A/N: Well, I am once again incredibly sorry this has taken me such a long time to post. I realized suddenly the other day that I had promised to have a new chapter up by two weeks ago. Whoah. I had completely forgotten about it. I am really sorry once again, and I will try to be more on schedule now. This chapter in from Grimmjow's point of view, as I truly do believe he is still alive out there somewhere, just waiting for… well, I'll keep that plot point a secret just yet. Anyhow, because I know some of you will complain about this, no, Grimmjow is not in love with Orihime. He just doesn't know what to do with her. Anyhow, enjoy!

11.

Of Dolls and Bastards

The stars were bright in Hueco Mundo on this particular evening. Grimmjow supposed he wouldn't normally have noticed a thing as simple and trivial as the beauty of the stars, but maybe being close to death did strange things to everyone. Not that he would know, he had no experience with death, or being anywhere near it. Grimmjow was the sort of person who looked death in the eye and dared it to come for him, dared it to try and take him on. Up until tonight (or today, it was so freakin' hard to tell time in this shithole), death had never had the guts. Grimmjow guessed things were different now.

In retrospect, he probably should have known things would turn out like this, Los Noches, hell, all of Hueco Mundo, had been different lately. Even since that porcelain doll of a little girl had come to play. Even the air was different somehow, like there was an electric current running through it where before it had been dead and stagnant. It had taken Grimmjow a few days to figure out what the change was, and who had caused it. The girl. That red-headed bitch. It was her presence here that had started everything, Grimmjow was sure of it. She was the reason the air felt alive for the first time in the countless thousands of years Grimmjow had lived here.

Hueco Mundo was finally waking up, coming alive. It was all that doll-faces fault. And damn if Grimmjow wasn't enjoying every second of it.

He supposed, in his own way, he had the girl to thank for the most fun he'd ever had in the centuries of his existence. He had always had inferiority issues, even back when he was a human (although that time was blurry, and he could barely remember it at all), but in Hueco Mundo he had thrived. It was kill or be killed, and Grimmjow loved to kill. It made him feel alive again. And there was nothing that made him feel alive, that gave him as much of a thrill, as taking down an opponent that was as strong or stronger than he was himself.

And that was why he had the bitch to thank. Because of her, Kurosaki and all her other pathetic (yet admittedly powerful) friends had come to Grimmjow of their own accord, had played right into his hands. And Grimmjow had been ecstatic. But maybe he should have known, that with the change in the air, a change in his luck was about due. And so, here he was, limping slowly across the dessert and leaving a trail of blood behind him, weary and numb to the bone. He supposed, in a way, he was lucky to have gotten away at all. He had managed to scrape up enough energy for one last sonido when Kurosaki had been distracted by Nnoitra's arrival (that bastard that bastard that bastard if Grimmjow made it through this alive he was going to slit his throat open first chance he got).

Grimmjow had hauled himself up from the ground and stood there, panting, completely forgotten about by the carrot topped Kurosaki and the bean pole bastard that had almost killed him. He had been shaking. That alone had been embarrassing; Grimmjow never did anything as weak as shaking, but there it was. It had been a mixture of pain, physical exhaustion, and the knowledge that two of his enemies had now saved his life. Damn. First the girl, now Kurosaki? The little brats sure had sickeningly sweet hearts, didn't they?

It had taken him a moment or two to make a decision. It was run away, or stay and be killed. Normally, Grimmjow would have stayed anyway, but in his current state there was absolutely no way he could keep fighting. Almost all of his strength was gone, hell, he barely had enough left in him to sonido out of the dome to safety.

So he had taken a deep breath, steeled himself for the sheer amount of iron will it would take, and at the last moment, just before he had blurred away to the desert, he had looked across the battlefield and locked eyes with the red headed girl. The huge grey orbs boring into his widened, growing even more impossibly large, and it occurred to Grimmjow that she knew what he was about to do. He had tensed himself for a moment, thinking that she would surely do something, but some nameless emotion had bled into her silver eyes, and she had shut her mouth tight and turned away.

Now, here he was, Grimmjow Jeagerjaques, the friggen 6th Espada, the arrancar who up till now had never lost a fight, stumbling along wounded in the desert thinking about some doll faced human bitch and her pack of friends. Almost unconsciously, his hand came up to touch the arm that he had lost to Tousen (another man on his hit list), the arm that, through some strange, God-like power, had been regrown. It was almost an unconscious thing to him now, and although he would never admit it to himself, every time he reached up to touch that particular arm, he half expected it not to be there. And then he would feel it, warm flesh and hard bone flexing muscles, and remember that it was there. It was back. And the face of that red headed girl would flash implicitly through his mind.

It wasn't that Grimmjow didn't understand, it was that he couldn't. How could such a small, thin, tremblingly fragile little thing give him back a missing limb with a few muttered words and a flash of golden light. It half fascinated Grimmjow, and that worried him a little too, because he had never been fascinated with anything before but killing (and himself). So he attempted to explain it away; she was a novelty, that was all. A pretty little human girl with the face of a porcelain doll and the powers of a goddess was a rare sight around the halls of Los Noches, after all.

But that didn't quite explain the feeling he had gotten that time he had burst into the doll's room and kicked the asses of those two bitches that had been knocking the girl around, only to have her turn around and heal them when he told her to heal herself. Grimmjow didn't know how to deal with a person like that. A person who showed compassion, and mercy, a person who loved. A person with a gentle spirit. That was was she was, that human girl, gentle. It practically radiated out of her; her entire riatsu was practically made up of it. And that made Grimmjow uncomfortable, because nothing about Hueco Mundo was ever gentle. That was the way Grimmjow liked it.

And then this bitch had come along and shaken things up. And her little friend Kurosaki, the annoying bastard who just wouldn't give up, had come prancing along after her on his white horse like a knight in shining armor. It was enough to make Grimmjow sick. So he had taunted the kid, told him about what the poor little porcelain doll-face had been made to suffer during her captivity. And it had felt good, that he had taken such a pure, beautiful thing, and tainted it, and he wasn't uncomfortable now. The girl didn't scare him anymore. She had been beautiful, and caring, and whole. Now she was broken and dirty. And Grimmjow could understand things that were broken down and dirty. Things like himself.

Maybe little Princess Doll-Face had been living in a fairytale her entire life, Grimmjow couldn't care less. Her fairytale was gone now, her storybook had been ripped apart and burned, and she was all alone. So why had he still felt that uncomfortable pang when he had met the girl's grey eyes back under the dome, and she had looked away and let him go?

For a moment, one split second, Grimmjow almost missed Ulquiorra. Because even though he hated the bastard more than he hated Aizen, Tousen, and Nnoitra all put together (and the worst part was he could never say for sure why), dammit if the guy didn't seem like he always had all the answers. So for one split second, Grimmjow missed the green eyed pretty boy. Then he laughed at himself for being stupid. Not even Ulquiorra could answer this question for him.

The stars were bright this particular evening. Did he notice their beauty because he was dying? Or because somehow, the stars reminded him of a pair of huge grey eyes, and a pair of emerald green ones. Grimmjow didn't know.

In this world of mine, we fear the things we do not understand

And I do not understand either of them

The boy with the ice cold eyes who never shows his heart

And the girl who wears hers on her sleeve.

There you have it! Review please!