar or Vasto Lorde, but it wasn't part of Aizen's army, he could tell because it was wearing a black hakama, rather than an arrancar uniform. Something about their reiatsu was also off, it wasn't quite like the typical arrancar.
"Give me back that woman!" he hollered.
The hollow shook his head. "Never." he simply said, and then he disappeared.
Grimmjow's eye's grew wide, he needed that woman in order to get his promotion, if he lost her things weren't going to end well for him. "Bastard, get the fuck back here!"
He sprinted on all fours, but a couple of other meno's appeared, which distracted him and slowed him down. While he was busy cutting through the enemies in front of him, one of the Gillians changed a cero and attacked him from behind.
"Damn it," he grunted as he landed in the sand. That arrancar was getting away. From a distance, he could still see the hollow carrying Ciara, but they eventually disappeared from his sight.
"FUCK!" he yelled loudly into the open desert. He was injured, tired, and now he had to find the woman whom he has no idea where she is. What was he suppose to do now?
Ciara groaned as her body ached, but she could feel she was lying on something soft. Someone had just placed something on her face and she could feel a hand touching her forehead. She managed to open her eyes and spot a familiar face.
"Ashido?!" she gasped, trying to back away slightly only to have her movements restricted due to her injuries. How was this possible? How could a shinigami like him be alive out here. Was she dreaming, or had she joined him in hell?
He smiled at her reaction. "I'm glad you still recognized me, Ciara."
"How could I not? You were one of his best friends. But when you guys didn't make it back, we all thought you died. Are there others still alive?"
He shook his head sadly. "No, everyone is gone, I'm the only one left."
"How did you know it was me, and why did you bring me here?"
"I didn't recognize you at first because your reiatsu is completely different now, but I spotted you with a blue haired arrancar and a bunch of menos. I saw you unconscious and I knew I had to save you. The blue haired arracar wanted me to hand you over, but I managed to outrun him. "
"Shit, I'm actually on a mission with that blue haired arracar, Grimmjow."
"So you're one of them now." Ashido confirmed to himself more than asked.
Ciara nodded with sadness in her eyes. "But you must've noticed that when you saved me didn't you? Why didn't you just let me die, or better yet kill me yourself?"
He looked at her with serous eyes. "I would never be able to do that Ciara. Kaede loved you so much."
Ciara shook her head. "I don't think he loved me anymore after he found out what I really was. You seem more calm about it than he was."
"You're wrong Ciara. Whenever I was with Kaede, the only thing he would talk about was you. You meant everything to him and he was ready to spend the rest of his life with you. I swear he was ready to marry you, but he didn't want to scare you away in case you weren't ready for that kind of commitment."
"He did propose to me, but I rejected him because he didn't know yet. And then when he found out the truth, he couldn't look me in the face anymore. I knew that would happen if he found out, but part of me was hoping he could see past that and love me like he said he would. "
"He still loved you. He didn't tell me about your secret, but now that I know all I can say he must've been really shocked, and just needed to clear his head and remember the reason he loves you."
Ciara started to cry, thinking about him only made her heart ache. While she hugged her knees as she cried in her lap, Ashido gently patted her back.
After a couple minutes of non-stop tears, she managed to pull herself together. "I..I need to get back to Grimmjow," she sniffled.
"Don't force yourself Ciara, you're still in a really bad condition. I just got all the poison out, but you should rest for another day or two okay? "
Ciara nodded and laid back down.
"Get some more sleep, I'm going to go out and find some more herbs from a nearby forrest."
After taking care of the gillians, Grimmjow had found a nearby cave and decided to take a rest and attempt to come up with a plan. He wanted so badly to return to Hueco Mundo, but without the woman he couldn't go back. Without the woman, he couldn't go back or get his promotion. All because of that woman he is in this damn situation. If he wanted anything good to happen, he'd have to find her, assuming she is still alive. He could only hope that the hollow that took her hadn't killed her yet, otherwise he was as good as dead.
Grimmjow eventually decided to keep going in the north direction in search of Ciara, because he knew that arrancar was heading that way before he lost him. He travelled a short distance before he felt that familiar reiatsu and hid behind a tree to see that arrancar pop up from the ground and heading East.
So that's his hiding spot. Grimmjow went underground and spotted a cave about twenty meters away. He could sense a familiar reiatsu coming from inside; It felt weak, but he knew it belonged to Ciara. He ran in there to find her sleeping, never had he felt so relieved to see the woman alive.
He quickly flung Ciara's body over his back, not caring if she woke up or not, and headed back to that nearby cave he was resting in earlier.
Ciara seemed okay at first, but after a couple hours she started to shiver, and her forehead was boiling hot. "Its so cold..." she muttered.
Grimmjow wanted to ditch Ciara and return to Hueco Mundo but he knew that would be a big mistake. They didn't have any blankets, the only thing he knew was that body heat is the quickest and most effective way to warm another person in this situation. Hesitantly, he stripped themselves out of their clothes leaving them in only their undergarments, using their clothes as blankets.
Grimmjow had slept with many women before, but for some reason he felt awkward pressing Ciara against his body. He almost felt guilty, though he was doing no wrong. However, he is a man and she is a woman. Their bodies were pressed against one another, so he couldn't help but have dirty thoughts run through his mind. She was helpless right now, he could do whatever he wanted and she wouldn't be able to stop him.
Taking a look at her sleeping face, he tilted her chin up and placed his face in the crook of her neck. Shit. What the fuck was he doing? He didn't even find the woman attractive and despised her because she's Aizen's little princess and yet he was about to try and fuck her. He needed to get a grip. He quickly pulled away and gave the unconscious woman a glare before turning her around so that her back was pressed against his chest.
During the night, her fever slowly died down. Grimmjow sighed in relief when he felt her forehead and it was no longer boiling hot, he would finally be able to get some sleep.
Early next morning, Ciara woke up. At first her eyes stayed closed, but then she smelt a unique aroma while breathing in and out. She wasn't exactly comfortable, parts of her body felt sore, but it was definitely warm and cozy. That's when she realized there was a hand around her waist and resting on her thigh. She quickly opened her eyes to find herself in the arms of Grimmjow. Her first reaction was to scream very loudly, waking Grimmjow in the process.
"What the fuck!" Grimmjow shouted. He barely got any sleep, so waking up to a screaming woman was not pleasant at all.
"That's my line! What fuckin' happened?!" Ciara screeched as she quickly tried to cover her body from Grimmjow's view with the bits of clothing.
"What happened? You got your ass kicked by a fuckin' adjuchas then I had to find you cause some arrancar kidnapped you. And after all that all I get is a few hours of sleep only to be waken up by a woman screaming in my face!"
Ciara felt a little guilty now, but she didn't want to admit it. He must've been really worried and thought that Ashido had killed her, when really he was just a old friend. However, she couldn't tell him that.
"Well that doesn't explain why we're sleeping with each other half naked!" She backfired, trying to put back the blame on him.
"You had a fuckin fever, and as you can see there ain't no blankets out here. If I didn't have to bring your sorry ass back in a good condition in order to get my promotion, I would've fuckin carried your dead body back with me to Hueco Mundo!"
She crossed her arms across her chest. "Well then I guess I should thank Aizen for making me a criteria for your promotion cause you obviously don't care for your comrades."
"My comrades? You're joking right? Its every arrancar for themselves. What are you, a fuckin' shinigami?" he joked. Ciara, on the other hand, looked at Grimmjow with serious eyes.
"Maybe I am," she answered coldly.
Grimmjow was taken aback by her response and was about to press on about the topic. However, he he wanted to hurry back to Hueco Mundo as soon as possible, so he decided to drop the subject and focus back on the whole purpose of this mission.
"Hurry up and get dressed. Since you seem fine now, lets get back to Hueco Mundo."
She didn't argue with him and did as he suggested.
After several hours and a couple run ins with some hollows they finally arrived back at the palace. "Grimmjow, Ciara, I see the two of you are finally back. I take it you have the item with you as well?"
Grimmjow took the brown sack bag off and threw it towards Aizen, the contents spilling out for him to see.
Aizen looked at the contents and nodded.
"Excellent, you have completed the mission with success Grimmjow. As promised you will now be the sixth espada. Report to the infirmary tomorrow where you will get your new tattoo. The two of you are now dismissed."
Once they walked out of the room, Grimmjow gave a loud cheer of excitement.
"Hear that princess? I'm the sexta espada now!"
Ciara rolled her eyes. "Yeah, all thanks to me," she muttered.
Unfortunately Grimmjow heard and a growling sound escaped his throat. He was about done with the woman's bitchy attitude, always thinking everything evolved around her. "Yer kidding right? If I hadn't killed that menos grande, you'd be fuckin' dead and Aizen would probably kill me."
"Wait, exactly how did one of the gillians almost kill me?"
"How the fuck would I know? It looked like you took care of the adjuchas but then you end up fainting onto the ground."
The Poison. So he really did save her, but was it because he wanted to or because he had too? Either way, she was feeling slightly guilty for not thanking him. She stopped in her tracks, wanting to thank Grimmjow, but the words just got caught in her throat. Instead of showing him gratitude, she ended up asking him a question. "Since you got your promotion now, will you still train me every afternoon?"
Before turning around to give her an answer, Grimmjow stopped to think as well. It was a good question. The whole reason he agreed to train her was so he would get a promotion, but now that he got it was there anything in it for him? It's not like she would be able to get him another promotion anytime soon.
"Tch, what kind of dumb question is that? The deals over. I trained you for three damn months and now I finally got my promotion. Why the fuck would I continue to train you?"
Ciara sighed, she had a feeling he'd say something along those lines. She might have enjoyed training with him, but like he said, it was everyone for themselves. She might have appreciated his presence and company. but to him she was nothing but a stepping stone for a promotion. He was just like the rest of the arrancar, the only thing they want is more power.
She gave a small snort and faced away from him as she spoke. "You're right, what am I doing asking a silly question like that? Well then I guess I'll see you around."
As Ciara began to walk away, Grimmjow couldn't help but notice the change of tone in her voice. She almost sounded... hurt? No, that couldn't be it, what would she feel hurt about? "Yeah whatever, see you around, princess..."
End of Chapter 3.
A/N:
-Guest, rainydaywritings, Amelie'sHuman, Ella-chan, Jenna, thanks for the reviews and feedback so far! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter as well!
-So everyone remembers who Ashido is right? I think he only showed up in the Anime, but he is a shinigami that got stuck in Hueco Mundo with his friends and is the only survivor. He basically lives in Hueco Mundo and wears this outfit made from an arrancar skulls.
-Awww, so Grimmjow told her no. When I first wrote the chapter he actually says yes because he has nothing else better to do, but then I changed it because I thought this way he stays more in character and because they technically haven't developed much of a relationship yet.
-Next update: uhhh...I honestly don't know. All I can say is I do put up status updates on my profile about once a month so you can check there sometimes.