Aizen was catching on. It was an inevitability, of course, and always had been. Sooner or later, a man as smart and conniving as Aizen was going to realize he was being hunted. The body count was growing, the number of failed meetings were adding up. But the words seeped through Ichigo with a sense of dread.
Aizen was catching on.
"The mission hasn't changed." The android stood facing its creator. It wasn't capable of worry or fear, but it was programmed with intelligence and determination, and fighting is what it did best. Its job was to make Ichigo's goal happen, by any means necessary. Even in the event of Ichigo's death, Shiro would continue on with a built in drive that would see the android destroyed beyond functioning before it stopped going after Aizen and his operation.
"No, it hasn't." Ichigo agreed.
"The goal hasn't either." There was a slight hint of question in the mechanical, echoing tone as Shiro tilted its head slightly, gold eyes flickering towards the silent figure standing at Ichigo's side.
"No." Ichigo agreed again. "It hasn't." Shiro was learning at an incredible rate, enough so that he'd begun consulting the android when drawing up plans and ideas for their next moves. While Ichigo was clever, Shiro was experienced in the fighting and ambushing aspect of what they did. That experience, coupled with the android's AI, made it so Shiro was picking up on tactics.
"The arm is nearing completion? And the new brace?" The android asked, though it knew the answer. It was almost as though it was trying to force Ichigo to see that they were still on course, that Ichigo was still in control thus far.
Ichigo nodded.
"So your tools needed are almost ready and nothin's changed." Was Shiro's simple conclusion to the news. It nodded. "The witness will have to be more careful while attending Aizen's council, but you and I are in the same situation as before."
The android was right, of course, and Ichigo sighed, glancing up at Grimmjow. It was always going to be like this, eventually. There was no way around it, no clean way to get rid of a man and his entire corrupt organization. And he and Grimmjow had already agreed that they couldn't just drop what they were doing and move on.
At his side, the man scowled across at the android, "Are you ever going to learn my name?"
Shiro smirked a sharp expression, flashing white teeth. "No."
Ichigo cracked a small smile, turned his chair, and went back to work.
•••
It was hardly a week later that the time came. Grimmjow strolled through the hallway of Aizen's office. He had an impromptu meeting with the man, unbeknownst to Aizen, but as he neared the door to Aizen's office, low voices made him pause.
"-not going back home at nights."
Aizen, unseen to Grimmjow, hummed a quiet, dignified sound. "Where's our little sexta spending his time, then?"
Hand on the door, ready to push it open further to let himself in, Grimmjow froze, eyes slowly widening. His heart hammered in his chest, and he very carefully pulled his hand off the door.
"It took us a while to track him down, he's being careful."
"And he's smarter than he looks." A different voice added.
More than just Aizen and one other person, Grimmjow's mind supplied, instantly shutting down the suicidal idea of barging in and trying to kill Aizen then and there.
"He's heading to the west side of town, we couldn't figure it out. There's not a lot of business out there-"
"Out with it." Aizen's tone implied his impatience, accompanied by the quietest clink of a glass.
"We were able to follow him to an old house. The property's pretty overgrown, looks unkept. But we dug around and pulled up some records. The property used to be owned by the Kurosaki household and was never officially sold off."
The chair scraped as Aizen shot to his feet, glass thunking back to the desk. "What-" He asked, his voice still deceptively controlled, "-is in that house? What is my sexta doing?"
Whoever Aizen was meeting with hesitated, before the second person answered, "We don't know. All we know is that the house appears to be occupied, and Jaegerjaquez spends more nights there than his own apartment."
"A woman?" Aizen asked, "He's been quiet since losing his arm, but it wouldn't be out of the ordinary."
"Could be." One of his cronies answered, "But it seems awfully suspicious that the property is in the Kurosaki name."
"Yes…" Aizen agreed. He'd heard all the rumors of a surviver as well. Everyone had. He'd made it punishable to speak of, but it was still there. Years ago now, witnesses swore one of the family members had still been alive when the paramedics had arrived. "Bring Grimmjow to me and burn that house down."
Grimmjow didn't stick around to hear more. He cursed, turned on his heel, and ran. At the far end of the hallway, he slammed through the door, letting it bang wildly against the wall behind it as he burst into the cool, outside air, then began digging into his pocket to yank out his phone.
It rank until an automated voice informed him that voicemail had never been set up. He cursed again, and redialed.
Four times, and he got no answer. With a frustrated snarl, he shoved the phone back into his pocket as he ran through the streets as fast as he could push himself. Three blocks from the office building, he darted out into the road and nearly got hit. The car screeched to a halt just inches from him, and he slammed a fist on the hood, before rounding the car and yanking the door open. "I need your car." He said, dragging a handgun from the waistband of his pants.
"What?! Fuck you, buddy, are you–" But the protests died as Grimmjow shoved the barrel against the man's temple. The song changed and Grimmjow dragged the driver out and threw himself into the seat, peeling out as he took off.
He got to the house too late. A line of vehicles were already pulled into the yard, caging the front of the old house. The front door was open, hanging brokenly on its hinges. Smoke wafted through broken windows.
Throwing the car in park with a grind of unhappy breaks and gears, Grimmjow thew himself from the vehicle and tore around to the side of the house, using an elbow to break the first window he came to that didn't lead into the main entry. He pushed himself through the window and dropped in a crouch in Ichigo's bedroom. It was empty, the door that led out into the hallway partly ajar. Creeping forward, he peered through, seeing the dance of shadows caused by lurid flames. Black smoke curled across the ceiling.
Darting through the doorway, he made a run for the stairwell, knowing where Ichigo would be. Gunfire sprayed from somewhere, but the heat and fire, the shadows and the smoke kept the shooter out of sight. The reverse was true; the shooter was firing blind, or close enough to it, because the shots were wildly inaccurate, leaving Grimmjow safe as he threw himself down the stairwell.
Something caught fire with a loud series of pops before it exploded. The house shook and he ducked, throwing his arm up as debris rained down around him, the stairs creaking ominously. Dust clouded the air. From somewhere above, he could hear gunfire, yelling, and something louder. "Ichigo?!" He shouted through the gloom as his feet hit the unfurnished concrete of the basement floor. The lights flickered, going out, and the workshop was bathed in the dim glow of emergency power from the screens mounted on one wall. "Ichi-?" He paused, listening as something scraped along the ground. Then a cough, and he scrambled in that direction.
He found Ichigo on the ground, under the metal table he used as a work bench. His wheelchair was on its side, one wheel slowly turning. Ichigo coughed again, pushing himself up onto an elbow, "What the hell was that? What's–"
"We gotta go!" Grimmjow ignored the question, sliding on his knees up to the man. He hesitated for half a second as a familiar set of straps caught his attention. He grabbed the prosthetic, shoving it against Ichigo's chest, then wrapped his one arm around Ichigo's middle, "Come on, hurry." And began pulling him up. "Hold onto me, we gotta get out of here."
"What? Grimmjow- Wait!" But Grimmjow was already dragging him towards the narrow staircase Ichigo had never used. Ichigo shifted the prosthetic, hooking a strap over his shoulder, "Wait, what about Shiro? Grimmjow, we-"
"No time." Grimmjow grit out, his grip awkward. He did what he could to readjust his hold, his arm wrapped around Ichigo's middle, hand fisted in his belt. "I'm sorry, Ichigo, but we can't get to him. They're here."
Ichigo shook his head, trying to turn enough to look back into the workshop. His arms were thrown around Grimmjow's neck, hanging on. He had no way of knowing how much, if any, damage the android may have taken in the explosion, or the surrounding computers and machinery. "Shiro!" He yelled into the dark, "Engage!" The cradle should have come to life, he was sure of it, even with power loss to the rest of the building. He was sure he should see the glow of it even through the filtering dust. He coughed again, wetness stinging at his eyes.
The walls shook again and Grimmjow staggered with a grunt, thrown up against the railing of the staircase. Missing that arm, he couldn't use it to push off, and Ichigo couldn't help him with the extra weight of himself. He struggled in keeping his grip and his balance at the same time, but struggle he did, and began the ascent again, as fast as he could carry them.
Ichigo stared into the darkness behind and below them, "Shiro!" he tried again, the desperation in his voice obvious, "Respond, damn you!" But still nothing. He could feel Grimmjow struggling, feel the surge and strain of muscle. After a forlorn moment, he shook himself awake, and began fumbling with the prosthetic arm, one of his own arms still slung around Grimmjow's shoulder while he worked the strap free with his other hand. Once he had a hold of it, he started to let go of the man carrying him, warning with a, "I've got it, I'm going to put it on." It was enough to get the point across, and he felt Grimmjow's real arm tighten yet further around his middle, until he thought the air would be pushed out of his lungs. Reaching one arm across Grimmjow's broad chest and the other across his shoulder blades, he pulled the prosthetic over what remained of Grimmjow's left arm, tugging it tight along his shoulder. Between being jostled around as Grimmjow half carried, half dragged him over the last step of the stairs, it was difficult to secure. He yanked the straps across, buckling them, and when the prosthetic still didn't seem secure enough, he yanked even harder, pulling back with his weight hard enough that Grimmjow grunted again, a sneer twisting his dirt streaked features. But there wasn't time to apologize. Satisfied that it'd be secure enough for now, he dragged the sleeve of Grimmjow's shirt out of the way so that the inside edges of the prosthetic, where the censors sat, were against skin.
Nothing happened. The arm hung like dead weight. Ichigo cursed, digging his fingertips under the edge of it where it hugged tight against Grimmjow's shoulder, feeling at the inner lining. He couldn't find anything wrong with it. "Dammit!" He cursed again, thumping a fist against the front panel that reached nearly to Grimmjow's clavicle. "Come on-"
All at once, Grimmjow's entire left arm seemed on fire worse than any phantom pain he'd felt. He gasped, the air pushed from his lungs, and nearly dropped Ichigo. Nerves that had been severed and dead with the amputation suddenly began firing as the experimental prosthetic connected. Unable to keep ahold of Ichigo in the wake of that terrible pain, he staggered through a doorway, nearly sinking to his knees, and managing to prop them up against the adjoining wall, stunned, teeth grit. As the shock of the connection began to ebb, he realized he could move the fingers of it.
"Don't think about it." Ichigo instructed, "Let muscle memory and instinct guide it."
Grimmjow cursed, then stooped, "Hang on again." He told Ichigo, wrapping his good arm around behind Ichigo's back, then hooking the fake one behind Ichigo's knees. Taking the man's weight didn't feel great on his left shoulder, but he pushed the pain of using the prosthetic so harshly out of his mind, and began running again.
The windows on the first floor shattered behind them as Grimmjow crashed them through a sliding glass door and into the winding, overgrown maze that was the house's unkept backyard. Behind them, something ground and crunched, and a man screamed in pain. The entire building lurched and fire licked out above the roof to reach for the sky. Grimmjow could feel the heave of Ichigo's chest as a soundless sob marked his sheer grief.
Ichigo's voice was a breathless whisper in Grimmjow's ear. "All my work… Shiro…"
"Better than your life." Grimmjow growled back, slipping through the poorly maintained fence and heading into the city that surrounded the old keep. His footfalls were heavy on the cracked blacktop and he was slowing down again. Cutting down an alley, they heard rushed steps behind them and he cursed again, but shook his head. He couldn't keep this up, they couldn't get away like this.
"Put me down." Ichigo told him, voice low. "You can run. Use me as your payment, you'll be more than flush. Maybe they'll give up on finding you."
Grimmjow didn't even answer. He bared teeth and turned another corner. He didn't know how to give up, he didn't know how to stop fighting, stop struggling. It was the only thing he could do right then. "There's a gun." He said, breaths harsh. Ichigo may not have been as big as him, but he wasn't a small man either. "In my waistband, can you reach it?"
Ichigo's hands dropped to his pants, then felt along them until he found the gun, pulling it free.
"When you get a clear shot, they have a clear shot too."
Swallowing, Ichigo nodded, and loaded the chamber. As often as he'd seen, through surveillance, the brutal nature of his android's handiwork, he'd never actually killed anyone himself. His hands shook as he held the gun out behind Grimmjow, arms wrapped around the man's neck.
Not even a minute later, the first of their pursuers came around the corner they'd turned. Ichigo squeezed the trigger. The gunshot echoed through the alley, bouncing off the walls and ringing in their ears, but it hit true. Aizen's guy tripped like he forgot how his legs worked, then crumbled to the ground, hands going to his stomach as blood and bile welled between his fingers. He shot the second guy in the shoulder. At close range -not ten paces away- the bullet spun the man around and threw him against the wall, where he slumped, his agonized cry enough to sicken Ichigo's stomach. His hands trembled.
"Doin' good." Grimmjow assured like he knew the toll this was surely taking on Ichigo. He skidded out from the alley, searched both ways for anyone that might be trying to head them off, then took them across the street and into another narrow side street.
A third pursuer burst from the alley and Ichigo pulled the trigger. The shot went wide, barely grazing the figure. Ichigo clenched his jaw around a curse, and fired again just as they turned another corner.
Trying to keep their hunters from getting too clear a shot, Grimmjow took just about every turn they came across. He didn't have a destination in mind, only knowing that they had to keep moving, they had to lose those chasing them. The odds weren't great.
The fourth figure that came into view didn't so much run around the corner as dive. Ichigo pulled the trigger, but the man was dead before the bullet hit him. Something just out of sight smacked wetly and a spray of blood splattered the opposite wall. Ichigo stared, wide-eyed, "Grimmjow…"
Not a moment later, as Grimmjow was turning to get a look at what was coming at them, Shiro came around the corner, dropping something wet and red and stringy.
"Shiro!" The gun clattered to the ground as Ichigo twisted to face the android with the change in the bigger man's motions.
Grimmjow slumped against the cold, damp wall of the building lining the back street, back against the brick. His arms trembled, the prosthetic sending waves of alternating heat and cold along the nerves in his shoulder in a sickening ache. He groaned a low sound as he panted to catch his breath.
"Ichigo." Gold eyes briefly found and held blue, before dismissing him to look over its creator. Blood dripped from long fingered, pale hands in thick tendrils. It splattered the pale carapace of Shiro's shell, stark against the white. In one hand, the android carried Ichigo's brace and this it handed over to Grimmjow.
"Never been happier to see you, robot." Grimmjow told the android, carefully pulling his arm from under Ichigo's knees, lowering the smaller, as he took the brace. He shifted the rest of Ichigo's weight to the android, watching the almost gentle way those blood stained, artificial hands flattened against Ichigo's back.
Ichigo wrapped his arms around Shiro in as much an embrace as to hang on, astonished by his own relief as the android effortlessly held him upright, his legs all but deadweight below him. He craned his neck to look over at Grimmjow. "Line it up from top to bottom. You'll have to pull my shirt up so the nerve pad can line up with my spine." He felt Grimmjow's hand, the flesh one, push the hem of his shirt up, the backs of rough knuckles brushing skin scared by multiple surgeries. And he felt as one of Shiro's metal hands lifted slightly, before those fingers hooked in the edge of his shirt to hold it out of the way. The android's head turned away from them, tilting as it listened. "Ok," Ichigo said, "Hurry up. You're going to have to force the bands shut since it's not hooked up to the chair. Shiro; besides the dead ones, how many did you see?"
Shiro shifted slightly, to get a better look behind himself. "Eight commanders at base-"
"Fuck." Grimmjow snarled, "He's called them in."
"Who?" Ichigo asked, wincing at the rough pinch of metal being forced into place around his abdomen. After the first, though, the rest closed easier, snug along his hips, thighs, and down around his legs.
"My–" Grimmjow hesitated, kneeling as he worked his way down. "My coworkers…" He admitted. "He calls them the espada; his sword. They're the elite. They each head their own team."
Ichigo frowned, "Elite- like his generals or whatever? I thought he had ten."
"Yeah. Shiro got one in the last major raid. And I, uh- I killed my replacement a couple weeks ago. He thought it was amusing enough to let me get away with it, so he's down to eight now."
Eyes widening, Ichigo clenched hands around Shiro's metal arm as his weight was eased down for the brace to take. The metal felt tight around his middle and hips. He could barely feel the ghosting of that pressure around his legs and even this he couldn't be sure wasn't a phantom. It made no difference. The brace hummed to life with a quiet whisper of mechanical gears and adjusted to his weight and balance. "You were one of the ten?"
"I was the Sexta." Grimmjow admitted in a growl, blue eyes trained down the alleyway.
Ichigo shook his head, "It doesn't matter now. This wont let me do much, I still can't run, not far at least, or jump, or climb a fence, right? But it'll give us a few more options. We need to get out of here."
Agreeing, Grimmjow absently rubbed at the cuff over the stump of his left arm, mechanical fingers flexing as he bent the arm to look down at the fist. "If we survive this, remind me to better appreciate this thing."
Ichigo snorted, "I think you mean 'better appreciate me'." He turned, a hand tight against the cool, smooth metal of Shiro's forearm. This new brace was as untested as Grimmjow's new arm, but the arm was holding up splendidly thus far. Its test had been brief, but intense and thorough and it preformed better than Ichigo would have logically hoped for had they been in his basement putting it through the motions in a controlled environment.
Shiro paced him, keeping close and with an arm held out, but the android's attention kept shifting towards the direction they'd come from. It had torn through the pursuers it had come across, but the trail of bodies would be easy to follow. "No sight of Aizen yet." It told them.
Sucking a hissing breath through his teeth, Grimmjow trailed at Ichigo's other side as they began moving again, heading further away from the destroyed home. "He'll show up, but only after he gets word of how messy this has gotten. And when he does, it'll be just out of reach. He'll want to see it with his own eyes, but he wont step in unless he thinks his team can't handle it."
"Guess we need to keep making a ruckus then." Ichigo decided, glancing over at his android. Shiro grinned a wide, eager expression.
They turned a bend in the narrow alleyway to find a corner where two different buildings met. The street beyond was obscured, the building on the right leaning and sagging with age to effectively block their path and create a dead end. Moss clung to the bricks, bits of a scraggly green vine poking through and using the structures to climb toward the sun. Ten feet from the dead end, an old rickety door led into the sagging building. Grimmjow crossed to it, twisting the knob and tugging, but the door was locked and while it creaked under his weight, it didn't budge. "Dammit!" He cursed, looking the building up and down, before chancing a glance in the direct they'd come.
"Not an option." Shiro said, as if the android knew he was wondering if they could double back. The echo of hushed voices reached them as a chill, winter rain began to patter against the cracked blacktop around them. The android stepped away from its creator to flatten a hand against the rickety door. The wood groaned a protest as it pushed. Shiro hummed a calculative sound, then motioned the other two back. Without warning, it leaned back, then threw itself forward, shoulder first. The door splintered apart under the combined weight, momentum and strength of the android.
Shiro stumbled through, then straightened in the doorway, still and silent for a short moment. Waving the other two forward, it stepped aside. They crept through the back entrance of an old, shut down factory. Dust settled in a thick, undisturbed layer across the dirty floor of the narrow walkway. Outdated machinery lined the space like dead leviathans, powerless, quiet in their indignant retirement. Grimmjow waved cobwebs from the air in front of him as he pressed forward, Ichigo behind him and Shiro taking up the rear. Crates and boxes and stacks of tied off newspapers crowded the rooms they passed by.
Scuffing from the broken the doorway straightened Shiro's spine and the android turned to glance back, gauging. A spray of aimless gunfire had Grimmjow and Ichigo ducking, before Grimmjow scrambled to get ahold of Ichigo and rush him through the twisting walkway. "Shiro!" Ichigo hissed quietly. When the android hesitated, he urged, "Come on. That's a big gun, if that hits you at close range it's going to tear you apart. Your shell wasn't designed for that."
The android hummed an unimpressed, displeased sound, but hurried after the two.
Without power, the old factory was steeped in deep shadows. Coupled with the clutter of a disorganized, abandoned space, the going was slow. Each step Ichigo took was measured and careful, and more than once, he found himself hanging onto the man at his side as his weight shifted on uneven footing. Behind them, Shiro provided a small measure of security. However, their time was short and more gunfire exploded the silence, a bullet ricocheting off the wall nearby.
Shiro grabbed Ichigo's arm, took a couple of quick, hard steps, then turned and threw itself through a closed door. The door banged open to slam into a rickety pile of boxes behind it, shuddering the stack. Ichigo was dragged into the room and out of immediate range of the gunman. Grimmjow followed on the android's heels.
The door opened into a closed off room with no other exits or entrances. They were trapped.
"We can't keep running-" Ichigo's voice was tight, strained. The extra motion and speed wasn't doing him any favors. Shiro and Grimmjow were doing most of the heavy lifting, but his body wasn't used to this, wasn't capable of this anymore. The brace helped, but it only went so far. He reached out and grabbed Grimmjow's arm as they neared the back of the room. "You should go. Shiro can buy you time, get out of here while you can. If– If Shiro and I manage to lose them, we'll regroup–"
"Fuck you." Grimmjow practically snarled, taking other man aback. "I'm part of this now, I'm not about to back out of it. Don't act like you expect me to just leave you."
"But Grimm-"
"No." The word held finality; there was no discussion to be had here, no debate.
From somewhere in the maze of dirty, brick walls and clutter, a singsong voice called out, "Griiiimmmjoww- Here, kitty kitty–"
Shiro pivoted to face the taunting voice.
Grimmjow's lip curled to bare teeth. "Nnoitra." He growled under his breath. "I owe that bitch more than money."
"You know, Grimm-" The voice called again, louder and closer this time, "You coulda gotten away if you weren't draggin' that cripple around with you. Aizen doesn't even want him dead." A sharp cackle, "Not yet, anyway. That fancy robot's a nice toy; he thinks your pal'll be useful for a while."
Nnoitra was stalking closer, and he was good at what he did, else he never would have held his seat at the table for so long. Grimmjow grit his teeth, putting a bit of space between himself and Ichigo. He wasn't fooled; Aizen had surely pieced together who Ichigo was, and had a terrible fate in mind for him.
"But you, Grimmjow. You shoulda run for the hills while we were all busy with this little rat hunt. He wants you dead." Nnoitra laughed again.
Shiro pushed out a growl, then its eyes snapped to Grimmjow in the low lighting of the old building. It pointed. "You, witness, post up behind those shelves. When he sees just us, he'll assume you ran. He wont be ready for you. Even if he reacts quickly, he doesn't know you have two arms again." Blue eyes narrowed and the android nodded, "Bait. I can keep Ichigo safe and your coworker's attention on me."
"Shiro, this isn't-" Ichigo started, but Grimmjow was already moving, quiet as a cat. In his right hand, he'd drawn a knife. They were out of time. He could hear the footsteps, calm and confident, on the stained concrete floor in the hallway.
The android backed Ichigo against the far wall, then crossed the few paces to put itself in the center of the cluttered room. Under the guise of making space, it kicked aside a heavy box and listened as it scraped and clattered across the gritty floor and into the debris half a dozen feet away.
Nnoitra came around the corner then, attention drawn to that box and all the noise it had made, before darting back to the android standing ready in the center of the room. He didn't even look in Grimmjow's direction. "Ah. Ditched you after all, did he?" Nnoitra tsked, and though he spoke to Ichigo, his eye never left the creature in the center of the room. "You can't be too surprised. Couldn't stay loyal to us and he'd been with us for years. We treated him good, too. You can't expect him to stay loyal to a man he barely knows."
Jaw clenched, Ichigo glared daggers at the man. He had nothing to say. If this last ditch, desperate ploy didn't work and this is where he met his end, he would do it with dignity. The only thing he regretted in his life was not dying with his family, he sure as hell didn't regret murdering as many of Aizen's men as he could until he finally joined them.
"You got any last words?" Nnoitra took another step into the room, the heavy, semi-automatic weapon in his hands pointed at the android. He'd seen it in action, he knew it wouldn't go down easily.
"Not for you." Ichigo said. "Shiro." As always, the android's response to the cue was a subtle coming alive, a tensing of cables and artificial muscle, a focusing of attention. "Have fun."
The android took a hard step forward, features twisting into a vicious grin as it stepped resolutely into the direct path of the gun.
Nnoitra raised the barrel, taking aim, focused on what he was sure was an attack. Then he caught movement from his blindside, almost too late, and he swung about, throwing the body of the gun up between himself and the blade being driven at him. The knife slide against metal and held fast, and Nnoitra cackled. "You dense motherfucker!" He scorned, and started to shove forward, intending to throw Grimmjow and his inefficient knife far enough away to shoot him and go back to the robot. "A knife? Do I look like a pitiful-" His head snapped around as the android approached, too fast.
Seeing the panic light in Nnoitra's single eye, Grimmjow snarled and drove his artificial left fist in an uppercut straight under the tall bastard's chin. Nnoitra's head flew back as he grunted his surprise, thrown back and nearly from his feet.
All at once, in the span of heartbeat, the gun went off, Ichigo dropped to the floor, and Shiro pounced. A stack of crates tumbled over, the bottles within shattering to liter the floor with shards of glass, as the combined weight of Nnoitra and the android slammed into it. Hesitating a split second, Grimmjow turned from the duo and scrambled around debris. "Ichigo?!"
"I'm fine." Ichigo called from the back corner of the room. Above where he'd landed, three bullets had punched holes into the plaster of the wall. "It missed, I'm fine. But I think I need help getting up." He struggled to get his feet under him and his weight shifted, reaching down to hook fingers into his brace and try to manually position his feet where they needed to be.
Grimmjow kicked aside some of the junk and knelt at Ichigo's side, "Fuck, that was close." He breathed as he glanced at the damaged wall. Turning to look over his shoulder, he shook his head. "No, Nnoi still has the gun, we're staying down until Shiro gets that thing away from him."
At the front of the room, a body thudded into the wall and rattled the shelving mounted nearby. Nnoitra cursed with every colorful word he knew and, having worked with him for years, Grimmjow recognized the terror in his voice.
As if it had heard, Shiro finally wrestled the weapon free and flung it aside like a frisbee. It slammed into the wall and nearly dropped on Grimmjow. He ducked, spit a curse of his own, then grabbed the gun as it clattered against the floor. He checked the clip, but when he stood, gun leveled and ready, his eye met Nnoitra's and he lowered the barrel.
Wide-eyed, the loanshark looked stunned in the worst of ways. His hands trembled as he furiously tried to hold his eviscerated abdomen together. Blood bubbled between his fingers, slipping in thick, gory tendrils down his front to patter across the floor. The fight had left him, and his strength was following. His knees buckled and he dropped to the floor, still staring at Grimmjow across the room.
Standing in front of him, Shiro cocked its head, then casually dropped the broken bottle it had grabbed. "Target neutralized." It informed.
Propping the gun against the wall, Grimmjow stooped and began helping Ichigo to his feet. Once upright, Ichigo, with the aide of his brace, was able to steady himself. Bracing a hand against Grimmjow's arm, he pushed away from the wall, nodding his thanks. He picked his way through the room, skirting the injured man still kneeling in a spreading pool of blood and bile in front of the doorway.
Grimmjow followed him, but paused in front of his old coworker. He started down at the man as Nnoitra slowly, agonizingly lost his struggle to survive a grievous wound. "You had this coming, asshole." Then he stepped passed, leaving Nnoitra to die on the dirty floor, alone.