Rukia's eyes fluttered open. She felt heavy and tired, but still tried to sit up when the walls around her came into focus.
"No, don't." A gentle hand kept her flat on the floor but not before she felt the intense pain of the wound in her stomach. She turned her head to see the dark haired teen.
"Uryu."
"Miss Rukia, please stay still, I will get mister Kisuke."
He left the room before she could question his odd behaviour. Urahara and Tessai followed him back in a couple minutes later.
"Where is Orihime?" She asked.
"Orihime was with you?" Uryu's normal calm had vanished.
"Yes, she didn't come through with me?"
"No." Kisuke said, kneeling next to her. "Rukia, what happened?"
She explained what she had witnessed in Heuco Mundo up to Grimmjow shoving her through the gate.
"I'm afraid Uryu too, has suffered a similar memory loss as Captain Hitsugaya." Urahara explained what information he had gathered from the boy and Orihime in the brief time she'd been with him.
"She and Grimmjow were taken to the Soul Society by the Head Captain three days ago."
"Then they already know, that Orihime is there."
"Yes, I'm sure they're doing everything they can to help her."
Rukia's eye's shut and she felt Urahara's hand on her head. But she couldn't hang on any longer. As she was passing out, she saw flashes of the brief battle on the stairs and knew that Aizen was carrying out his plans right now. The Soul Reapers would never get their fast enough. Her friends were on their own.
Arrancars and espada flooded the hallways, all trying to stop the manic Ulquiorra who rampaged though their palace, destroying everything in his wake. The frequent explosions rattled the many jars and vials that lined the shelves of Szayel's lab. He sighed at his desk and stood up, throwing open the door. Black smoke trailed along the ceiling and another hoard of arrancars ran by him.
They would never survive, he chuckled to himself. He felt a shudder of riatsu from the second battle taking place in Los Noches and knew that their substitute leader Tossen was losing his fight with the three intruders. Oh well, the pink haired espada thought nonchalantly, if he's too weak, then he deserves to die.
A flash of golden hair and tan skin caught his eye and he cried out for Harribel to stop.
"What?" she asked annoyed, her sword drawn to join the fight with Ulquiorra.
"Can you tell them to keep it down when you get there." she glared at him in disgust. "Why don't you just send Yammy down there to finish him anyway?"
"Are you suggesting I can't handle this?" she asked dangerously but Szayel pretended not to notice. She turned away from him. "He's already there with Stark. You should be helping, or at least assisting Commander Tossen."
"No, I have a feeling I'll be needed here. Haven't you noticed? Our master is back."
Harribel's eyes shifted. She too had felt Ichimaru and Aizen's spirits in battle, Ichimaru falling quickly and the very strange riatsu of Grimmjow before his too went out. But it was not her business. Without another word, she sodinoed down the hall to where the smoke was thickest.
Szayel didn't have to wait long. He felt his master coming and held the door to his lab open.
He was mildly surprised to find the sixth espada still breathing when he was dumped on his floor. The girl Orihime was forced to her knees next to him, she still had a small figure clutched in her arms.
"Secure the boy Szayel." Orhime refused to let go of the captain until a harsh slap from Aizen startled her enough that the pink haired espada could rip him from her. She ignored the stinging on her face and turned her attention back to the man before her, his eyes slowly parting as he came around.
"I want you to fix him." Aizen ordered. "Make him remember. Show me you can do this, and then it will be Toshiro's turn."
Orihime didn't move yet. Grimmjow was still coming to but he heard the words.
"Do it, Orihime."
"But if I take your mind back to the way it was before Toshiro's spell rebounded, you won't remember the last few days. You won't remember me in the same way."
Grimmjow's eyes shifted to Aizen and then back to her. "You don't have a choice. Do it."
She nodded sadly and raised her hands to his temples. "The anger and the hate will return...I don't want to be responsible for–"
"Enough Orihime." Azien spoke angrily from above them. "Get on with it."
"Alright," she breathed, "Here goes."
"See you, Orihime." He shut his eyes when the golden light became concentrated between her hands and around his head. Strange crackles of his own riatsu escaped out from her and back into him, startling her and disrupting the process for just a second, then resuming. But something had happened, he was seeing memories as they returned and in that second one in particular had burned deep into him.
He was screaming in her grip but when she looked like she might stop Aizen bent low and told her to continue. Then it was over, Grimmjow lay panting on the floor, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling for a few moments before Orihime was shoved to the side and Aizen bent down to see if there had been a change in the deep blue eyes.
"Grimmjow?"
Grimmjow's heavy breathing continued, but when his eyes locked onto Aizen's a deadly growl mixed with the pants. His blue eyes shone with hatred and rage and he jumped on the man before him. Grimmjow managed to get standing straight up, clutching Aizen by the front of his robes, but he could do no more against the superior mass of spiritual energy.
"You!" he growled.
"Ahh, Grimmjow, are you perhaps remembering how we first met? How you became my sixth?"
An angry growl was all he received but it was clear he was saying yes.
"A nasty few days, but try to think past it, remember everything else."
Grimmjow didn't want to, but as soon as the suggestion was made, other memories began flooding his mind. He grasped at his back as an imaginary pain seared into the six but it was gone the next moment and a series of battles, meetings in a long hall, encounters with other espada, with humans and soul reapers and finally, with her, flashed through his head and he stumbled back from his master, trying to shake away the confusion. He realized what he'd been doing and instantly dropped to his knees.
"Lord Aizen, forgive me."
"There is nothing to forgive, it was beyond your control."
"Sir, I don't understand. Were we not just out in the cave prisons in the Gillion Forest? How did we get here?"
"It's a long story, you suffered some memory loss but now you are healed, thanks to Orihime here. Now, get the girl and follow me."
Grimmjow nodded, grabbed Orihime's hand and drug her after Aizen to the opposite end of the long laboratory.
"Grimmjow?" She asked hesitantly but he said nothing, holding her tight when they came to a stop just behind Aizen.
"Ah, Toshiro, I see you are awake." When Aizen took a step or two forward, Grimmjow and Orihime could see the boy was on his knees, his hands shackled to posts on either side of him.
Szayel hovered behind him with a large syringe.
"You must understand that I had to take precautions. Once I restore those memories, you'll be far too dangerous to keep unrestrained. Orihme!" Grimmjow shoved her forward. She stepped slowly in front of the boy.
"I won't." she said. Another brutal strike to her delicate face. Toshiro's eyes narrowed in anger but he caught a glimpse of the sixth espada over Orhime's shoulder. Grimmjow's eyes were blazing and his fists clenched tight and shaking.
"You will do it in the end, Orihme. I can torture you, or your friends that Kaname still has trapped down the hallway, but in the end, you will do as I wish, so you might as well get it over with before all the unpleasantries."
Toshiro nodded slightly and she began to cry as she raised her hands to his temples.
"Szayel." Just as Orihme's powers began in him, a long needle slid into his neck and he felt his eyes grow heavy, his ability to resist practically neutralized and he slumped in his shackles. It was almost peaceful right before the flood of memories returned.
He saw flames, searing hot, orange, so bright they blinded, so close they suffocated, but then they vanished and in their absence he fell against the ancient blade and all those nightmares flooded into his mind. His screams lasted much longer than Grimmjow's, he had a thousand years of memories that were not his own to cram back into his mind.
"Orihime!" he screamed gasping, his mind still back in the cave, seeing her and Uryu huddled on the floor, awaiting torture. No, he had cast the spell to erase his memory...then what...?
His tired mind put the pieces together. Things were working sluggishly, he guessed he'd been sedated, but in the almost full minute it took him to locate Aizen and focus in on him he'd already figured it out: Orihime had done to him what he'd wanted all along, but in the reverse. He must have succeeded in erasing his memories back in the cave, but she had brought them back.
"How long...?" Orihime understood his question, surprised he had already determined what had happened.
"Just a few days. How do you feel?"
"Like I'm going to pass out."
"Oh don't do that, Toshiro." Aizen swooped down on his captive and gripped his chin between thumb and forefinger, forcing him to stare back into his eyes. "I've waited long enough. Time for you to tell me all those secrets. Szayel here might eventually figure out a way to transfer them directly, but for now, I want you to start talking. Tell me everything: all those forbidden spells, all those secrets that could destroy the Soul Reapers forever. You better have lots to say because Orihime only lives as long as you keep giving me information."
He gripped the girl by the hair and threw her to the ground next to Grimmjow. "And just to prove that I'm not kidding, Grimmjow here will give you a little demonstration of how painful her death will be."
Grimmjow knew this was a test. He remembered purposely releasing that cero back in the cave to avoid hurting this girl. Aizen wanted to see if he would make the same mistake. He let the cero begin, not knowing what else to do but as the energy built it resonated with the girl on the floor. She looked up at him through watery eyes and he could see his own aura swirling around her. He dropped his hand.
"What are you doing?" Aizen barked.
"She has my power inside her."
"It was necessary to restore hers."
"No." Orihime interrupted. "Aizen didn't make you, you did it on your own. I woke up in your arms, you had given it to me freely."
"Why would I–"
"Because it was the only way to get your memories back." Aizen's hand quivered dangerously, Grimmjow knew he wouldn't hesitate to dispatch of a subordinate that wasn't one hundred percent loyal. But as he stared down at Orihime he got flashes of the last few days, most of the time it was her face, smiling at him.
"I remember..." he whispered.
"It must be because I had some of your power when I healed you." She spoke encouragingly from the floor, as if Aizen wasn't even there.
His master growled in annoyance. "Enough! Grimmjow, do it!"
He mechanically raised his hand again, the hatred rising, but it was not directed at Orihime. He remembered the pain, the torture, the agony he'd experience by Aizen's hand to make him obedient. The memory was always with him, fuelling his hatred and in turn his anger, mostly at himself for remaining a slave to the man who had hurt him so badly. Now that old memory was at the surface of his mind and his never-ending well of anger was overflowing. He would not hurt this woman for Aizen. He would not, in fact, hurt her for anyone.
"You bastard!" he growled finally, when he'd made up his mind. The cero blasted harmlessly against Aizen, not nearly enough to challenge his spiritual pressure.
"Oh Grimmjow, you disappoint me." Aizen said. Then, with a motion so quick Orihime couldn't see, a yellow light shot forth and struck Grimmjow in the leg, searing through cloth and flesh and he roared in pain as he collapsed to the ground.
"Szayel. Teach Grimmjow the consequences of his actions. If he's still alive after, we'll see if he's worth...retraining. And while your at it, get my lieutenant's body. Orihime might as well restore him while she's on a role."
"Yes sir." Szayel leered down on Grimmjow and grabbed him by the hair. Grimmjow swung but Szayel's fist met his face before her could land a blow and he lay back stunned. Szayel drug him away.
"No..." but Orihime could not watch him because her head was being forced around toward Toshiro by Aizen.
"Stop." Toshiro tried to say forcefully but the sedatives slurred his words and made them little more than whispers. "I'll tell you, just stop hurting her. What do you want to know?"
"Everything, in time. But something has been burning me. When I captured you, you were running from Yamamoto. Something made you hate him so much you turned traitor. What did you see?"
"So many things. Years of secrets, abuse of power..." his head drooped further and Aizen sighed in frustration. Szayel may have given him too much. He touched to boy's forehead and sent a shock of power into him, just enough to take the edge off. His eyes widened and he refocused on the man before him before they fell back to the sniffling girl who sat before him.
"He killed them, all of them."
"Who?"
"The first soul reaper captains."
"But Kyoraku, Ukitake–"
"Not until after. The Gotei 13 we know was really the second try, the rebirth after he had to purge the ranks of the first."
"Why?"
"They mutinied."
Toshiro took a moment to gasp in air. As he spoke his mind was whirling through spells, through possibilities. He already had every action planned out on how to escape his bindings, and dodge Aizen's inevitable attack and even grab Orihme with him.
The only thing stopping him was the fact that he could not simply run away. Aizen was a threat that needed to be eliminated right here and now, and sitting on the floor before him, was the only person in the universe he knew could do it. He just had to slow Aizen down long enough to give her the chance she needed. There was just the three of them, he had to take the opportunity while he could.
"Why did they betray him?" Aizen continued to interrogate him.
"He ordered them to destroy Karakura town."
"And why was that?"
At this, Toshiro returned his gaze to Aizen and responded darkly. "Because, Aizen, he wanted to kill you."
Aizen didn't respond at first. He stared at the boy as if trying to figure out if he was lying then he nodded for him to continue.
"He didn't know it was you he was trying to kill. He just knew there was a disturbance in the balance and he knew that out of Karakura town would come someone so evil and powerful they could destroy everything. He knew, once they died, they might even become a Soul Reaper but he would never be able to identify them. There was no way to pinpoint the human after that one disturbance, but he knew it was in Karakura, so he ordered its destruction."
"And, being Yamamoto, he didn't explain it to his subordinate."
"You're wrong, he did, but none of them agreed that any threat was worth taking the lives of so many innocents, so many humans, whom we're sworn to protect."
Aizen smiled at this and came to eye level with Toshiro. "And tell me, Toshiro. Now that you see the truth for yourself, do you still disagree with Yamamoto's decision?"
Toshiro stared back at him through half hazed but wholly determined eyes. His heavy breathing evened out and he spoke with quiet conviction.
"Yes. Those soul reapers were right, the sacrifice of Karakura is not what it will take to kill you. No one need die to bring you down!"
The chains snapped when they were instantly frozen in the bust of riatsu that escaped his small form. He was undoubtably the captain of the tenth once more, but with the knowledge of a thousand years. And all he needed was to slow Aizen down, just long enough for Orihime Inoue to heal him– to take his body back to the time before he infused the hogyoku, before he turned traitor, before he mastered his bankai...
"You intend to use the girl, don't you Toshiro? Truly the boy genius."
"Shut up Aizen, its over."
They exchanged blows. The sedative was nearly clear of his body now, the flow of spiritual energy purging it, and even though Aizen had his zampakuto and he was weaponless, he was armed with all the forbidden and forgotten spells– techniques that had Aizen working much harder than he would have liked. But he knew what he had to do.
"If it's the girl you need, then you know what I must do." Aizen roared over the blaze of another incredibly powerful spell that just barely missed him. He swiped at Toshiro and immediately turned to Orihime.
Toshiro saw too late his move and tried to reach her first but couldn't. Aizen's steel sliced through open air, Orihme froze, Toshiro lost his breath, but all the same, the clang of steel on steel rang through the air.
Grimmjow collapsed on his bad leg and remained kneeling, his arms shaking under the weight of Aizen's blow. He maintained his grip, however, on Paterna, protecting Orihime.
In her shock, Orihime didn't bother to look around to see the unconscious form of Szayel half in, half out of the doorway, she just knew she had been saved, and that her saviour, in turn, needed rescuing. And all Toshiro Hitsugaya knew what that he would never get a better opportunity.
Aizen had left his back wide open. True, illusions, or speed would never allow him a clean strike, but all he needed were a few seconds when Aizen didn't notice him, just long enough to plant his hands against the ground and let it all pour out.
Orihime watched Grimmjow's arms relax, Aizen's blade still above him but no longer pushing down. Toshiro was chanting something under his breath as he worked: an infusion of ancient power and raw spiritual release. And Orihime knew this was the moment.
To Grimmjow's disbelief the girl moved away from his protection and stood before the monster Aizen. No more fear in her face, just concentration for her task. One hand went to his head, the other to his chest.
Aizen broke free of Toshiro's hold within seconds, but in that time his mind and body had already been pulled far back, and he could not escape the process that had begun. Somewhere deep inside, he screamed at his defeat at the hands of a child, a human, and the soldier he'd created.
Toshiro came to Orihime's side as he watched her powers take away the threat so great it had almost cost the lives of an entire town. Now all that menace melted away. The Hogyoku parted from his body and fell harmlessly to the floor. After a few more minutes, his blade even disappeared. That was when Orihime stopped. She had taken him back to even before he'd discovered his powers. She dropped her hands and her eyes fell to the hogyoku.
"Yes, that too." Toshiro said, and watched her take it back through its own history, until finally, it was no more, she reversed it to the point it had not yet been created.
All threats now eliminated, Toshiro sat down next to her, suddenly drained. She too was exhausted, but the last thing she manage before passing out was to turn and lay her hands on Grimmjow's battered leg. In a matter of seconds there was no wound to speak of and she was resting in his arms.
Toshiro stared at him for a moment before turning back to stare at the bewildered, Aizen before him, quietly accepting Grimmjow's change of sides.
"What do we do now?" Grimmjow asked, voicing his own thoughts aloud.
"We are both traitors to our own kind, Grimmjow. Leave Orihime and go now, before the others get back."
"What about you?"
"I won't run from the Soul Society anymore. Its time I go home and face whatever I must."
"You're acting likes its all over."
Toshiro turned away from Aizen and looked at Grimmjow hard. The espada stood and went to the nearest bed where he gently lay Orihime. "You can sit here and do nothing if you like, Soul Reaper, but Ulquiorra is still rampaging around out there and there are still espada all over the place."
"What are you planning?"
"Aizen enslaved us all. If Orihme could reverse the hogyoku itself-"
"Then perhaps she can reverse what it did to them, take them back to before they were espada. Yes, I'm sure she can, but why do you care?"
Grimmjow shrugged and just continued to stare down at Orihime as he spoke. "Even if you've defeated Aizen for the Soul Reapers, he's still won over the arrancars as long as they remember him, as long as they use the powers he gave them. Even if he's gone, they'll keep doing what he wanted them to."
"But not you?"
"I never could accept him as my master. He must have screwed up on my transformation, I don't know."
"You said there were two reasons."
This time Grimmjow did turn to face him and he half smiled as he spoke. "Like I've always said, I've gotta look out for number one. They're gonna want me dead soon as they hear I turned traitor. And with nine espada on my trail, there won't be anywhere in the whole of Heuco Mundo for me to hide, not that I would. But I'm not cocky enough to think I can beat 'em on my own."
He turned back to Orihme and lay a hand on her forehead. It was even easier to let his own power flow into her now that the connection had been established. She opened her eyes after only a few minutes.
"Stop Grimmjow, before you pass out yourself."
He withdrew but showed no signs of weakness. "I've got plenty of power for the both of us."
"Thank you." she whispered. "For choosing to protect us."
"I wanted Aizen gone too, you know." He still hadn't figured out how to handle sentimental moments.
She stood and glanced over at Toshiro and Aizen. Neither had moved from the floor and Aizen just stared at them, not understanding where he was or what was going on. He was probably in shock but Toshiro couldn't seem to find it in himself to care.
"Ulquiorra is still out there. And the other espada. Do you think you could erase their memories, until before the stuff Aizen did to them?" Grimmjow asked Orihime.
"Yes, if we can slow them down like we did Aizen."
Grimmjow glanced over his shoulder and Toshiro nodded. The three headed for the door but Orihime paused and walked back to Aizen. She took his hand and lead him to a bed. He sat on the edge.
"Are you okay?"
"I...I don't know what happened. I was just enrolled yesterday..."
"At the Soul Reaper Acadamey?"
"Yes."
"Its okay. Just lay down and rest. I'll be back soon."
He lay down obediently, his eyes shutting almost immediately. Orihime returned to her friends, ignoring Grimmjow's look of disgust but he nonetheless took her hand as he lead them down the corridor.
Crazy long chapter I know, but I just couldn't find a decent place to cut it off. Anyway, one more chapter to go, hang on for more action and a conclusion!
~R.A.W.