Title: Once Human
Part: 2 of 2
Pairing: GrimmRuki
Rating: T (to be safe)
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach! All hail Kubo-sensei!
Summary: It didn't matter that she was a Shinigami or that he was an Arrancar. For a very long, long time ago, they were both very much human.
Grimmjow was hunched over in the tiny corner of the attic, his arms hugging his knees protectively. It was nighttime now, and the tsunami that scared everyone off didn't materialize. He supposed it was good news, because then tomorrow the townspeople would return from the shrine and he would see Rukia again.
However, things weren't going well in the household. Without the master of the house, most of the househelp had fled in fear of their lives. Grimmjow couldn't care less if they all left, however most of them took a souvenir: a painting, some jewelry, even the cutlery was not spared from their thieving hands. The only one that remained was Kaoru. She had stayed with him and held him as the aftershock shook the wooden floors beneath his feet. She had only left him to go downstairs, trying to fix them something to eat.
He stared at the candle, which was placed on top of an overturned cup. He was still worried about Rukia, she was a baby after all and she was still so fragile. He worried about Hisana too and wondered if she was going to get sick again because of this whole ordeal. He just wanted the family that had adopted him as their own to be safe. He wasn't even surprised to find himself worrying about them, but he couldn't care less if an entire building toppled on top of his own father.
"I guess dad was right," he murmured into his knees, his eyes never leaving the candle. "I am a bad person I guess."
A scream caused him to look up and and freeze in fear. "Kaoru nee-chan!" he gasped as he recognized the voice. Grimmjow stood up and despite the fear that was threatening to paralyze him, he rushed towards the door and looked over the stair railing for any sign of his personal maid.
He was about to go down the stairs when he heard the sound of a gunshot echo throughout the house. His eyes widened and he wondered briefly if Kaoru had stumbled onto his father's secret gun room. It wasn't exactly legal, but a few people inside the house knew about its existence, Kaoru included.
Suddenly, Grimmjow felt a pang of doubt tear at his heart. Was Kaoru trying to steal the guns ? He only allowed himself to ponder on it for a second before shaking his head. Kaoru would never do that, and why would she just fire the gun like that? Unless...
"Oh no, Kaoru!" Grimmjow cried out as he ran down the stairs as fast as his tiny legs could manage. The thought of Kaoru in trouble had caused adrenaline to surge through his veins, and the consequences of his actions flew out the window – he only wanted to make sure the only person who stayed with him was safe. He ran towards the east wing of the house, where his father's study was. Behind the study was the gun room, partially hidden by a bookshelf.
As soon as he stepped into the office, Grimmjow knew something was wrong. The smell of blood and gunpowder filled the air and he almost wanted to turn around and run away. With his hands stiff at his sides, Grimmjow took a careful step forward into the darkness. The moon's pale white light was streaming in through the window and he could see that the bookcase had fallen over - probably from the earthquake – and the gun room was now fully exposed.
As he stepped closer to the bookcase, he saw something on the ground to his left. Fear gripped him as he saw Kaoru, writhing in pain on the ground, blood pooling around her.
"Kaoru!" Grimmjow ran towards his personal maid, but stopped short as she looked at him with terrified eyes.
"N-no!" she gasped in between labored breaths. "Y-young master! R—run p—please!" She tried to reach out to him, but her hand had barely gone up a few inches before it fell back to the floor, lifeless.
"Lookie what we got here!"
Grimmjow turned around and saw three men walking out of the gun room, their arms bearing his father's prized collection of rifles and repeaters. As Grimmjow turned his gaze from one man to the next, he realized that one of them was none other than his tutor.
"You bastard!" He growled. His tutor merely chuckled, while his two companions whistled and made mocking noises.
"Aaah, such strong language from such a small child," his tutor said, cradling the rifle he held over his shoulder proudly. "Your father had all the money in the world yet he couldn't buy you manners."
"You thieves! Put those back! Bring Kaoru back!" The sight of the guns in their hands didn't faze Grimmjow. All he could see in his mind was Kaoru's face, how her features were contorted into fear before they relaxed and became stiff, her eyes wide open and staring into nothingness.
"Ah the maid," one of his tutor's companions shook his head in mock regret. "Pity, she was pretty, but very very nosy. Seriously, everyone's gone, what's wrong with taking these?"
Grimmjow's tutor eyed Kaoru's lifeless body with disdain before saying curtly, "that kind of loyalty is stupid, really."
"Oi boss," the third man said, turning towards the tutor, who seemed to be their leader. "Shall we off the brat?"
"Naaaah, just leave him," addressed their leader. "Let him cry for a bit before his daddy comes back for him. He's harmless."
The three made a move towards the door and Grimmjow, who was previously glued to the spot as the image of Kaoru burned into his mind, found himself suddenly lunging, almost against his will.
It felt like he had no control over his body whatsoever. All he saw were the images of the men before him, looming closer as he sped towards them. He saw the looks of surprise on their faces as they turned around to look at him. He saw his tutor raise his arm in defense and the next thing he knew, he was sinking his teeth into it, the coppery taste of blood exploding into his mouth.
"Shit!" Grimmjow heard his tutor hiss and he looked up to see the older man grimacing in pain. Not satisfied with the wound he had inflicted, Grimmjow grabbed the man's hair in order to pull him down and with his free hand, jabbed his fingers into his eyes.
He heard screaming before a sharp blow to the back of the neck had sent him sprawling to the floor. Grimmjow winced as he a foot stomped on his chest and he looked up to see his tutor's henchman looking at him with an evil grin on his face.
"Wrong move little boy," the henchman hissed, pointing the gun he had in his hand at Grimmjow.
Grimmjow shifted his gaze towards his tutor, who was hunched over in agony, as the other henchmen watched over him, panicking. Grimmjow felt his fingers wet with blood and a smile slowly made its way to his lips as he gave the man on top of his the coldest glare he could muster.
He saw the man's face falter for a bit before clouding over with anger. The last thing Grimmjow saw was the barrel of his father's favorite repeater before everything went black.
Grimmjow sat on a tree trunk that had fallen from the earthquake, his lips curled in disgust at the sight before him. It was a cloudy morning and he was on the front lawn, a few steps away from the crowd that had gathered around his father. His father had a sad look in his eyes and to the initiated, it may look like he was feeling deep emotional pain, but Grimmjow knew better. His father was a great actor and playing the part of the mourning father was as easy to him as breathing.
He listened as his father delivered his speech – rehearsed for hours, no doubt – about how he condemned whoever murdered his son and would not rest until the killers have been found. For a moment, Grimmjow felt agony in his father's voice, but then again the thieves had taken his favorite repeater.
He must be pissed about that then, Grimmjow mused. The crowd turned their attention away from his father as volunteers brought out two stretchers, both bearing bodies covered by white sheets stained with blood. Grimmjow looked at the stretcher with the outline of a tiny body etched against the white fabric.
That must be me. It felt weird, looking at your own corpse as it was being carried away. As the stretchers were moved passed the crowd, Grimmjow hissed at his father, who continued talking to the people around him, not once looking at his son's dead body. "Stupid old man," Grimmjow murmured. He didn't know why he bothered – why even at the last moment he wanted his father to show even just a glimmer of sincere compassion.
"Sucks," he grunted as he shoved off the tree trunk and slowly made his way to the back gardens. Along the way, he felt something brush against his leg. He looked down and smiled as he saw Pantera rubbing its cheek against his leg lovingly, as if telling him he was forgiven.
"Hey there," Grimmjow said casually, as if everything was okay with the world. As if he wasn't talking to his dead cat, which he killed with his own hands. As if he wasn't dead himself, with his white shirt practically drenched in blood, with a chain jutting awkwardly from his chest, swinging from side to side with each step he took.
He bent down to pick up his cat and cradled it in his chest. Then, using a tree that had fallen over as a bridge, he made his way towards Rukia's house. "Let's wait for Rukia together then okay? I swear, you'll really like her."
Pantera purred contentedly in his arms, as it poked at the chain curiously.
Grimmjow leaned against the wooden post with his arms supporting his head and let out an impatient sigh. He was sitting down on the dusty floor in the abandoned house that once belonged to his future bride. He had lost track of time, but he knew it had been days since the earthquake and there was still no sign of Rukia nor her family. He could tell it had been a long time since he has watched so many sunrises and sunsets since he had declared the abandoned Ikizawa house his new home.
Pantera was in front of him, lazily playing with the chain that lay just below his ribs. Grimmjow watched as his cat pushed the chain from side to side with its paws, its head turning left to right in rhythm with the chain's movements.
"Nobody's home eh? I thought some relatives would at least pass by."
Grimmjow's ears twitched as he heard a voice near the front door. He rushed towards the door with Pantera at his heels. He was about to pass through the door when he heard a laugh that made him frown. Strange, it didn't sound like Mr. Ikizawa at all.
"Takeshiro, I'm glad I followed your advice and stayed put instead of going to the shrine," said another voice. Grimmjow stayed by the door and listened in on the conversation. The first voice was not familiar to him, but the second one – the one that laughed – belonged to a neighbor who was a fisherman. Grimmjow knew him well; he had stolen fish from the same man time and time again just to piss him off.
"They were really nice, you know," the man called Takeshiro said, his voice filled with sadness. "The Ikizawas didn't deserve to die."
Grimmjow felt like something had punched him in the gut hard, and he fell to the floor as his knees gave way. He tugged against the chain as he felt his insides burning, as if a smoldering fire was trying to escape from his chest. He felt like he was suffocating and he tugged at the chain harder, in an attempt to breathe.
"No, it can't be," he gasped out in a small voice, as he felt the heart he didn't know he had thudded loudly in his chest. "Ru...kia..."
"All of them? Even the girls?"
"Yes, even the girls. Sad isn't it?"
No, NO! Suddenly, Grimmjow cried out as he shook his head, as the pain in his chest got stronger and traveled like small lightning bolts to his fingertips, his whole body tingling with this strange new sensation. He looked down at his chest and his eyes widened when he saw that the area around the chain was slowly dissolving into a black void with dark clouds of mass swirling around the chain.
Then suddenly, it was as if his senses were heightened. He looked at Pantera, who was looking at him worriedly. His cats face seemed distorted and zoomed in, even though it was far away from where Grimmjow was. He could see every detail on his cat's face, even with the great distance between them. The two voices outside were amplified and it felt like they were speaking right into his ears.
"No!" Grimmjow growled as he covered his ears as the two continued talking about the poor family's demise. "Lies! LIES!" He tried to tune them out but it was no use. The more he tried, the louder the voices were.
"Ah!" He was suddenly forced to hunch over, with his hands gripping his chest as a sharp, blinding pain shot through him. Cold sweat started to pour down his temples and his hands were shaking against his will. "Ru...kia," he managed through gritted teeth. "S-she'll be back. I know i-it!"
The pain was gone in an instant. Grimmjow sat up and stared at his chest to find that the black void had disappeared. Palms sweaty and breathing heavily, he allowed himself to fall to the floor. He curled his body into a fetal position to stop the trembling. What is happening to me?
He felt a strong burst of energy which caused his breath to hitch in his throat. A man wearing black traditional Japanese clothing had materialized from above and was looking around the house, a sword slung over his shoulder casually.
"That's odd, I thought I sense the reiatsu of a Jibakurei around here," the newcomer mused. He looked down and his eyes widened in surprise upon seeing Grimmjow laying there. "Oi, little boy, are you okay?"
Grimmjow didn't speak and simply looked up as the man knelt beside him and checked him for wounds. "There's a Jibakurei around here," the man said, worriedly. "Did it come here and hurt you?"
Grimmjow shook his head as he slowly sat up. "Are you dead too?"
The man laughed. "Well, kinda. I'm a Shinigami. It's good that I got to you in time. Any later and that Jibakurei might have attacked you." He shifted his sword in his hands, which made Grimmjow shrink back.
"What are you doing?" Grimmjow asked, afraid. Why couldn't people just leave him alone so he could wait for Rukia in peace?
"It's okay. This is to protect you. It will take you to Soul Society, a peaceful place."
Grimmjow shook his head. "No! I'm waiting for someone. I can't leave!"
The man frowned. "It's dangerous here kid. Now come on, don't be stubborn." The man scooted closer to him, which made Grimmjow turn away hurriedly.
"No!" Grimmjow cried out as he violently pushed the man away and ran. He heard the man gasp in surprise, then call out for him to come back, but Grimmjow paid him no heed. He was not going anywhere. He was going to wait for Rukia, even if it took a long time. He felt his young legs burning as he pushed himself to keep running.
Suddenly, he remembered what the fisherman had said. "Rukia is... ack!" The pain in his chest started to creep back in, but Grimmjow pushed thoughts of despair away from his mind. No, even if she is dead, she can return. Grimmjow thought with determination. If I returned and Pantera returned, there's a chance she'll return too.
Grimmjow waited until the next day before returning to the wooden house. He wanted to make sure that the weird man in black was not there anymore. He didn't want to spend the entire time running away from that man while he was waiting for Rukia to return. "Sheesh, what is wrong with him? Can't take no for an answer..." he said as he ran his hand through his hair.
He stopped suddenly as the house came into view. He didn't even look at his own house anymore; to him, it was a stranger's house and he couldn't care less about it. Instead, he made a beeline for the front door...
….only to stop a few steps away when he heard people rummaging about inside.
Grimmjow quickly passed through the door, expecting to see Mr and Mrs Ikizawa smiling at him, with Hisana scolding him for not coming back sooner. Instead he found strangers gathered in the main area, surveying the rubble. A territorial hiss escaped his lips; a trick he learned from Pantera.
"Goodness, a lot of work needs to be done," a brown-haired woman in her 40's said. "But still... it's nice to be back in the family house after all these years."
"Pity though, that your sister had to die. Such cruel circumstances," a lanky man with black cropped hair held the woman in his arms as she sighed sadly.
"Well, this house is technically ours now, so we should clear it out or something. Get it back into shape so we can sell it."
"What?" Grimmjow shouted, although he knew they couldn't hear him. "Don't sell it! Where would Rukia live when she returns?" He knew it was hopeless. They didn't even know that a small boy was standing only a few steps away from them.
"You don't want to live here?" the man asked the woman curiously.
"What?" the woman laughed. It was a cold laugh and Grimmjow wanted to slap that laugh off her face. "Me? Live here? Surely you must be joking. I love my sister and all, but marrying that man... did you know they got this house because he couldn't provide one for her himself?"
Grimmjow felt his palms sting as his hands wound into tight fists, shaking with rage that he tried to hold back desperately. He didn't want to experience the same pain he felt yesterday. "Oi woman!" he yelled, baring his teeth. "Don't you dare talk about this house that way!"
His words fell on deaf ears as the woman turned around and continued surveying the room. "Oh, what's this?" She knelt down and took something half-hidden underneath the rubble. With a jolt, Grimmjow realized that what she had in her hands was Rukia's crib basket.
"Poor kids," she sighed. "Hisana was so sickly because they couldn't take care of her. Then they have another baby. I told her, she should have just gotten rid of it."
Grimmjow felt his eyes clouding over with rage. It took every ounce of his strength to stay rooted to his spot when all he wanted was to lunge at the woman and dig his nails into her neck. That would shut her up for sure.
She gave the basket over to her husband, who looked at her quizzically. "Throw it, " she said coldly. "It's not needed anymore."
No. Suddenly, Grimmjow felt as if his heart had stopped. The man's footsteps seem to echo loudly in his mind, each step pounding into his brain like a rusty nail. He couldn't see anything, everything around him was a hazy blur.
Everything but the basket.
No, Rukia... no! He wanted to cry out, but found that as he opened his mouth, no sound came out. His eyes narrowed into slits as he tried to focus on the man carrying the basket. "Leave it alone!" he managed to hiss, his voice sounding distorted to his own ears. "That's not yours!"
Suddenly, the pain he felt yesterday came rushing back, this time with extreme force that caused him to writhe in pain on the floor, with his chest hunched over. Not now, he thought, as he tried to sit back up, but couldn't. The chain felt so heavy that he couldn't lift himself from his current position.
He extended a shaking hand towards the man. "Rukia... she'll need that when she comes back! D-don't -" he couldn't finish what he was saying as he felt his chest constrict, as if he was being crushed from all directions.
The man was almost out the door and was just two steps away from Grimmjow. He cursed at the strange pain that was overwhelming him now, rendering him helpless as a stranger took away one of his beloved's precious possessions. ".him," he gasped out between pants. Gathering all that's left of his strength, he grabbed the chain on his chest and pulled with all his might.
A blinding pain coursed through his body as the chain broke free. Grimmjow screamed in pain as he felt a deafening ringing in his ears, feeling as if his whole body was going to shatter because of the sound. A strange, ominous energy was traveling through his body and he could feel sharp, prickling pains as the energy passed, before numbness set in.
"Argh!" he growled in a thundering voice, one that sounded alien to him. To his ears, it sounded like an animal about to pounce on his prey. The growl had caused his energy to ripple and spread outward. The force was so great, even the unsuspecting humans had looked around in shock.
"What was that?" the man, just inches away from Grimmjow, asked.
The woman shrugged. "A small aftershock? Anyway just get rid of that damned thing."
As he saw the man pass by him, Grimmjow shot an arm out and held the man's leg in a tight grip, eliciting a "what the fuck" from the man. Grimmjow looked at his hands and saw that his fingers were now longer and were shaped like claws. His arm was covered in a shell-like armor. "Give it back," he ordered, before digging his claws into the humans legs and dragging it across the skin.
Grimmjow heard screaming as a fountain of crimson poured from the man's leg. In an attempt to stop the bleeding, the man bent down to try to clamp his hand over his leg. Grimmjow leapt up into the air and lunged at the man, burying his newly developed fangs into the man's shoulder. More screaming ensued as he shook his head, tearing away the skin and blood vessels underneath in the process.
He watched with satisfaction as the man lay before him in a pool of blood, his body twitching as it struggled to stay alive. Grimmjow had turned his attention to the woman, who was still shrieking.
"SHUT UP!" he all but screamed as he enclosed the woman's face like a vice with his now enlarged hands. He started to close his hand, the woman's cries becoming muffled as her face was scrunched up. The sound of her skull cracking and the deafening silence that followed was music to Grimmjow's ears.
A familiar energy signature had interrupted Grimmjow from admiring his bloodied handiwork. He turned around and smiled as he caught sight of the man in black robes. The look of worry that he wore yesterday was now replaced by grim determination and anger. He clutched his sword, poised to attack.
Nice to see you again, Grimmjow wanted to say, but all that came out from his lips was an animalistic growl. It seemed that he was becoming less and less human. He didn't get a chance to see what he looked like, but he knew nobody would think that underneath that armor, claws and fangs was a young boy.
"Prepare to die, hollow!" the man in black robes cried out. Before he could take another step however, another strong energy signature pulsed throughout the land, and even Grimmjow felt the force of it through his new skin. His surroundings disappeared in a blur for a few seconds. When his eyes regained their focus, he saw that the man who called himself a Shinigami now had his back turned to him.
"Shit!" he cursed. "It's a Kumon." With that, he disappeared right before Grimmjow's eyes. Curious, he stepped out of the house and looked up in the direction the Shinigami was looking at. A giant hole had formed in the sky, ripping apart the sunny and cloudless morning. A large creature emerged from the hole, towering over the small, quiet town. It was completely draped with a black cloak and on its face was a mask with an elongated and pointed noise. It howled as it stepped out of the hole in the sky and slowly moved towards the center of town.
Grimmjow stood, mesmerized at the powerful being that had appeared before him. Each time the creature howled, it felt as if it was beckoning to him, calling out to him. He felt his body act without his knowledge, as it stepped closer to the creature and the black hole behind it. It was as if the howling was music and it had him in a trance.
Looking around, he saw that he was not alone. Many creatures with black and white armor, all of different sizes, were emerging from their hiding places and were moving towards the large creature as if they were hypnotized. Grimmjow leapt up and hovered above the ground for a few seconds before slowly floating towards the black hole.
As he neared the creature, Grimmjow saw its mouth opening and for a second he was blinded by a bright, red light. When his eyes had adjusted themselves to the light, he saw a swirling red orb forming, slowly growing in size in its mouth. Without a warning, it shot out a bright red beam towards the city. The force was so great that Grimmjow, who had been hovering near the creature, staggered backwards. Once he regained his balance, he looked at the ground just in time to see the man in black robes being consumed by the red light.
He did not know how long he had been standing there, just looking at the smoldering crater where the man once stood, when he heard the creature cry out again. He looked around and saw that the creatures had passed through the hole in the sky. The huge creature was moving back into the hole again. As soon as Grimmjow noticed that the hole was slowly shrinking in size, he sped up and without even thinking, leapt into the hole merely seconds before it closed once more.
Around him there was only darkness and the deafening cries of monsters who were traveling in the dark with him. Surprisingly the abyss around him felt warm and he found it strangely comfortable, like a cocoon shrouding him with familiar energy.
Yes, he was with his kind now.
He felt like he had finally come home.
Deep inside him, he felt as if he was forgetting something. There was a dull ache in his chest, as if he was moving farther and farther from something he held dear. However, as he moved deeper into the darkness, his humanity was slipping away from his grasp bit by bit. Memories faded like wisps of black mist that floated before him, though visions of the past felt foreign to him, as if they happened a million lifetimes away.
He freely surrendered his individuality, not bothering to hold on to his memories as they slowly disintegrated before his very eyes. He could not fathom then, why visions of innocent amethyst orbs and a small hand gripping a tiny fingerfloated through his mind, as solid and untouched as if the very memory was not merely inside his mind, but engraved into his very soul.
Author's Notes: Finally finished a fic! yey! This is dedicated to my new muse, BarbaritaS 3 hehehe Thank you for supporting my fics, you're not only a wonderful writer, you're an awesome reader too! ^_^ Again, sorry for the mess with the chapters, I really wanted the fic to be shorter. aaaaah, oh well... not any good with short fics then. Now that the fic is finished, please tell me how you feel, I'd really appreciate feedback. Will be creating a sequel to this, though it won't be happening very soon. Have to finish with other fics first. haha Well that was fun. I found that without having to worry about accuracy that much, I feel more freedom in terms of writing. Once I put up the sequel, I will edit this a bit to make it more polished and accurate, though I won't do it here in FFN because it doesn't allow me to just edit the fic without having to reupload. I'll probably put the polished version on my deviantart instead...