A/N: Yay, a new chapter! Some interesting developments for our heroine. Also, warning for language: Grimmjow is a pottymouth.
Enjoy! As always, thanks for your lovely reviews :)
Grimmjow took a step into the room, kicking a piece of debris out of the way.
"Grimmjow!" Loly glared at the blue-haired arrancar.
"Hey," he drawled. "You seem to be having fun sneaking around while Ulquiorra's busy."
"What of it?" she demanded. "It's got nothing to do with you! What do you think you're doing here?!"
"You seemed like you were having so much fun, I thought I'd join," he explained. "What kind of game was it you were playing? Something like—this?"
In a movement Orihime could barely catch, a muscular arm sent Loly flying suddenly backwards, crashing into the small table in the middle of the room, splintering it.
"Oh, did I use too much force?" he asked in mock contrition. "I was just trying to get you to move out of the way."
"Grimmjow!" came a cry from the other side of the room. Menoly lunged forward, her hand glowing with a newly formed cero.
Grimmjow sidestepped her effortlessly, grabbing and twisting her arm behind her with one hand, the other finding her neck and snapping it easily with a noise Orihime would never forget.
"How dangerous," he tutted, dropping the lifeless body to the ground. "You should be careful how you use your cero."
"Grimmjow!" Loly screeched, still sprawled on the floor next to the table fragments. "Lord Aizen won't let you get away with this!"
The blue-haired arrancar turned and looked down at her with an expression of mild disgust, as if she were a dog who had come inside after rolling around in the mud and gotten the carpet dirty.
"Idiot. As if Aizen gives a shit about a little pissant like you."
There was the telltale glow Orihime had come to recognize, a scream, the explosion, and Loly along with the remains of the table were no more.
Orihime eyed the man warily from where she stood, pressed up against the wall where she had sidled away from the confusion. Three people. He had now murdered three people in front of her in less than a week. It was beyond her comprehension.
She flinched when he turned to look at her, her heart palpitating uncontrollably as he neared and stopped an unnervingly short distance away from her, close enough to feel his breath on her skin. He examined her with the same distaste he'd had for Loly seconds before and Orihime wondered if she was going to meet the same fate, if she had somehow offended him as well. She was unable to muster the courage to look into his eyes, so much higher up than hers, so she fixed her attention on his lapel mere inches from her face.
They stood like this for several seconds, Orihime's heart racing, until she felt herself being abruptly lifted up by her collar. She gasped noisily for breath, Grimmjow's voice resounding loudly in her ears.
"What, do you think I came here to save you or something?!" he demanded angrily. "Don't be stupid!"
Orihime struggled to breathe as her collar tightened around her throat. She grabbed on to the arm holding her up, trying to alleviate some of the pressure on her neck. Her savior-turned-assailant hardly seemed to notice her feeble struggling. Her mind flashed back several days ago to when Ulquiorra had held her aloft in the same way. Had it only been days?
"This is for my left arm, so we're even now and I don't want to hear you bitching about it. Got it?"
And Orihime was dropped back to the ground just as abruptly. She added bruised tailbone to her list of injuries.
Grimmjow turned and strode away, hands once again shoved in his pockets, and for a moment Orihime thought she was finally free of his menacing presence. Only Grimmjow could make saving someone seem both liberating and threatening at the same time. But he stopped suddenly and glanced around the room, seeming to take in his surroundings for the first time—the bloody floor, the lifeless body in the corner, the few splinters left from the disintegrated table. He sneered again.
"So. This is where the human girl is being kept. Like an exotic bird in one of Aizen's cages. How pathetic." He threw himself onto Orihime's couch, his arms draped across either side.
Orihime, still wincing from being dropped, was unsure how to answer.
"Well?" he demanded from where he lounged, eyeing Orihime from across the room. "What's your plan?"
"My…plan…?" Orihime repeated uncertainly.
Grimmjow's sneer grew wider.
"You really are pathetic. You've been here for days now and you haven't thought of a single plan for escape? Just gonna sit around like a pretty little doll waiting for someone to rescue you? You make me sick."
Orihime bristled in indignation. As if there was anything she could do, a single human against a legion of arrancar in a palace with more twists and turns than a labyrinth! She opened her mouth, ready to give Grimmjow a piece of her mind, arrancar or not.
"I've got a proposition for you."
Her mouth snapped closed in shock. She eyed him, apprehensive.
"A proposition…?" she asked hesitantly.
"I'm making a deal with you, woman. You want out? I'll get you out. But you'll do something for me first."
Orihime was having trouble following this unexpected turn in the conversation. Grimmjow, help her? This was the last thing she expected him to say. He might as well have told her he was leaving Hueco Mundo to join a monastery. Whatever he wanted in return, she was sure it couldn't be good.
"Do what for you?" she asked doubtfully, unsure if she wanted to know the answer.
Grimmjow frowned at her for a few moments, taking her in. Orihime blushed under his intense stare, and she examined her hands nervously. He stood up and turned to face the ruined entrance, shoving his hands into his pockets again. It was a moment before he spoke.
"I know he showed you the Hogyoku."
Orihime frowned, unsure of what it could have to do with her. Did he want her to steal it for him or something?
"I want you to destroy it," he said simply.
Her mind went blank. "Destroy…?"
"That thing," he spat, "it's an abomination. It shouldn't exist. It's given Aizen a power that he shouldn't have, a power that's allowed him to usurp control of this world. No hollow was meant to bow to a filthy soul reaper. It's unnatural."
He was starting to pace now. "That's a hollow throne his ass is sitting on, and it should be mine. With the Hogyoku gone, the other hollows will revolt and Aizen will lose all authority in this world, along with the throne he's stolen. And I will be there to claim it from him, as the new King of Hueco Mundo."
He stopped in front of her little window, his eyes blazing as he considered the landscape just outside it: the sloping desert dunes, the bare, misshapen trees, and the eternal starless twilight encasing it all. That fucking Aizen. This world belonged to hollows, and no soul reaper deserved to set foot anywhere inside it.
Orihime stood up slowly. His back turned to her, she took the opportunity to examine him openly with renewed interest. She had misjudged him. The memory of Luppi's vicious murder at the hands of Grimmjow had been etched indelibly in her mind, and she had thought him no more than a slave to his animal instincts, governed by nothing but impulse and bloodlust. But he had cunning too, it seemed, as well as ambition. He had clearly worked out some kind of strategy and she evidently factored into it somehow.
Orihime was a smart girl; she wasn't second in her class for nothing. It was a coup he was suggesting and she knew that getting in the middle of it would be very dangerous. Saying yes meant going up against Aizen and the rest of Las Noches, the ruthless and bloodthirsty arrancars that inhabited it. She would be gambling for her freedom with her life, and one wrong step would likely cost her everything.
This Hogyoku, he expected her to be able to destroy it? Did he have that much faith in her powers after witnessing them only once? How was she supposed to sneak past Aizen and his guard to get to it? She had no doubt that it was well protected.
And if she said no? He would probably kill her then and there; she knew too much. The fact that he had offered her this "proposition" meant that she was already in the middle of it.
"Well?" he demanded, turning back to her. "Are you in or not?"
Shit.
She had wanted an ally and circumstances had thrust one into her hands. But now that she was here, she was sincerely regretting her wish.
"Er," she stammered. "It's just that—I have a few misgivings…about how I'm supposed to get to the Hogyoku, and—"
She was cut off suddenly as she found herself once again the object of Grimmjow's intense and terrifying scrutiny.
He towered over her, glowering menacingly. Her poor heart was once again having palpitations and she could feel nervous beads of sweat beginning to form on the back of her neck. In all her years of life, Orihime could not remember ever being looked at like this. She was a kind and affable girl who smiled brightly at everyone she met, even strangers on the street. She was used to getting a smile, hello, or at the very least a perfunctory nod in return.
Ulquiorra's deadpan, apathetic gaze; Aizen's cunning, threatening smile—both of these set her on edge and unnerved her greatly.
But this glare—it was intense and piercing in a way that made fear take hold deep in her heart.
This man was terrifying.
"You little shit," he hissed, and Orihime held her breath in preparation for the onslaught that was sure to come. "I'm offering you a chance to escape and take down your greatest enemy—and you're having misgivings? You think Aizen's not going to throw you away once he's done with you? You think he's not going to kill all your stupid friends and destroy your entire fucking city?! Idiot!"
He grabbed her collar once again, this time slamming her into the wall behind her. "I'll ask you one more time," he growled. "Are you going to cower in this room like some frightened rabbit hoping that someone will come rescue you? Or are you going to grow a fucking spine and join me in taking down that bastard?"
As coarse and aggressive as he was, she knew he was right. She could not sit here and hide in her room, agonizing about her situation and doing nothing. She could not give up hope, but she could not rely on others to save her either. She needed to take matters into her own hands. Grimmjow's proposition was insane and reckless, but at least it was something.
For the first time since he'd exploded into her room, since she'd met him even, she looked him in the eye. "I'll help you," she said quietly.
He released his grip. "Good," he said.
He turned around and began to saunter towards the ruined entrance, his leisurely pace belying the furious scolding he had just given her. That man went from nothing to full throttle and back again in less than a second, and it made Orihime's head spin.
"I'll be around," he said airily. "It shouldn't take long for that Kurosaki bastard to get here and set things in motion. Unless the desert swallows him up first."
All the espada had been informed of the orange-haired soul reaper and his assault team's arrival at one of Aizen's self-important, pointless meetings earlier that day.
"Kurosaki?" she asked breathlessly. "Ichigo's coming?"
He looked over his shoulder at her, his eyes narrowed. He examined her suddenly hopeful expression with distaste, noting how her eyes lit up at the mere mention of his name. For some reason he couldn't explain, it irritated him greatly.
Then again, a lot of things did. He decided to let this one go.
He ignored her question and headed towards the crater he had made in the wall, kicking a fragment to the side. He paused for a moment and said casually over his shoulder, "A word of advice, woman. Don't even think about betraying me or I'll rip out your heart."
Orihime didn't doubt it.
He eyed her one last time and added, "And hurry up and heal your injuries already. They're pissing me off."
Orihime gingerly touched the bruises on her face that Loly and Menoly had given her. She had completely forgotten they were there. She opened her mouth to say something to Grimmjow—what, exactly, she didn't know—but he was already gone.
She collapsed on the ground, suddenly drained. Their entire interaction couldn't have taken more than 15 minutes but she had found it exhausting. She had been stressed and anxious the entire time, and now that the cause of tension had left, she felt that her limbs could barely support her. Had she really just made a deal with Grimmjow—violent, ruthless, bloodthirsty Grimmjow—of all people?
Orihime looked around the room and spotted the crumpled form in the corner, all of a sudden remembering how the incident had started. She gingerly made her way over to the blonde-haired arrancar, kneeling next to her. As her Shun Shun Rikka worked to restore the woman's mangled body to her original form, Orihime furrowed her brow, deep in thought.
What a messy game of chess this was turning out to be. There were new players on the board, and even Orihime had been forced from her position as observer to reluctant participant, though she doubted she measured up to anything more than a pawn. Still, she would fight as well as she could, slowly and persistently making her way across the board, anticipating eagerly whatever lay on the other side. With Grimmjow, her new unexpected ally, at her side as a knight—and Ichigo, her other knight, soon to join them—they would face Aizen.
Orihime thought about the task that lay in front of her: destroying the Hogyoku. Though her meeting with Grimmjow had inspired fear, it had given her confidence as well. She was constantly doubting herself and her abilities when she knew should have more faith in herself. She had performed some amazing feats since her powers manifested, she reminded herself. If Grimmjow thought her capable of destroying an object as powerful as the Hogyoku, then she would prove that she was.
She could do this, she thought determinedly, as the light from her two Shun Shun Rikka faded and the formerly dead woman opened her eyes to stare at the teenager in disbelief.