No one thought Grimmjow was very observant, and he really wasn't, but he was far more aware of the people surrounding him than anyone else thought.
In his gilded cage, there was nothing else to do but regard the other prisoners, the foolish soldiers who didn't even know they were imprisoned.
It was interesting, to observe and quietly – more quietly than anyone expected him to be – form opinions on the men he was ranked among, and their leaders. Perhaps even analyze their weaknesses – he would be likely to fight them if he thought he could win.
The Primera was…unexpected. A bit like him, in his desire to do whatever he wanted. He was lazy, unmotivated, someone you wouldn't expect to be powerful. But he was, Grimmjow could feel it. A quiet sort of power, not flashy and not fake. He was one of the few the Sexta ever respected. Because he knew the man didn't trust their leader either, only followed to assuage loneliness. And loneliness was something Grimmjow understood.
He remembered the old skeleton king from before their leader came. Stories of the great leader, turning those beneath him to dust, sitting like a statue on his throne of bones. He'd hated him, just from the tales. A man thinking he was better, trying to subjugate those who did not want it. Someone to take freedom away. That hadn't changed when they met in person, even when they were both slaves to the same master.
The Tercera, he didn't know very well. She was quiet, kept to herself and her fraccion, the three girls as loyal to her as his were to him, though they seemed to be less afraid of her then in awe. That earned her some modicum of respect from him, as did her mistrust of Aizen, more obvious then she realized. Anyone who didn't trust their leader was acknowledged as someone worthy of respect.
He hated Ulquiorra. That was something simple and true, and would always be so. The Cuarta was so wrapped up in loyalty, so blinded by faith, that he could not see the bars of the cage that held them all. He followed Aizen like a kicked puppy, licking up scraps and parroting words the leader said, ideas the leader held. It grated on him, infuriated him. That someone so blinded and stupid and trapped within a cage he himself madewould look down on him. He wanted nothing more than to beat the arrogance out of that expressionless face and cold green eyes.
If he hated the Cuarta, he loathed the Quinta. The bastard was little more than an animal, even to someone as close to a beast as Grimmjow. At least Grimmjow had honor, had standards he held to even if he didn't know why they meant something to him. The Quinta was little more than a mad dog. He looked down on people for no reason, for no good reason. Because they were female? Because he didn't like them? It disgusted him. The lack of reasons, the lack of anything but mad desire to kill. Nnoitra didn't care about getting stronger – he thought he already was the strongest. And that made Grimmjow hate him.
He didn't know the Septima very well, and didn't want to. He knew enough. Knew his loyalty and his blind devotion, and that was enough to make him avoid the man and his loud declarations of fealty.
The Octava disgusted him, but for very different reasons than the others did. He'd been in those labs, smelled the blood and gore and chemicals, tasted the sickly sweet air, heard the screams…it was wrong. Sick and wrong because no Hollow should do those things to another, no Hollow should want to rip another open to see how things worked, or take such wicked, twisted glee in doing so. He tried to stay as far away from the man as he could, avoiding him out of instinctual wariness and disgust.
He didn't think much about the Novena. It wasn't that he disliked him, or liked him even. He just…seemed to escape notice. Blend in. he knew the Gillian was blindly loyal as well, but…there was always a note of desperation in his devoted words. Desperation, in his all-powerful need to consume and consume and consume that Grimmjow remembered from his own time as a Gillian, as an Adjuchas. Apparently no one else did, though, because it was met with derision from those higher ranked. But Grimmjow remembered, and could understand to a degree. That didn't make it less uncomfortable to think about.
As for the shinigami…
He loathed the blind shinigami almost as much as he loathed Nnoitra. They were opposites, those two, but they were the same in how they infuriated the Sexta. Tosen was order where Nnoitra was chaos, too many rules where he was not enough of them. Tosen represented the cage. He would have Grimmjow leashed and chained and held down, stripped of his freedom and power and everything that made Grimmjow who he was. And Grimmjow refused that.
The grinning shinigami was an enigma. He couldn't for the life of him understand the man, or his motives. He bothered him, for no reason he could name. That inscrutable grin, those unseen eyes…that casual way he had of making even the most gruesome threats…it was eerie. Sometimes he seemed more inhuman than a hollow. But the way he looked at Aizen when the man wasn't looking made Grimmjow think there was more to that smile than one could see. He was the shinigami he disliked the least of the three, really.
As for his leader, the man that sat above them all on his throne…
He knew the man's words were manipulations, his smiles were fakes. He of all of the swords knew, it seemed. Maybe because he had never trusted him? Never believed for a second anyone else could give him the power he wanted? He had only agreed to join the army to find a new way to become stronger – on his own. And it had been a way to fight stronger and stronger enemies, a way to push himself further. He didn't care about the man's goals, the man's plans – all he wanted was to fight and grow strong and be free – but that last one was taken from him by the very man that had granted him power. And that was possibly when the last of the delusion faded. No one would take his freedom, not even his leader.
He was among people he hated, people who were blinded by loyalty and devotion and desperation, or people who were there for their own secret reasons, but he was the only one of them all who rebelled, who wanted to be free, who didn't care about the war and let the world know. He only cared about fighting, and he'd follow Aizen for that, but he would never accept obedience or loyalty or subjugation. Never.
He would be free, because it was in his nature. And even among the chained, he did not lose that spirit.