Via Dolorosa
"I'm not taking your hand like a maiden !"
"Grimmjow, you've gone blind! You can't fight me on this!" Ichigo's outstretched hand remained open, unlike his rival's patience snapping taut.
"I can see enough to get where we're going. Not like I have to worry about slamming into a dog or anything . . ."
When Ichigo had come out of the trance Grimmjow had been watching peculiarly. He'd noticed Pantera at the ready, but it was so quick the realization disappeared when he began to gasp for air, feeling as if he'd actually drowned in that upright pool. Ichigo pitched forward, feeling as if he'd vomit. He wanted to vomit.
Grimmjow was tense, more than before. What had he seen ? Ichigo could only wonder. And his window to ask had been locked shut, blinds drawn.
"Did you find him?" Grimmjow asked with a hot tone. His aggravation was clear in those words, stemming from the thing Ichigo couldn't understand.
He took a moment to collect his visions. That trip had taken more out of Ichigo than he realized, offering how he found Ishida on the brink of his awareness. Grimmjow appeared torn about that.
When he mentioned Aizen that's what broke Grimmjow. He took a step back, possibly not realizing he'd done so. Spooked.
Then the bomb dropped.
A deep reverberation of temple bells rang in Ichigo's ears, the toll hitting his very soul with its quintessence.
The distance its sound crossed made Ichigo feel he'd heard it from another lifetime. With his clarified connection to Yhwach, maybe he had.
Though the melody reminded Ichigo of home, of a nurturing embrace. It was not the painful shout of Yhwach's burdens.
It beckoned him to come back.
Warmth. Good fortune. Love.
All would be received if he simply turned around.
Yhwach expected him to.
It was why he was going along with Grimmjow's cryptic bullshit.
Ichigo would never admit it—but he was terrified.
Of all of it.
His visions. The bodies. Ragnarok. The demons lying in wait behind Apollo's sun gate until Yhwach set them loose on the world.
He looked to the sky as if he was at the very base of Sôkyoku hill all over again, craning his neck to see the top of the execution platform. He swallowed, throat tight and thick as pressure from above eased onto him with a firm press. The fact he knew he was being used once again for ploys he couldn't begin to fathom beside be the hero almost jarred a laugh from Ichigo.
A thrum of ozone filled the atmosphere and pumped with rivulets of lightning.
What that angry sky gave him was a fading memory, pulling itself—and a lot of Ichigo's confidence—away like a receding tide.
Only his incomparable partner remained steadfast, hanging back as he waited for Ichigo to make his move.
And he had to move.
Ichigo only meant to hold his hand out as another form of truce. Trust.
To which Grimmjow needed to ruin and be a total bitch about. Anything to have an argument with Ichigo. And he thought Grimmjow might rely on him? Hah !
He stuffed that hand into his pocket and gave the middle finger.
Cheeks pinked with fluster Grimmjow's gruff voice announced, "The trail we need to arrive at Golgotha is called Via Dolorosa. Hollows would do battle there, and the victor would split the skull of his adversary, sacrificed in Barragan's honor. Not saying you'd be able to sense the bloodshed after all this time but see if you can pinpoint the energy of those killed."
Ichigo looked back at Grimmjow. "Seems kinda redundant to search for the energy of a kill."
"Listen, I'm doing you a favor telling you anything at all. Via Dolorosa isn't noticeable. I've never even seen it."
Ichigo took a breath, sighed with exasperation.
The song in his head continued to say come . . . "So why is it called the Way of Suffering ?"
Grimmjow blinked, raising a brow that he'd understood what it meant.
"I don't know the whole story. Many Hollows would battle against one another along the route to Golgotha. If they were lucky enough to find Barragan's court, he might grant them the honor of being part of his council or whatever. I'm sure Nelliel's book explains it all," he added under his breath. "But many adjuchas have died trying to accomplish that goal as well. Those that tried and won would end up back on the route, waiting for the next Hollow to come by and fight them to find out who was stronger. It was an endless cycle. Fight for pride, win, gain a sliver of honor, then be released to fight again and maybe win once more. There's no gain . . . just misery. I can't say for certain what I'm telling you is the truth. I just have a rough idea. But I don't think we're walking into a bear trap."
"You never tried something like that?"
"What makes you say that?" Grimmjow asked flat.
"Just seems like something you'd do," Ichigo shrugged. "Always fighting to get to the top."
Grimmjow grunted, mottled red irises giving him a nasty side-eye. "Well your observation isn't wrong. Except that is a newer concept to me. I heard the rumors about Golgotha only weeks before we crossed Aizen. We were looking for Via Dolorosa when he found us."
Confusion was in Ichigo's voice when he said, "We?"
"My fracción."
The endless chanting in the back of his mind finally stalled at the concept. Grimmjow's fracción . . . ? Oh.
It didn't hit Ichigo until exactly that moment who those arrancar were when Grimmjow first appeared in Karakura town. It had felt like such a struggle then to beat them. Him.
A rabid pack of wolves in heat with only one way to satiate them—bloodshed.
Compared to now fighting his gang had been cake. It'd taken ridiculous effort: Rukia stabbed, his friends mangled, Ichigo nearly blown away in the hellfire. But Grimmjow's fracción had all been defeated. He supposed it counted as a small victory.
Grimmjow gave a rumbling laugh, a strained look coming to Ichigo's eyes.
A small victory? Nah.
Grimmjow grinned ear-to-ear in that similar wolfish aggression his gang had. "Never thought to ask, but was it you or your short girlfriend who did D-Roy in?" His tone increased to match the toxic glimmer of his blank stare. "Ever wonder why those bandages were around his mask?"
Grimmjow was goading Ichigo with proud languish, seeing the pain all too well in his clouded eyes.
Ichigo narrowed his gaze and corrected Grimmjow. "Rukia was the one who defeated him. I got knocked on the sidelines while she played Ice Capades with him. Never got a chance to tango with D-Roy." Ichigo gave a wry smile. "Was too busy doing that with you."
Grimmjow made a face at his playful tone, clearly remembering something other than that. "Che. You were a bitch back then and still're one now! Shoulda pulled out my sword quicker."
"I think Tôsen would've stopped you either way."
He hissed at hearing Tôsen's name.
Good. Seemed Ichigo won that spat and smirked to himself while he could.
. . . come, Ichigo! . . . come . . .
Ichigo focused, wanting to rouse those slain little flecks from the elusive path.
"I don't enjoy being your bloodhound, by the way."
"Why don'tcha go cry to your mother about it?"
Heat flared within Zangetsu as Ichigo grit his teeth. "I wish I could . . ."
Find the reiatsu of those long gone who had been killed while mixed in battle. Sure .
He couldn't feel the flicker of anything for miles. Their location was calm from what he felt, deep and vast. Hollows weren't anywhere near them. Ichigo hadn't meant to say it aloud, words slipping past his lips in a shushed whisper before he knew they were out. "What can Barragan do once we find him?"
It was an ocean of sand out there, no schools of fish, barely noticing that one gliding buoy beneath—
"King."
Ichigo's eyes snapped open, feeling Zangetsu swell inside him and push his consciousness down, enough to make him a spectator.
A song took him to the sea.
Shun-po moved him with hurry, Grimmjow scrambling to keep up. Missteps and numerous stumbles had the comments bitter and colored with a rainbow of swears. How ridiculous this was while Kurosaki lead, slipping into sand pits the equivalent of potholes just to spite the Sexta. "I'll take that hand now, you sonofabitch !"
The spitfire comment made Ichigo laugh. Zangetsu oddly held his tongue.
Possibly because death was only a few miles away.
The sky was changing above them as they moved. An invisible hand caressed the storm as it stretched forward, clouds spinning around each joint like smoke rings. The hot sun that'd scorched their skin appeared only once more, choked quickly by clouds eager to keep the light away. No mimicry of beauty marked the day had gone. It only blended into a nightscape, shading from marine to dusk to night.
Askin might have been the death-dealing Quincy wizard—his snappy intent to kill was light years away from the encroachment each step forced higher up on his ankles, calves, knees, making it ache to move. Ichigo wouldn't say his knees buckled, but it was enough to garner a strange look from his partner, impeded by his sight as it was. The more they went the more imposing it welled inside Ichigo's chest, dropping heavier and deeper until the leader stopped without understanding why his feet halted so suddenly and Zangetsu pulled back.
Ichigo again looked up.
There were no stars in Hueco Mundo.
Not before.
Here they were being arranged with a robust hand.
A glimmer. A wink. A scintillating clash to amuse the night.
Grimmjow too looked to the sky, squinting until his dark eyelashes almost touched his cheeks.
"What am I looking at, Kurosaki?"
"Stars."
Complete confusion had erased Grimmjow's normal glower.
Ichigo took their pause to inhale the static air, cold and tingling against his nostrils. Ichigo closed his eyes and used his senses like a beacon, appearing on the outside he was double checking his internal compass, but that wasn't totally it.
One thing that bothered Ichigo immensely was not sensing the girls amongst all those souls. Nel and Orihime's auras weren't seen or recognized in his powerhouse attempt to seek Barragan. They'd vanished completely . . . or something worse he refused to believe.
"Why would He bring stars to Hueco Mundo ?" Grimmjow's rhetorical question was dreamlike, wondery. It reminded Ichigo of something Orihime might mutter between clasped hands. Certainly not the Sexta .
His eyes fluttered open, staring at their blank elements.
Sand, sand, nothing but sand. A beautiful world uninterrupted by skyscrapers or cars, or other people for that matter.
Just a buzz to keep making Zangetsu spin around like a dog chasing its tail.
"Kinda quiet over there," Grimmjow commented from his left, hand on the pommel of his sword, studying Ichigo with his minimal sight.
"Just thinking," Ichigo replied. That was the cadence of the adversary he knew. Not that strange, turn of the wrist . . . whatever vibe he got. "What do you think I was thinking about?"
"I could take a guess," was his answer. "Probably doubting your abilities or whatever you like to self-depreciate yourself about. Telling yourself you don't have a handle on things when you probably have a better shot than most."
Ichigo looked at him with an odd demeanor, astounded by the comment. "Grimmjow . . . "
Grimmjow strolled past him and stopped, taking an extended whiff of the air. A sigh burned in his throat, clearly not able to scent whatever he'd been trying to detect.
"Does Via Dolorosa have a smell?" Ichigo asked.
"If it did, I assume you'd be able to taste it in your mouth by now," he supplied. "No, it's definitely a feeling. Your knees have been shaking since we stopped to stargaze," he added dryly.
Ichigo hadn't realized that. Grimmjow added with a tone of knowing, "The sand is beginning to change."
He scooped a boot out from the side of the hill to show Ichigo the difference in coarseness compared to fifty some yards behind them. It wasn't much of a shift in color, except his boot was noticeably covered in a damp clump worthy for a sandcastle.
Ichigo found himself staring at the world around them. "We're nowhere near water."
Grimmjow smirked at Ichigo, another secret itching to be told behind those perfect fangs.
"That's the thing about Hueco Mundo. Not everything unusual was created by Aizen. Guess I was wrong about that."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
They didn't have time to turn it into a proper staring contest (not that Grimmjow would've won). Grimmjow gripped Ichigo around the bicep and dragged him up the remainder of hill through the suckling sand. He stated playfully, "The casa del espejo means "mirror house." Assuming you've used one before, it only reflects what looks back at you, catch my drift?"
"Sure," Ichigo replied with a stiff tongue. He was too busy scowling at Grimmjow to watch where they were going, barely acknowledging they'd gone over the dune and stopped descending. "Can I have my arm back?"
Grimmjow clicked his tongue. "Look in front of you, Kurosaki."
The teenage punk inside him declared this was not a loss if he broke eye contact. So he did. And Ichigo did a double-take when he saw why.
He was looking at himself.
A flawless, polished image of both he and Grimmjow looking their absolute goddamned worst.
Grimmjow dropped his hold on Ichigo and folded his arms, brooding while Ichigo wrapped his head around . . . this .
A mirror which touched the sky. Extending for . . . shit, who knows. Ichigo hesitated to place his hand on the peerless image of himself, thinking back to his vision. It bothered him to know something was behind that glass. Slumbering, waiting. He sensed it as if the smooth glass had pores, breathing out deep. Made sense now why he wasn't getting much feeling out here. His radar bounced back.
"How'd you know this was here?"
"I didn't. You were the leader, remember?"
"Grimmjow."
"Kurosaki the only reason is because of the sand. And I had a hunch." He huffed. "I didn't know another one of these things existed. Why the hell would Aizen bother building this allll the way out here?" Grimmjow gestured at their reflections, a mocking sort of grin appearing soon after as an idea came to him. "Heh, guess this is the reason we never came across Via Dolorosa the first time," he added, indicating his lost fracción. "Fitting name, because you'll go mad and suffer trying to find it."
"Looks like there're a lot of things we'll go mad about, even if Aizen didn't create this. We still have Yhwach deciding how to screw with us next."
Grimmjow made a noise of resentful agreement, tapping an index finger on his arm while he thought.
"We should be able to go through it," Grimmjow stated, switching back to the mirror before them. "Think like it's more of a mirage than a gigantic solid object jutting out of the desert," he joked.
Ichigo paled. That barely provided one square-inch of comfort.
Grimmjow put his palm upward, hovering over the reflection of the scar crossing his chest. If eyerolls were audible, Grimmjow's call would've been that of a bird of prey. "I'll go through the same time as you do. Coward," he snorted, shaking his head, and it brought a small twist to Ichigo's lips.
He copied Grimmjow. "Ready?"
Both their palms pressed the glass and pushed . . . to which . . . nothing happened.
"What!" Grimmjow shouted, enraged as he slapped his palm against his reflection once more.
"Great idea," Ichigo complained, Grimmjow continuing to fuss over the mirror.
"King, turn around."
A look over his shoulder and Ichigo swore, although in amazement.
A song had taken them to a sea after all.
And it was here the sea undulated. It was rough and choppy, much like a real ocean in storming discourse. It shouldn't have moved the way it did, shouldn't have made Ichigo nauseous by the sweep of current running back and forth over the dunes. It moved too much. Alive. Like something was out there, waiting beneath it all, quiet in its approach as it stalked them.
Or whatever it was about him that had Zangetsu raging within his grasp to prepare for battle.
"It's actually moving," Grimmjow confirmed with scrunched features. Ichigo was thankful for that. Now he needn't worry he'd been seeing things. Weirder things.
"What else is in Hueco Mundo, Grimmjow?"
All intel the Soul Society gathered about Hueco Mundo, the shinigami clearly had never seen what else existed in the Hollows' world.
Kurotsuchi might have invested a good chunk of his time here after Aizen departed, uncovering specimens, gathering geographic maps and data of the dip and rise of gritty mountain ranges, but Hueco Mundo was clearly not only comprised of sand, some bare shrubs and a gigantic fortress.
"Dunno. Didn't think Via Dolorosa had sank."
"What else is out here," Ichigo repeated terse, each syllable enunciated.
Grimmjow scratched his neck as he thought. "You won't find cities like in the living world. Won't find hundreds of purged bodies on the outskirts of poverty like those shitty prefectures in Soul Society."
"What?" Ichigo turned. "How would you know—?"
"I know. Urahara," he said, as if the name alone was the reason for all unanswered questions. "He showed us images of what his old company did to keep balance. Did you even know?" Grimmjow cocked his head in question.
Ichigo clearly didn't know. Another thing to keep his stomach unsettled.
Grimmjow kept on. "Hueco Mundo has nothing like that. That's the thing. What does Hueco Mundo mean? Hollow. World. Empty land. Absent of the sins sponsored in the other realms."
"There's still murder," Ichigo countered.
"Kill or be killed, you mean? Pff, that's instinct. Fine you little shit, Hueco Mundo isn't completely absent of the other realms' sins. But there're less reasons to want to sin." His hand went to the woven thread of his sword and held it, Ichigo imagining a painful emptiness there.
"What greed when there's no profit? What power when it simply runs through your fingers? What adultery when there's no one to fuck?"
"How the hell did you get so off topic," Ichigo whined. A hand slapped to his face, cheeks roasting with sudden heat.
A cackle settled into his throat, mocking Ichigo's prudishness with a new twist to his sadistic flair. Grimmjow leered with that ragged smile of his. "Like I said. I know things. Still. Here and there. Made up of hundreds and hundreds of souls," and he knocked against his chest proudly. "Just because I don't have a reason to do it doesn't mean I don't know how."
"Please stop talking."
"Haha! But you get my point. We have a sea. Apparently. Might even have an ocean. Got a moon," and he pointed at the sky, completely in the wrong spot where the waning orb sat. "There're some caverns and dens where the gillians spawn. Probably more casa del espejos. Barragan's temple. Lhasa. The Southern red desert . . ."
Ichigo turned at hearing that. "Red desert?"
"Adobe. I don't know color theory, Kurosaki. Same as the soil where Lhasa lived. Want me to say burgundy ?"
"That's more brown."
"Fine. The color of my fucking eyes then!" Grimmjow roared, pointing to all the raw wounds his eyeballs purged from his tear ducts.
Ichigo frowned. "Okay. Sorry. How much can you see now?"
Grimmjow tsked. "Still see your stupid face unfortunately. Your hair. Obviously."
His smile ticked upward. "Enough sight to get you to Barragan, I wage."
Grimmjow gave a noise of uncertainty, kicking a bit of powdered slag with the toe of his boot.
"Don't think he'll help me with this. Why should he? We were never friends. Never exactly mingled with anyone other than my fracción."
"No one?"
His lips made a thin line. "Nnoitora. Ulquiorra . . . Fuckers." Another kick. "Since Aizen? Harribel and her sea urchins on occasion. Nelliel twice before the Quincies showed up."
"Really . . ."
It was clear Grimmjow didn't know how to take that. "Why? Think we should've made out?"
"Gross, no !" Ichigo objected. "Not that again! I meant it's harmful when you can't rely on anyone."
"Like how you want me to rely on you," he replied with a dry tone. Blind eyes were tossed on Ichigo, incredulous look in them all the same. There was a rumbling hum of laughter in his voice, shaking his head free of the idea. "I get it. You did me a favor earlier. Thank you," was his growl of false appreciation. "I am relying on you, Kurosaki . . . relying on Barragan will be different however." Grimmjow's blank gaze fell on the sea. "Convincing El rey Pálido why he should help us and begging for some kind of reprieve won't be tolerated. Not with Lhasa being swallowed," he said, setting his words down delicate, as if balanced on a tightrope.
"Hueco Mundo is a host to many secrets. I've seen a lot of this forsaken world as an adjuchas, but clearly that don't mean I've seen it all. Bet you can say the same when it comes to the world of the living. Travel far and long enough and you'll find out exactly why yokai adore eating villages."
Grimmjow snickered at his bad one-liner and Ichigo grunted, for Grimmjow had probably been one of those yokai—a.k.a. Hollow—terrorizing the villagers.
The rumble of his laugh made Ichigo glance at him, at the splay of open chest beneath Grimmjow's torn jacket, remembering those papers stuffed under there. The title page of The Swift was still in Ichigo's pocket, a secret of his own.
He'd read everything when Grimmjow was unconscious, yet nothing mentioned a hidden sea or written alias as to why the mirror house protected the remainder of Via Dolorosa, Golgotha if he really thought about it.
Also, reality check—rely on Grimmjow? He said he was relying on Ichigo now. Still, he wanted to test his loyalty and see if Grimmjow would slip and tell Ichigo something he didn't want getting out. Bit of a dirty angle; they'd done much worse to each other in the past.
". . . What about those pages you're hiding? What do they say?"
"I think I would've remembered if the papers got animated about a giant swimming pool hiding behind a jumbo sky wall, Kurosaki."
"C'mon, they don't say anything unusual at all? Like to pique your curiosity?"
"That's what killed the cat, ain't it?"
"Oh my god. . . "